2nd Day of CHA!

Can I just say I had WAY too much fun? For most of the morning I was frantically demonstrating the new Bind-it-All and Dreamkuts machines at the Zutter Industries booth (see next post) but when I stole away for lunch I saw some great things! ProvoCraft is coming out with a 12 x 24 inch Cricut Expressions - they just didn't say when. Still no news on the USB port and compatibility with PCs (bummer) but I am still waiting - and none too patiently! Plus, they were celebrating tbe 10th anniversary of the Coluzzle system, with the founding husband and wife team present and handing out free balloon template packages, complete with foamy mat and knife.

I did a couple of make and takes, one of which from Prima flowers. Nothing too exciting (use a Crop-A-dile to add brads to the flower petals and Prima is now coming out with HUGE brads)but I can see why stores buy up Prima like crazy. the sale reason croppers buy it up - the cute packaging. Only at the show, I saw the entire lines all together. It reminded me of when I collected My Little Ponies (the originals! Not these new-fangled things with glitter and jewels) because I wanted one in every color!

Deja Views had a cute make and take, a mini book with either a girl or boy theme. One sheet of 12 x 12 had all of the pieces you needed to complete it, with the exception of ribbon and brads.

Then I had CLASS. As anyone who knows me knows, I have been to many scrapping classes in many places and this one was the best one I have ever been to. EVER. Suzy West, a designer from Canvas Concepts taught a Scrapbooking on the Wall class, a calendar canvas you can change the month out of. Not only was she knowledgeable and enthusiastic, but she had some great, clever and practical ideas that I can;t wait to share in my classes. Plus, both she and her company were very generous, giving us plenty of materials for the class, but also allowing us to keep the adhesive itself. I know this sounds like a small thing, but everywhere we went, instructors were hoarding the adhesive, even of there was a tape runner with very little tape left on it! Plus, she took everyone's email address and promised to send out a PDF of the entire 2007 calendar that were the right dimensions for the canvas. Definitely above and beyond teaching a simple class! You may be familiar with Suzy's books, appropriately named "Scrapbooking on the Wall" and "SOTW 2." Well, she's got a new one, Scrapbooking on the Table, and it has some great ideas. The reason I know this, is because she gave a book away to everyone in the class - she even autographed it if you wanted her to (which I did!). And to top it all off, they were the only class I've been to in a long time that had raffle prizes. I think five different people one sets of different sized canvas. While I didn't win the raffle, I did end up getting a set of 4 x 4 canvases for calling out their booth number. Now I just have to figure out what to do with them ...