CHA Highlights - Day 1

 Hello, Memory Bound friends! We are just back from a wonderful time in Chicago at CHA, the Craft and Hobby Association Trade show held each winter and summer. At the trade show, retailers preview the new product lines from industry manufacturers, take classes, and soak up lots of great new ideas to bring back to our customers! 

We're in the process of consolidating all the pictures we took (imagine five scrapbookers taking photos of new products on our cameras and phones!) so that we can share the highlights with you. We'll be posting photos over the next several days so be sure to check back often. We will also upload all of our photos to our Facebook page so be sure to LIKE us on Facebook to see the entire collection of pictures!

But let's start at the beginning! We left on Sunday afternoon for the trip to Chicago. Our Summer CHA crew is pictured below: Janet, Maggie, Kellie, Katie, and Bonnie.

 The trade show opened on Tuesday, with Monday dedicated to classes and private showings by manufacturers. We grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel before heading to the convention center for Day 1!

Bonnie and Katie:

Maggie and Kellie:

   
Yes, they did let me eat breakfast, too! No worries there. :)

Here's a shot of the lobby of the Rosemont Convention Center. It's a huge place!

  As you can see, the lines for classes are VERY long! We attended some great classes at CHA and will be sharing many photos with you in upcoming posts!

 On Monday, Maggie, Kellie, Katie, and Bonnie attended a preview party sponsored by Creative Imaginations and Quick Quotes. They checked out lots of wonderful projects. Love this beautiful card!

Here are more colorful projects from the preview party. Notice the layers and textures, design trends which continue to be strong.

 

 Beautiful Christmas cards!

I love the clean look of this card! Notice the strips and layers of paper.

  

We saw great new sports papers and embellishments...

and wonderful dance-themed products.

 We saw many new Halloween lines, including this one designed by Marah Johnson. The vintage/retro Halloween look is very popular right now.

 Monday evening, Kellie, Bonnie, and Janet attended the Moxxie preview party. Moxxie is one of our favorite companies -- and they're based in Iowa! (Moxxie will also be coming to our Anniversary Crop in October, so you'll get to meet the great folks behind the brand!)

They had lots of fun new lines and many wonderful projects to share. Here's a banner made with their new camping line.

Look at this adorable camping goodie bag!

We also loved the new fishing papers. Notice all the banners in these projects? Banners -- especially notched banners -- were EVERYWHERE at the show! They're fun and easy to add to any project: Just cut a "v" in the end of a paper strip, and layer on your page or card.
 

 Moxxie has a lovely new faith-based line...

and a great new music line, perfect for band and orchestra pages.

We loved the new line called Road to Recovery, great for pages about loved ones facing serious a serious illness. Here's a mini-book created from a file folder using this line.

Moxxie also introduced a beautiful new family line. 

We loved the new carnival line. It will be great for state fair or amusement park pages and projects!

Check back for many more photos of our CHA adventure, as well as a post about the top trends in paper-crafting! We can't wait to share everything we saw and learned with you!
Janet