Saturday, July 23, 2011

CHA Summer 2011- Follow Up - Decorated Trays

I'm not sure why, but I realize that I took a quite a few pictures of decorated trays.  You know, like the one 7Gypsies made famous and that are now made by other companies like KaiserCraft?

So here for your enjoyment are pictures that have trays in them.  I wish I could tell you the names of the artists that created them, but I'm afraid that the best I can do is tell you the name of the companies that featured them in their booths! Which is your favorite?

Cosmo Cricket

Bella Blvd

Prima

Little Yellow Bicycle

Idea-ology (it's a box that looks like a tray, LOL!

Ranger

Kaiser Craft

Kaiser Craft

Kaiser Craft

Fancy Pants

Friday, July 22, 2011

CHA Summer 2011 - Day 4

The show may be over, but I've got so many pictures to post that I'm thinking that I'll be posting those for quite a few days more! I'm pretty sure that I'll have a wrap up post this Saturday, before we get back to coupon Sunday! And then there is the matter of a celebration both here and on You Tube, 200 blog subscribers and over 300 on You Tube, both reached this week!

So what can I tell you about today!  The show opened at 9:00 and I got there around 9:15.  It is a good thing that there are a lot of people working the show, because it was very, very quiet this morning. I'm going to post booth pictures next and you'll see what I mean about quiet.

 I did spend time going around and getting loads of pictures and I also stoped in at the Harmonie booth. Harmonie is a company from the Montreal area that has some seriously pretty things and for someone like me, nice to find stamps that come in both an English and a French version!  I am sure that they will see me put in an order shortly! The Harmonie and Pink Paisley booths were the ones that I did video's on today (http://youtu.be/_9NZ-IzEP9s) and http://youtu.be/37SGTWbKgsE repectively. In fact the Harmonie one has a French video where the owner, Marie-Eve, tells us about her new collections and an English version where I pretty much go over everything she did but in English!  Hope that you enjoy!





Then of course, there is the obligatory fun picture with "The Tim". I caught him in the Ranger booth, just accross from his idea-ology booth. The guy is so kind and such a charmer

I just loved the Ranger picket fence with the Distress stains!


Tim came out with two boxes that look like the old fashioned sewing boxes. One is smaller than the other, this is the smaller of the two.

Bellow is more Tim Holtz goodness.




Well there is so much more and so many pictures, but they will have to wait till tomorrow after I get home.  Meanwhile, have a wonderful evening and a great Friday!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

CHA Summer 2011 - Day 3

 Another great day at CHA with lots of goodies, a class, make and takes and a couple of interviews and one technique video posted on my YouTube channel curtesy of the lovely Holly Simoni at the Spellbinder's booth! It is taking some time to get things uploaded tonight so please be patient! Meanwhile I'll share a few pictures and sit and chat with you guys here on the blog for a little bit!

The first thing I heard from anyone I knew today was, "did you hear the big thunderstorm last night?. Ummm, nope!  And for those who know what a light sleeper I am, there are only two possible explanations, the hotel is near the airport and so they have mega noise insulation, or I was so tired I passed out last night!

A little walking around and I am off to the Bella Blvd Summer Mini album class. OK, I am thinking that life is weirder than weird, the lady that sat right in front of me and that was sharing a bottle of zig glue with is from... Montreal!  She teaches at a store in Dollard Des Ormeax (DDO), a suburb in what is known as Montereal's west Island. If you follow my blog, you know that I'll be visiting Montreal in less than two weeks!  Honest! The Bella Blvd class was very well organized, it is always easier when everything is well organized and though really cute, this album was simple and the two hour class was over in about 72 minutes! Still a nice album to take home to finish. 

I visited the My Little Shoe Box booth and Helen gave me a guided tour on video!  I especially liked the names she gave her Audrey collection.  Watch my YouTube video to find out why! She signed my smash book and wanted a picture of the two of us with it for herself. Since they were taking a picture with her camera, /i couldn;t really miss such an opportunity, now could I!

Next I walked around the floor again and the lovely Teresa Collins was in her booth!  I wanted to catch a picture of her on the QT with a chandelier but she caught sight of me as you can see and honest truly insisted that I come around and have my picture taken with her!

Teresa also gave everyone around a short tip on taking more flattering pictures by holding the camera from a higher angle looking down.  So my friends that's your tip direct from Teresa today!

