Friday 29 January 2010

I'm back from CHA!!!!

I'm feeling the effects of the jet lag at the moment, I'm not that good at coping with all the time changes. I finally got my body clock on Californian time on the day that I had to leave!!!! I guess it will be a few more days before I get back in the UK time zone but I don't care cos it was sooooo worth it this year....I had a fab time, with fab friends, saw some fab artwork, did some fab classes and have ordered some, yep you guessed it, fab product!

This is where it all happened, the convention centre in Anaheim, as you can see, it is a tad on the large size and boy do you feet know it when you have walked continually for four days!And look at the sunshine, on the last two days, the weather was beautiful.....real t-shirt weather.


This was the view from my hotel room....I have a bit of a thing for fountains, so I felt a very lucky girl!


I arrived in California the day before the trade show started and met up with my dear friend Beverly Seymour from B Line Designs and one of her designers, Susan Mostek. They were demonstrating at the retail craft Supershow which was fun to see, made a real change for me to be a customer instead of an exhibitor. I was lucky enough to spend a few evenings with Bev and Susan, catching up with news. My only regret is that I didn't get a picture of them. I did manage lot's of other pictures though........


Here's me and Suze
Tim working his magic Me again on the Ten Seconds booth with Cheryl

OMG!!!! The new stuff from TSS is amazing. The new colours of metal are going to be my new favourites....bronze, a pale gold, a turquoise and a hot pink. Now I'm not going as far as saying hot pink will be my new favourite but some of you pink worshippers are going to love it!!! It is all ordered and hopefully will be in stock in a couple of weeks along with all the new Kabuka and Big Daddy moulds. Now.........drumroll please........I brought back five of each of the new moulds back in my suitcase. I know they are not on my website yet, but you can see the designs on the TSS website. So, if you are itching to get you hands on these, the first people to call Karen in the shop tomorrow on 01234 714848, will get them.
How cool is this chandelier? It was part of the display in the 7 Gypsies booth.....I need me one of those!!!

Now for the Ranger, designer challenge. As I mentioned before, I was invited by Ranger to take part in the designer challenge this year. I was sent a box of melt art goodies and some substrates to work on and had to design a project along the theme "melt art is the hottest ticket". All I could think of was a meal ticket, so that was the theme for my submission. I can't begin to tell you what a thrill it was to be asked by Ranger but the biggest thrill came when I saw my work on the wall alongside artists such as Suze, Tim, Donna Downey......it doesn't get much better than that. Anyway, here is my piece.

The spoons are full of UTEE, all the tickets have been dipped in UTEE, there's a piece that was poured on a TSS mould and the diamond thingie was UTEE poured of a piece of embossed metal, then cut out with a cookie cutter. I beeswaxed the cutlery napkins and the rest is metal and paint.....it was a lot of fun and I felt so honoured to have been a part of the whole amazing experience.

This was Cheryl Darrow's entry, as you can see, she did some fab pieces of UTEE on the new moulds.

I am just blown away by the beeswax work that Suze does.....how cool is this?


Leandra's entry was unbelievable. She made that birdcage out of wire and UTEE. I was so worried that it wouldn't get there in one piece....they obvously did an amazing job with the packaging as it made it without any mishaps. My photographs are really not the best and this one definitely does not do justice to this piece which was pure genius!


My friend Linda Cain, made this gorgeous piece. We had been admiring each others work for some time and we finally met briefly at a previous CHA. This year we decided to meet up properly and arranged to have lunch. She is an amazing artist, she is on some very cool design teams, she's witty and funny and I just love her work......look closely at this and you will see why....her attention to detail is second to none.

There were so many more submissions, I'll share those with you on another day.

These were some samples from the Objects and Elements booth. I took their class, they have a fab new resin product which I can't wait to get my hands on....it's so up my street!

Then I was a lucky girl again and took the Art journaling class with Ingrid Dijkers....this was a very cool class. I had never done any art journaling and wondered if I really wanted or needed to start something else. I now know that of course I do and I'm thinking it could quite easily become another addiction! These pictures are of Ingrid's amazing work. I have not photographed my work yet but when it's unpacked, I'll share it with you.


This is a tunnel journal that Ingrid made....it is just so clever and so beautiful, I just love her style.

Here is a sample from the Kaiser booth.

Then there was the new love in my life.....Vintage. I saw this company last year and this year I caved and ordered some of their stuff. There booth was beautiful as were all the samples.




Do you see what I mean!
Then there was the Graphic 45 booth, it is always a joy to check out there booth, very vintage, I just love it.


Okay, I think I need to go to bed now. More to follow soon with news of all the goodies that are coming our way.

24 comments:

Helen said...

Great photos and good to have you back! Can't wait to get hold of some of the goodies - my wish list is huge and that's just from sneak peaks before and tweets nd posts during the show!! See you soon.

Fliss said...

