New finds at the Winter CHA show

Last week we attended the Craft and Hobby Association Winter trade show in Anaheim. Gloria and I scoured the show floor to find all of the latest and greatest products to be released in the next few months. What were the trends that we saw? Clear Stamps, Mini Books, Paper and more Paper! Some of our favorite finds were from the following vendors: * Heidi Grace introduced several new lines of papers and embellishments (one store owner said she loved all the Heidi stuff so much she spent almost her whole show budget in that one booth alone.) * Cosmo Cricket was probably one of my favorites. They had 2 brand new lines; Dutch Girl and Halfway Cafe. I took some pictures of sample pages done using these new lines and will post them as soon as possible. * Basic Grey showed 4 new lines all together, well we can't have it all...so we chose the "Scralet Letter" line and ordered it in it's entirety. You won't want to miss this risque' color combination of red, black,cream and a touch of green. Also new from BG is the new Precision File Set. These tools are perfect for getting all the tiny ruts and spaces of the chipboard pieces. * Tim Holtz has designed some amazing storage tins that are made of embossed metal. These are very functional and fun to distress and embellish. * Fancy Pants, this small company known for their Big Chipboard pieces has another terrific introduction...Big Clear Stamps! Yep a full 12"x12" sheet of clear stamps, some images small, some not so small. Rest assured though, all are awesome! * 7 Gypsies is somewhat of a new line to our store. We just brought in a nice selection of their existing products and a bunch of the new products were ordered before the show even started. Be sure to watch our class calendar for some amazing classes using this new line loved by stampers as well as scrappers. * BoBunny once again has some great lines of papers and embellishments as well. The themes include boy, garden, spring and Family. The little 6"x6" binder that has chipboard pages was so well received by all, they are now making them in 9"x9" as well. These are wonderful for theme specific albums and projects. * Speaking of mini albums, we found lots of "Naked" albums just waiting to be covered, distressed, painted, glittered or whatever you can imagine. We found so many different sizes and shapes of mini books from Maya Road, Fancy Pants, Creative Imaginations, Bo Bunny and Cosmo Cricket. We found many other items of interest, but this should give you a good idea of what's to come in the near future. Stacey