Last Day of CHA

I am sooooo totally non-functional. I do not understand how I ended up hauling so much more back to the car today than what I started out with on Friday. I came home, unpacked my car, changed, and burrowed into my couch for the evening. I was not even coherent until 9 pm when the Next Food Network Star came on. Who are you rooting for? I cannot believe that I am so tired. If you know me, then you know that I have a lot of energy and can run on fumes. There weren't even any fumes left in me today.


Today was an absolutely awesome day! I connected with a lot of people. There were actually more people today at our booth doing the make 'n take than there was yesterday. Sunday has always been traditionally the slower day. It was not so for us. We were cranking out those frames.

Lisa Pavelka stopped by the booth. I love that so many female artists are using a Dremel. Okay, I love it when any woman picks up a power tool. Nothing like hearing the hum of my scroll saw. I don't do a lot of polymer clay. I bet it would be really interesting to do a workshop with her. Geri, I'm going to have to borrow that DVD from you.

Geri and Cindy from Dremel were so fantastic all weekend. We had a great system all worked out. I have been treated so well by Dremel. They are a great company. I am really lucky to be able to work with them especially since I love their tools so much. Really! I use my Dremel all the time. I actually use 2-3 different tools at the same time. I could not ask for a better match. Pat from Dremel was also there today. I met her mom. Her mom was so sweet and had more energy than all of us put together. I have never seen 3 women tear down a booth so quickly. These women have it down to a science. It took me longer to pack up my stuff.


I got there a bit early today so I could walk around the more isolated areas to check out the booths that I normally would have missed. A lot of the people were not even there yet. There is this one little tool where you punch the hole and a hole reinforcer comes down with the hole. It is a fantastic things for teachers. I also thought it would be great for my school office. I told them later on that they needed to do it in different colors - even metallics. Get some patterns going and they would so sell it to the art and scrapbooking people. I did not even know such a thing existed.

Bind-it-all's new machine is pink. You know how I feel about pink. Good thing I have two of them in the old color. What I do like is that they have some funky journal covers in different sizes. I think they are a hard chipboard or something similar to it. They have three different bindings available. There is an insert that you punch a hole into, bind the pages, and then just slip the insert into an inside pocket in the cover. So cool and so easy. You can easily alter the covers. Yes, they would be great extras for my students' journaling. Always thinking like a teacher. They had some corner rounder thingies but I don't really do that.

Penny Black had a booth there. They have this background stamp that I used at Beryl's workshop. It is a vine type stamp with little flowers all over it. If I looked at it, I would have thought it was too girly-too cutesy for me. Well, it looks great when it's on something. Great to doodle on as well. I will scan it when I am more functional. It was one of the most used stamps for the make 'n take. I had just gotten it about a week ago and threw it in with the rest of the stamps.


I was surprised at how slow summer CHA was overall this year. We were consistently busy but many booths were not. I heard that half the amount of vendors were here compared to last year. I think that a lot of people just go to the one in Anaheim. The Bead and Button Show and the Quilt Show had tons of people there. These shows did not seem as affected by the economy.


I had a chance to make a quick stop at the Simply Swank booth. I am so happy that they are doing so well. Stampington (Somerset) is selling their soldering materials on their website. Best of luck to you ladies! I also got to stop at Stanislaus and say hi to them. Love all their little things that they sell. They have the teeny, tiny buttons that I am always looking for. I never knew it would be so hard to find buttons. I use them in the art quilties. They work great with the Prima flowers.

There is one booth that I stopped at that made me feel my age. They sell the portable lights - natural lights- and have mountable magnifying glasses that can be attached to them. It is so much easier than doing the light and then a separate magnifying glass. I sometimes need it when I am beading with the smaller beads. I have been so blind for so long. Now, my eyes are changing again with age. Did you know that I wear trifocals when I don't have my contacts in?


The very, very best discovery I made at the show was something called Paverpol. They had a small booth there. People who were doing the Dremel make 'n take were showing me their pieces from there and said I had to try it. I tried it briefly during lunch. I did a face mask. It looks like paper mache goop but darker. You dunk your natural fibers/fabrics/objects into the stuff. Squish out the excess. I put it on the mask. How you position it is how it dries. I used some nature fabric and some cheesecloth. The most cool thing about it is that it becomes hard when it dries. It also turns a metallic bronze color. It is so fab! You know how I love metal. There are so many possibilities with this. You can use it as texture for collage backgrounds. Do assemblage with it. I could also use it with my art quilts. I LOVE this stuff. My mask is still drying. I did not squeegee the stuff off the fabric enough. It was dry enough to transport within a couple of hours though. The cheese cloth part and the thiner parts of the mask have already turned that bronze color. Will find the digi camera and take a pict of it. It is so cool! I could so totally mess up my loft with playing with this stuff. Comes in transparent, too.

http://www.paverpolusa.com/


Okay, done for now. Will report more on CHA tomorrow when I start emptying out my tote bags and go through my catalogs and goodie loot. Oh yeah, I got some fun stuff for my next blog give-away. Stay tuned.