I flew into Salt Lake City on Wednesday, got settled in my room and then set off to find my first swap that I had signed up for--Punch Art. Having never been to SLC, I wasn't sure about how far I'd have to walk--the word I'd gotten was that the blocks were longer than "normal," and I knew that my hotel was a ways away from the convention center.....but the walk wasn't bad--about 10 - 15 minutes. If you've never been to SLC--it's nestled in the mountains--here's a view from my hotel window.
Thursday I woke up and worked on my swaps for a few hours and then headed out to explore the convention center area. My hotel had given me a map that had all the restaurants on it so I was in search of The Cheesecake Factory. =-) The buses were loading and unloading demonstrators that were heading out to Riverton to tour the SU facilities--I didn't get signed up. I walked around the convention center which really was only open in the main lobby at that time then headed over to the Cheesecake Factory.
As I was sitting in at my table, reading my convention booklet, some women invited me to join them. This would turn out to be one of the highlights of my convention! Robin, Jane (Robin's mom), and Carol ended up "adopting" me into their group --graciously allowing me to hang out with them, eat with them, and sit with them all during convention!! What a blessing--and their hotel was just across the street from mine so I no longer had to worry about walking on my own after dark! Here they are---my friends from Ohio--
That's Carol, Jane and Robin from front to back! Thank you ladies, once again--you are the best!
I can't begin to tell you what it was like to be in this large room with almost 6,000 demonstrators...crazy, crowded, and noisy are just a few words that describe it. Here's a view from the back of the main stage--not sure if you can tell, but the stage was in the center and on either side were huge screens so all could see what was on the stage--you can also see the smaller screens for those in the back--this made it possible to sit just about anywhere in the room and still feel like you had a good seat!
Here are my two punch art card fronts that I took on Wednesday evening to my Punch Art Swap organized by Tammy Borrello. What a fun kick off to convention---the ladies in this were so excited (as was I) to be there. A group from Canada was in this swap and it was so funny because as I was walking back to the hotel their van drove by and one gal rolled down the window and hollered at me, "Hi lady with the ribbon owl card!" Ha!
Swap card #1 uses the set Animal Talk, a punch art puppy, and the heart framelits. I really like how it turned out. The puppy is not my own design, just a combination of a couple of dogs that I had seen as I was looking for punch art ideas.
Swap card #2 was inspired by a swap card that I took a picture of at the St. Louis Regionals--a punch art owl decorated with ribbon scraps. My sample has retired ribbon on it, but I could only use current on my cards that I swapped--which meant I was dyeing some of my ribbon to get different colors! =-)
Not a great picture, but I'm tired and I think I've blah, blah, blahed (is that a word?) enough so I'll be back tomorrow with more! =-)
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