Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong

CHA Report

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to CHA at the Anaheim Convention Center. This is the bi-annual BIG, HUGE craft and hobby show trade show that's the big rollout for all the big scrapbooking (and all crafts) new products. I spent the day with two of my dear friends Paula and Melissa and we had a great time. We got down to Anaheim at 9AM right when it all started. Our first stop was to see our friend Crystle and her company Magistical Memories. This was Crystle's first CHA and apparently her company was quite the buzz. She creates and manufactures chipboard embellishments that are truly fun and fantastic. Here's Paula and Crystle at the booth.


After visiting with her and Bucket (who designed this great new line of chipboards for her), we wandered through the "new" products section a little bit and then headed upstairs to all the other manufacturers.

I don't even know where to begin to describe all that I saw. There are literally thousands of companies there showing off their new, latest and greatest products. Papers, embellishments, ribbons, adhesives, paints, and every other possible thing that you could imagine. There are so many scrapbooking manufacturers that I just love it's hard to pick my favorites but I'll try to show a few of my highlights.

One of the first stop was KI Memories. This has always been one of my favorite product lines and the new stuff does not disappoint. Beautiful papers and great embellies. They're just starting with acrylic stamps which seemed to be quite the trend at the show this year. Can't wait to get my hands on some of these.


Right next to KI was Elsie Flanagan and her brand new product line called "Love, Elsie". So stinking cute. I had seen Elsie before at CKU last year and was underwhelmed but she was SO nice yesterday. She's really young but it was nice to chat with her for a few minutes. She's uber creative.



Next stop that made me drool was a company that I hadn't heard of before called Gel-A-Tins. Cute little acrylic stamps in a metal tin for storage. But look at what they're coming out with!! NHL STAMPS! It simply does not get better than this for me. Scrapbooking and hockey - all is right with the world.



We wandered over to Junkitz which is one of my very favorite lines as well. We saw Teresa Collins who I've taken about 10 classes from. Love her and love her style. I did the Junkitz track last year at CKU Albums and did an entire album in the weekend, all from Junkitz products. It's one of the best things I've ever created. I'm a true Junkitz junkie.


Went to the Heidi Swapp booth and I was hoping to meet her. I'm taking her year long class at Big Picture Scrapbooking and I would've liked to meet her and tell her I'm in the class but she wasn't there. I even brought my exclusive class book for her to sign. Oh well. They did have some delicious, fresh warm chocolate chip cookies. And some more awesome products that are coming out soon.


I went to the Sweetwater booth and their new stuff is so fabulous too. I get their monthly kit and I just love it. Their papers and embellies are a little bit different and I rarely see their products in the stores (at least by me) so it makes their kits that much more special. How cute is this candle? Simple yes, but the papers are so cute that it makes it really fun.


And very cute card ideas as well.


The highlight of the day for me was being able to meet, officially, Karen Burniston. I took a class from her at CKU in 2005 but obviously she didn't remember me from that. We've been email friends for almost a year thanks to the common bond of "American Idol". She's one of the funniest, smartest people I've ever met and hey, she must think I'm ok too since she trusted me and gave me her cell phone number. When I called her, she picked up the phone and said "Hi Juls". We finally hooked up and had a nice visit. Now, she'll be able to place the face with the emails. That made my day.


Wandered around some more. Here are the new Autumn Leaves dreamy, droolworthy acrylic stamps. I did tell you that there was a theme here. These are pretty much my favorite stamps these days (okay, the NHL stamps jumped way high up) and I'll be all over these when they come out.


We did a few make and takes from some terrific companies. My two favorites were a chipboard book from Imagination Project and flowered storage box from Marvy Uchida. I would've loved to spend one more day to wander more. I hit most of my favorite lines. Realized afterwards that I missed a few but I would've liked more time to see some of the smaller lines that I just walked past in my attempt to get through it all in the one day. (Hey, this show took over the *entire* Anaheim Convention Center.) I would've also liked to peruse some of the regular craft and needlepoint stuff. Overall, it was an incredible experience. I bow down to Ginger for giving us the opportunity to represent her company, Down to Details. My head is still spinning. Just wait until I start to order some of these awesome goodies. My checkbook will be spinning as well.

Stay tuned, Super Bowl photo updates from G to come.

Labels: acrylic stamps, CHA, Karen Burniston, NHL

posted by Juls @ 1:37 AM