Hi there, Connie Nichol here freshly back from Creativation.  Creativation, formerly known as the CHA or the Craft and Hobby Association show,  is a mega conference and trade show highlighting the craft industry.   Vendors associated with paper crafts, art materials, paint, jewelry and bead supplies, needlecrafts, sewing and many other creative hobbies come together to show their products,  especially anything new for 2018.    This year, it was once again held in the Phoenix Convention Center.   The building is bursting with colour and creativity and inspiration is around every corner.  Here is a quick photo journey of some of the exciting new products, projects or booths of some of the companies that I visited on the show floor.

The Simple Stories booth is always a super fun and colourful place to visit.  They have a number of new paper lines  that will be launched next month and later this spring.  I loved them all but the one that really caught my eye was called Plaid Dad.  Very masculine with a lumberjack kind of feel.   It’s going to be absolutely perfect for Father’s Day.
One of the highlights of the show was the Kelly Creates booth at American Crafts, featuring our favourite superstar Kelly Klapstein.  Kelly has a wonderful new line of stamps, brush and fine liner pens, workbooks and practice journals – everything you need to make brush lettering easy.
The Ranger booth always knocks my socks off.  So much colour and fun new product!  Tim Holtz, Dyan Reavely, Dina Wakely, Wendy Vecchi and others run demos on different corners of the booth and there are always huge crowds around them.  Among other things, there are 12 new colours of distress oxide inks, Tim Holtz distress resist spray and blending brushes, Dylusions Dyalog books, washi tape and shimmer sprays and new Dina Wakely collage sheets, stamps and stencils.  There is also brand new Gel Printing Plates.  SO fun!

Echo Park Paper displayed so many wonderful new paper lines.  Some of my favourites include Tartan, Spring Market and Alice in Wonderland but there were also the ‘Wish upon a Star’ collection that will be so perfect for scrapbooking Disney photos, and Good Day Sunshine and Summer Splash, beautiful new lines for summer.  Keep your eyes peeled on your local scrapbook store for these new releases.
One of my favourite adhesive companies is Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L.  They had a big beautiful booth full of their different adhesive products and inspirational paper crafting projects.  Check out this little paper house – the roof is made from Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L photo corners!  Some of the new products include round 3D foam circles in white and black and an EZ Runner Grand permanent dots refill that you can drop into your Grand dispenser.

A stamp company that always brings a smile to my face is Art Impressions.  Their booth was full of all sorts of unique stamps and dies to make some really fun cards.  I especially love the interactive cards that wobble, fold, jiggle and fly!  Check out this adorable pig and fairy flutter card.  Art Impressions also has some beautiful new watercolor stamp sets to create elegant and artistic cards.Multicraft, an importing and distribution company who makes creativity affordable, had a big booth with a huge variety of different crafting supplies displayed in it.  They provide craft supplies for paper crafting, kids crafts, jewelry making and home decor.     Beautiful products at a very reasonable price.
Thanks for stopping by the blog.  I’ll be back tomorrow with some more photographs from the show floor.

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