Stamping and Scrapping in Sunny Anaheim

by Erin Cochran

This January's trip to Anaheim, California for Winter CHA 2007 was a welcome opportunity—both to escape the gray skies and snowdrifts of northern Illinois and to check out some of the hottest new products in the stamping and scrapbooking industry.

One of the biggest ongoing trends at the show was flowers! Stamped, fabric and paper flowers abounded for brightening up cards and scrapbook pages. Clearsnap even has a new Floral ink palette in all formats, including, naturally, Petal Point. Romantic papers and color palettes were big—not surprising, right before Valentine's Day—and doodles, whether on a stamp or drawn by an individual paper artist, seem to be growing in popularity. An increasing number of stamp companies are featuring more of their catalog of images in clear or unmounted formats, and the number of digital scrapbooking companies seems to have really exploded.

As always, I talked to a lot of wonderful people, including Kimberley McCausland of Stampendous!, who introduced me to the company's new pail-topper accessories and Doodle stamp collection, and Jenny Weston, who showed me the full range of new Making Memories embellishments, including fabric flowers, metal ornaments and ribbon. Later, Angie Correa of Hot Off the Press showed me the new masculine sarapapers™ and Finished in a Flash!™ scrapbooking kits for people without a lot of time to pick out coordinating papers and embellishments, and the incomparable Judi Kauffman shared her perspectives on the latest trends. She also treated me to a grand tour of oodles of new products, including Unibind's system for bookbinding with applied heat, JustRite's fully customizable Monogram Stamper and Sakura's unique new Gold Shadow pens.

I also met with Linda Dennis, founder and president of Connect And Join, a very special project aimed at providing moral support to troops overseas and their families back at home. In addition to their World's Largest Scrapbook in support of the troops, she told me about Connect And Join's new project with K and Company: The Month of the Military Child. During weekends throughout the month of April, Connect And Join wants retailers to consider making their store a place where children with family deployed in the military can come and make projects for their relatives. Keep checking RSR for more information on these programs.

This year's Winter CHA has once again come to a close, but continue checking back with us at RSR to keep tabs on the latest developments in the industry.

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