Day Two of the show is now over. We started out in the morning with a great business seminar about the economic forecast for 2012. America’s seem reasonably positive about the outlook – even if the stats don’t line up!! 

By 10am Graham and I were off to the shop floor to catch up on some of yesterday’s work. My camera had died just after lunch and so I needed to go back and get some photos taken! I banged into Jodi from Scrapaholics in Auckland and she’d teed up a meeting for us with Donna Downey’s husband Bill. We had a great time with him and have some special events planned. More to come on that later. We caught up with the lovely Sharon Laakonen from Prima again and I gave her a little kiwi gift. She told me she’s back on the team for the Roadshow in October – yay!

Sharon then took me over to the Ranger booth to introduce us to Tim Holtz – but he was deep in the middle of some great demo and there was a large group of ladies around him. So we got a photo with Mario his business manager instead! We’ll go back to the booth and get a shot with Tim another day. We didn’t stick around in the stall to see the new innovations – we’ll do that later too (keep you reading these blog posts!)

Next up was off to Teresa Collins. We love her ranges and have all new 5 collections on pre-order. We’ve chatted before in Brisbane and so it was great to have another photo taken with her and to chat about a fun kit concept I am developing and a possible trip to NZ sometime.  More on that another day!

My Mind’s Eye is a great company and their products are ALWAYS stand-outs. Interestingly they had loads of guys on their stall – so Graham fitted in perfectly! They stood and chatted about hand and feet wounds they had received… Meanwhile, I was busy checking out the gorgeous new collections. – Miss Caroline. Follow Your Heart, Kraft Funday, On the Bright Side and Lost and Found 2. Their Kraft Funday range looks fantastic.

La Blanche Stamps are the most beautiful detailed stamps on the market with a huge range of pretty designs. They are made from a light-weight product with a foam block for use of use and a silicone-type material for the stamp. You can also pour hot utee onto them and create amazing resin shapes embellies.

One of my favourite companies is Simple Stories. They have a great style and they have finally released their wonderful albums that work in with their papers. All their ranges have a lot of little tags that you can cut out – and now we have the albums to slide them in. It’s a way of simply putting together an album with photos and tags with minimum fuss. There are a range of basic products which match all their paper collections for use in the albums too. Their new ranges Year-O-Graphy, Documented, Awesome and Fabulous are all great.

Imaginisce always put out quality collections and this show is no different. Their newest most innovative product is the ribbon cutter. I LOVE this new tool. It’s basically a small hot wire that cuts through ribbon slightly melting the edges so it doesn’t fray. Imaginisce also showed off some of their products (distresser, petal roller, coloured foam tape, Click it blade, Cut bright and the i-top etc). Their new ranges are called Sole Sister, Hippity Hop, making Waves and Hello Cupcake.

Making Memories had a HUGE stall! I love their new Children at Play ranges and the cute fabrics. The Modern Millinery range is great for cross crafting (home décor etc). Their Cabochon packs of mixed embellies were beautiful and I liked their 8x10” journal album – smash book style. It has protectors and pockets, envelopes etc. 

Graphic 45 is a VERY popular brand in the industry and so far I would award them the Best Stall award. But I haven’t even got around half of the stalls…! They have released Kraft Reflections, Old Curiositie Shop, Tropical Travelogue (already on our shelves) and Little Darlings – a runaway success. This range is the most beautiful baby line I’ve seen in years!

We love the Glitz Girls and here we are at their stall enjoying their 3 new ranges – French Kiss, Pretty Glitz and Happy Travels. They also have some new stones, layered stickers, 6x6 pads, and a chipboard album to add to their collections. The Glitz girls are also going to be working with Artfull Crafts on a fun kit concept.

Magnolia Stamps are certainly cute but I couldn't chat with the man on the stall as he didn't really speak very good English and they didn't have a colour catalogue or price list either!  But the stall looked great :-)

Little Yellow Bicycle is a great company. Lowri did some guest design work for them last year and it was lovely to meet the head of the Design Team. They spoke very highly of Lowri and they loved her work. Their new ranges are Hello Spring, Escape, Splash and Swoon, Saturday and Paradise.

