CHA and Catchin’ Up

The insanity of CHA is past, but I wanted to share a bit anyway, before it gets way too late! 

 (I’ve been swamped with a huge project, and hopefully life will calm down once that deadline has passed!)

It is definitely a lot of planning, work, sweat and even a few tears getting to this:

Bare bones, boxes and crates…

To artwork, product, and decor.  Everyone has a job and it goes fairly smoothly.

It takes a village, so beyond the efforts of the team on the show floor, we have a team at the office, as well as designers and bloggers.

But while we were working, this was going on at home (see the mailbox??)

And then a whole lotta this:

Cathy Chlebana, DT Coordinator, Kim Hupke, Education Director, Kimberly Crawford, DT Member and I were stuck in Los Angeles!  Cathy had the wisdom to book a hotel room by LAX  just in case , thank goodness!  

 Plan S: Shopping!

What’s a bunch of girls to do when we were just a few blocks from the garment district? (I apologize for the fuzzy cell phone pics)

 Beads and baubles and charms!

Boxes and boxes of Buttons!

Walls and walls of ribbon!

More fabric than you could  imagine!

And lots of laughs!

Plan B: The Beach!

The next day we decided to do the tourist thing and caught an inexpensive trolley to the charming little town of  Manhattan Beach. 

It was a beautiful day!

Plan C: Cupcakes!

First stop Cupcakes Couture for breakfast!  Seriously, how could we not?

And it was worth every calorie!  (I had red velvet, YUM!)

Next stop, the beach!

We all took off our shoes, rolled up our jeans and got our feet wet.  The sand was warm, the ocean, not so much!

Thanks Spellbinders, for taking care of us while we were suffering miserably!  The next day it was back to reality and Chicago weather.

 Mother Nature continued to punish us with a cold snap.  Yes, that’s -6  F at 8 am!

And we can’t forget Sparky’s birthday!  He turned 17 last week.  You can see that Cindy loves a good birthday too!

Thanks for stopping by!

Beth