Welcome back for more great products and displays from the Craft and Hobby (CHA) Winter Trade Show held in Anaheim, CA. If you missed my first CHA review post, please visit it to see some great color and design.
One of the fun trends I saw at CHA was paper sculpting and the Die Cuts With a View (DCWV) booth had so many fabulous projects, I took photos of all just about of them.
The bird, fish and peacock were all gorgeous and my favorite was the peacock with its tail “feathers” cascading to the floor.
Loved the paper flowers!
The paper sculpture tree held streamers of the beads from their bead line. DCWV also won the best booth for an island or peninsular. The DCWV booths at prior shows were also spectacular, including the one with full size paper dresses.
June Tailor had several new products in their gorgeous booth. Two of their new tools were the Rosette Template and the multi-size flower template as shown with the layered felt flower. The rosettes made with the Rosette Template can be used as accent pieces on boots, knit caps and much more. With your imagination, you can come up with tons more uses. The fringe on the cap in the top center was made with their new fringe tool. And I love the colors of pink and orange color combination they used in this section of the booth.
The gorgeous rose and hydrangea pillows were created with the Rosette tool and I guess you can tell that I love this tool!
I ran into the talented and beautiful Claudine Hellmuth at the Ranger booth after she finished her demonstration using her product line for Ranger – Studio Paints, Studio Brushes and Studio Sticky Back Canvas.
Debi Schmitz of Expo International is just adorable! She’s pictured above holding some of the new feather swirls that come in both the bright colors she is holding as well as the more neutral colors that are pictured right below her. They are beautiful, no matter which color!
Peacock’s are really trendy in both design, decoration and motifs. Their peacock feather adornments were gorgeous, especially with the bling in the center. The hats are about 5″ – 6″ and are so cute. Expo had an entire line of the small hat adornments.
The EK Success booth had a line of crewel kits for their Dimensions Brand, all designed by Lori Siebert. I’ve always loved crewel and embroidery and am excited to see this type of needlework being featured.
In the recent years, Duck Tape has been put to much more creative uses than just being used as tape, with all kinds of fun things being made with it including clothing. Shurtech Brands displayed a prom dress and suit, all made with Duck Tape.
Vanna White was at CHA again, presenting the Lion Brand Yarn runway show. Vanna has been the spokesperson for Lion Brand Yarns for over 14 years. This display of their yarns really made a splash of color!
I don’t usually get excited about irons, but this one is the exception. The Oliso steam iron the “iTouch” is fabulous and its on my shopping list. You just leave it flat and after a few seconds, prongs come out of the bottom and lifts the iron up from the surface. You don’t stand this iron on its “rear” end like most irons, but leave it flat. When you get ready to use it again, just touch the handle and it lowers back to the surface. So no burned or scorched fabrics! And since it stays flat, is harder to knock over. Oh, another thing I love about it is that it fills on the side instead on the front top end.
More paper sculpture – the pinwheels in the Silhouette booth were cute and fun!
For you sewers and quilters, Sullivans USA had some exciting new products that caught my attention. The top photo shows cutting rulers that sharpen your blades as you cut. In addition, they have a new mat, Add-a-Mat, lets you size the mats as you need them. This is a great idea for travel where you need to take a cutting mat, like to classes, or are limited in storage space.
CHA has a lot of educational seminars. Tony Ford, the COO of ArtFire and CHA’s Emerging Technology Expert, conducted two classes. I attended both, which were outstanding. I attended a seminar by him at the CHA summer show last year and learned so much. So I made sure to be at both of his seminars this time as well.
One of the fun things that took place at the CHA show was a flash mob dance before the show opened. We’re standing around above trying to blend in and look natural in the crowd before the flash mob. All of us wore pink She’s Crafty aprons from Charity Wings and had to cover them up prior to the flash mob.
I’m looking forward to working with many of the fabulous products that I’ve shown you, so it will be a fun year!
Happy Crafting,
Phyllis
