Creativation 2017, Part 2: Love That Paper!

As a scrapbooker, I love to see all of the new paper lines at the big Creativation show. While there may not be quite as many paper companies as there once were, scrapbooking was still a big presence at the show. Here's a look at the ones that I really liked -- can't wait to get my hands on these!

Creativation 2017, Part 1: Hot New Stamps

I am back from a wonderful trip to Creativation 2017! Creativation is the huge trade show just for the craft and hobby industry and it is amazing. It's where craft companies debut their new products for the year. If you are a love of all things crafty like I am, it's like walking through heaven (well, at least until your feet start hurting...)!

I saw so many awesome new products that there is no way I can cover them all, so I have chosen the products that I thought were the best - the most innovative, different, and coolest things I could find!

For part 1 of my show recap, I am focusing on stamps and stamp and die sets. I'll bet you will see something you like!

CHA Mega Show 2016 Recap #3 - New and Noteworthy

Welcome back to my recap of the 2016 CHA Mega Show! Ihere's a look at new and noteworthy crafting products that I fell in love with. 

First up is ARC Crafts! They have specialty paper, envelopes, labels (that you can run through a computer printer), adhesive backed sheets and more... all made of wood!

Next is 28 Lilac Lane, a new button collection from Buttons Galore, designed by May Flaum!

Don't you just love the bottle that these buttons come in?

How about your own stamp maker? Here's the new Mint custom stamp maker from Silhouette! This cool new machine lets you turn any font or any design (in the Silhouette Mint store) into your own stamp. Learn more about it here!

Do you know how hard it is to find my name spelled correctly on anything?

Now my vote for "Cutest Product at CHA... or Maybe EVER" goes to Little B's new"Wooderful Life"! With these adorable pieces, you can make your own music boxes, displays, and more. These pieces are not available yet; let's keep our fingers crossed that they will be soon!

Beacon Adhesives, one of my favorite adhesive companies, has a new concrete product out that really got my creative juices flowing -- Maker's Mix! It is a quick-setting concrete mix that you can use to make all sorts of cool projects like vases, bowls, beads, and more. The line even includes pigment powders that you can add to the mix to make custom colors.

Now while Creative Options is not new (they are my absolute go-to travel products when I go to a scrapbook crop), they have some beautiful new patterns on their cloth storage products and new colors of plastic storage (designed to match the cloth patterns)! Forget craft storage -- I just want to carry some of these bags as my everyday purse.

Isn't this gorgeous? LOVE the colors!

My last "new and noteworthy" find was Photo Play Paper. This new company has some of the cutest new collections of paper, stickers, and diecuts on the market. My favorite is "This Guy"; it really stands out as a fun, masculine option for pages and cards! And full disclosure time: I was honored to be asked to make some cards and pages for this booth!

The card on the far left and the one in the front middle are mine, made with the "This Guy" collection.

"Party Boy" and "Party Girl" are two new collections. And my card is the yellow one on the second row!

More "Party Boy" goodies. Hey - who are those cute people in the pages on the left and right? 

CHA Mega Show 2016 Recap #2 - Adorable Stamps You Need

One of the many fun things about attending the CHA Mega Show is finding small craft companies with super adorable products. It's easy to get caught up in the big booths of the heavy hitters, but I have learned you have to take time to check out the little booths. And at this year's show, I found two small stamp companies that made a big impact on me: Pink and Main and Joy Clair!

First up, we have Pink and Main:

CHA Mega Show 2016 Recap #1 - Hot Products

Greetings, y'all! I am back from yet another awesome CHA Mega Show in Anaheim, CA with lots of photos and goodies to share. Today, I will kick it off with pics from the Hot Products Sneak Peek event.

Each year, manufacturers submit their new retail products to be considered for a Hot Product award in eight categories (bead and jewelry, cake and food decorating, fabric and needle crafts, floral crafts, general crafts, kids crafts, paint and art, and paper crafts). A panel of industry buyers, bloggers, editors, and craft celebrities then judge the submissions and select category finalists on three criteria: what makes the product unique, how the product will improve the crafter's experience, and the interest and excitement the product generates outside the crafting community.

At the Sneak Peek show, I wasn't able to get photos of all of the finalists. And I wasn't a judge, but as a seasoned crafter, here are my choices for Hot Product!

"See You at CHA" Blog Hop -- CHA Product Sneak Peek!

I am so excited to be a part of the "See You at CHA" blog hop! Every day this week, Craft and Hobby Association members of all types (manufacturers, buyers, and designers) will be sharing posts that are all about the CHA Mega Show. Don't worry if you aren't attending the show -- this blog hop will be showing you new product sneak peeks, tutorials and project ideas, behind the scenes of the show, and more!

And no blog hop is complete without a giveaway -- we are giving away a $600+ Visa gift card! Wouldn't that be an awesome early Christmas gift? At the end of this post, I will tell you how you can enter to win.

