It has been a hectic couple of weeks.  I collected some photos during the Springfield, Massachusetts show last weekend, but one thing led to another and I didn’t take time to post them before leaving for this weekend’s show in Collinsville, Illinois.  Now I have Collinsville photos – and a show in Orlando next weekend (as I said, one thing leads to another).  So I had better share some of these before my cell phone explodes.

Springfield is one of the biggest shows of the year, and it’s always fun to stand at the end of an aisle and watch the crowd wash upstream in the seconds after the show opens.  So allow me a little “time lapse photography” . . .

10:00:10 a.m.

10:00:30 a.m.

Inside our booth at 10:01 a.m. (we LOVE New England!)

This was also the first appearance in our booth for “Tweety Jill” Haglund.  If you haven’t seen her collection of stamps, card kits, collage kits, and more – you should.  She’ll be with us next weekend (June 19-20) in Kissimmee, Florida at the Ramada Celebration Resort (a week earlier than most years, in a new location with guaranteed functioning air conditioning!)

I had two lasting images from the weekend.  This was one – those are serious backpackers . . .

And this is the other.  Michelle and Steve from Toomuchfun Rubber Stamps have a new daughter, Alana.  Several of the vendors’ kids enjoyed spending time with her over the weekend, but none like Jesse, son of Deb and Sam from Stamp On It.  Jesse spent all weekend in a chair next to Alana, making sure she had company when Steve was running a cash register.

The Collinsville show brought lasting images of its own . . .

Sue Rothamel from USArtQuest is not sitting in a box during setup, but it sure looked like it at first glance.

Norm Weed from Polly’s Pals was offering “train rides” for the munchkins before the show opened . . .

And Sue got a bit of a slap to the ego when a couple of visitors to her demo said they had never heard of USArtQuest.  I couldn’t resist – whipped out my cell phone and asked that everyone who had never heard of USArtQuest before Saturday raise their hands . . .

But they soon were educated – this lady bought one of Sue’s books and immediately sat down to read it.

Of course, not everyone has as much fun as we do . . .

Stop back tomorrow, when I’ll show you a view from our convention giveaways that many of you have seen, but I had never experienced . . .