Artbin have a wonderful array of storage bins and they have designed a new container for holding your Spellbinder dies with magnetic sheets. We think this will be a popular product. They also have a cricut cartridge storage set up too.

Pink Paislee is another company that Lowri was a guest artist for this year. They also commented how much they love her work and we think it’s exciting that there’s a kiwi out there getting so much exposure in the international market place. Lowri is a hard worker and gets more than 10,000 hits to the blog a day... so you should go and follow her! Pink Paislee’s releases are beautiful and I’m in love with the new ribbon spools in the London Market range, the well-sized ephemera packs, and the gorgeous tags in Indigo Hill and Prairie Hill. They also stock a great range of wooden alphas at an excellent price. Finally they re-released their Mistables collection due to its popularity at the last show. It’s a range of products that you spray/ink/stain to reveal the pattern underneath.

My Little Shoebox is a company we haven’t stocked before – but they have some lovely ranges and a fabulous set of great value alpha stickers and roll-up die-cut papers we think you’ll like.

Just Rite stamps are phasing out their ribbed block stamps and are joining in the trend of cling and acrylic stamps. But they have teamed with Spellbinders to create a range of 5 dies that match many of the Just Rite stamp ranges. They were most impressed with Betsy’s card work for Kaisercraft – so there may be an opportunity for her to display some work here too. 

We are Memory Keepers is always coming out with great new products. These guys released the Sew Easy system last year and experience great success. They have now put out a Stamp Easy system along the same lines. The head is interchangeable and rolls along the page. Their new stack packs are fab value and we can’t wait for the Lucky 8 punches. We saw them months ago in Brisbane and have been waiting for them to be in stock. They are MASSIVE punches with the ability to create up to 3 different effects around the edge of 12x12 cardstock. You can make your own die-cut papers at your house!

Melissa Frances had a beautiful stall and we think you’ll love some of the items she has on offer. Her 3 new ranges are c’est la vie, Fifth Avenue and Attic Treasures. But most exciting are the cute mini houses and churches kits. They look great decorated up. She also has fun glass domes, banner stickers, envelopes and the hottest seller for them at the show is the mini hangers!

Juanita will be thrilled that they have released cute Cat and Dog albums – where you get to write in their details as they get older…

Finally I ended up at the HeartFelt Creations store. These guys are teaming with Spellbinders as well to create die/stamp packages. Some of these designs are pretty special – and we suggested Betsy would be a good fit for them as well!

 

There is soooooo much to do and see at this show – but I think I’m on target to complete the whole circuit before it shuts on Wednesday at 2pm. I just might not get to do any make and takes!!

Today the emerging trends appear to be resist papers, a LOT of off-the-page projects, and Spellbinders teaming with different stamp companies to make matching sets. There’s a big trend back to home décor pieces too.

So while I was walking around the show floor, Graham was sitting in on seminars. Lots of them related to Social Media interplay and website information – which is timely as our website is just waiting for its overhaul to speed it up and make your shopping experience better and quicker.

There will be loads of work for us to do once we get back home. What fun!

Take me to the Photo Gallery to see more photos.

Take me to more product preview Sneak Peeks.

The evening ended with Jacob's 40th birthday dinner. The family and us went out to a restaurant for dinner and then spent the rest of the evening at Ray and Sue's enjoying the laughs and company of the extended family. They have 3 children, 8 grandchildren and a dog named Sam - so there was plenty to laugh about! We gave Jacob some more lollies and chocolate and 8 cans of L&P! And we all indulged in the new Cadbury Mousse chocolate. The verdict was a big thumbs up (look at all the kids hovering around Rachel while she opens it up!). Now it's past midnight and my eyes are dropping to the floor! Enjoy the read :-)