Greetings!

Lots to share regarding Stampin’ Treasures and CHA!

Cindy and I just returned from CHA in Anaheim.  It’s the world’s largest craft wholesale show with literally hundreds of booths and things to see.  We were there five days and still didn’t see everything! It’s amazing!

We ordered some fun stuff for the store including goodies from:

Hero Arts New Spring line (available for pre-order right now……shipping at the end of February!  Love love love the Sparkle Clear Sets and the new DesignBlock stamps!) The Design Block stamps are big….they’ll cover a whole card but they are made out of a lighter wood and very nicely etched!)

My Sentiments Exactly New Stamps – great new stamps!

The whole line of Hanko Asian-themed Stamps!

New stamp sets from My Favorite Things

New “Memento” inks from Tsukineko – dye ink, great colors, due late spring

Acrylic Albums!

Prima Designs embellishments and goodies

Kaiser Craft (great embellishments at great prices!)

Books by Hand kits (books, boxes, etc)

Some fun embellishments from Stanislaus Imports

Some great Rubberstamping idea books!

People we loved seeing at the show:

Loved the gals at Hero Arts! Nancy, Shari, Lisa, Sally, Carol – you all were awesome! Thanks for the great make and takes and thanks for just being you! We loved visiting your booth.  Look how serious I was taking instructions from Lisa! LOL!

 

And we love the guys too…………Aaron, Todd, Lay! You guys are awesome! It was especially wonderful to see Nancy! Sooooooooo good to see you my friend!

 

We were happy to see our friends at My Sentiments Exactly too! Adrienne designed some awesome new stamps for you all and Pam, as usual, was a joy to work with!

We were thrilled to see Kathy from Hanko Stamps again and we’re excited to carry their whole line of stamps.  Check back in a couple of weeks for their gorgeous Asian-themed stamps! 

It was also great to meet Kim, the head chick at My Favorite Things stamps! Great to put a face with a great line of stamps!

Things we loved at the show:

Kid Quotes Stamps from Inkadinkado!

I’m thinking we’ll add these to the store. What do you think?

Tim Holtz – mini grungeboard – love the size! Shall we order it?

From Spellbinders – New nestabilities and the Xcalibur. The Xcalibur is an automatic, die cutting machine that will both cut and emboss at the touch of a switch.  We timed each pass through as I was sitting there and it takes 15 seconds or less to cut or emboss something.  I loved it! Not sure when it will be out as they are working out all the details but when it’s released it will be awesome!  Sorry, forgot to get a picture of this!

Clip it Up Ribbon Organizer (I so need one of these in my home workshop!)

The Rub-on Roller pen from Basic Grey (you use it to do your rub ons, very smooth, easy to use!)

Thomas Kincade samples – I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the samples from the Thomas Kincade stamps.  The stamps are incredibly etched……..I understand it can take two days or more to get the stamp etched just right so that it picks up all the details and deviations that make the Thomas Kincade paintings so beautiful.  While we won’t be carrying the stamps it was delightful to look at the samples.

Cindy loved “Zach’s Life” from the folks at Little Yellow Bicycle. It’s a really cute line of Boy’s stuff.  Great colors, great designs.  And really nice people!  She also loved the Penguin/Beach paper at Imaginese.  Here she is with the penguin!

(I might be in trouble for putting this on the blog! LOL!)

Things that weren’t so impressive:

“The Slice” by Making Memories.  This is a late-comer to the automated die cutting machine market, in my opinion.  It’s about 5” square and after programming it to print the one letter or one flower or one whatever, you have to hold it very still on the cardstock you will be cutting.  The cardstock has to be placed on a glass mat.  And you cannot move at all during the cutting time, which can be 2-3 minutes long, or the cut image will not be right.  The gal demo’ing it for us didn’t move at all (except maybe to breathe………) but yet the letter she cut was off.  I was very disappointed.  And the price tag, about $150, is way too much.  It also doesn’t come out until the summer.

K&Company’s Wackytac adhesive – used it in a class and itkept getting off track, tangled and a total mess. I don't think it's new but just had to mention how much I didn't like it! With so many adhesives out there why mess with it?

Ranger’s new white pen.  Looked and wrote the same as the Uniball Signo pens we already have in stock.  Maybe with the name Ranger on it it will work better? Did any of you see it and think it was different?  I’m interested in feed-back.