What's Fresh at CHA Paper Arts

 Pink Fesh is a fresh face at CHA and has wonderful embellishments. You know me, I'm like a dog who hears the word "walk" when embellishments are mentioned and "cute embellishments" are stronger than that magnet that draws all our family cars to Leatherby's ice cream parlor. So, I found myself at the Pink Fresh booth. I'm in love. Bright colors, little details, clean contemporary design, a delightful deco alpha stamp set. Like a tiny candy store, sweets for the eyes.

I also visited DecoArt today. Since I've been buying their products this past week, it was only fitting. I will be doing a trash to treasure blog post in the near future about a FREE desk on a lawn in the neighborhood that I made Calvin collect for Joe. It needed a lot of work and Joe has done some under my direction and when I get back we will be painting. We are definitely part of the Maker trend. I also have a small octogonal table that will be transformed with DecoArt Americana chalk paint and stencils a la Mark Montano. Today was mixed media art products day at DecoArt with a huge variety of products beyond the chalk paint.  In some of there paint products they have new trendy colors that fit with the color trends I've seen. Coral, orange, soft blue, mint and burlap are new shades I've seen for 2014, of course with Decor Arts names. Paints can be mixed with the craft mediums which give a pastel color tint to the mediums. A nice variety of mediums for lots of great craft effects from glossy to matte from crackle to smooth. Maybe I need to get Joe busy on a lot of projects at home! In addition to the larger stencils they've carried (inspired by Mark I've ordered a Paris one for that little table), they have some sweet new 6x6 stencils that should be released soon, so look for them.

I also visited The Robin's Nest today. The "little friends" are adorable embellishments. This is not for my flat page pals but "lumpy" scrapers, like me, will love this item. Fun characters both male nod female, fanciful to realistic. Very nice selection of tiny "drops" for that bit of emphasis on a page. An alternative to the "brad" that I tease Debbie Hodge about, it seems she always wants a brad on the page, LOL!

Crafty friends, there's a lot of fun new product to buy or put on one's wish list.

CHA Paper Arts Continues

 Checking out booths at CHA and having fun exploring. Sitting down and updating helps rest these weary bones and makes this blogging more fun. I am just having fun gathering ideas and enjoying meeting people and I hope giving my friends a glimpse into the craft worl new things. Some finds are very cool.
I was just chatting on Get It Scrapped the other day about adhesives and items falling off pages. I often go through albums with a small bottle of glossy accents by my side and use that to attach heavier items. I know some of you run for the hot glue gun.
Today at Tombow I found out about a cool new adhesive. EXTREME is a runner with a very strong adhesive. Same length on the roll as regular adhesive and not a lot more than regular adhesives cost so not a replacement for regular tape runners but quite possible a substitute for the strong liquid adhesive or hot glue gun on a page.  An adhesive one does not have to worry about where it's moving on the page or will I or the kids get burned during crafting is a winner. One trick, you need to make a check mark move to stop the adhesive from continuing off the runner. Their designers made the X in Extreme in a fashion that reminds you of that trip. Clever messaging in a design. Tombow still carries all their usual good products. I do love those markers!
This round I dropped by Northwoods Rubber Stamp, Inc. I'm not much of a card maker and am not sure their stamps would work on my scrap pages but I appreciate their strong traditional designs and a delightful sense of humor in some of their stamps. I liked their version of the witch on broomstick running into a tree. Cute!

CHA Paper Arts Opening Day of Exhibits

 CHA Paper Arts Show exhibits open today. Got a quick look during the reception last evening and doing a careful walk through today. I plan on starting at the far end and going booth by booth, which would be an impossibility at a larger show. 
The first booth I visited was The Ribbon Print Company. They sell a machine for folks who want to print ribbons as a business. Small but quick printer that connects to your computer for unlimited design possibilities. Not just ribbon but sew in and iron on clothing labels, too. The equipment uses cartridges of "foils" (dry ink) to apply design. Nice for folks with a need for personalized items like a large wedding business or for the person who wants a small business offering labels and ribbons for folk just looking for a limited quantity of ribbons or labels. I believe the printer  will work with anything up to a 4 inch wide ribbon.
Simple Stories was next on my tour. My first impression was that brown is not gone as a trend, it's just focused on wood grain vs grunge or brown distress but if you have some of those older styles around I think that with white and wood grain you could achieve an updated look. Sweater Weather has a nice rich deep brown wood grain print mixed with red, gold, orange, grey, beige printed papers and a lovely white washed weathered wood paper which adds a little lightness and will help use of this line with white based papers. You may ask what my favorite thing was in this line. It's the enamel dots. I love the rich deep colors and can see them adding just the right bit of emphasis on my pages. I am a knitter so must admit that the patterned paper with the knit stitched hearts was a close second favorite.
As usual, uncomplicated designs in the Simple Stories Sn@p! with a good selection of journal card elements for pocket scrapers. Pocket scrapping products remain strong in all of Simple Stories lines. The company has a nice selection of albums and page protectors. There area lot of other exclusively journal card lines including a new school themed one.
The Cozy Christmas Line of their products also features a dark wood grain so for the chronological scrapers among us would give a great transition from fall to winter. Tone on tone designs of snowflakes and diagonal stripes in red, gold and winter white and a green that's a bit on the yellow green side of the spectrum with a lovely broken design paper in golds browns and white called Sparkle Furries backed with a ledger paper.
How do I describe Simple Stories Halloween line? Sweet cute fun! No dark spooky goth elements here just colorful fun and kid charming designs. Slack, an almost lime green, turquoise, violet and orange and a golden yellow with white and cream are the palette. This collection features a newspaper print with the polka dots and stripes and a few other interesting prints.
The DIY Christmas Collection uses black, white, Christmas red and a distinct yellow green color and lots of Kraft designs. 
The "Maker" movement is a definite theme throughout CHA with an emphasis on simple clean and easy design. 
I will look for a computer to add photos later.

