I won a trip to the Michaels Makers Summit!

If you follow me on social media, you may have caught a glimpse (. . .or two) of the Michaels Makers Summit that I recently attended.

If you’re asking yourself “what is the Michaels Makers Summit?” Let me explain.

The retail chain, Michaels, hosts an annual CRAFTcation for all of its brand ambassadors who are known as the Michael Makers. This team consist of 45 bloggers who create inspirational projects each month based on a certain theme.

Sounds fun right!?! Well you can only imagine it’s every blogger’s dream to become part of this exclusive crew!

This year, Michaels did something extraordinary. They open the Summit to include 5o additional guests. They held a contest where anyone could submit a project for a chance to win.

Of course, I clicked on the link right away, enter my chandelier project and carried on with my day with little to no hope of winning.

After all, who wins these contests anyway? Surely not I!

Months go by. I have a baby. Blogging slows down and that’s when it happens. I received a random email claiming I’ve won an all-expense-paid trip to the Michaels Makers Summit. In less than 2 seconds flat, I experienced a whirlwind of emotions.

My first thought was fury “who’s playing this dirty little trick on me, this can’t be real?”. Then I burst out in excitement, calling my husband screaming “I won a trip to the MICHAELS MAKERS SUMMIT!!!!”. And then I felt discourage, “I just had a baby, I can’t leave”.

Long story, short. I quickly realized the email was legit. Hubby was ecstatic for me and baby was going to be well taken care of while mommy took a few days off.

So I jumped on the plane solo and headed straight to the scenic city of Carmel. I really didn’t know what to expect.

My jaw literally dropped as we were being shuttled to the hotel. Every single sight looked like it came straight from a postcard. I was so overjoyed that if our vehicle had a sunroof, I would have stuck half my body out of the car waving my arms in the air yelling out the lyrics to a RiRi song.

As we arrived to the gigantic 500 acre property, Carmel Valley Ranch, I couldn’t believe the natural beauty. It was unreal. They had everything you can imagine in one place. Organic gardens, vineyards, 18 holes of golf, amazing hiking trails, honey bees, horses, mountain-top yoga and the list goes on.

Even my accommodations were stunning. Outdoor tub. Outdoor fireplace. Swinging bed with a beautiful view. If I wasn’t so afraid of the cool breeze at night, I would have totally crawled in the tub with a bottle of wine. That’s how you turn this into a MOMcation!

Every aspect of the Michaels Makers Summit was well thought-out. From our dinners under the stars to lunch by the organic gardens. I felt like a kid in a candy store. I soaked in every single detail from the perfectly set tablescapes to the most heavenly backdrop to the mouth watering menus. Nothing escaped me. I love this stuff.

Even Sarah Michelle Gellar was there (hello Buffy!). She was our guest speaker for one of our dinners. She gave a motivating speech about how she started her company, Foodstirs.

In between socializing and the good eats, we also attended classes. The classes ranged from jewellery making to floral arranging to watercolour and macrame. All taught by experts in the field. Seriously, I loved every minute of it. Growing up, I was a huge crafter. I must have dabbled in ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I could get my little hands on. All grown up now, my love of creating and making is just on a bigger and more challenging scale….yah that’s right, my home is my new canvas!

It’s refreshing to learn new skills and therapeutic to revisit old passions. What I admire the most is that no matter which class I attended if you looked around the room, no two creations were alike. I guess that’s what I love so much about the arts. We’re all wired completely different.

I made some new friends along the way too. I was blown away by the immense talent. Everyone had their own story to share. There was so much talk about our “winning projects”, turning hobbies into businesses and lots of blog talk. I just wish I had more time to chat up all 100 ladies!

I’m so honoured that I got to experience the Michaels Makers Summit. It was hands-down one of the best events I’ve attended. Thank you Michaels for an amazing time!