A little bit of time spent in the Graphic45 booth, but I've got to go back to that one in the morning.  It was crazy in there as they were just about to have a drawing!  However Diane was nice enough to film a hello for my friends at Not Just Scrapbooks and Artsy Addicts! As usual, G45 has  one of the most striking booths in the place!

A stop to say hello  to Madison who I first met years ago in Florida!  I did order 3 collection packs for my layout class which will take care of our Holloween, Christmas and a special class. You can see a video of Madison giving my watchers the scoop on my YouTube channel at http://users.yourtube.com/mccplg

Next I stopped at a couple of the CHA newcomers, one made in the USA company called Glimpses, where Linda gave me the low down on who they are and what they are about and then a South African company called FabScraps. There is a very short video as the booth was so busy it was almost impossible to get around in there!

 
If you haven't seen the LaBlance stamps you have missed the coming of age of silicone embeded stamps designed by a very elegant hand! I should have taken some close up snapshots

Want to find out how to get good results using multiple Spellbinder edgibility dies? Holly Simoni is your gal!  Holly was nice enough to do a video shoot to explain how to do it right evey time using the grand Calibur!

Well that is a wrap for tonight, though there is alot more to tell. I would put all the video.s up on the blog too, but that would just be too huge a post! Here again are some pictures of some of the spectacular projects I've taken.  Oh and I'll post my Maya Road video tomorrow!

I have a think for the Prima designers. All but the last project which is from the Echo Park booth! Enjoy!







CHA Summer 2011 - Day 2

Ah yes, CHA (the Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show) or call it my idea of what heaven would look like!  I had an overwhelming great time today and I was very lucky as well!

First because that is always what is most important to me, lets just say that I cought up, albeit too briefly because of classes and appointments, with some long time friends, Cathy R and her daughter Melissa, both of whom I am looking forward to having lunch with on Thursday and also the beautiful Britten P., one of my wonderful Florida Buddies that I miss so very much!

OK back to the show! So after running around for the first hour with my mouth open and my jaw on the floor as it always is when I get my first glimpse of the unbelievable artistry that is everywhere at CHA, I went to the Faber Castell mixed media class.  Can I show my lack of suphistication by saying OMGosh, the products! Never mind the products in the class kit those had just about everyone drooling, I also was the happy winner one of their three door prizes as seen in the picture! For those of you who know me from my time in Little Rock, do you recognize the lady that I sat next to?  She is such a nice lady and again, what were the odds that I would sit next to someone who knew two of my best friends!  This is turning into an interesting show in a few strange ways!

A quick lunch with Kim from Oregon, and we are at the 3M booth where I'm one of the winners of their draw! 

A few more hours around the show talking to people and shooting video which is slowly being uploaded to YouTube as I write this.  I'd like to appologize for the quality isn't everything I would have liked. My battery kept on working, then not working, then working again, so I lost track of intros and what not! You can go to my YouTube channel to watch some prima, and more on that new tag scanning thing with the owner of stkr.it

After running over to the hotel to eat half a sandwich I'm off again for a 6-8pm class with Helen and her team of designers at My Little Shoebox.  I don't think there is anyone that is kinder, softer and I mean that in a huggable, squishable kind of way, than Helen Chu. The class was an acrylic mini album so you just know that I was in 7th heaven.

Now feast your eyes on some of my other pictures from day 2.

Stay tuned for more CHA fun and do go on over to my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/mccplg.  Thanks for reading!




Sorry it is getting late and CHA is both fun and exhausting! I'm excited for tomorrow where I have one more class, and lots of booths to visit! Nite all!

Monday, July 18, 2011

CHA Summer 2011 - Day 1

It's been a long, fun day and life is really good! That may because I've made it safely to CHA and have already had a lot of fun! I flew into O'Hare at 9:30am Central and went straight to the Hotel shuttle area.  No matter how much a hotel wants to, 10:30 am is very early to check people in when you're busy! I had to wait a couple of hours around the lobby, which in all fairness, was  more than 3 hours earlier than their regular check in time! While I waited for the room to be ready,  I had brunch and had the chance to speak briefly with two ladies who own/work at a scrapbook store in Switzerland. Apparently, Switzerland is one of those places where scrapbooking is growing and doing well. Though they did bemoan the lack of European produced paper coordinating lines. They have to import most of their supplies form the US!

