I joined ICES for the convention and could not go this year but I will be in Chicago next year!!!!Wish there were CC tshirts that we could purchase to recognize each other there..
Bossy im right up the street from you in Deltona!!! If you need a convention buddy for next year let me know!!!
Is anyone a member of the ICES in Florida/central Florida?? Joined in May so still new to it....do not know if meetings are held or not etc...

Chicago- Yayyyyyyy!!!! I am so going to start planning now for next years, We can drive out and stay the whole weekend.

Where are you at in Michigan, doitallmom?

I called one of my coworkers that went to Chicago with me last month and she wants to go too! She doesn't bake, but we had a great time shopping on the magnificent mile, eating shrimp at Bubba Gump's at Navy Pier . . . I'm checking the ICES web site for dates. I'm going next year!

Yum...Bubba Gumps...love that place! I am just a two hour drive north in Wisconsin, so excited that next years convention is in Chicago!!

Holy crap!!!! Convention was amazing. It was my first time attending and I was blown away. I had a great time and spent wayyyyyyy toooooo much money, (bought over 200lbs of Fondex) but to be able to rub elbows with everyone from the Food Network was amazing. I was a bit star struck!! Had my picture taken with Nicholas Lodge and Mike McCarey in the same shot. They were all so nice.

I went to a lot of demos and had a lot of "duh" moments. There were some great simple ideas that the demonstrators used when they were working. And it was fun to see how everyone worked and some of the tricks and shortcuts they used.

I saw a lot of great ideas and my brain is on overload wanting to try everything, but one of the techniques that I found most fascinating was the gelatin molding. How beautiful!!!

I definitely want to go again!!

Were you staying with turtleshell parable?

I went from Thursday thru Sunday and had a great time. I did over a dozen demos and met some great people. Got to spend time with the Food Network stars they were great as always. I also bought way to much stuff - I love Caljava!! Their prices were amazing. I also entered a cake in the Sugar Display and was thrilled to see people taking pictures of my cake. I even got a chance to answer questions about my 3-d Bumblebee cookies on two of my tiers. I will try to resize my picture and post it if anyone is interested.

Mazz

Edna--
It was me, TCturtleshell, Monica0271, Ironbaker and SweetArt in a room.
Amazingly, there wasn't too much of a shower problem and I think we all had a good time.

turtleshell and I had a horrible time at DFW and she saw my truly bad side.

Mazz...I believe I was one of those that was taking pictures of your cake. So the bees were cookies?? I loved, loved, loved it. Took several pictures of it and have it downloaded.

Tonedna,

Yes, we met in Daytona at the Mini Classes when you registered. I also spoke to you when you picked up your display cake and complimented you on your wonderful cake.

Did you order the DVD of all the Display cakes? ( Well the ones he had consent for). I saw his preview and made sure I ordered one. He was also very gracious and asked me to bring my cake back over so he could do a detailed scan of my cake for the DVD. I can't wait to see it - along with all the others. I am sure when I watch it I will see cakes that I missed seeing even though I went thru the cake room several times.

Also, American Cake took individual pictures- who knows maybe we may get published.

OMG..yes...so you are Mazz..lol..you see I would have never known!
Im so lost i didnt even knew that they had a CD for the display cakes! But anyways...I took bunches of photos! So did Sam the photographer and Craig from american Cake Magazine..We can only hope they get there!
Edna

The DVD is really nice. He actually took his time and scanned the whole cake upclose so you could see every detail. On his display DVD he zoomed into one of the intricate cakes that had very small detailed figures on them and the close up was unreal. He said his intention is to let everyone see as much of the details as he could. I can't guarantee he spent that much time on every cake - but I know the ones on the demo were really cool.

Mazz...I sent you a pm.

How do we get the DVD's

Tonedna,

I will look at my receipt in the moring and pm you the info.

If you don't hear from me fell free to pm me.

Thanks Mazz

Ok...here is Mazz's bee cake. It's amazing Mazz....thanks for letting me post it!!

Oh I saw that one. Took several pics of it. It was so freakin' cute.

yeah!...it was so darn cute!

Oh wow. Those are cookies? How Cool! The butterflies were pretty amazing too. I took several pictures of this one myself.

Thank you Serenatea for posting my cake for me . I really appreciate it.
Also, Thank you for all the nice comments. It means alot.

Hi everyone!

Sharon, Edna, Jen, Denise, Jacque and many others have shamed me into finally coming out of lurkdom to add my comments about the ICES convention.

FIRST - Edna - it was so nice to meet you! I'm glad you came up to the room with Jen and hung around with us!

I went down on Wednesday and just got back late this afternoon. It was my first ICES convention, and I only took 6 demos (one was a 2 hour hands on class) so that I could have a chance to visit the vendors a lot, see the cakes, and volunteer. I took a cake (the "box" of Christmas ornaments) too! I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked, my camera wasn't on speaking terms with me at times.

The demonstrators and vendors were wonderful! I loved the fact that you could talk to vendors/demonstrators and get answers to your questions and even quickie demos - Nic Lodge took quite a bit of time to demo various methods of using the Patchwork Cutters to us. And that's just one example.

The FL show committee did a great job, and I had a chance to talk to a couple to get insight for next year.

YES - The Pheasant Run Resort is the site of "A Sweet Time in '09' ". St. Charles is approx. 45 miles west of Chicago - the Windy City is easily accessible via the Metra Train and there is a station in nearby Geneva.

There will be tours of Wilton Industries, The French Pastry School and 3 Chicago area bakeries - among many other events!

The website for 09 is www.ices09.org check it out!

IL has a wonderful state chapter of ICES. So does Indiana - in fact, the IN ICES is what got me interested in researching to see what IL had to offer! And now, IL has the honor of hosting next year's convention! I hope to see MANY of you there,

Rebecca, who lives just 28 miles from next year's convention site! Yippee.
aka Reba1

OMG Reba the pleasure was all mine!.. I miss the night of sharing!..My car broke down
I wanted to thank you all for being so sweet to me!
Edna