CHA Chicago Day 1

I made it to Chicago...all by myself! I was really here! I was pinching myself everyday. It was so surreal! I finally got to meet the amazing and very talented Kathy Marie Perez in person. I am so happy that I got invited to be a guest of her and her boyfriend Jon from Paper Jam Studio . Her Mom Debbie and friend Alane were there too. We had the best time! Can you believe it was so crazy, that we never even got a group shot of us all??!!

Even though it is a little 'old hat' to Jon and Kathy Marie, it was a new exciting expirience for me, Debbie and Alane. The first day I arrived was Thursday, the day before the show opened. There were classes to be taken and lots of fun to be had!

We all took a class with the AMAZING Tim Holtz . Look at ALL the stuff he gave us! Paint, inks, markers, brand new stamps, colorwash, embossing powder, Glossy accents, etc!! WOW!!!

Here are some of the free goodies I got at the show. Making memories handed out the mint green aprons for everyone to wear. They were picking random people at the show and just giving them tons of product...oh, and a free Slice. Debbie, Kathy Marie's Mom was one of the lucky winners. It was so exciting! There definately was a lot of cool stuff to be had. Lots of free totes, some MM clear stamps & block, MM puffy letters, some Piggy tales embelishments fom the new "twinkle, twinkle little star", a set of "Mr Campy" papers from Cosmo Cricket and some great new scissors from Fiskars given out with a little autograph card from (Stephanie) one of the Fab Fiskateers . Good stuff! Good stuff!!

Thursday night we went to a little sneak peek party over at s.e.i. The new Christmas line "Glitzmas" is AWESOME!! Can't wait to get it!!

As guests we got a full set of papers from the "Poppy" line, along with embelishments and brads....and a shirt, a mini album kit and a "thanks" chipboard word album. WOW! Isn't this paper so pretty??!!

It was here that I first met the Studio Calico gang IRL! Yay Me!! Here is a pic I took of the "sandwich" (for those who do not know, that would be Davine, Nicole and Nicole).

I was so happy to meet these gals. I also met April, Greg and Scarlet, but I did not get any pics of them :-(

I did see them all quite a bit over the couple of days though. Plus they got to wish me a "Happy Birthday" in person. That was very COOL!

All for now. I will have more to share tomorrow...LOTS more!! :-)