CHA News and Spellbinders Excitement!

This year's Winter Craft and Hobby Assn Trade Show in Anaheim CA was an amazing event!! Much new stuff that I will get to later in this post. I am a visual being and have many pictures to share, I tried to narrow it down by event. I had a very busy schedule but still managed to squeeze in a few extraordinary classes. YES!! That is Donna Dewberry! I took her "One-Stroke" painting class and made a fabulous tote with roses and daisies on it, the leaves were so fun to make too! She's a hoot and a wonderfully talented REAL PERSON.

My next class was a beading class sponsored by Design Originals. This class had SIX bracelet projects all together, though we only accomplished four, which was still making good time considering all the commotion and misinformation being passed........ "this is how I do it" who was teaching that class anyway? Michelle Charles was present and a few other designers and assistants, but this lady, Andrea is also a designer for DO and she kept things grounded for sure. I was happy to stop by the booth the next day to pick up my prize and snagged a photo op with her!

Martha Stewart was the CHA Key Note Speaker for the event. This is one saavy smart woman! THEY paid HER to give herself a 40 minute commerical. nuff said.








The first night that I didn't have a class on my schedule, I attended the CHA Event "House of Blues" in Downtown Disney. The food was good and the company was better! I sat with Stacey and Jeff Caron of Spellbinders along with Kim the DT Coordinator. The music was AMAZING! And as if the instrumentals weren't enough, the Blues Brothers performed and we danced for hours! I ran into Veronica and Scott from the NSA too!




And now onto EXCITING Spellbinders releases..... The introduction of the Wizard Academy ---- this academy is a comprehensive education program complete with project designs for teaching how to implement and use the Wizard multimedia art tool correctly in a effort to assist retailers in selling this amazing crafting tool. This program has many facets and perks such as having a trained Wizard instructor visit your store to demonstrate the cirriculum as well as product support from Spellbinders to cover your event with no restocking fees. Also introduced at CHA is the new Digital Die Cut Fusion products. SIX complete digital kits on one CD contain gorgeous papers, clip arts, die cuts, and embellishments; all of these elements coordinate with dies to make real paper die cuts or embellishments AND they match the one NEW RELEASE that stampers have been waiting for.................... Rubberstamps that match your die cuts!! woohoo! Spellbinders should get an award for finally answering the call of stampers everywhere, no more hand cutting out your stamped images, the first set of rubberstamps have been released with many to follow. You can cut and emboss the die cut and then stamp, or stamp first and then cut it out!! These three systems work together to give you the ultimate flexibility in paper crafting and multimedia art creations: Digital, Rubberstamping, Cut/Emboss and much more with the Spellbinders Wizard! New Grafiti font released too!
CHA SPECIAL CONTINUES TO FEB 9; ORDER $300 AND GET A FREE DEMO WIZARD FOR YOUR RETAIL STORE OR WORKSHOP!

My favorite NEW discovery is Rouge de Garance papers, here is a meager sampling of the gorgeous papers offered. They resemble the hand made colorings you can create with color wash sprays combined with digital flowers and flourishes. They are gorgeous and also offer a 6 x 12" glossy double sided cardstock version of most designs. They were exhibiting in the New Exhibitor section in the basement and I was so happy to find them on the last day of the show, I was able to purchase 10 packs to use in classes so stay tuned. Check out their blog:

Please excuse some of these burry photos!! I was in a rush to the ladies room and snapping pics on the way! Very present was a new artsy trend with I LOVED! many rich hand made patterned papers, bright colors, texture and metallic elements. SEI also has a patterned paper with suede! They had solid suedes and printed ones where only the pattern was in suede and raised off the paper. very rich!




Ranger are more Acrylic dabber colors and metallics. Tim Holtz has launched a line of portable storage containers with Advantus,A bit of speculation at the Ranger booth started rumors of alcohol ink markers! NOT. This gorgeous display shows all of the alcohol ink colors available pounced onto dominos directly above their new Adirondak markers that coordinate with the Adirondak dye ink pads. Also new by They are hinged metal cases with a handle. They can be decorated too. I think they're a bit over priced, but they are nice and trendy.

There were some other cool things from Luminarte, they have the best metallic paints and are now offer sprays and daubers. Golden offers tinted glazes that are fabulous! I used one in a canvas class while at CHA and they will be coming out with a new medium in April that has small pieces of glass in it for shimmer and texture! Chartpak was generous to the Spellbinders Team so I wanted to mention their new caligraphy pens! They have ink cartridges!! So easy and pretty.

These totes are cute and functional, All My Memories has them available in many sizes and color combinations, they were a generous exhibitor near our booth! I got a large one and began using it right away at our retreat which was graceously hosted by Pine Cone Press!

THANKS to them for letting us use their workshop and their generosity with a gift bag too! If you haven't checked out Pine Cone Press lately, give them another look. They have monthly kit clubs with fascinating mini books that can also be used as layout elements, we were treated with a class on the "flip book", if you've made a flip card, you are close except they've mastered a die cut pattern to make folding easier and on a larger scale. Once assembled, they are very sturdy and can be custom decorated. One side is glossy one is matte to accomodate your mediums of choice. They also publish a new book every month with new project ideas! Truly amazing. Check out their site and kits!
My luggage was lost and this is all I can recall from the photos, I have catalogs coming and will share more as I can. THANKS to Melanie-- Daughter of Rose Anne from my yahoo group for stopping by the Spellbinders booth to say Hello!! I appreciated everyone that came by to visit me, truly I did..... and can you tell I love taking pictures ?? LOL


After two days of workshop and Wizard training with the Spellbinders Team, Stacey and Jeff treated us to a day in Disney Land! I won't bore you with the entire lot of images I took, here are some highlights....... The castle of course is under construction, but still beautiful, THOSE AMAZING DONUTS!! Well, they have a fancy french name but basically a warm donut shaped like mickey smothered in powdered sugar with two dipping sauces: raspberry and vanilla custard! YUM. FIVE of them!! LOL I tried to eat them all, but couldn't. "It's a Small World" was so pretty! I think this is one of the oldest attractions at the park and it's still so beautiful. I just had to have a photo with the bush shaped like a moose!! Being a Mainer and all! Thanks for visiting the blog, so sorry it was LONG.