After checking into my room, I had just enough time to get over to the convention center, register and get over to my first workshop! It was fun, but what was amazing was that outside that first classroom, I met two people. One is named Linda, the sister of someone opening a new scrapbook/stamping store in Cincinnati called Stamping Buddies, which is funny first because for those who don't know, I live 15 minutes from downtown Cincinnati and second, because I run a scrapbook meetup group called the Scrapbook Buddies! Linda's sister has big plans and I'm really excited to see what she will do! I hope she continues to dreams big! The other person I met is Jannet, someone I first met in a scrapbook store when I went to visit my friend Jessie last year.  Jannet recognized me!  What a memory! Jannet is part of a number of people here at the show from the Scrapbook Cottage in Glascow, KY, two hours south of Louisville and a very successful store that also organizes some pretty big events!


The Globecraft workshop was interesting and their products were much, much better than anyone I spoke to expected. We all felt sorry for them because some of their products had been delivered somewhere else in the convention center and they were still trying to hunt them down. So we did the pumpkin kit instead of the one they had planned and we are to pick up the remaining two kits from their booth tomorrow! The pumpkin is so cute and is actually a few layers of chipboard, each layer having it's own canvas (picture image). Mine is not quite finished as I want to be able to remove the picture and send it via mail. So I didn't adhere the flowers, straw, twirled wire etc that were provided to embelish the kits. The globe on top of the picture is fairly deep, so it would certainly be fun to do something with more embelishments under the dome as well. I'll share more of these projects over the enxt few weeks.

After a break in my room which is only a 5 minute walk away, I returned to go visit the Innovation Sneak Peak Media and Buyer Event of the show!  Lots of cool things, Faber Castels Gelatos, more on them tomorrow as I'm taking their mixed media class then. Also interesting, the  new metal embelishments by Epiphany and the decoratables which are embossing folders that also cut out some of the designs. Very cute and the samples are awesome!

 One of this years big innovations is those new scanable QR codes. Talking codes is one of the two companies that were present! You know they are little squares that have squiggly lines that remind one a little of UPC codes? I knew that they were becoming widely used as links to websites. They are all over CHA this year as website links. What I learned is that you can record voice info on them!  WOW! AND, it is really, really easy to use!  Just take a moment and click on the link above and enjoy!  They do a great job of showing you how they work! Once you've done that, think cards and scrapbook pages!  Awesome!  I an definitely going to use those even as training aids on my layout pages I make for classes!

The last event for me today was the Taste of Rosemont where we all get to sample what the local restaurants had to offer. I'm afraid we all pretty muched stuffed our faces!  They ran out of food about one hour into a two hour event!  I feel sorry for the late comers!  I met a nice lady named Kimberly who owns the Sassy Scrapper in Grants Pass, Oregon. We'll be spending a little more time tomorrow after our respective workshops!  That is fun too as we get to see each other's projects!

Well time for bed!  Stay tuned as I navigate the floor of the show tomorrow!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Coupons for the week of July 17th-23rd, 2011

WOO!HOO! I'm off to CHA tomorrow! I'll be updating the blog and posting video's starting Tuesday when the show opens! 

AC MOORE
Click here for the AC Moore 50% off coupon and here for this week's ad!

ARCHIVER'S
See the email ad that I got which includes a link to a 25% off coupon (one item.) which is good until July 24th.  Also buy 10 get 10 sheets of cardstock good until the 19th. Did you know that you can get 50% off copies every Tuesday in July? In addition, they have announced a contest for who makes the best decorated 7Gypsies tray with each in-store winner winning a $100 store card and the overall winner getting $1000. Last year the entries were simply amazing!

HANCOCK FABRICS 
Here is the latest email.

JOANNs
Here is the link this week's email. Lots of coupons good until the 23rd. $5 shipping, 4 40% off coupons good online or at the store and a 25% off your whole online order!

HOBBY LOBBY
Click here to see this weeks in store special and a 40% off coupon.

MICHAEL'S  
Go to their interactive weekly ad and see what they have in store for you this week! Here is a copy of the weekly email I got.
 

NEW FOR KNITTERS!

LION BRAND YARN
Here is the latest email from Lion Brand.

MARY MAXIM
Here is the latest email from Mary Maxim.
Thanks and have a great week!

M-C

For the record, by posting the coupons here, I am not endorsing any of the stores, just including them for your convenience and mine! Nor do I purport to have listed everything or not made a mistake.