Paper Arts In Atlanta - Class Day

Paper rafting was on my agenda today at CHA's Paper Arts show in Atlanta.  Yes, had trouble falling asleep last night and had to get up way too early for the start of class day today. I did not get everything done in classes. My arm problems really are a problem if I do too much. The first class was fine and I got most everything done and my third class I got help. I did a bit in the other two and think I'll enjoy finishing up at home.
So, what exactly did I do?
First class was Pack Your Bag's!  from Bo Bunny taught by Liz Welch and Vicki Bentley.. First they featured  a tag made using Bo Bunny's new multi media products. The products worked great and were a glimmer spray, a pearlescent medium , stencils and ink pads. One product that not only worked well but that was new to me and quite frankly, one that I loved, Glitter Paste. Just take a little out of the jar and spread thinly over a stencil onto the project. Ooh La La! Dries very fast with a beautiful effect. Bo Bunny next had us make a scrapbook page using the new Souvenir line. Uses Classic Bo Bunny colors in their primary color palette so will co-ordinate well with those treasured older lines of Bo Bunny you may have around. The layout used lots of layering of products so you know I liked that and they also had a little "suitcase" project that held an accordion photo banner for ones vacation pics. I'll post photos in Facebook and add some pics to this post when I get home at the end of the week. This is a retro vintage travel themed line with a mix of vintage graphics like game cards, posters and school book pictures of  means of transportation and maps and air mail edging.
The second class was a  Graphic 45 project. It was a Double Page layout that also was part shadow box taught by Jeff Filimoehala designed by Annette Green. Very lovely.  Now clearly these first two projects suggest some trends, vintage travel and an emphasis on multimedia Maker crafting. The graphic 45 project involves a fair bit of cutting, they had done a lot of it to get it done in two hours but still more than I was up to doing. I did take photos of the final project as I think it will make a cute gift. It really was not difficult and is a very forgiving design meaning most everyone who attempted the project would be happy with the results. Graphic 45 used their Come Away With Me collection. This featured old maps, their classic vintage man and woman, globes, keys, spool buttons, and posters. The color palette is browns, pinks, green and blue and turquoise. It takes ink well. I found some paper did not cut quite like I hoped, it seemed a bit rough at the edge and it was a new trimmer blade. In a project I was distressing it was not a significant problem but I'd be sure to make a couple of passes with my trimmer, just to be sure, if a crisp edge was essential. The paper has a good acceptance of ink for distressing so trade offs to consider here. I heard many of the participants later in the day saying this Graphic 45 project was one of their favorites of the day.
After lunch it was a Sizzix class with Stephanie Barnard. She showcased her new designs in three gorgeous cards. I like my Big Shot but  don't do much at one time, I may need to get aVagabond machine if I start getting into cards, I guess. A delightful woman named Joyce was a most helpful partner and all went well in the class. That Sizzix adhesive paper certainly helps with some of the little detailed die shapes. All participants left the class with not only the adorable three cards we made but also with the Sizzix Stamper's Secret Weapon which is an excellent stamping surface and it has a handily piercer tool to help with the detailed die cuts. We also got one of Stephanie's new die sets for making folded cards.
My last class of the day was great messy artsy fun! Stamps duos had Fran Seldord teach us avMixed Media Beauty Journal.We used the Creative Palette from Stampedous with bracers and acrylic paint the make gorgeous multicolored textural backgrounds. Next the Blossom Beauty face stamp and template were used to make faces and Fran taught us some great tips about painting hair. We learned a simple way to create a beautiful textured, layered card with a background we made a flower stamp repeated and the cut with various size dies. Embellishing and journaling encourages and then we learned a simple and pretty ribbon binding for our little books. 
CHA then welcomed us with a very nice reception sponsored by Anna Griffin. We got a quick view of the show which is very small but well done. I hope there will be a number of make and takes to explore the products, not sure. Now I did have wine so I do not feel ready to comment on Paper Arts, except to say it was small. I think the show in Utah had an effect on this one which is unfortunate for the buyers who could only choose this one. Despite the small size though Mu overall impression is that the exhibitors are getting serious buyer attention which is a good thing for the industry.
So, photos on Facebook for now (shortly, as I'll post this before I head to FB) and I'll post more photos to this blog post when I'm home.
Be sure to leave a comment if you have a product question.

