CHA SuperShow in review ;- )

     Well, yesterday was the day my friend Susan accompanied me to the CHA SuperShow, as it exists now. Susan is not a paper crafter. She is a quilter, but she came because she is my friend and knew I wanted company and she is always up for that. We both basically knew were it was, but exact directions, escaped us, so from her driveway, I called my DH and got his input. Off we went and after exiting the tollway (let me explain here, that first you get off at the O'Hare airport exit, but from there you exit to a street before you actually reach the airport, that was why we didn't have actual directions, because this is a confusing exit), and finally getting to the street level we drove a bit and then realized, this isn't right. We tried to figure out our way back and after awhile, we were sure we didn't really know how to get to the convention center from where we were. We phoned my husband and interrupted his meeting (it was an informal one), he had the people there trying to figure out where we were going. I said, " I know the address of where we are going, it's where are we now, that's the problem." We eventually got there and since Susan and I are both practical, we had left plenty of time and weren't late at all.

     We procured our tickets to Splitcoaststampers cupcake reception. I will try to post photos of the wonderful gifts that were in the goodie bags we received there. They were so generous. Then we went to the Lion Yarn booth and they were showcasing a new loom, (think the modern version of the kind you used to make pot holders with long ago) by Martha Stewart that will be coming out soon. It has modular pieces and can be made to the size to make place mats down to about 2 inches on each size. That's the size I used to make this flower at the Make and Take.

     A bit later we did the Make and Take at the My Favorite Things booth. They were soooo generous and allowed us to keep the stamp set we used. The ribbon project was the first, of it's type project, that Susan ever made. She was happy that we weren't the first group, so she got to watch the people before us, but she did a wonderful job and was faster than me. Thankfully, she brought an extra pair of reading glasses, that were 1 times magnification, because the brads holding the pin backs on were so small, I couldn't see to open them ;- )

     Our next Make and Take was probably the one from Crafter's Companion. Susan was very impressed with their pearlized cardstock. (One of my planned purchases, though I wasn't getting it until later, so I wouldn't have to carry it.) We used the new boxer board to make this, as well as the Ultimate Crafter's Companion.

We stopped by Archiver's booth and made this.

     Flowersoft gave each person a different little tag or picture, that they could try out some Flowersoft on. We enjoyed talking to the people working at this booth for awhile. Here is mine. 

     One of our great discoveries was a company called RaisinBoat. They are about a year old and they have such wonderful images. Their booth was full of examples made with their stamps and we were told that they had sooo many more in the gallery on their site. Each image had a great variety of examples, all done very differently and all done without a design team. The very unique thing about this company is they don't only sell their stamps, but they also have a rental plan, that works like NetFlicks. What a great idea. You get such a variety of stamps and your cards will always look different.  You should check out how it works and see their interesting designs here. One of the lines I remember from one of their retro sets was something like "May all your clouds be hairspray." I just thought that was so original. The people we talked to at the company were extremely friendly as well. We also, found that they had a Make and Take as well. The stamp was a graphic one from a set called "Splash."

     Upon returning to Crafter's Companion to get my paper, I was happy to run into Sara. She is the beautiful brains behind The Ultimate Crafter's Companion, Rock-a-block, the Boxer, Envelobox Creator and The 5-1 Clevercut Rotary Paper Trimmer. If you've never been to their site, you should check them out too. Both the US and the UK site, because if you sign up on the UK site there are some great member digital freebies monthly.  www.crafterscompanion.com/ and www.crafterscompanion.co.uk/

     Well, like I said I'll post info on the free goodies we got from the Splitcoaststampers reception next time and our trip home story. Yes, there was a story there too, ha ha. This was a long post, but I hope you found it informative. Oh, I forgot to mention, www.stampsbyjudith.com. She was another creative and wonderful person we met who was doing demos. No, Susan's not going to jump into papercrafting. She likes it, understands why I do it, but knows there is only so much time in a day and has 3 unfinished quilts at home ;- ) Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment if you have any time left ;- ) Have a blessed and playful weekend.