CHA Mega Show 2015 - Part Two

Following on from yesterday! After my first tour of the show, it was time to head off to a party! Create & Craft were launching Create & Craft USA with a cocktail night and I popped along to hear all about it and catch up with some friends!

As I had to be up early the following morning for the Designer Section Meeting I sneaked out a little bit early and head back to my room with a big bottle of Gatorade (all the aircon and talking means you pretty soon lose your voice!) I had to take a picture of the label of my bottle of Gatorade fruit punch - notice NO actual fruit juice in that giant bottle of Fruit Punch - I LOVE America!

The following morning I headed off to the Designer Section meeting with Craig from CHA UK to see what the Designers from CHA do in America, I met some great people and it was so interesting to see how it works in the US - we're only just starting to implement our Designer section here in the UK - exciting times!! 

*exciting news alert* I then had a meeting with one of my favourite companies in the scrapbooking industry, this has been planned for a while and I was super nervous and excited - I can't say anything just yet as it's very early days but what I will tell you is that the people I met with said that they thought I was 'extremely talented' and have asked me to put together some sample ranges for them!!! It's super early days but I'm so excited to have this opportunity - watch this space!! I was then a tiny bit naughty and before my next meeting of the day I decided to celebrate this good news, I headed back to my hotel room, put my PJ's on, turned the aircon up full blast (did I mention I like VERY cold rooms?) and ordered myself a proper American burger, fries and a shake from room service... 

 

I then spent the next hour in bed watching a basketball game and devouring it - and YES, it was AMAZE!!! I'd fly back just for that burger... 

Anywhoo... after making myself look human again, I head back to the show and my next meeting of the day with DCWV, we spent some time going through the new products before I was gifted a lovely box of goodies (so lucky!) My absolute fave was these mirror icons, expect to see them on my blog very soon!!

I then managed a quick trip to get some cheesy souvenirs before afternoon tea at the CHA International pavilion - it's very difficult to get a good cup of Earl Grey in the US so I made sure I was at that pavilion every afternoon at 3pm sharp for my two cups of earl grey! and some networking of course...

After the excitement of the day I took a minute, as it was my last night in L.A., to spend some time sitting in the warm evening breeze watching the waterfall outside the convention centre...

That was where my friend, mentor and fellow CHA UK Board Director, Carolyn, found me half an hour later, she invited me to dinner with some fabulous girls and we hit a wonderful restaurant just up the road from our hotels that had the most wonderful pie! (and spicy shrimp and avocado salad - yum!) I almost finished this one - it's so hard to finish a meal there!

Then came probably the BEST bit of my whole trip (and I'm only half joking) the girls, all Americans, couldn't believe I'd never been to Target, so they took me across the parking lot to this huge Target store, it was AMAZE! I did go a bit 'supermarket sweep' in there, put it this way, the giant suitcase I bought especially for the trip was overweight on the way home and I only JUST had room for everything I brought back - it was love!

The following morning I had just enough time to go and do my seminar on Creative Blogging, it was so fun to get to speak to an amazing group of ladies and I got SO much fabulous feedback on my talk that I was over the moon, one lady even said it was the best seminar she had been too - and it was only my second time! eeek! so fun! Then I had just enough time to go and say a quick goodbye to everyone before hopping on a shuttle back to the airport and another 11 hour flight back to London.

I so LOVED my trip, I can't wait to go back and until then, I brought back this little piece of America...

Thank you for dropping by today!

Sarah x