We Go Virtual While Sue Rothamel Goes “Big Time” . . .

We are in Anderson, South Carolina this weekend – and Saturday I heard the same question all day long.  “Where’s Sue?”  Seems that our good friend Susan Pickering Rothamel from USArtQuest impressed a few people when we were here last year.  But Sue has bigger fish to fry this weekend – she is in Florida rehearsing for her big national TV performance on Monday.  If you haven’t heard, Sue will be on the Home Shopping Network at 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. EDT on Monday, September 26.

But thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we had “Virtual Sue” in the booth . . .

Sue’s new DVD Art! Craft! Create! came out just in time, so I popped in into my laptop – and just like in real life, Sue demoed all day long!

OK – so it may not have been quite as exciting as in real life, but she was still surrounded by her products . . .

I never got a chance to get a shot of our booth while it was jammed full of people (and it was for most of the day), but I couldn’t resist sneaking away for a second when I noticed this shopper who was overcome with joy at the opportunity to spend the day with a group of creative crafters!

Inkpad Mania and Silent Movie Fallout . . .

If you’re on the e-mail list, no doubt you saw the note I sent out late yesterday about the Tim Holtz Seasonal Distress Ink Limited Edition 3-Pack Set.  What a mess – first Tim and Ranger offered only 12 sets per store/business (those were gone in no time), then yesterday they apologized and offered 48 more (those lasted about six hours).  When those ran out, we started a waiting list in case more could be found.

Give Gary some credit – he is the best scrounge I have ever encountered.  Today, he talked with one of our suppliers and found more sets.  So if you weren’t able to order yours last night/today, click on the picture or link above and order yours now!

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If you enjoyed the World Premiere of our Silent Movie yesterday, you weren’t the only one.  My inbox filled up with really nice feedback – and two of you apparently enjoyed it enough to subscribe to my YouTube account in case we ever do this again!  (I didn’t even know you could do that)

Last night, Ryan was dreaming up all kinds of different things we could get Zoe to do in a video all her own.  One of these days . . .

This Could Be the Start of Something Big . . .

Karen called me this morning to come to the store and take pictures of cards that Pat Adams created for a class she’ll be teaching at some point in the next month or two.  Now I am not a terribly creative person, so a lot of times I’ll see a new project and more or less roll my eyes.  And after this long, it takes something really different to make me go “Wow!”  In my mind at least, this one is a “Wow!”

Pat calls this a “Neverending Card”, and she made three of them.  Every angle – every time you unfold one – you have a completely different card.  But I couldn’t figure out how to do them justice . . .

  

I took pictures, but they just didn’t seem to tell the story.  I could show all of the angles, but really couldn’t show how Pat got there. 

I tried opening a card to show the angles . . . but does this really tell you anything?

And then I remembered that my phone shoots video.  I have had my Droid 2 for over a year, but I have never tried that.  So it seemed like a good time to give it a shot.  But I’m a technology neanderthal – it took me nearly five minutes to figure out how to switch my phone from shooting pictures to shooting video.  Then Pat and I went through the cards several times before I learned that the “mute” button would keep us from having to start over if the phone rang or someone else started talking!

When we finished, I took myself and my phone back to the mail center to figure out what to do next.  I knew that it probably had something to do with YouTube (and it did).  So after about half an hour of education and preparation, here’s the World Premiere of our first “Silent Movie” . . .

If you’re new to this, just click on the arrow in the middle of the screen!

One other thing that I learned – I was holding my phone the wrong way.  So you’ll have to tilt your head to the left to see the video as I intended.  You would think after a lifetime of watching television, I would remember that the screen is wider than it is tall.  But I didn’t.

Now my head is swimming – this opens up so many possibilities.  Step-by-step instructions . . . promos for classes or new products . . . convention fun . . . live-action clips of Zoe . . .

“Nice to Have Some New Blood” . . .

That was not my comment – Karen says that’s what she heard from several of the Make It/Take It crowd this morning after they participated in a “project trifecta” designed to introduce the masses to our new instructors Chris Mach, Corinne Jones, and Debbie Cosenza.

Even with all of our floor space, it takes some logistics to do three projects at the same time.  When I arrived, Chris was holding court in the classroom area . . .

Debbie was in the prep area behind the classroom . . .

And Corinne was next door in Marco’s Too!

Normally, the Wednesday morning activities are finished by about 11:00 – which was when Rose Banwart needed Marco’s Too to start setting up for her Artsy Book Club meeting that started at noon.  But today, things were still going strong . . .

So Chris gave up half of her space so Corinne could move her project into the classroom!  At the outer edge of the classroom, folks could take a look at a table full of the new Spellbinders dies.

 

Meanwhile, I was taking pictures of Rose’s next two Artsy Book Club projects.  I try to make up sheets for each project to display near the front door, with a description of the project and pictures from several angles to show how the book is made.  That book at left is called a “Doll Book”, and it left me with a dilemma . . .

Can you understand why I might have been just a little uncomfortable taking a picture to show the construction of this book?  I thought so . . .