CHA day 2

Ok, can you believe that I forgot my notebook again today, and that I didnt take NEARLY enough pictures, so I am just going to tell you what I can.

So, on Friday Les and I got up early to be there pretty much when it opened. The plan was to make a quick circuit and see pretty much everything briefly on the first day, then go back to the hotel and narrow down what we wanted to look at again.

We hit the BIG room first. The first booth we stopped in was Buttons Galore. Those ladies were really nice and had some cool products. The one that we liked the most was the 'starters' which are basically bare buttons, tags and ribbon slides that you can paint, ink, stamp, emboss, etc. They gave us a really cool sample one to put on our lanyards. We vowed to come back and place an order, but ran out of both time and money first. They are still on the list though!

Next we hit GCD studios. I have been getting their papers in one of my kits and I love the bold colorful designs. They had a great understated Christmas and Halloween lines. They also had a really fun black and white line. Another thing they had was flexible epoxy stickers. Really fun! And example was a pencil holder where the expoxy sticker went around the corner.

Hmmm, after GCD it gets kind of fuzzy. we were trying to get to CK just in time for the Ali Edwards book signing. We stopped by Inique Boutique and ogled their adorable clear stamps. Then we made our way over to Chatterbox. The Chatterbox booth was so cute - full of cupcakes and hanging banners and ornaments. And I think I already mentioned - texture, texture, texture! I am in love with the artsylicious line. In fact, for the rest of the show I was saying, "oooh and this would go with the brown Chatterbox", "ooh and this would go with the blue Chatterbox" - LOL! They had brown, pink, black, white, peacock blue, lime green and cherry red. Each line has bling, frames, papers - flocked, foiled, glittered, and enameled - embossed chipboard books, fabric tags, foiled letters, and I am sure I am forgetting something. But even more cool, is that they arent exactly the same in different colors, the patterns are slightly different. Like the brown flocked is sort of fleur de lis, and the blue flocked is sort of floral (I think). And the embossing on the pink is floral, but the embossing on the blue is dots. So much fun! And then as if that isnt awesome enough, they just came out with the new Together line, which coordinates with the colors in the artsylicious and is still full of fun textures - felt stickers, fabric stickers, 3-d frames, etc.

Oh, AND we got to meed Melody Ross, the creator, and Courtney Walsh, the DT coordinator. Courtney was really busy with make and takes and we didnt want to bother her, but Melody chatted with us for a while and took a photo with us. Les had a funny story about calling her 10 years ago to order her first batch of books. So, in the end I guess we saved the best for last, because we came back to Chatterbox the next day right before the show closed and Les put in a big order! woohoo! can't wait to get my hands on this stuff. And I guess it is great that it is so versatile because my Chatterbox DT finalist box is on its way too - so I am going to be rolling in Chatterbox soon! Can you believe that I was incredibly nervous about introducing myself to Melody and Courtney, knowing that they are going to be judging my work in just a few short weeks, but after meeting them I feel so much better! Don't get me wrong, I am still totally nervous and think that the competition is really really tough, but they are so nice that I feel like at least I will be judged fairly, and if I don't make it then I lost fair and square. That always makes me feel a little better about not winning.

Ok, so after Chatterbox we headed over to CK for a book signing with Ali Edwards. Ali is Leslie's favorite scrapper. And we were about 4th in line, which was lucky because she only had about 15 books to give away - AND they are her brand new ones! I have to hang my head in shame that I havent gotten a chance to look through it yet, but I have been so busy and sick. I can't wait to see it. Did you know that that book is my very first idea book? Ok, maybe I have one super old crappy one from when I started scrapping.

Hmm, I can't remember what we did after CK - oh wait, maybe we went to Little Yellow Bicycle and ogled their fun Christmas and Halloween and Valentine's lines. I am not a big 'theme' scrapper, but I loved their themed lines. Lots of die cut papers and frames, and transparencies, and the colors are not too overpowering. Next we started backtracking to Chatterbox, to pick up where we left off, but stopped at Memory Makers for another book signing - boy did our bags get heavy with two books and about 6 magazines (not to mention the catalogs). And then we got in line for free scissors at Fiskars. Yeah, our plan to go fast really didnt work out all that well - LOL!

Ok, that is enough for now I think.