Today, I am giving y'all the scoop on a new product from Deflecto that will be prominently featured at the CHA Mega Show: the 3 tier dessert stand!

CHA 2014 Recap -- New Mod Podge Products!

One of my favorite booths as CHA every year is the Plaid booth. They always have such fun products, especially in their Mod Podge line. Last year, they debuted their Mod Melts (which are AWESOME!), but this year, they really outdid themselves. 

The new milk glass Mod Melts

 This year, they introduced Mod Melts in a harder material with a milk glass finish (see photo above) and a Mod Melts melter (made especially for your Mod Melts -- no more using a glue gun). But by far, their hottest product was the new Collage Clay! This stuff is A-MAY-ZING! It comes in what looks like a cake decorating bag complete with a rosette-type tip. Just squeeze the bag and out comes this fun, puffy material that even looks like cake icing but it's a clay!

I covered the top of this little acrylic heart box with the Collage Clay in the pink color called "Strawberry".  I then added some bling and a cupcake Mod Melt that I painted with acrylic paint. It's so easy -- just lightly press your embellishments into the Collage Clay. 

Can you imagine the fun projects you can make with this? I would love to do a cell phone cover (which only takes about one-third of a bag of Collage Clay)!

The clay does take quite a while to cure so this is not a product that you can use when you need something finished right away. When it dries, it's not a completely hard; it still retains a slightly "squishy" feel to it, but it still holds tight to any embellishment you may have added to it.

I am fired up to see this product in stores! It will be a fun new item in my crafting arsenal!

Side Note: Thanks to watching my mom decorate cakes for 20 years, I actually did a really good job on the piping, but if you are new to using a piping bag and tip, you may have to practice the "kiss and release" method a few times to get rosettes like these.

Me with the super-talented DIY gurus Steve Piacenza and Cathie Filian!

And me with Glossy!

CHA Round-Up: We R Memory Keepers

One of my favorite companies is We R Memory Keepers. I love their paper products and their tools are phenomenal. They have come up with some of the best tools on the market, including the Crop-a-Dile, the Envelope Punch Board, the Lucky 8 punches, and more. With all that in mind, I had to go to their booth at CHA2014 to see what sort of new fun things they have this year!

New wood die cuts -- the pictures don't do these justice. They are beautiful and you have to feel them to really know they are wood!

New "Jet Set" collection - we travel a lot so I really like this one!

New "Game Day" collection

Love the beautiful colors in the "Indian Summer" collection!

This year, We R Memory Keepers is also introducing new album and page kits. I love album kits, especially for gifts, so these made me happy.

Another new papercrafting item this year are the perpetual calendar kits (made to use with the Cinch binding machine).

Do you love your washi tape? We R has a new storage solution. They debuted the washi tape carousel last year, but this year they debuted the spindle so that you can connect two carousels!

New Sew Easy templates

LOVE the new bags!

With the success of the Envelope Punch Board, We R is now coming out with the Flower Board, the Gift Bag and Gift Box Boards, the Candy Box Board, and the Pillow Box Board.

And for you "pocket scrapbookers" out there, the coolest thing was the new storage system for journaling cards and sheet protectors.

It was great to see so many new products -- there were many more items that I didn't get pictures of! I can't wait to get my hands on some of these goodies!

My Favorite New Paper Collection at CHA and a Giveaway

I just returned from the Craft and Hobby Association's Mega Show in Anaheim, CA and it was phenomenal! I spent 4 whole days learning new crafting techniques and taking in all of the new products. And it was my last day of the show brought the paper collection that absolutely I fell in love with.

It's called "The Sweet Life" and it's available from Melissa Frances. The designers of this collection are Jenny Heid & Aaron Nieradka and they are the people behind the blog Everyday is a Holiday.

The collection is full of cakes, vintage signage, bunny rabbits, cupcakes, and polka dots, all in beautiful pastels. But the most amazing part of this collection is that everything was drawn and painted by hand (while most papers and embellishments are designed by computer) so that it all has a hand-made feel to it.

What's even more awesome is how cool and humble Jenny and Aaron were. You could tell that they were genuinely excited about their new products and their book, Mixed Media Masterpieces with Jenny and Aaron. Another cool thing? Jenny's adorably pink hair that matched their products perfectly. ;)

I have been poring over their book for days, just loving the projects and getting inspired. It's chock-full of art journaling ideas and great projects; I especially love the mini donuts made out of air-dry clay -- they look so real! All of the projects in the book have detailed step-by-step instructions that are really easy to understand and follow.

The book is available at most book retailers (including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc.) and their paper crafting collection will be available soon.

But I love this book so much that I want to share it with y'all -- so I am giving away a copy!

Just enter here through Rafflecopter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway