CHA Chicago 2011

Hello Friends!  I'm back from the Craft and Hobby Association event in Chicago and I had the BEST time!  It was my first time at CHA and I enjoyed it even more than I expected.  I was so thrilled to be meeting my Flourishes Girls there, walking the show and making choices for the FLLC Store.  For many of the team, it was the first time we would meet in person.  I have spent some great time with Julie Koerber before, but meeting Jan Marie the store owner, Sharon Doolittle who keeps the store organized and does all the purchasing, Stacy Morgan, Cindy Lawrence, and Barbara Anders on the Design Team - I was meeting all of them for the first time.  And it was so fun!

I thought I'd show you some pictures from CHA, I have tons, and I actually will have a post on the Flourishes Blog later today with a lot of pictures from the show, the many things we saw and loved...so you can get some different shots there as well.  Here I thought I'd show you the people that MADE the show for me!

This was some of us Flourishes girls right before the first day of CHA waiting to get in.  The Flourishes girls wore pink and black that first day.  Right to left is Julie Koerber my treasured friend at our DT Coordinator, Jan Marie Caruso Flourishes' wonderful owner :),  Stacy Morgan and Sharon Doolittle, Flourishes Purchasing Agent.  These are such wonderful women!  Cindy Lawrence isn't in this picture and we were waiting for Barbara Anders to arrive. 

This is in the show with my sweet Stacy.  She and I really had the best time getting to know each other.  This lady is an absolute gem inside and out.  And I feel blessed to call her friend.  We had some great conversations, deep talks, and lots of laughter!

How blessed was I to meet up with Lori Craig for the first time!  She is one great lady that I've really wanted to meet for a long time, she's is so genuine and funny and lovely!

Here are some of us meeting up with some blogging friends for the first time, it's Jen (from Deconstructing Jen's blog), our DT sister Barbara Anders, Jessica Diedrich, myself and Cindy Lawrence.   It was really fun running into people in the industry that we meet in this wonderful blogging world!  

And here's the DT Team that was at CHA together, myself, Cindy Lawrence, Barbara Anders, Julie Koerber, and Stacy Morgan.  We had the best time helping choose new merchandise for the Flourishes store!  I'm so excited about what is in store for the next months.  

My very favourite colorist anywhere, the incomparable Debbie Olson.  The kindest thing she said to me when I walked up to her, "I know you!" How amazing to be recognized by THE Debbie Olson, I just about fell over!  And as so many people have said about her, she's so down to earth, so kind and funny and totally gave me some tips on shadows that I had been dying to ask her about.  

EEE!  Beate Johns!  It did my heart good to hear her German accent and see her sweet personality to match.  I love her work and I've loved doing some work with her at SCS. 

One of our dinner's out...this one was at The Ram...yummy food there.  As you can see below they had Ice Cream Cupcakes for dessert.  Julie was expressing her love of this dessert.   Isn't she adorable?

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Our first dinner out to Carlucci's (I think), really good Italian food.  Jan Marie and Sharon look so nice here.  

Just some of the pretty flowers on the way to the Convention Center, these were lovely deep colored Day Lilies.  

And a whole row of beautiful flowers, I love the Black Eyed Susans. 

Sweet Beate at the Supershow showing a Make and Take at the SCS Booth.  

And the delightful Lydia Fiedler at the SCS booth.  She is SO much fun.  

The MFT booth at the SuperShow.  MFT and Taylored Expressions had great booths at the Supershow...but I have to say, I was quite sad to see so few good booths there.  The Wholesale show was so much better!

Our own Barbara doing double duty for MFT, this is a cute picture of her.  

With Lori Craig and Beate Johns, this was right before we left to get everyone to lunch and then the airport.  

Our last lunch was at Giordano's and I got to have some very yummy deep dish Chicago pizza.  

I enjoyed it :)

I love this girl.  

Cindy and I had the best time as roomies :)  .  I SO enjoyed getting to know her.  She is such a beautiful kind easy going personality, fun and funny, and we had some great late night talks.  Thank you sweet lady for making it a great week for me!

Julie Koerber....there is no one else like her.  She is one smart cookie, and one big sweetheart.  I'm blessed to know her and call her my friend.  

Sharon is the best!  She's so smart going into the purchasing of all our items at the booths, and yet she has such a wonderful designer's heart too.  She was giddy with us when we found something we loved!  Such a gem!

And beautiful Jan Marie.  She makes this all possible for us, and she is a true Southern lady.  So incredibly generous, kind hearted and good to us girls.  I am so blessed to work for her and this company.   Thank you again Jan Marie for everything.  I'll never forget it!

Best girls ever!  My only disappointment was that Leslie, Dawn and Danielle couldn't be with us too.   We really missed them!

So gang, all in all, the MOST FABULOUS week.  Even better than I hoped for.  I'm filled up to the brim with joy, creative ideas, excitement to stamp, excitement for all these new goodies coming, thankful for such wonderful people who I am able to share this passion for creativity with.   

I know some of you were looking for more of the GOODIES...and I'll tell you my favourites another day...but do check out the FLLC Blog later today for some pictures of what we loved...

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CHA Chicago 2011