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| CHA Trade Show 2015, Anaheim, CA |
I'm just back from the Craft & Hobby Association's annual trade show, often referred to as "CHA". It's a "to the trade" convention where manufacturers in all types of crafting introduce new products.
I first started attending with my local scrapbook store. All of us teachers/design team members would scope out cool new stuff and let our owner know what products we wanted to see in the store to teach with and help promote.
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| The first CHA show I attended in 2007 (with my sister Cathi) |
These days, my role at the show has changed. Now, I work the show for one of the coolest companies in the industry --Pink Paislee (part of the American Crafts family of companies). Their new releases this year are absolutely adorable! Being in their booth I get to meet and chat with lots of interesting people in the industry from all around the world, while introducing them to the yummy products.
So what's new from Pink Paislee? Two new lines debuted, the first of which is a travel line appropriately named Atlas.
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| The new Atlas line by Pink Paislee |
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| A few samples using Atlas |
The second of the new lines is called "Citrus Bliss" and it's just adorable too. One thing I'm loving in both the new lines is that they both feature an acetate overlay sheet and a vellum sheet as part of the collections. For Atlas, the overlay is a gold world map on a faint grid and the vellum is silver airplanes. For the Citrus Bliss collection, the overlay is little pink flamingos and the vellum is gold pineapples. So stinkin' cute!
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| I love the lemon-lime pallette and the trendy accents! |
On the last day of the show, I walked the rest of the booths and got to see what's up and coming. Here are some of the things that caught my eye.
1. SHINE (especially
gold)
So, in case you haven't heard yet, foil is THEE thing! I feel like I saw it everywhere (along with other forms of shiny, glittering goodness). And of all the foil by far the most exciting release to me was the new MINC machine from Heidi Swapp. It allows you to easily add colorful foil to your projects in so many different ways. The machine reacts with laser toner so you can create custom items on your own laser printer, OR you can use any of the pre-printed papers and embellishments available. Heidi's media team even showed me how you can use the "negative" from one foil to add multiple layers of foil to another. It is so cool!
Here is more foil that I and/or gold and/or sparkly stuff I spotted around the show floor.
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| Gold hearts from Maggie Holmes |
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| Gold handwritten words by Amy Tangerine |
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| Gold state shapes by Crate Paper |
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| Crate Paper |
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| Gold diecut in the Spellbinders booth |
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| More gold from Spellbinders |
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| Gold in Teresa Collins booth |
2. PARTY
I noticed some fun PARTY and CELEBRATION themes in a few of the booths.
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| A cheery new line by Alison Kreft for Websters Pages |
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| Cele'brations by Richard Garay for Spellbinders |
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| Dear Lizzy's Fine & Dandy for American Crafts |
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| Confetti by Maggie Holmes for American Crafts |
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| More from Maggie Holmes |
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| A close-up of the vintage typewriter |
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| More Maggie Holmes |
3. HOME DECOR and DIY
It makes me happy to see papercrafts coming up off the page. Scrapbooking papers and embellishments are just so beautiful to limit them to only being inside of books. More and more of the booth samples seemed to be about home accents.
I just love this wall by Jen Hadfield. I want to live here:
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| Cottage Living is new from Jen Hadfield for Pebbles |
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| More Jen Hadfield cuteness |
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| Loving the clipboard display in the Pebbles booth |
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| Some cool shadow box frames in the Spellbinders booth |
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| Hazel & Ruby Masks |
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| A close up of the Hazel & Ruby masks to give you an idea of the size |
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| French General by Sizzix is really cute |
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| More French General (Sizzix) |
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| We R Memory Keepers "Template Studio" for DIY party decor |
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| These look like so much fun! |
4. NATIVE AMERICAN
I noticed feathers are still around and now I've also seen native looking patterns and shapes like tee-pees too. For lack of a better description I'll call this "Native American" influence. I noticed it in a few places. Of course we've seen it in clothing for some time.
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| Tee-pees on the new Crate Paper "Journey" line |
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| More tee pees (Crate Paper) |
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| Feathers at Simple Stories |
5. POCKET PAGE Scrapbooking
Project Life is still going strong and there are more and more options out there for creating beautiful pages. One of the new tools on the market that I'm really excited about is the Fuse by We R MemoryKeepers. It lets you make your own custom pockets! (Click the link below the photo to watch a quick demo video.)
Well, that's all for now. But I've got more coming, so stay tuned!
To be continued...
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