My CHA Wishlist

It's that magical time of year... the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) summer tradeshow starts up today in Las Vegas!  Alas, I will not be attending.  But most of the major manufacturers have been posting sneak peeks (or even full reveals) on their blogs, which is the next best thing to being there.

Here's some of what's caught my eye so far:

• Simple Stories' Smarty Pants Simple Basics

Smarty Pants is my favorite of the many school-themed collections I've seen so far, but it's the Simple Basics pack that I absolutely love.  The A-sides all have composition book pattern, and the B-sides feature different types of papers, like binder paper, grid paper, and ledger paper.  The colors are fantastic.  I'm getting multiples of these for sure, as they are so incredibly versatile.

• Queen & Co. Trendy Tape

Trevor has recently discovered my washi tape and is helping me use up my stash, so I feel justified in getting more.  And since I don't have any Christmas washi yet, these are particularly excellent to add to my collection.  I definitely want to wrap my Christmas gifts with washi tape this year.

• Fancy Pants' Happy Go Lucky

They claim this line is "perfect for fall, summer, spring, camping, outdoors, indoors, boys, girls, ladies and gentleman."  You can't get much more versatile than that!  I can definitely see using it for a wide variety of subjects.  I love the color palette.

• Pebbles' Thirty One

I need more Halloween supplies like I need a hole in my head, but I really like this collection.  With the exception of the spiderwebs, the B-sides are not themed, so it's pretty easy to justify getting this since I can use it for non-Halloween occasions.

• Simple Stories December Documented

If I don't need Halloween paper, then I REALLY don't need Christmas paper.  But I can justify getting the Simple Basics and the Fundamental and Expression Cardstock Stickers from this collection.  This is my favorite of this year's Christmas collections.

• Simple Stories Say Cheese

This is my #1 must-have.  I love the colors, love the patterns, and I especially love the dots/stripe Simple Basics.  While this collection is obviously Disney-inspired, it isn't heavily themed and can be used for all sorts of other topics.  

Simple Stories is the big CHA winner for me so far.  They haven't been on my radar all that long, but with collections like these and Take a Hike, they are rapidly becoming my favorite paper manufacturer. So far, I haven't seen any must-have tools or gadgets, but I'll be keeping my eyes open over the next few days!

What are your CHA-Summer must-haves?

CHA Wishlist

During the past few weeks, manufacturers have been releasing sneak peeks of what they'll be officially debuting at the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) tradeshow, which opens in a few days.  (Sadly, I won't be there.  Perhaps again someday... )

It's been a lot of fun seeing the new stuff, watching for trends, and predicting what will be the hot items from this year's show.  Even more fun is starting my wishlist!  Here are a few of the items that have caught my eye.

• Echo Park's Designer Solids

I am always on the lookout for patterns small enough to read as solid. They're few and far between. The fact that Echo Park has made a whole collection based on this concept is awesome.

• Bella Blvd's Designer Tape

I love these colors and I'm a sucker for polka dots.  I haven't used a lot of washi tape, but I love the way it turned out when I used it to cover a tin.

• Fancy Pants' Swagger

I use a lot of brown, blue and green in my scrapping and I love to see a collection that incorporates those. And the orange is a fun accent! This collection has some small patterns and cute stripes as well. While I don't love every paper in this collection, the beauty of 2-sided paper means that I can always use the other side of a paper I don't like.

• SEI's Diane

I love the colors and the small patterns of this collection.  This isn't a very practical collection for me, since the only time I use these colors is for Easter and the annual pages I made for my goddaughters.  But I love it anyway!  It would make gorgeous cards... maybe I can justify it after all.

• Fancy Pants' Etcetera

I love a good basics collection.  This one has great patterns and colors that will go with just about anything else.

How about you?  Have you seen any CHA sneak peeks that have caught your eye?