Here is my Knock Out.  Isn’t this picture a hoot?  I had never thought about ‘doodling’ through the stencils before – but now I’ve created my own monster.  I could not IMAGINE doing that kind of detailed penwork on the doodle parts otherwise.  It was a BREEZE! I've uploaded it 'pre journaling', as I do with all my layouts for privacy.  Hope you don't mind.  I put my … [Read more...]

The universal question I've gotten since returning from CHA is how do you get through it all? And once you have, how do you choose? Well I'm no professional buyer, but I did my best at the show to help make good choices for Ellen's store.  I used technology to aid in that effort.  My husband lent me his little 2.7 lb. Vaio laptop, on which I created an Access database of all the vendors … [Read more...]

While attending CHA with my friend Ellen, who owns Momento in Connecticut, I've been taking her photo with every notable designer and company owner we meet. I didn't step in front of the camera - more of the documenter of this trip for the purposes of the store.  But it was too fun! So sit back and let's play - who's Ellen with now??Ellen and Lance Anderson of Rusty Pickle, who's coming to … [Read more...]

And so it begins... We are going to be going around the floor getting some ideas and making piles of catalogs in the hotel room, nightly. We may find something interesting each day, which we'll post here -- but in the end, may find another manufacturer that is doing things in a 'better' way. We'll see! There are about four football fields full of vendors at CHA. At least 80% of those have to do … [Read more...]