Steve and I took a trip to Canada to meet our scrapbooking friends and introduce our new CHA Winter release products. While there, we taught classes, demonstrated our new products and had some fun too! Here are some pics from the event.

On the first day we set up our booth.

The blurry figure in the above photo is one of our new BFF’s, Nicole from Imaginese. The event was a great venue for meeting our customers and for developing friendships with other vendors too. Here’s a shout out to Nicole and Denise from Imaginese, Margie from Making Memories and our new friends from Provo Craft, Bazzill, My Minds Eye and Cards Magazine!

After the booth was looking especially gorgeous, Steve and I had some free time so we pointed the rental car in the direction of one of Canada’s National Parks - Elk Island. The park is somewhat of an animal preserve. We saw bison, muskrats, chipmunks, birds and an elk. Steve enjoyed driving close to the bison - it made me a little nervous. I kept having visions of tourists being gored, so I was a bit of a nagger - “STEVE, STOP!! Don’t get so CLOSE!, SHEESH!” He didn’t seem to mind so much, evidently this was not the first time he has been nagged.

This guy was keeping his eye on us. Or was it a gal? It was hard to tell the difference. We did notice that many females were “with calf”.

This one kept licking his lips. I could hear his inner voice saying “Hey Steve, drive a little closer…you guys might be a tasty winter snack!”

Ahhh…nature.

The next day we dove into the teaching and selling scene.

There were over 200 ladies in attendance at the show - and we counted…the ladies who took our class made a total of 987 cards! The cards featured our patterned paper theme “Living Life“, Edgy Strips (used as borders - how cool!), Antiquing Tool, Paper Tagger and Big Metal Brads - Hearts & Arrows.

This is one of the class kits. Hey, a big thanks to Glue Arts for donating the Glue Rings adhesives. What a hit they were - the ladies loved them!

Steve is sharing his favorite card making techniques.

A close up of one of the cards and the Antiquing Tool.

Let’s pause here for a nod to the Antiquing Tool.

Wow - this thing is amazing! (And I’m just not bragging randomly about an ATB product!) This tool has serioulsy earned a medal or gold star, or whatever ranks higher. We had 5 tools at the show with us and those tools were used and abused! Each tool inked the edges of hundreds of papers and they still had ink at the end of the show. Talk about value - that ink lasts forever!

Oh, and did we mention it has an easy-to-hold handle? No ink on your hands! I think it could possible be one of the 7 wonders of the scrapbook world. Seriously.

Here are some of the most talented scrapbookers at the show, Barb and Doreen. They were so much fun. We always appreciate the ladies with the humor at the shows. Barb said she loved our cards the most - and she couldn’t even believe it - she didn’t even get anything crooked!

Thanks so much Annette and Trudy for the opportunity to come and meet and teach all of your fun retailers. We’ll be looking forward to next year!