Here in Atlanta for Paper Arts

 I took the red-eye to Charlotte and then got into Atlanta in the late morning. My room wasn't ready yet and registration for this CHA event wasn't open until 3 pm so I went off and had a shampoo and blow dry and got my nails dome at the mall next door. Not much of a mall, more a food court with services and a few shops. Happy with the work I had done, checked in and got registered. Classes scheduled all day tomorrow with a reception in the evening. It looks like the small show that was advertised. A number of the non American Crafts (or shall I say in a humorous vein, the not yet American Crafts) companies are here. Sizzix and Spellbinders are the main sponsors of the event. Some nice SWAG in the welcome package bag. A nice D-Lites Embellishment die from Spellbinders featuring butterflies. I think we can safely say butterflies are a staple in the paper crafts industry. A BiC 4 color pen which has already proven itself useful as I mark up my program. Hot Off the Press attached a darling sheet of Dazzles Gingerbread Stickers to their catalog. Crafter's Essentials included a container of  their Fingertip Grip Enhancer. I tested it and it really works and does not make the fingers feel sticky. I can really see how this can be helpful, especially with tiny things like beads. Fab Scraps included some chipboard word art. Little B put an intricately edged note pad with an offer of a make and take at their booth. Some advertising of other products included. Will check things out as the show goes on. A bit windy though it does keep the weather from being too hot and humid here, not that I expect to be out of the conference area much. Well, not much sleep last night and I'm due to be at a class early so will wind this post up for now. More later.
I could not figure how to add my iPhone photo here so posted it to Facebook. Will try to figure that out.

Why Critique a Scrapbook Page

 As many of you know, I am on the creative team at Get It Scrapped/ Masterful Scrapbook Design. The site is devoted to education about scrapbook pages.
Now, some people are saying but your philosophy is that scrapbooking is all about your own fun, Karen. Why would you care how "good" your pages are?
Actually, I think most pages are good enough, but I do enjoy the process of creating nice things. Many times at the site we discuss pages and tell folk that there is nothing they need to change at all but suggestions are made to make the deign stronger or the story more effective.
It's always one's own design and story; so, dictating that it be a certain way is not the point. Many times completely opposite from one another suggestions are given. What those of us, who enjoy the critique classes, like is reviewing the process of giving ourselves a better eye and voice, to learn what others like about our pages and sometimes, to understand what can be done to tell our story better.
Here's a recent page I made and the version I did after the critique session.

Just little changes; but, ones that strengthen my page.

Supplies: Get It Scrapped Scrapbook Coach Clustered Lesson 3 

TDF65: quirkyheart - everydaybouquet (kit), dunia - saysomething (alpha), xm2 -xoxo (alpha); PCO Go Bold (alpha); fonts - Garamond, Arial; shadow actions - One Little Bird

Bookends of the Family

Bookends of the family is an unusual thought but it was one I had yesterday. I was feeling a bit down, missing my Mom and then I thought of my daughter, Jeannette who died in 1982. I had been finishing up the obituary for my Mom and editing the photos to be included.
I chose a photo of Mom when she was a young woman and a more recent photo. It came to me then that these photos represented bookends on her life. I reflected that my Mom and little girl were bookends to mine. Unfortunately, Jennie had only a brief time on earth, but her profound spirit of love was a major support; Mom was pretty fragile at her end these last couple of years; but, also a wall of love.
I felt a bit bereft at that point. I do have special friends and family members to help keep me stable on the shelf of life but it was this thought of a disconnect from the edges of my own life that made me sad.
My niece, Danielle, has been a godsend to help in the rough times of moving Mom last year and settling things on her death. Aunt Fran and Aunt Virginia have both been sweet and encouraging, too.
They are the female bookends of my extended family.
My cousin, Aimee, currently in Australia has been so helpful to me. She edited the obituary, correcting my USA spelling to Canadian and, thanks to Facebook, has been a great comfort, despite the miles. My realization was that I am the eldest cousin and Aimee the youngest female cousin. In our own way, we are the female bookends of our generation.
Just some thoughts that were a comfort to me.