My First CHA - A Recap

I am usually NOT a lucky person.  I never win raffles; I don't even win at Bingo.  So imagine my surprise when the incredibly talented TINA WALKER invited me to attend CHA Winter 2014 in sunny Anaheim, California.  I am a h-u-g-e fan of Tina's.  Not only does she make all sorts of lovely things as a design team member for MY MIND'S EYE, but she is an incredibly talented mixed-media artist and the owner of FROG DOG STUDIO, a monthly mixed-media kit club.  Tina and I have been "facebook friends" for quite a while, and I jumped at the chance to meet her in person!

For the two or three of you who read my blog and are NOT into scrapbooking or crafting, CHA is a huge trade show that happens twice a year.  The newest lines and the next big thing in the crafting industry are made available to buyers so that they can determine what products they want to stock in their stores or provide in their kits.  And in addition to the new products on display for you to touch and drool on admire, all the big names in the industry are there!  The icing on the cake?  Quite a few of my crafty friends were going to be there, too.  To say I was like a kid in a candy store was an understatement!  There are not enough thumbs-up or like buttons in the world to convey just how excited I was - seriously.

Of course I INSTAGRAMMED all about it!  And, just in case you missed the flood of pics on Instagram or Facebook, I am sharing a few of my faves here. 

I am pretty sure I took a picture of every single piece of paper and ephemera pack that was being displayed by every single manufacturer.  I won't make you sit through all of them - pretty sure Blogger would ban me for life if I tried to upload all of my paper pics here!  But I will share one of the crate wall at HEIDI SONBOUL'S booth - simply because I have so much fun saying the name of her new company.  Chickaniddy.  chick-a-niddy.  chickaniddychickaniddychickaniddy.  Yep, it makes me smile saying it.  And all those fun crates made me smile, too.

So...what made my very first CHA so incredibly special to me?  These people (and a fun lil' adventure or two):

I flew in from H-town with my wonderfully talented friend, HEATHER LEOPARD.  Before we even got to our hotel, we had to make a stop here:

Say what you will, but I am a huge luvah of the double-double with a chocolate shake!

I spent a lot of time hanging out with these two wonderful ladies - Tina and Melissa - who renewed my love of all things mixed media:

So many light bulbs went off as they answered my mixed media questions that I am positive you could see my head lit up from outer space!

I loved hanging out with the friends I knew and making new ones, too:

And it was super cool to meet my Facebook friends "in real life" like the CHIC TAG girls Malika Kelly and Jennifer Haggerty:

Yep, that would be me with my eyes closed.  Maybe I was trying to show everyone my expert application of eyeshadow?????

Heidi Swapp taught Melissa and me how to expertly apply mist on a stencil:

She even graciously signed my work and posed for a picture with me...

...as did my idol (because she designs many of the MY MINDS EYE papers that I hoard as well as does all sorts of cool home design/decorating projects) JEN ALLYSON (nicest.person.ever.)

See that dazed look in my eyes?  Pretty sure my brain had just finished short-circuiting...

And...most totally adorable picture?  The one of me with Baby Jack...

...oh, and his mom, Amy Tangerine.

And, of course, you haven't fully experienced CHA until you've had your picture taken with Tim Holtz...

...who, as it turns out, is just as fond of the cheesy grin as I am - ha!!!

And...there were purple cows...

And Disneyland with my besties...

...where we rode rides, and talked, and laughed until our sides hurt...

Until next time...I'll be back.

Here and Now - Practical Scrappers Frugal Finds

After dithering around and tearing up and re-starting this layout in a fit of pique a couple of times, that had NOTHING to do with my Practical Scrappers assignment - all operator error I'm afraid - here it is, my contribution to the PRACTICAL SCRAPPERS Frugal Finds Challenge.

 

What is it, you ask? Well...it's a common household item. It is...toothpicks! That's right, the things you use to test cakes or to get something unstuck from between your teeth (if you don't have floss or a toothbrush handy). I tried to do something a tad bit (and it seems that a tad bit is all I came up with) more creative than a little flag, so I made - an arrow.  I wanted to accent my arrow and add a little dimension to it, so I used a toothpick as the base - can you see it here?

 

It may not be the most ingenious idea, but you gotta give me points for cuteness!  My arrows (on top of my little toothpick) were cut out using my Silhouette Cameo *doing my stuck record impression - I love my Cameo, I love my Cameo, I love my Cameo* along with this really cute polaroid frame that I simply stretched out a little before printing so it would fit the dimensions of my picture, which is NOT a polaroid size.

Of course, I outlined and doodled on just about everything with my black zig marker - my favorite thing to do these days it seems.  My papers are by AMERICAN CRAFTS , which work perfectly for this unguarded photo of my daughter, who was so caught up in her music that she was oblivious to everything around her (even her crazy picture-taking mom who snuck up on her with the camera)!

Seriously, my toothpick arrow may be cute - but you have GOT to check out the other PRACTICAL SCRAPPERS ladies' ideas. They will blow you away! So go! Click the link already! What are you waiting for?!

It's 330 in the Morning...What Better Time to Blog?

I was going to write some wonderfully eloquent post this weekend about getting back into the swing of things with scrapbooking after being on an almost two month hiatus, but I can't sleep.  So what better to do at 330 in the morning when the rest of the world is sleeping (except for my little doggy who I swear just rolled her eyes at me before laying her head down and going back to sleep) than...blog.

This past weekend, I finally stopped cleaning and organizing and catching up on work and running around everywhere.  I sat down at my scrap table and pulled out a few packages of Studio Calico papers and goodies I bought, it seems, a lifetime ago.  I used an Amy Tan sketch from Studio Calico's 9.02.12 Sketch Challenge.

Next, I went through my camera and found these pictures of Lula giving Randy the stinkface - I don't even remember why now, but the pictures had me laughing and I knew I had to use them. 

It felt so good to sit down and spend a few hours getting lost in creativity.  I've already got several ideas (and plans) floating around in the old gray matter for a project (or two) this weekend. 

Going to try to get a little more sleep before my alarm goes off in a couple of hours.  But before I go, here are a few close-ups from my layout.

I decided to sew across the smaller sticker letters in my title.  Why?  Because I love my sewing machine and have really missed using it.  Yep.  That's all the reason I've got.  *smile*

 

Here is a Pebbles or Amercian Crafts flower that I changed a little to better fit the color scheme of my layout.  I seem to enjoy embellishing my embellishments!

 

 

LOVE these little envelopes and all of Studio Calico's wood veneer shapes.  I think I have used those shapes in almost every single layout recently.

 

 

And that's it for me.  Until next time...