50 Feet of Fun in York, Pennsylvania

It's the morning after a very busy Saturday in York, Pennsylvania, and I'm still overwhelmed by the excited crowd. They came, they saw, and they stayed all day!

Nikki Webb and Sheila Carlson from Heirloom Productions were greeting the shoppers at the front door. I was trying to get a good shot for them to put on their Stamping Shenanigans blog, but the closeups were out of focus. I have to learn how to use this camera -- it takes great candids but I have trouble when I'm shooting a pose.

The first few people that come into our booth usually head straight for the Cuttlebug folders and the Nestabilities. The York crowd was no different.

We had the same setup we have used in Novi, Michigan and Springfield, Massachusetts this year -- our usual 30 foot booth and two 10 foot demo spaces on either end. I like to refer to it as "50 feet of fun" -- I'm always amused when people ask "How much farther does your booth go?"

Susan Pickering Rothamel from USArtQuest was on my end of the booth. That picture at left could have been taken at 11:00 a.m. or 3:00 p.m. -- it was standing room only around her table all day long. And she has great penmanship . . .

Sue's friend Frankie Fioretti was on hand to help customers select USArtQuest products. Frankie had just spent a week with Sue in Michigan, then went home to Long Island and spent all day Thursday hauling bricks in her backyard to earn enough "honeydew" points to justify another weekend away from home!

The nice lady at left with the white turtleneck and necklace is Sara Wagner. She doesn't look a bit tired, does she? She should -- she spent ALL DAY Friday helping me set up the booth. Just Sara and me -- we often have one or two more (sometimes more than that), but Sara is a setup veteran and she was absolutely great.

Tim Hammonds from Scor-It was on the other end of the booth. He was demoing his boards and had a free make it and take it that was busy all day. Tim grew up in Central Pennsylvania so he had extra incentive to come to York -- his brother lives in Harrisburg so he got to visit for the weekend. And he loves baseball as much as I do, so we have great conversations.

See that guy watching Tim's demo in the right picture? You're gonna see more of him as you read on -- I did!

Mary Garvey was at the middle demo table again -- she came up with a great new demo using the new Big Shot Express from Sizzix, with Cuttlebug folders and metal. She was using two folders on the same piece of metal -- it's called "double bugging". And it works -- the metal tower was stripped bare by the end of the day.

There's that guy again . . .

I will get in trouble for this shot -- Polly's Pals was next to us, and Polly Weed wandered over late in the afternoon to see what Sue was doing. She looks disgusted, doesn't she? She wasn't -- she and Sue were having a ball. Just shows what can happen when you push the shutter on your camera at the wrong time. But I couldn't resist once I saw it . . .

DRS Designs was across the aisle from us (you can barely see Sue next to the cup the guy with the suspenders is holding). Sue has one of the best display tools I have ever seen -- she puts her unmounted stamps in an inflatable pool!

This kid found a great spot to plop down and play with his Game Boy. Reminds me a lot of my son Ryan when he was that age.

This is my buddy Kathy Henning. I have known Kathy for years -- she lives in Maryland, but has been in our store many times. She and her husband pull their trailer out to Idaho to see the grandkids and Marco's is a good stopping point along the way (we have "trailer parking"). Kathy is usually the first person I hear from when I post something to this blog, but not today -- she has Washington Redskins season tickets and will be at FedEx Field when the posting e-mail goes out this afternoon.

Finally got a face shot while he was sitting at the USArtQuest demo. But somehow I missed him when I shot the photos during the giveaway . . .

As usual, they were all waiting for me when I came around the booth a couple of minutes before 4:00.

And I got a major kick out of the lady who was holding up her ticket so I could see her number before I started the drawing . . .