what a week…

well hello there bloggers!  what a week this has been – better yet, what a FUN week this has been.  we started our journey heading to florida on friday morning to teach at ruban rouge the next day.  i always enjoy spending time with lisa (the owner), her wonderful friends (who are also unconditionally helpful), and her very talented customers.  i taught 3 workshops last saturday and we were up to our elbows in ink, paints, and grunge.  the projects were fun and i loved seeing what everyone created – always inspiring….

Ruban1
Ruban2

and check out this shirt!  seriously it's one of the funniest one's i've seen.  to be honest i didn't get it at first, until i read it a few times…
"hey tim I LIKE YOU so much… IT HOLTZ"!  clever and funny huh?
Shirt2
Shirt1

then we were off to the cha summer show on sunday morning as we drove to orlando.  there was definitely lots to do before the show even started. we began setting up the booth and unpacking all of the crates, boxes, and palettes.  then the next day it was an early morning with my cha holiday workshop "distress the holidays".  i taught 2 workshops back to back with about 50 students in each – lots of festive fun, here's the project…

Distressholidays

then we were back on the show floor to finish setting up the ranger booth and then i headed over to the idea-ology booth to finish setting up there – talk about a long day!  the cha-summer show kicked off on tuesday morning to very eager stores, designers, and vendors.  it was a much smaller show than in the past years of cha, but still a good show nevertheless.  my first 2 days of the show were spent demoing for ranger along with suze, claudine, and wendy, hanging out in my idea-ology booth, and getting to walk the show floor for about an hour each day to see what i could see.  what i really love about the showis seeing friends, and noticing how many people are there videoing the show, taking pics, twittering, and facebooking right from the show floor.  it's definitely a great way to keep everyone up to date on all of the new releases and goings on of cha.  i also had some help from my friends in getting everything ready for the show – of course i could never do what i do without them.  a huge thank you and shout out to mario, michele, and kim for their awesome job getting all of my class kits and make & take kits prepped perfectly!  to tracey for working the make & take in the idea-ology booth, and debbie for her hard work in the ranger make & takes, and of course to keychain and wendy for lending a hand making some incredible samples for the idea-ology and ranger booths – they were quite the hit at the show….
Cha

Boards
Ideaologybooth1
Ideaologybooth2
Ideaology

here's a cool grunge display that wendy did for the r
anger booth…

Wendy

and here are keychain's amazing grungepaper flowers – so unbelievable in person…

Keychain
Rockcandy

and of course to finish it off, what everyone was going crazy for at the show – including me i must confess, were the new rock candy distress stickles and clear crackle paint!  this is going to be a very versatile and fun product to work with – i can't wait…and neither should YOU!  which is why i am starting a weekend of new cha giveaways!  that's right – i am giving away some new cha-summer products and all you have to do is simply post a comment anytime this weekend sharing your favorite new product i've released at this show – it could be distress stickles, or rock candy crackle paint from ranger, something from the idea-ology line, or one of my new stamp sets with stampers anonymous, and the winners will be randomly selected and posted on monday's blog!  i will be giving away prize packs including a new stamp set, some distress stickles, and new idea-ology goodies to 10 lucky winners!  so i hope you enjoyed the recap of my week long adventures, we're heading home from the airport to get unpacked and ready to head out again next week.  i have a couple more great cha moments to share with you on monday – remember you have all weekend to post your comments….t!m

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101