Day 1 of CHA

Before I tell you about our first day at CHA I have to tell you about Polly's Pies. On Saturday night after breaking down the Supershow we were taking Chris & Aikie home but it was late and we were hungry so we stopped at Polly's Pies. Apparently it is a small chain of cafe/restaurants famous for their homemade cream pies. I've never had cream pie so decided after dinner it would be rude not to try one. This is Banberry pie - the inside is a mixture of cream and bananas covered with strawberries and surrounded in a ring of cream. It was delicious and nothing like some of the cream I have tasted over here - which has tasted pretty bad!These are our new friends - Hope from Paper Relics and Patti from Queen's Ink.
This is Tim Holtz artwork from the Stampers Anonymous booth.
I saw Tim demonstrating in the Ranger booth using the new Distress Inkpads, Ink Blending Tool and the mask sheets. Tim also has a prototype of his new machine (not available until later in the year) which he promptly broke. It is an electronic Sizzix machine that looks like a suitcase.
Talking of die cutting machines the new Spellbinder machine is now available and it is an automatic punch and embossing machine. I haven't seen it in action yet but I believe you put your card and the die inside the machine, press the button and presses down to cut out the image. Hopefully today I will see it in action.

Last night we had dinner in Red Robin with JudiKins and were joined by MaryJo McGraw - how cool! (how American am I!)

I hope you're having a good Monday, mine is just about to begin.