You're so lucky to have seen all this and I'm quite green with envy! Thanks so much for all the pics and can't wait for the new stuff. The resin sounds really interesting.
I'm looking forward to doing some more adventurous vintage artwork as all my DT stuff is on the cute side.
See you at Ally Pally.
Felicity

Artmadnana said...

Good to see you back Lin and what a lot of delicious piccies to savour late at night! It's great to know you've brought back some TSS moulds! I can't wait so I've decided to drive down tomorrow in the hope of getting my hands on at least one of Cherl's new designs. They really top all that's gone before! She is so clever! But so are you! Saw your Ranger submission on Leandra's blog - was blown away! Hope you recover from th jet lag soon.

Allyson said...

You sound as if you've had the most amazing time, Lin. Or should I say fab? Your piece for Ranger is wonderful, the longer you look at it the more you can see in it. It made me want to get out my melt pot, unfortunately my desk is so untidy there isn't room at the moment.

Looking forward to seeing you next week.

Allyson xxx

Daniele said...

wow what fantastic pieces of art I hope some of these will translate into classes at a later date glad you had a fab time and can't wait for all the new goodies hopefully they'll have started to arrive at the time of my first class with you next month.....better start saving again

Heavens2Betsy said...

Wow! What a fabulous insight into the whole CHA experience. Absolutely love your piece on the wall of fame! Looking forward to hearing and seeing more.

DF - Heidi said...

OMG such awesome fabby stuff, it looks like your senses had a riot, and boy I am soooo looking forward to seeing and of course buying what you ordered from the vintage peeps, i feel a real steam punk session with jewellery coming on with some of their stuff. loved the hanging you made for Rangers way cool, the journals are great, basically looks like you had an awesome time. see you soon

Hx

Andrea - Wales, UK said...

Glad your back safe and sound. Looks like you had a fab time.(like the new hair style..)Thought your Ranger challenge was amazing...See you in March.x

Karin said...

Fabulous photos Lin, thank you so much for sharing your adventure with us.
I love your piece for the Ranger challenge wall, absolutely fantastic.
My wish list has grown so much in the past week, I need a second mortgage. lol
Loving all those new moulds and hoping that one now has my name on it.

Nicks said...

Thanks for sharing all your lovely photos, so much exciting stuff to look forward to!
Better start saving !

Debo said...

Wow! What an exciting show it looks! Tim's new stuff looks 'OH MY GOD, I'VE GOT TO HAVE IT ALL!!' I love all the Vintage stuff you've found. I've seen the TSS new moulds (I looked at their blog) and they look AMAZING! AND they use them in the Big Shot and Cuttlebug - hmmmm - and with Silver clay!! And now you mention JOURNALLING!! Can you source EXTRA HOURS IN THE DAY, PLEASE?????

I hope you'll have at least SOME of the new products at Stamperama -although you may not get rid of me all day!

Hope the jet lag doesn't last too long!
See you at Stevenage,
Debbie
(Old Harlow)

Debo said...

Oh, I forgot to say, I LOVED your piece for Ranger! And you fully/totally/absolutely deserved to be included! Anyone who has seen your work would agree!

Nicks said...

Meant to say... I hope you are getting the 'Cogs' board
I need to know as soon as it's in your shop!

Linda M. Cain said...

Glad you're back home safe and sound! It was a great show....I think it's going to be an exciting year!!!

Be well, my friend!

Linda

Unknown said...

It is so good to have you back ... and sharing all those yummy products and art work too ... what more could a girl want X

Dylan said...

Art journaling.?????? Kiss goodbye to whats left of your life, right now.!!! Was lovely to see you in CHA, loved the hait x

Kay said...

Welcome back! I love the new hairstyle, it really suits you. Can't wait to see all the new stuff! I think your piece for Ranger is fabulous! Congratulations

Scrap by Heart said...

Thank you for sharing all these pictures, I get sooo inspired. I love the art piece you did for Ranger!

Unknown said...

Wow, wow and wow. I think I'll probably want two of everything! It must take amazing willpower not to buy all that you see. Looking forward to seeing the new stuff you've ordered.

Mole said...

What fab stuff! I love the photos and the glimpses of everyone's creations. I'm so envious of all that talent ... oncluding yours!

Ali H said...

Hi Lin
What gorgeous ideas - how lucky you are to have seen it all in person. There are never enough hours a day to everything I'd love to do but hope we may get to play with some of the new stuff on the Artsy weekends in May !
Ali H

Shoogles said...

wow, wow, wow. What gorgeous stuff!

Can't wait to see these items hitting your online store. It's unfortunate I live in Scotland so can't visit the store or attend any classes.

By the way who is the maker of the vintage stuff that you are going to be stocking?
Vicki

Sarah Louise said...

oh wow, you have teased me with some wonderful products. I cant wait to see what you get into the shop.

Thanks for the inspiration

yoursartfully said...

Wow, I love that you are all as excited as I am about all the new product. Vicki, all the vintage jewellery type stuff is actually from a company called Vintaj, pronounced vin'taj. Very cool company, very cool website, if you want to check out their line of goodies go to www.vintaj.com