Thanks to Novi for an Amazing Weekend . . .

It would be an understatement to say we had a busy weekend in Novi (25 miles northwest of Detroit). Thanks to all who came -- you might even see yourself in the photos that follow . . .



This was the line, just as it started to move inside the hall at 10:00 on Saturday morning. You can't see the end of the line -- it was all the way down, hang a right, and a whole lot farther.



Then I ran inside and got a quick shot as the excited crowd started to pour into the hall. Everyone was moving -- the only person in focus is Nikki from Heirloom Productions (green blouse with her back to the camera) because she was standing still!



This was our booth about 10:02 -- Karen is in the foreground, already running to answer a question . . .



And this was the booth three minutes later! And that was what it looked like most of the day. I never left the booth the rest of the day (neither did Karen), and rarely stepped away from my cash register. Had to send someone to get drinks for us about 1:00 when I started losing my voice. We were running three cash registers and the lines were eight to ten deep at all three. Sound awful? It wasn't -- these days are the best. We don't eat, we don't drink, we don't even get to the bathroom. The customers are in great spirits. And we're all having FUN! If you have never experienced a convention, you just have to do it sometime.

In fact, I referred to our booth in Novi as "50 feet of fun". We had three demos going all weekend -- one at each end and one in the middle . . .



Susan Pickering Rothamel from USArtQuest was holding court to my left, and was surrounded by onlookers and shoppers all day long. She brought her friend Frankie Fioretti along to help answer questions and give directions (that's the top of Frankie's head sitting at the table in the picture at right).



Tim Hammonds from Scor-It was at the other end of the booth introducing customers to the Scor-It Scoring Board. He also offered a free make it/take it project involving the Scor-It and Bind-It-All -- our friends Robin and Keia Arnold helped with the project all weekend long! Tim said he has never had so many folks go through one of his make it/take its!



And this was as close as I got to Sue Nelson from Heartprints.net -- she's from Michigan, and it seemed like everyone who came through our booth knew her. If you go to her site, you'll find that she loves Beckett Expression Radiance -- we sold ten times what we do at a "normal" show.



When giveaway time came, the first thing I noticed was a lady at the back of the crowd taking a picture of ME! So I shot one of her . . .



And shots of the giveaway crowd from left to right . . .



It took four shots to get them all in . . .



After the show ended, we were invited to the Rothamel plantation (they live about 45 minutes away) for a barbeque. Sue and Dave designed the house and it is simply amazing. This is the view from the end of their driveway (I had to leave the truck there to avoid low-hanging trees).



My folks taught me that it's always polite to offer to bring something -- I made homemade ice cream . . .



And a good time was had by all. Then we got up Sunday morning and did it all over again (except for the barbeque). Then we tore down the booth and headed home and right back to work on Monday -- this week is the Summer Stamping Gala in our store, leading up to the Cincinnati convention this weekend!