More is More

Hey there!  Friday night and I’m just waiting for the Rocket Scientist to get home from a business trip, so I thought I’d sit down and try to get some of my CHA photos posted for y’all.  I really didn’t see the whole show.  I felt like I saw everything until I got home and started realizing all the booths I somehow missed.  It’s a big show…even though it’s smaller than the first couple of years I attended…it’s still a BIG show!

Trends – the first thing I noticed was cabbage roses…lots of them…fresh updated versions of them, but cabbage roses all the same.  Maybe I noticed them because my first home (a one bedroom condo I bought as a single 20-something) was decorated in cabbage roses and it takes me back!  In any case, I was thrilled to see them in several paper lines.  The second thing I noticed was cameos..in lots of forms and versions.  The overall thing I noticed – that made my heart happy – was a fresh version of vintage/shabby chic.  I am a shabby chic girl at heart even though my stamping hasn’t really reflected that in awhile…it’s something I’d like to get back to.  I don’t necessarily have photos of all those things, but that’s what struck me as we walked the show.

Ok –  I’ll try to keep the jabbering to a minimum and just show you some of the products I felt compelled to photograph. Click on any photo to see it larger.   Let’s start with paper collections.  Oh so many beautiful collections.  Here are just a few…

My ABSOLUTE FAVORITE of the show was Girls Paperie.  They have 3 new lines (I’m not crazy about the one with the orange in it, but I love the other two.)

Isn’t it all just positively YUMMY?  And here I am with the make & take I did at the booth.  This was one of the few times I actually stopped for a make & take and I did it just because I wanted a little sample of this paper.  It was a really cute project too and I wa so proud of myself that I didn’t ruin it before I got home.  LOL!

My second favorte collection was probably 5 & Dime by October Afternoon.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a really good photo of it…here’s their display wall.  (Can I just say that as a card maker it drives me a little nuts when the paper manufacturers show almost all scrap layouts?  Sorry, just had to get that out. ahhh I feel better.)

I was excited to learn that friend and fellow Dirty Dozen Alum, Julia Stainton, has a line coming out with Lily Bee called Picket Fence.  Here it is:

Super cute, huh?  I was so intrigued at how she was able to work purple in with the more traditional red/blue Summer colors.  Here are 2 more lines from Lily Bee that are also cute:

Crate had 2 collections I really liked – Emma’s Shoppe and Portrait.

We’ve all been loving everything Echo Park does and they have 3 new collections on the horizon.  I have photos of 2 of them.  For the Record is my favorite – love it.  Summer Days is fun too.

And here’s some pretty stuff from Sassafrass. Notice the roses?  🙂

People have asked me what was new and exciting at the show.  There didn’t seem to be any really big innovations, but there were a few small new things that everyone seemed very excited about.  First were Glubers by Cosmo Cricket.  When I first saw them I thought they were silly, but after hearing buzz about them we went back the next day and did the make & Take with them.  As soon as we tried them we were in love.  Essentially they are just HUGE flat glue dots – perfect for making all sorts of large flowers from ribbon, fabric and paper…like the ones in these photos:

That’s the hem of a dress. Pretty cool, huh?  These will be a ton of fun to play with!  We made flowers from just tron strips of fabric in the M&T.

The next product innovation that I was over the moon about was also the thing that seemed to have the MOST buzz of the show – Nestabling by Want 2 Scrap.  These are rhinestones and pearls in shapes to match lots of the Spellbinders Nestabilities.

Can’t wait to get my hands on a bunch of these babies!

We were also really excited about Viva Decor Pearl Pens.  Somehow I didn’t get a photo of the actual product, but I did get some of the projects in the booth. They are washable on fabric and they make beautiful very round pearls.

You’ll hear a lot more about these when Taylor gets them in at the TE Store.  In fact she’ll be carrying almost all of the products I’ve shown you.  Some things start shipping this month and some things might be as long as April.  Hopefully you’ve already seen the fun acrylic frames by Darcie’s in the TE Store.  I just had to snap some photos of the incredibly cute samples in the Darcie’s booth.

Cute, huh??

One more really interesting product was a line of stamps from Germany from a company called LaBlanche.  The stamps are made from silicone rather than photo polymer and they are attached to a dense foam block.  The images are very detailed and artistic.  Very intriguing!

