WOW – what a whirlwind of a day it was! It began with CHA’s first ever Innovations Media Event. I assisted Cool2Craft with broadcasting this event live over the internet (I’ll have links to the video coverage ready soon).
CHA selected 20 of the 100+ new products from behind the glass in the lobby showcase and brought them into one room, where resellers and the press could see each manufacturer give a 1-minute summary of their new product (and you thought the Schoolhouse presentations at Quilt Market were speedy!). Then we were able to walk around the room to visit each of the 20 manufacturers’ at their table to see the product in action. From a mobile picture scanner, to a scrapbooking iPhone app, to a machine that allows you to create your own custom acrylic stamps and templates…the “cool factor” on new gadgets and tools was high!
Beautiful textile ribbon, handy tote sewing templates and gorgeous new buttons were also featured for us fabric lovers. A panel of celebrities judged the innovations – and the winners were just announced on the CHA blog. We will have a complete list of the products featured at this event posted very soon on the Cool2Craft blog.
Christmas in July at the Graphic 45 booth
I spent a couple hours walking the show to marvel at the many amazing booth designs and do a little trend-spotting. For all you papercrafters, I must say I have never seen so many independent designers with their own lines of papers…and each one had their own creative ways to display paper as more than just a scrapbooking surface. I saw many great home décor and general craft applications for these pretty papers. I posted several pictures of new products and booth displays here in our Flickr gallery.
Beth Wheeler at CHA
Painting and surface design was everywhere too, I’m happy to report! One of our authors, Beth Wheeler, demonstrated dazzling fabric painting techniques using Crafter’s Workshop stencils. Talented artists and crafters throughout the show were demo-ing new paints, mediums, spritzes and sprays on every surface imaginable!
In the afternoon, I demo-ed Lesley Riley’s TAP® Transfer Artist Paper in the Petersen Arne booth – we had happy tappers everywhere customizing adorable canvas gift bags with images I had printed from an inkjet printer. You can see my sample from the demo in this earlier post!
Last night I attended Scrapbooks Etc.‘s launch party for a super cool program they’re introducing in January 2011, called Craft It Forward. They’ll be coordinating craft projects and encouraging people all over the world to make the project and then donate it to their favorite local charity, hospital, school, etc. It’s going to be a huge dose of good crafty karma going on!
Be sure to check out the pictures I took on Flickr, and I’ll be adding to that gallery all week….trying to bring you as many peeks into all the new stuff coming soon to a store near you!!
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One Comment
off to catch up with the links..love those graphic 45 papers but you wouldnt want to cut them up as they are so nice