CHA 2016

The main reason I flew to the US of A was to attend CHA and launch Fancy Free!! I showed up a couple hours before the show officially started to a completely set up and beautiful booth! I felt bad about ditching the set up to go to Disneyland... so a HUGE thank you to the team who helped design and carry out the Pink Paislee space! It looked amazing! And my heart skipped several beats seeing it for the first time. So surreal!

The Pink Paislee booth: Fancy Free on the left, C'est La Vie on the right, and Paislee Paperie in the right corner.

Pretties from the booth.

I brought all of the layouts I made and displayed them on a little desk. I think it was helpful to show how a lot of the Fancy Free products can be used! I'll plan on doing this again next year!

I saw this globe on instagram a few days earlier and then lo and behold there it was in real life! But of course, this is just a photo once again :)

I manned the booth during the show and loved talking all things scrap-related for 4 days straight!

One of the best things about CHA is meeting people in real life. This was the first time I met Heidi Swapp in person. She is a gem and such an inspiration to me and thousands of others. Her stories and advice are priceless and I wish I could hang out with her more and learn from her wisdom.

Allie (my little sister) worked at the Ben Franklin in Redmond and her old bosses were at the show. They came by to say hi and ordered Fancy Free! My mom is going to have a cow when it shows up in the store in March.

Me, Vicki Boutin, Maggie Holmes, and Liz Kartchner.

My old pals from American Crafts and Northridge Publishing stopped by when I wasn't there, wah wah haha.

But then I found them! It was so good to catch up with Lindsey and Alisha! Miss them!

Olya Schmidt periscoping Gail Lindner doing a demo of the new Minc goodies.

Shimelle, Dear Lizzy, Amy Tangerine, and Maggie Holmes. Jim showing Fancy Free to Kristina of Scrapbook Werkstatt. We go way back :)

May Flaum and Patricia Roebuck!
I got up the guts to talk to Becky Higgins! She's been around since before I started scrapbooking 14 years ago! I remember her purple "Creative Companion" book that sold like hot cakes at the little scrapbook store I worked at back in the day. So fun to chat with her and become friends :)
These girls. Heidi Swapp's media team. They are the sweetest, funniest, nicest gals I ever did meet. They took me under their wing and let me hang out with them throughout the show and they let me get dinner with them one night. Angels I tell ya. And so much talent. Lindsay Bateman, Jamie Pate, Jennifer Evans, (me), Gail Lindner, and Maggie Massey. #everyoneneedsaGail (and a Lindsay and Jamie and Jennifer and Maggie!) Missing Kim Jeffress!!
On Sunday morning I ran upstairs to film a segment at Scrapbook Expo. Lots of camera time, had to come out of my shell a bit!

For dinner the first night I went with Amy back to her hotel and got to see Jack and Chiao and Cindy. Good times!

Sunday night I went with some fellow ACers to The Packing District. When we were driving there one of the gals in the car was reading reviews on Yelp because we wanted to know more. Check out this review:

"Remember when you thought you could almost touch the sky? Shooting one hand into the air and gleefully grasping--and in that one second, eternity was yours, and infinity was definite. And then you swung back down to earth as the park materialized around you.

Swings. They don't have them here, but they do have swinging benches. You know, those ones that can go a feet or so back and forth. It's adults' idea of fun. Just kidding.

While you are dangling your legs wondering what to do next, the cacophony of sights and smells carries on. Dark tones of coffee from upstairs, that indulging smell of grease only fried cheese curds could give off, and commercialized fragrances calling out like sirens for you to sample. Oranges stacked upon oranges (but not for eating), a giant chicken sporting a santa hat for the holidays, and oodles of couples sprawled along the white, second floor seats as if watching a maddening game of social interaction.

If you are bored, try to find yourself in the background of various photos on Instagram of the veritable king of photogenic desserts, popbar. Or just sit on the swinging benches and chat the night away with some friends. After all, this place is your playground."

WOW! Our expectations were really high after reading this. But, lemme tell you, they were not only met but far surpassed. This place is literally heaven on earth.

So hip and cool.

I wanted a grilled cheese, but it was closed early. So I got a margarita pizza instead and it was delish. Oh but don't you worry, the very next night I came right back with the Heidi Swapp team (including Heidi herself and Emily Waters) and got this epic grilled cheese.

The first night I got a plain ol' nutella crepe. Biggest regret of my life! I made up for it the next night and got this behemoth. I couldn't even finish half of it, it must have weighed 3 pounds! It was soooo good.

On the last day of the show I walked around and took pictures of things that caught my eye. Like these colorful Project Life albums! Should I start doing Project Life?!?

From top left to bottom right: Pink Paislee booth details, Pebbles details, Shimelle details, and more Pebbles details. I'm so inspired to make things!! Shimelle had a cork map at her booth and everyone pinned where they were from. Neato! The Crate Paper booth won an award for being amazing, of course!  Cake stands at Crate Paper and I LOOOVE these wooden rulers that can be arranged into all kinds of shapes designed by Natalie Wright for We R Memory Keepers. WANT! There was a jar of gold glitter so I asked Lindsay to sprinkle some on my head :) Thickers Thickers and more Thickers! Cool and colorful cardstock fringe at the Bazzill booth. Rainbow love!

The Richard Garay booth was out of this world. Can he please come decorate my house?!

Cute sugar skull perler bead creations at the Simplicity booth.

Foxes are totally still in :)

I reeeeeally want to start bible journaling! Inspired by this beautiful bible at the Bella Blvd booth.

Such a fun and amazing 4 days at CHA 2016!

Counting down the days until CHA next year in Phoenix!