Monday, February 18, 2008

One, Two, CHA, CHA, CHA!


What a blast! It's like being a kid in a candy store. Thanks to my boss and store owner Sharon, I was able to attend the Craft and Hobby Association trade show in Anaheim, California. Sharon, her husband Mark, myself and Elisabeth from the store all went. Sharon and Mark went early and started in San Francisco and then traveled down to Anaheim and we met up on Friday, the day before the show started in Anaheim. Sharon goes to CHA (or 'cha' as we call it) to see all the new lines and products for stamping, scrapbooking and papercrafting. This year we'll be going a little out of the box with air brushing and soldering tools!

Anyway, Sharon signed us up for classes on Saturday before the show officially opened on Sunday and I did two classes, making mini albums in each. One was for Daisy D's, one of my favorite paper lines, although I don't really care for their 'Wonder Years' line this spring. The other class was with Imaginisce, who makes some really cute papers and had some fabulous samples displayed. I was waiting outside the room to go in for this class and there was this bubbly young woman waiting also. She told me she was going to help out with the class. She was so excited, emphasized she wasn't going to teach it, but was just so happy to be there. Turns out as the class began she was introduced to us as the designer of the paper we were using! Her name is Sara and I'm embarrassed to say I don't know her last name.

I was the 'Basic Grey Runner' for the store. Sharon had an early appt. with a vendor and Elisabeth knew better! Basic Grey, one of the premier paper companies determines when you will receive your order by a number you can get at their booth. Women are lined up at the door waiting to get into the convention floor so they can run to Basic Grey and get a low number.


Sure enough, they let us in and all those twenty somethings and thirty somethings ran for the back of the auditorium because, of course, Basic Grey was in the far right hand corner of the convention floor all the way in the back along the back wall.

I take off and let me tell you, there was too much of me and my girls bouncing up and down to compete with those young chickies! So I jogged a little, walked a step, angled my way back to the booth and huffing and puffing got my number - 793. It's not as bad as it seems. One of the women waiting to go in told me that they started with number 750 so I was number 43! Not too bad for an old broad like me! My good luck was confirmed when Sharon placed her order and was told by the sales rep that she had "a very good number" - Misson Accomplished!! Here are some photos of Basic Grey projects. They have several really nice lines that don't look anywhere as good on the web site as they do in person.









That's enough for today. Tomorrow I'll continue with my CHA journal with my first digital layout and dinner at Joe's Basement.
Lastly, I started off my NASCAR season with a 3rd place finish for my man 'Smoke' at Daytona, WaaHooo!!

1 comment:

Tracy said...

I love your recount of your experience as a Basic Grey runner. lol- Crazy, isn't it? Maybe someday you'll also have to be a Dream Street runner. Bring a golf cart next time???