More Pretties from CHA

Here's a few more cards that I snapped - because I loved the stamp, layout, colouring, or a combination of all those things

Here are some of the January releases of embellishments from the Martha Stewart range, the butterflies are vellum, layered and very pretty

I was fascinated by the decoration on the various booths, some of them had really gone to a lot of work to make theirs stand out from the rest..

These dresses were on the DCWV booth, every little bit of them is made from DCWV paper. Amazing. Can you imagine how long it must have taken to do the green and pink one?

Yesterday was quite a day. We decided very sensibly, to hire a car for a day to make getting to Michaels, Jo-Anns etc easier. The plan was to pick it up from the airport, start shopping, and I would take it back when I checked in for my flight.

We looked up the addresses of various shops before we left, and set off. Picked up the car, programmed the GPS, easy. So we drove, and drove, and drove, around and around, stopping at a MacDonalds for a break. We thought we had driven down to Mexico by mistake, but no, still in LA. So eventually we got to the street address programmed in the GPS. 'You have reached your destination' announced the GPS woman.... well, no, we hadn't. We were driving past Michaels car and body repair shop. Ooooops

So a bit dispirited and deflated, we drove back to our apartment, to regroup and say goodbye to Diane who was leaving for home. I parked the car outside, and in we trooped. When we had gathered enough energy to try again, we went outside - no car, not a sign of it, vanished into thin air. Then we noticed the 'tow zone' sign. Oooooops. After finding out where it had been towed to (not easy when you can't remember the make/colour/registration number of a car you have never driven before, and the hire documents are in the glove box of the car), we set off again. By this time we really were a sorry little bunch, the shoulders were drooping a bit, there was a dejected flatness in our voices, and the bounce really had been knocked out of us. A cab driver dropped us off at Hollywood Tow (Honest!). Have a nice day, he said. NICE DAY! NICE DAY? He drops up off to pay $225 and tells us to have a nice day.

Reunited with our wheels, we programme the GPS and set off again. I will draw a veil over the hair raising journey up and down freeway ramps, the grid locked traffic, I don't want to depress you. 'You have reached your destination' announced the GPS some considereable time, and a lot of miles later. Hmmm, we are on a rather seedy looking street with a lot of people wandering around with their belongings in supermarket carts. Mandy hopped out to ask a shop owner. 'Iss not meechales,' he said in broken English 'isss meechales maskat craft, over dere, he close in five meeneets'. Oooops

Unbroken by all this, we reprogramme the GPS for Walmart. Bear in mind that by this time we had been cruising around for 8 hours, spent $370 and didn't have a single shopping bag to show for it. Walmart was, of course, the other side of the city, a long way away (I feel tired again just writing all this.....) but we MADE IT. YEAH! Predictably of course, they were almost out of Cricut Lite cartridges. Well, the day couldn't have ended any other way really, could it?

I just hope the captain of my plane has better luck with his GPS system than we did, otherwise, you may not hear from me for a few days

CHA - Day 4

I thought you would like to see some of the new Spellbinders nesties today......they were all on the new product wall, but I think I have seen some of them in the stores already. One of my favourites was this heart circle, isn't it pretty?

and this altered book was made entirely with nestability dies. They were cut from a thin silver metal, and burnished or inked. It looked stunning
There were a lot of tiny cards made with nestie dies, leaving a fold uncut at the top


and I liked these little samples, done with a scallop circle, then a 'bite' taken out with a plain circle



Here are the dies....... you will be thinking 'what's new' with this first one, well they are HUGE, to use in the Grand Calibur system. The biggest one was about 6" square

and on to the ordinary sizes.....

There was a lot of felt around, with samples of the most brilliant little purses/handbags. I didn't dare linger too long, I could feel another obsession coming on......

Just a couple of cards that caught my eye - I have loads to show you over the next few days. I really liked the design of this one, and the way they stamped on the house, and embossed the little trees. Very subtle

I thought this was really clever, the placement of the ribbon looked just like seaweed

Due to severe weather on the East coast, my flights have been cancelled. So I am here for another 24 hours, and now leave on Thursday morning. When the flight was cancelled, at first, I dropped like a stone out of the system altogether - there was no trace of my reservation anywhere, I went into some sort of aviation black hole, so that was a jolly hour or two, sorting that lot out. The good news is that the rest of the team are still here, so the four of us will hang out today

I'll be back tomorrow

CHA Day 3

First of all, something pretty - have a guess how this gorgeous creation was made..........Buttons, all buttons. Isn't that clever?

A quick word about the new Cricut Craftroom. Now you know I am not a computer whizz, so no technical stuff from me, just an overview of how I found it. I sat myself at the keyboard and started playing, this programme is so easy to use. All the icons are easy to understand, you drag an image onto the mat, and enlarge it by dragging a little box around it. I popped three flower stems and a flower pot on there, and dragged the flowers into the pot. The great thing is that all the stems UNDER the rim of the pot automatically have their contour hidden. If any image touches another, it automatically welds it. I really enjoyed my little play, and think there is a great value to this software to enhance the way you use your cricut.

I thought you would like a peep at the new Martha Stewart and EK Success punches, they will all be released in the next couple of months...........

Aren't they gorgeous? Another month when I will raid the piggy bank then

I have a lot more to share with you, see you tomorrow