CHA Winter 2011, Baby!

For years I have dreamed of going to CHA. I mean, this is the World Series of papercrafting. The Superbowl. The Stanley Cup. Finally, it was held within driving distance and I had a sponsor! Graphic45 so generously gave me a pass for the day! So, my G45 teamie, Tracey Locher and I drove up to Los Angeles for the day on Sunday. Well, Tracey drove and I navigated!

I was overwhelmed with the booths and with meeting so many new people. I do not like meeting new people - it makes me nervous. (I know, why go to a big show like CHA?!) I sort of "blew off" Stacey Caron of Spellbinders, but I got a second chance to meet her and she was so sweet! (Thank you Kimberly for dragging me back to the booth!) I was so nervous that I did not get a photo of me with Stacey, so I lifted this one from the Spellbinders blog.

Jeff and Stacey

I was totally freaked out by people who recognized me from this blog! I was overwhelmed at meeting so many people. But everyone was so friendly and warm. And I never got tired of hearing how great the Graphic45 DT is! My ego was as big as a barn by the end of the day! I have to say I was walking that fine line between being a stalker and being stalked! {grin} And I STILL did not get my photo taken with Tim Holtz! The man is avoiding me! Rats!

Here is a shot of some of the Graphic45 gals. You can see I did not get the memo about wearing black! But there is one in every crowd, so it may as well be me!

Tracey, Me, Aimee, Diane, Jane

Here is the amazing board Diane made with all of the Graphic45 team members.

The G45 booth was SPECTACULAR. I did not get very clear shots due to the lighting and the crowd, but hopefully Tracey got some better shots for me to post later.

Here is my Le Cirque layout, on the bottom. All of our layouts were displayed on old doors! How cool is that?!

Here is the other side of the door showing our 45 record albums (mine is the third item from the bottom, on the left), and our Once Upon a Springtime layouts (mine is at the very top). I'll show all of my work in the next few weeks, so you can see close-ups.

Two of my cards are on this display. This is the Curtain Call line. Photos cannot do the booth justice!

Another highlight of the day was seeing all of my cards at the Hampton Art booth! They were so wonderful in their complements! They gushed so much that my head blew up to the size of a hot air balloon!

Here are the rest. I've shown some sneak peeks of these already. I will do Curtain Call tomorrow.

Now, one of the BEST parts of my day was meeting the Unity Boyz! They are a hoot! I recognized Tom when I went into the Unity Stamp booth and was telling him what a fan my 10 year old son is of their videos. So then Christian came up (only I called him Anthony! oops!) and I got to meet him as well. They put on their special aprons and let me take a photo with them! They are so funny! But I totally want an apron!

Christian, Me, Tom

Another highlight is seeing the Ranger booth and Mr. Tim Holtz. Sadly, Tim was mobbed, as always, so I did not get a photo of him. But I did take one of a tag display.

My photos cannot do these tags justice. But there were a few ladies taking photos of EACH tag, one at a time, so I sort of had to push my way in and snap a quick shot of the grouping before I got trampled!

The other highlight of the day was meeting Loralie and Susanne at the Loralie Designs booth! They were so sweet and complementary about my work with their stamps. I forgot to take a photo, naturally.

Loralie and friend

It was so amazing meeting the Graphic45 team! What an amazing group. Diane took the team out for dinner after the show, to The Palm. The food was out of this world! I had such a good time getting to know everyone! I am very sad that my term is up soon! I know how hard it is to make a team like Graphic45, so my chances of a second term are very slim, but I can always hope! They really do treat everyone associated with their company like family! We heard over and over again that Graphic45 sets an industry standard. And I have to say their booth was the BEST booth at the show!

This is the amazing dessert platter from dinner! I had a small bite of each item, so as to not mess up my diet plan!

I'll have more peeks of my CHA work tomorrow. I'll be showing things over the next month, to get you excited as you wait for the papers to appear in your local stores!