First day of CHA

While the first day of the annual Craft and Hobby Association show is officially tomorrow, there was plenty to see and do today! I took two classes, one sponsored by EK Success and another sponsored by C and T Publishing, or Create and Treasure Publishing.

EK Success had four projects planned for the two-hour class. I think was the only one to finish all four projects, but I'm a fast scrapbooker anyway. The theme was "Mom, Dad and Grad" and featured a tag book, altered frame, decorated journal and a scrapbook page. The projects were interesting, and simple once you broke them down into different skills or tasks. The new items EK featured were ribbon, 3D stickers, great new lines of coordinating papers for both boys and girls and epoxy sticker words, which I loved. I asked if EK was going to have alphabet epoxy stickers because I'd be buying those suckers up. The answer from one of the staff member was incredibly insightful: No, no epoxy alphabets. Apparently this subject was brought up before and the powers that be who choose the products (these would be non-scrapbooking men) don't listen to scrapbookers' suggestions. Apparently, the only scrapbookers in the company are the designer/teachers who go come up with the projects we all see and teach them at conventions around the country. I wonder how long EK expects to maintain their marketshare in the industry if that is in fact the case...

My second class was sponsored by C and T Publishing, which I had never heard of before. They publish books, magazines and other catalogs, as well as manufacture some great chipboard books, such as the one we made the tag book out of. Artist Lea Cioci taught the class and pitched her new book C and T published(It would have been nice to get a copy of it in class). The tag book has some great techniques involved with it using Ranger ink, Gildenglitz, texture sponge and double-sided sheets of adhesive by Grafix, among others.

Both classes were a little more than classes, say, at Expo, but at $25 each, they were also a step above any other classes I've taken, especially the one from C and T. I left with great product knowledge and even learned some fresh new techniques I can use in my class projects.

Since I am also helping out Zutter Industries with their introduction of the Bind-it-All and Dreamkutz (www.binditall.com), I was able to walk around the exhibitor hall early. There were definitely some companies that were better prepared than others. Some of the booth that were already up and had a sense of calm to them were Xyron, Ellison (Sizzix), and Die Cuts with a View. There were definitely some major brands whose booths were clearly not close to being ready with staff running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I'm anxious to see how it all looks tomorrow!