Day 60: Flying Off to Sunny California for CHA

Packing up last night for CHA.  My one-and-only carry-on is almost completely full and heavy with paper. I have a total of 60 sample packets with me and my goals is to hand them all out, including one to Tim Holtz. Dare me?

New hairdo for the show. I don't think I'd been to my hairdresser since before Lochlan was born and it was way overdue. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Costello for watching the boys so I could get all fancy. Done this morning and then right to the airport.

I had an entire row all to myself, plus a trashy novel from Powells and good food from Elephants Deli. Doesn't get much better than that.

Arriving at the Long Beach airport, about a half-hour drive from the Anaheim convention center (even with a completely insane shuttle driver). Sunny, but cold. What's up with me and cold-weather tradeshows? When I leave Portland, I'm hoping to head to warmer weather.

After checking into the hotel, wandered over to the Convention Center to see if there was anything I could do, like pick up a show directory.

Turns out I was able to talk my way into a workshop on encaustic collage sponsored by Purple Cows that was completely awesome. I'd never attended a workshop at CHA before, always being too busy. But it was great. And wow, what an amazing take-away bag of swag. Easily worth a couple hundred dollars.

Solo dinner in the hotel restaurant, then up to bed to prep everything for the HUGE day tomorrow. Up early for the "Industry Awards Ceremony & Breakfast," then a full day walking the floor. In addition to wanting to hand out all of my sample packs, my other goal is to sign on with a good distributor for my collage sheets. Here we go...