Creative Inspiration at CHA 2013!

This past week­end I had the plea­sure of attend­ing the ginor­mous Craft & Hobby Asso­ci­a­tion trade show, bet­ter known as “CHA”, in Ana­heim, Cal­i­for­nia! It was a ver­i­ta­ble who’s who from the cre­ative indus­tries– com­pa­nies, craft prod­ucts, design­ers, celebri­ties, blog­gers, and inspi­ra­tion galore! Get­ting to spend the week­end with some of your favorite bloggy friends sur­rounded by all kinds of cre­ative inspi­ra­tion is super awe­some! That’s me with Amy of Pos­i­tively Splen­did and Bev of Flamingo Toes! So fun!

I was there (as were SO many other awe­some cre­ative blog­gers) at the invi­ta­tion of Plaid and had the plea­sure of demon­strat­ing a fun make & take craft (stay tuned for more on how to make that soon). My lit­tle table was crazy busy for 3 straight hours! Took me back to my teach­ing days! We used some new Mod Podge for­mu­las com­ing out this year, as well as some new light-weight Mod Podge papers. The new extreme glit­ter for­mula (com­ing out this sum­mer) is SO fun! And, the Mod Podge melts that will be com­ing out this year (see them in the V Spot Blog’s CHA post) are really cool too!After my demo work, I had some time to explore. The con­ven­tion cen­ter floor itself was insane! Craft prod­ucts & cre­ative inspi­ra­tion galore! There was no short­age of washi tapes around. A big crowd favorite was the washi tape cov­ered bike from My Mind’s Eye. And, I must get my hands on that red & black tape set. Love it!! One high­light was stop­ping by the Project Life booth! I’ve met Becky before and am a big believer in her mes­sage! In fact, I finally got my very first Project Life binder as a sweet Christ­mas present from Mr. Mom Endeav­ors! So excited to get started! And, the new lines com­ing out this spring/summer?! Swoon! The Mid­night ver­sion?! In love!!  Another high­light was meet­ing the fab­u­lous Amy of Liv­ing Locurto and I Heart Faces! She is so stinkin’ tal­ented! And, to add to that, she was there debut­ing her new prod­uct line at the pebbles,inc booth. The line of prod­ucts is sooooo cute! Bright, fun col­ors! And, I hap­pened to really love the boy stuff! It was a pop­u­lar stop! While we were there, we ran into a whole bunch of other cre­ative blog­gers. Need­less to say, there was lots of chat­ting! But, I’m so glad we stopped to take a group photo! Rec­og­nize any­one?!In the pic­ture, we’ve got Melissa from No. 2 Pen­cil, Viv from the V Spot Blog, Me , Katie from Sweet Rose Stu­dio, Amy from Pos­i­tively Splen­did, Jen from Tater­tos & Jello, Amy from Liv­ing Locurto, Karen the Graph­ics Fairy, Tauni from SNAP!, Mique from Thirty Hand­made Days, Heather from Dol­lar Store Crafts, Angie from the Coun­try Chic Cot­tage, and Bev from Flamingo Toes! Whew! And, just think, there were at least another 10 awe­some blog­gers at the show who are miss­ing from this photo! So fun!

Between all those cre­ative minds and all the cre­ative prod­ucts, my brain has been swirling with cre­ative ideas. Plus, I have new prod­ucts on my wish list. In addi­tion to the ones above, there are a few more that I am excited about!  After attend­ing a break­fast with the Flora Craft com­pany, I’ve got my eye on some heat foam cut­ting tools! The fab­u­lous Can­die Cooper did a demon­stra­tion on ways to cut foam and I was hooked. I also got to see Can­die Cooper show off some of the jew­elry she made at the Craft Atti­tude booth. Absolutely amaz­ing stuff! I’ve already tried the Scrap­book­ing Atti­tude to make some DIY photo can­vases, but now I’m really eager to try some other sur­faces! The Tim Holtz booth was also incred­i­ble and there are some awe­some new dis­tress paints com­ing out (check out the Tim Holtz post on Craft Test Dum­mies for more info). There was also an fun new cork foam board from Elmer’s and foot­ball Duck Tape! I have a feel­ing there will be some team projects shown this com­ing fall with some col­lege foot­ball Duck tape!  Need­less to say, the whole expe­ri­ence was amaz­ing. I came home exhausted and to a bit of a sick house­hold. But, after some days of recov­ery, I need to get busy craft­ing now that I have a brain full of ideas and cre­ative inspiration!

Have YOU ever been to CHA (or some­thing sim­i­lar)? What’s your favorite thing about attending?

Dis­clo­sure: I received some com­pli­men­tary items as part of my atten­dance, but was not asked nor paid to talk about any­thing I saw! I just wanted to share about all the fun with you!