Well, the time we spent at CHA 2016 was inspiring, and seeing all the new releases sparked our creativity and imaginations! And it’s not all fun and games….we do lots of work on our phones too. There were a few more booths that we enjoyed visiting. The Prima booth was beautiful as always: Spellbinders always has beautiful displays and staging. And you know how much we love walking into the rainbow of colour in the May Arts Ribbon booth! It was great to see Canada represent, too! Emerald Creek Craft Supplies had a booth and we stopped in to say hi to owner Kim Evans and Designer Nicole Wright. Emerald Creek manufactures metal charms and cling mounted rubber stamps. Nicole has a new stamp release that is wonderful! Yes, CHA 2016 was awesome! Our team loves spending time together, and California is always a nice destination with palm trees and…
Connie Nichol and I were really excited about our first morning at CHA, which started early with a breakfast and demo for the media in the Ranger booth. We spent 20 minutes with each of 4 designers….and the first one was Tim Holtz! At the demo tables, we learned all about the new releases for each designer’s line. Tim Holtz has a number of exciting new products. Everyone is excited about the Distress Crayons! Distress Crayons are formulated to achieve vibrant coloring effects on porous surfaces for mixed-media. The smooth water-reactive pigments are ideal for creating brilliant backgrounds, watercoloring, smudge effects and more. Colour directly onto your surface and blend with water then layer with Distress Inks or Stains for more creative possibilities. The crayons are available in 3 sets that coordinate with the Distress Palette. There are 3 new mediums that look amazing, and Tim demonstrated how to use each…
The FabScraps booth is always so beautiful because the paper collections have a dreamy and pretty shabby chic style. There are 3 new fabulous collections: Vintage Elegance, Beach Bliss and Kaleidoscope. As its name suggest, the Vintage Elegance collection is all soft florals, pinstripes, and patterns with muted colour tones, reminiscent of timeless, vintage wallpaper. Each collection has coordinated chipboard elements, metal charms and stickers. Beach Bliss has gorgeous beach and nautical theme patterned paper, with a subtle weathered wood background image. Ahoy there matey! Check out those big chipboard elements….the lighthouse and captain’s wheel! The youthfulness of the Kaleidoscope collection is derived from its energetic colours and geometric patterns. Cardmakers will be happy to hear about a new product addition called the ‘Carders Pack’ for each collection, which is an 8 x 8 package of 4 different paper designs, plus die cut…
Oh Tombow! How do we love thee? Let us count the ways! It was a party in the Tombow booth, lots of colour and LOTS of gorgeous products! Along with the popular brush lettering trend, Tombow Dual Brush Pens are blendable colours that are lovely for watercolour too. The rainbow of markers and pencils are so pretty! Demo tables were always busy, hosted by the happy smiling faces of Tombow representatives. Tombow products are perfect for all the adult colouring and artwork happening now. For coloured pencils, there are the Irojiten and the Recycled Color Pencils. The Irojiten coloured pencils also come in colour theme packs, with eraser and sharpener. The body is coated with a white overlay that makes long hours holding the pencils much easier and more comfortable. Remember Tombow has a whole range of adhesives too, for crafting, home and office, making your projects stick together with…
The Momenta booth is a happy place, with fresh packaging and pretty displays filled with paper, dies, stickers, stamps, stencils, and other paper crafting products. The Momenta stencils are all self-adhesive, which is awesome for those messy mixed media projects! There is also a line of stencils designed for fabric and similar applications, like t-shirts. Paper crafters will love the 3D gift box kits! Party and home decor items are also available. The packs of both card stock and patterned paper are wonderful! The Momenta line includes stickers…a HUGE assortment of stickers, which the ‘planner’ people will love too! There are 2 lines of paint: chalk and acrylic with every colour of the rainbow! The other side of the booth housed Art-C, a sister company of Momenta. Mixed media lovers will be in heaven! One of the most popular tools is the Groove Tool, a hand-held, battery operated device with…
Entering the Heartfelt Creations booth at CHA is like walking into a flower garden! The newest release is “Sugar Hollow” featuring the cutest little owl. As per other Heartfelt Creations collections, Sugar Hollow products include paper packs, stamps and die sets. The projects on display for Sugar Hollow were so sweet. There was a sneak peek of the new upcoming February release called Sunrise Lily. Stunning! There were so many gorgeous projects from various collections, including the current popular line “Coffee Talk.” The “All Glammed Up” collection looks fabulous on display. Every shelf in the booth was filled with stunning paper crafts created with both current and older collections. The 3D Flip Fold Album is perfect for the scrapbooker who loves mini albums with lots of pockets and interaction. For more information on products, click HERE to visit the Heartfelt Creations website and blog. …
When I walked into the Clearsnap booth at CHA, there was a special person there waiting to say Hi! Do you recognize that happy face and wave? Yes, it is Cathie Allan, sharing her stamping magic and love of inks in the Clearsnap show floor classroom. At the end of this post, you will find a video with Cathie ‘LIVE” doing a demo for us in the booth. There is good reason for Cathie Allan’s exuberance and energy…the Clearsnap products are awesome! There are 8 new pigment ink colours and new Cat’s eye Crafter’s Colorbox inks too. New Colorbox Chalk ink pads were on display as well. A new pigment inks Petal Point was released under the Teresa Collins name, called “Fierce.” Teresa Collins also has created a line of wood mounted stamps: There are beautiful new colours of Colorbox Premium dye ink in full size and minis by…
In the world of sticking stuff together, Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L has built a solid foundation of products you can trust. There are a number of exciting new releases in the Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L booth. The beloved E-Z Runner now has a BIG brother called the E-Z Runner Grand! That’s 150 feet of Permanent strips adhesive runner!! And it easily pops open for refillable cartridges. You will be thrilled to hear about 2 new adhesive runners: Ultra and Micro E-Z Runners. The Ultra is super strong high tack that has instant bond, perfect for adhering 3D projects like boxes. The micron is a really ‘skinny’ line of permanent strips, that will stick down tiny bits like letters and intricate paper cuts. The Donna Salazar line has expanded with a number of new “Girlie Grunge” releases, which mixed media artists and paper crafters are excited to see. There is new…
The Brother ScanNCut is still one of the most talked about electronic cutting machines in the industry. The excitement is about the NEW ScanNCut 2, which was released in the United States in the Fall and will be released in Canada in the next few months. Some of the new features of the ScanNCut 2 include: a 300 DPI scanner has RGB recognition so you can create your own cut files 12″ x 24″ scanning a wireless network ready to transfer files online Stand-Alone machine library of over 1000 cut files plus 15 built in fonts SVG data and PES data readability (for embroidery) German Carbide blade The demo table was always busy, and even I tried out a little hand lettering, scanning and cutting! The popularity of the ScanNCut has risen because of its ability to cut a huge variety of materials, such as fabric, vinyl, thicker cardboard, plastic,…
Walking into the Sizzix booth, my heart pounds with excitement…the displays always impress! Although Sizzix is branching out into the fabric industry, the focus is paper crafting. Along with embossing folders, Sizzix is probably most well-known for dies and die cutting. The Tim Holtz “Alterations” line is still very popular. There is a new Vagabond 2, the electronic version of a Big Shot. Accompanying the Vagabond 2 are new tools and products, even storage cases for embossing folders and dies. The Big Shot has a new friend! A storage caddy! It fits on the side and attaches to the Big Shot. We all like to stay organized and this caddy will surely help! Sizzix has also released patterned paper pads that fit perfectly through the Big Shot and Vagabond without cutting down to size. Cutting pads are now in 4 different colours…so you can’t lose them on your studio desk…
