The Roving Reporter - 2010 Summer CHA

Ever wonder what you would see at CHA? Well Scrap Shotz readers, you are in for a treat! Because Connie Nichol is our latest Special Correspondent and Roving Reporter. Read on to learn about Connie's CHA experience.

I just returned from Chicago, where I attended the CHA (Craft and Hobby Association) Trade Show with my colleagues from Canadian Scrapbooker - Heather Starosielski, Jackie Ludlage, Katharina Doyle and Leica Forrest. We had an amazing time and I took hundreds of photographs, which I am slowly sifting my way through.

The trade show was great. It seemed smaller than the last time I attended a summer show in Chicago, but there were still a lot of manufacturers with booths and a lot to see. There were a big handful of paper lines and embellishments that got me excited and I *need* to have!!! LOL There was definitely a strong trend towards vintagey, romantic papers and embellishments. Lots of soft colours, Eiffel towers, tulle, fancy floral trims, stick pins, that sort of thing.

Hmm, where to start? Now to be fair, these are just my opinions and I didn't make it into every booth. Or get pictures of every booth I was in. For example, Harmonie, one of my favourite companies, had so many people in their booth that I didn't get a chance to step in and look around. Too crowded. But I did glimpse some of their fun new kraft paper lines (I love, love, love kraft paper) and some inchie wood mounted stamps in a glass booth near the entrance to the trade show.

I simply adored the new lines that Jillibean Soup has released. The one I especially drool over is the Atomic Soup line. As a scientist, paper with chemistry and the periodic table on it has me very excited!

Making Memories had some great new releases. Their Halloween and Christmas lines are always lovely, but it's the Paper Reverie line that really had me excited. Very classic, very beautiful, perfect for vintage photos, wedding/anniversary photos and pretty much everything else too. Making Memories also displayed a new Slice Elite die cutting machine that can cut deeper, faster and better and new Slice cartridges. The Aviary and Zoological cartridges are must haves for me. I really love my Slice and use it on almost every layout.

TaDa Studios had some really unique and fun papers in their booth. Hopefully I will find these in one of my local scrapbooking stores some day. This is a smaller company I have not seen a lot of in Canadian stores but I really like that their products are different from the mainstream.

In my opinion, Bo Bunny really hit it out of the park again. All of their lines were gorgeous, and they are expanding into all sorts of kits - canvas kits, card kits, mini-album kits, layout kits - that are perfect for the beginner or time constrained paper crafter. I don't have 'good' photos of their booth, but here's a mediocre shot of the Christmas line.

Again, not the best picture (lighting ain't exactly ideal in the convention centre), but I was really impressed by the new lines from Glitz Designs. Beautiful colours and embellishments and a much softer, very vintage feel than some of their products from the past.

Graphic 45 always has a wonderful booth packed with people, and I was really taken with their Halloween line which features Alice in Wonderland. Very fun!

I always come back from CHA SO inspired!!! Besides displaying fun new products, the show is filled with all sorts of amazing layouts and projects. There are some very very talented designers out there, and the Prima booth is one that continually impresses me. Take a look at a small part of a display of layouts demonstrating Prima products:

So everybody get scrapbooking and use up some of the supplies you already have! It will be hard to resist buying some of these new releases when they become available. (Boy, ain't that the truth??? I am salivating at all the goodies Connie has shown us!)

***All photos are courtesy of Connie Nichols***

Thank you Connie for your report! I will be posting additional CHA pictures in subsequent posts! If you cannot wait, check out Connie's blog at http://connienichol.blogspot.com/.