CHA Day 1 Highlights: Amazing Classes, Dining Al Fresco, and the Cab Ride of Doom

Hello, Memory Bound friends! We had such a great time at CHA and can't wait to share more pictures with you. In today's post, you'll see photos from some of the classes we took on Day 1 of the convention. As you will see, we managed to fit in a couple of perilous adventures, too! 

Maggie started the day with a class by Tim Holtz. In addition to being an incredibly talented designer, Tim's a great educator. His classes are so popular that admission is by lottery!

 

Tim's project was a Configurations box with wheels, covered with papers and filled with all kinds of vintage goodies. The box even lights up with a tiny hanging lantern!

 After class, Maggie had a photo op with Tim!

  
Here's a close-up of Tim's amazing project!

Meanwhile, Bonnie and Kellie attended a class by Canvas Corp. 

They learned some fun mixed media techniques.

Bonnie looks pretty excited about all the new techniques she learned!

By mid morning, it was time for some of the crew to head over to the Creative Imaginations and Quick Quotes preview party held at a local hotel. (Check out pictures of the new product we saw in our previous post here.) Nobody wanted to walk 15 minutes to the hotel in 100-degree heat, so we hopped in a cab. That's when the first adventure of the day started! The cab driver turned his music up LOUD, which should have been our first clue that things were going to head downhill fast!

The next indication of trouble was when he pulled out a little wooden owl and American flag and told us how the owl talks to him. We all know that owls are popular design motifs, but a talking owl in a cab? Of course, this called for a picture. :)

The cab driver sped through the busy streets and somehow managed to get lost on the short drive to the hotel. When we finally arrived, he pulled into the wrong entrance and nearly crashed into another car. Kellie happened to be turned completely around in her seat so she could see out the back window and yelled for the driver to stop just in time!

 Whew! We made it to the preview party and lived to tell about it!

Once inside, we looked at lots of great new product and sat down to make a fun mini-album. Look how serious Maggie is in this picture! She is not going to miss a step!

 

Later, Kellie, Bonnie, and I attended a class sponsored by Hero Arts.

One of the instructors was Shari Carroll, one of my favorite designers! We learned some fun stamping techniques and made several wonderful holiday cards. You can look for them in future make-n-takes!

Our next adventure happened at dinner time. We had only a short time to grab something to eat so Kellie asked the hotel staff for a restaurant recommendation. She was told there was a Mexican place on the second floor of a building "just across the parking lot".

So we set off in the 100-degree heat, in what turned out to be an endless trek around office buildings and through parking lots. There was no Mexican restaurant in sight. We were getting hotter and hotter with no hope of food, so Maggie boldly went into a fancy steak house and asked for directions. Turns out we had to venture through a parking ramp with rough terrain to get there!

FINALLY! An Adobe Gila's sign beckoned us to come in and cool off.

 

But as we climbed the stairs, we could see something was strange...This was an OPEN AIR restaurant! On a 100-degree day, of course we had to find the only open air place in the city of Chicago!

 

 "Where would you like to sit?" the waitress asked. We burst out laughing and told her as far away from the open doors as possible! Then we took some photos for dramatic effect. :)

As if we hadn't packed enough into the day already, we still had a few evening classes to enjoy! After our refreshing dinner, Kellie, Bonnie, and I went to a great mini-album class by Fancy Pants. It was fun to meet the gal behind the brand we all love. When Kellie asked her how Fancy Pants got its name, she explained that she enjoyed crafts as a little girl, so her grandma began calling her Little Miss Fancy Pants. When she started her company, it seemed to be the perfect name!

One of the steps involved spraying paper strips and fashioning them into a ruffle along the page.

What a fun accent! We'll be teaching this great class at Memory Bound so look for details on our next calendar, due out in September.

Meanwhile, Katie and Maggie attended a class where they learned some awesome new techniques using WOW embossing powder.

And Maggie won the big prize: A whole box of embossing powders! Her expression says it all! It's MINE, all MINE! LOL

Keep watching our blog for more pictures of our CHA adventures! We're all very excited about the new products we've ordered for Memory Bound and can't wait to share them with you! 
Janet