Lorraine Revalee and I attended the CHA Paper Arts show in Atlanta last week and had a wonderful time. The show was much smaller that the Anaheim show if only for the fact that it was related to paper crafts and not all crafts. It was so nice to have time to spend at each of the vendor booths. The classes I attended were very well received, and the supplies we received were much appreciated.

We had free breakfast 2 days and enough snacks at the Welcome Reception and the Open Market to replace a dinner out. And that food was really good. I particularly enjoyed the Beef Wellingtons and the Bacon Wrapped Scallops, but we hated that the desserts were gone when we got to the table. Next time we'll eat dessert first, as they say.

We made some new friends when we arrived. There was a long walk from the parking garage to the hotel so we had to make extra trips for our luggage and crafty things. Zully, the owner of Printindo in Indonesia, and her helper, Chris, from South Carolina were nice enough to walk all over the garage to load our things on their baggage cart. Now you've heard of paying in back, well, wait for the rest for the story. This was Zully's first trip to a CHA Show so she didn't know quite what to expect. Her display missed a very important use of her great papers, cards. So Lorraine offered to make some cards for her display using whatever we had. Zully gave Lorraine papers, but we had nothing else except the few stamps and stencils we had received in classes. I happened to mention to Lisa at Ellison/Sizzix that Lorraine was doing this for a newcomer, and Lisa loaned us a Big Shot and flower die so the cards could have a little more dimension. Zully later thanked Lisa, and they have found a mutual interest in their products since Zully focuses on school products and Ellison/Sizzix supports school efforts. Then to finalize this give-back concept, Lorraine won one of the Big Shots that they had raffled off. Now doesn't that make you want to give back? Through the kindness of friends, many good things happen.

Lorraine has the pictures we took, so I will try to post them later. Below is the only picture of the 2 of us on the last day of the show.