Day 3 of Summer CHA

So many pretty things coming this season.  Where to begin...  how about the hot trends?  OK, hot trends it is. 

Flowers, not just ready made flowers (which were in abundance and we ordered some wonderful assortments), but handmade flowers from paper, tulle, ribbon.  Flowers made by twirling paper, folding ribbon, die cutting paper and/or fabric, punched and assembled  3D flowers.  Flowers were everywhere. 

And die cut paper.  Now I know die cut paper has been growing and available before, but they are all over the place now.  Hardly any collection of paper did not offer a coordinating die cut paper of some sort and in new sizes! 

There were lots of collections of Christmas papers in very non-tradional colors.  We did pick out a couple of these, but I am guessing most of our folks want the traditional Christmas-y greens and reds and before we went to CHA, I was beginning to be afraid we wouldn't find much traditional Christmas.  But never fear, if traditional is your thing---we found it!! 

The next biggest trend we saw in lots of the layouts at the show was the use of ribbon, fabric trims and buttons.  Pretty pleated ribbons, antique looking crocheted trims, cut velvet, and satin cording.  Antique looking buttons in browns and metals and mother of pearl (or that looks like it anyway).  um, um, um yummy stuff. 

I just can't wait to show off all of our finds.  Arrivals will be staggered, so we can begin seeing things in the next two weeks and they will be arriving all through August, September and October.  

But you are probably waiting to see more photos of the samples we saw, huh?  All right, here you go. 

Tim Holtz stuff, always great and always presented so stylishly. 

Today was the last day of Summer CHA and even though I am always excited to go and see the new product offerings and try to anayze what our customers will be looking for (I know, I know.. getting a little thrill out of guessing what everyone will want is kind of a weird thing that I get all happy about doing), I am so very happy that it is over.  Although not really, because there are extended show date specials that require a bit more work to put the orders together and I will be working those items up tomorrow and over this coming weekend.  (What an exciting life I lead, huh?) 

But now, a few more fantastic layouts we saw at the show. 

These are from Fancy Pants. 

  

CHA Day #2

More of my favorite Basic Grey...

And now... yet more sleep is required I am afraid.  We have one more day, lots to follow up on (and I have yet to be able to do a make and take!)

CHA Show Day #2

I could give you the rundown on all the stuff we ran around doing today at the show... but let's just cut to the photos! 

A couple of from Basic Grey...

A beautiful Christmas layout from Bo Bunny...

And yes the ever lovely Prima...

CHA Day #1, continued

A few more photos from Bella Blvd. then I gotta get some sleep, have to meet up at the store at 6:45 a.m. for the ride down to the show. 

Nightie, night. 

CHA Show Day #1

So the show floor opened today!  First we raced to Sizzix to acquire a Tim Holtz texture fade gift!  Then it was off to Bo Bunny to pick up the gift we received for our order at Craft Mania this past weekend.  Next we started making the rounds of the booths we had previously marked on our show schedule.  We are on the hunt for not only papers and stickers... but antique-y look buttons and pleated ribbons, vintage look lace, bling, layered flowers and poinsettias.  But I think we have been super organized and we really do have most of the "must have" items done!  I am even hopeful I might get to actually sneak in a make and take or two!!   Super excited about that, since we hardly ever have time to do the make and takes ourselves--we generally send out a few of the girls to do them and report back.

Anyway I thought you might want to see a couple more photos from the show.  I did not get the best shots at the Basic Grey booth so I will go back tomorrow to (hopefully) take some better photos.   In the meantime, enjoy these layouts from Bella Blvd! 

Stephanie has done it again!  I especially loved One Fall Day, Midterm and Hello Beautiful. 

More in a bit! 

CHA Preview Parties

Gotta be quick this morning as I have to get ready and get out the door again to head to Chicago for the first day of CHA!  Although we have already completed about half of the orders we need to place thanks to the Craft Mania blitz Sat and Sun and the preview parties last night. 

Yesterday we took care of orders from Creative Imaginations (Harry Potter is coming folks), Glitz (vintage funky!), SEI (Christmas), and Moxxie (reorders, Christmas, Wizardry, and some adorbale 6x6 die cuts). 

Below, just a little teaser from Glitz. 

Making your own flowers of all shapes, sizes and made out of paper, fabric, tulle, and even metal are hot this season! So look for a class from us on how to make your own!  After that, I see vintage ribbons all over the place. So we will be hunting these down for you.

Our first stop this morning will have to be at Basic Grey though! And then on to Karen Foster and Hero Arts....  Prima, Maya Road,  and, and, and....

Crafter's Home Craft Mania at CHA

Sorry, no photos on this one...I forgot my camera...and my phone... That's what getting up at 4:30 a.m. does I guess.  I promise I will take my camera the remaining days and get some sneaky peeks posted.  We are driving to and from Chicago every day to attend the various activities that accompany CHA (Craft and Hobby Association's buying extravaganza for retailers).  

Days 1 and 2:  Our first couple of days at CHA were spent in an absolutly freezing room (can you say air conditioning on steroids) having 20 minute presentations from Crafter's Home affiliated vendors on their newest products, paper lines, tools, and toys!  Attending this allows us to get some of our orders placed with some of our favorite companies before we even hit the show floor.  This is huge to us and saves soooo much time.  There are several companies that we place large staggered release orders that take a bit of time to compile and keep organized (so we know what is coming... when it is coming) like Sizzix and Ranger for all you Tim Holtz fans.  I have some homework to do before the actual order(s) can go in.  But oh my goodness, there are just some awesome things coming (check out Tim Holt's blog for some sneak peaks on his newest offerings!  The link is on my sidebar.) 

So far we have seen and ordered from Moxxie, Echo Park, The Girls Paperie, Little Yellow Bicycle, The Paper Company, Kaiser, McGill, Reminisce, We R Memory Keepers, KI, and Bo Bunny, with several more orders started, but want to see and touch some samples before deciding on quantities. 

Tomight is private preview party night.  We will be attending Moxxie's party, Creative Imaginations, SEI, and (ok, brain freeze here-I cannot for the life of me remember who else we are seeing tonight... good thing the invites are tucked safely in my CHA File folder in the car!) 

So, stay tuned for some photos of the show.... I'll try to post a few every night. 

Later! 

Butterflies and Dragonflies

It seems my blogging went by the wayside right after the May Scrapathon...  I would sit and think of what I wanted to blog about but had no photographs of anything that wasn't created for a class or store make and take. I just have this thing that I need to have a photo of something to post. So I stepped out onto the porch this morning and snapped a quick picture of a card I made for a swap I am participating in.  I actually made the card and sent it off already, but I almost always make a second item for myself when I am swapping.

So here you go.  I punched a border and added a torn strip of an older Basic Grey paper, tore a couple of pieces of dotted Magic Mesh  (remember that stuff?), lightly painted the edges with white acryclic paint, punched two butterflies using the Martha Stewart Monarch Butterfly punch.  Layered these with a journaling tag from Pink Paislee and added two silvery dragonfly brads and several light green pearls.  Ta da.  Maybe I'm back.