I’m not sure what happened, but I got very few people pictures.  I was shocked when I downloaded my photos…I could have sworn I took more, but I must have just posed for other people’s cameras!  LOL!  Here’s one of Taylor, Linda (Taylor’s mom), and me at We R Memory Keepers (makers of Cinch, Corner Chomper, Crop-a-dile) where they gave us these cute hats.  Unfortunately my eyes are half closed, but it’s the only photo I got of the 3 of us and this is who I spent almost the entire time with.

Taylor and I ran into Debbie Olson when we were at the Lily Bee booth.  She had come to chck out Julia’s line also.  I managed to get a quick pic snapped.  At 5’9″ I’m not used to being the short one!

And here I am at dinner Saturday night with Taylor and some of my California stamping pals – Rachel, Jen, Lisa, and Leann.

Survived another CHA!  Sorry it took me so long to share the photos.  Tell me what your CHA favorite is – either from the photos above or from other photos you’ve seen.  What are you excited about?

The Rocket Scientist has landed and should be home any minute, so I’m going to run.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Hey!  I actually set aside some time to stamp yesterday.  I was so excited, I almost didn’t know where to begin so the first thing I did was look for some sketch challenges to get me focused.  The card I have to share with you tonight uses Karen’s Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge 103.  Next I got out a brand new stamp set that Curt got me for Christmas – Puppy Love from There She Goes.  Even though I hate clear stamps, I LOVE this stamp set!  It is too too CUTE! TSG has several sets I’ve had my eye on (darn that Jodi!) – I might just have to cave on some more.  😉   I stamped a bunch of images from Puppy Love first and then chose one for this 5″ square Valentine card.

Cardstock (Choice Snow White), paper (Echo Park Be Mine), ribbon, rose trim, black Kaiser Craft pearls, Spellbinders Label 10, Diamond Stickles (covering the copic colored heart), Copics, are all from Taylored Expressions.  Black cardstock and border punch are from SU. As soon as I saw Karen’s sketch I thought of the pack of doilies sitting on my stamp table. (The doilie is white.  Not sure why it looks ivory in the photo.)

Just a quick Valentine and the pure joy that is stamping.  🙂

I have a bunch of CHA photos half edited and I just haven’t had time to post them…story of my life.  Still I’m glad I gave myself a day to just have lunch with a friend and stamp.  It was my birthday gift to myself!  I have another card to share as well..maybe I’ll get it posted in a day or two.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for your patience!

It’s Day 3 of Sneak Peeks for the Taylored Expressions February Release.  This is the first chance I’ve had to play along since I was at CHA (Craft and Hobby Assn Trade Show) Saturday through Monday night.  I’m super excited to be involved with the Baker’s Dozen today as we introduce It’s a Banner Day 1 and the Banner Day 1 Die.  This concept came from Iwona Palamountain and she is playing along with us today as well.  I think you are going to LOVE this incredibly versatile stamp set and coordinating die.  The mini set includes 3 versions of the same banner shape along with 8 different sentiments sized perfectly to fit into the banners.  There are 2 styles of fonts, so these sentiment banners will work with practically any stamp sets you might want to pair them with.  To demonstrate the versatility, today the girls are using It’s a Banner Day1 with a whole bunch of different TE stamp sets.

My card combines It’s a Banner Day 1 with For the Love of Cupcakes.

My card is 5.25″ square.  Papers, cardstock, ribbon are all from the November Key Ingredients kit featuring Modern Homemaker by October Afternoon.  The main image was die cut with the TE Frame It Up 1 die and of course the Birthday Banner is from It’s a Banner Day 1.  Remember that everything being peeked this week will be availablle for purchase on friday morning at 8:00 am PST.

I can hardly wait to see what the team has cooked up with this fun must-have stamp set and die.  Let’s go check it out!

• Charmaine Ikach
• Danielle Lounds
• Donna Baker
• Jackie Pedro
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Karen Motz
• Melissa Sauls
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild

and our special guest Iwona Palamountain.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope to be able to share some CHA photos very soon. Tons of pretty stuff coming to the TE Store very soon!