LOL!  I have been chasing my tail ever since I arrived home — mostly because my new agents are doing their job amazingly well.  So all things considered, I am not going to complain.  I have a lot of art that has to be sent out to potential licensees so I’ll be a little scarce.  I am really hoping to get to post a new kit or two next week — at least new to the store and AAE, but probably not brand new for those of you that are my faithful customers.  I’m peddling as fast as I can!

I really enjoyed my time at CHA.  The show was somewhat smaller than it was two years ago when I attended it last.  The crowd was down somewhat, but the manufacturers over all were commenting that the buyers were in attendance and ordering, there were just fewer extra people from the stores coming along.

Because scrapbooking and digital crafting are my focus, I spent most of my time in those areas.  HOWEVER, that said, my absolute favorite goodie I wish I could have gone home with was for sewing and quilting.  It is the AccuQuilt, “Go Cutter.”  LINK TO ACCUQUILT WEBSITE. The whole idea of die cutting paper has been brought to those who love to quilt.  This little wonder is lightweight, travels easily and will cut through up to 6 layers of quilting fabric, it will cut batting and other items.

If you’ve ever tried to piece together a quilt that you didn’t accurately cut the pieces for, imagine cutting 9, PERFECT 2 1/2″ strips (the length of an average width of folded fabric) at one time!  The speed and accuracy is phenomenal.  I made a diamond quilt once and if your pieces are not accurately cut, they are a nightmare to assemble.  AccuQuilt has diamond dies, circle dies, hexagonal dies, you name it.  Oh, and their border dies are to “die for!”  Be careful, you might get lost for hours looking through their website.

For those of you that do digital crafting and package up goodies (candy, cookies etc.) Clear Bags, “Crystal Clear Cube Boxes” have endless possibilities.  They have pop up boxes in a wide range of sizes.  their smallest box, which is 1 1/2″ cubed, runs from $.25 each if you order 25 to only $.15 each if you purchase 1,000 at a time.  A couple of interesting sizes I noted are 4″ x 4″ x 6″ at $1.05 each for 25, 2″ x 2″ x 3″ at $.42 each for 25 and 3″ x 3″ x 4″ at $.54 for 25.   They also have a line of Crystal Clear Hanging Boxes for those of you that craft and do note cards, hand made greeting cards etc.  Their box for a 5″ x 7″ greeting card is $.58 each for 25 or $.43 each for 200.  You can find them at: LINK TO CLEAR BAGS WEBSITE.

They are running a special for CHA of 10% off of Crystal Clear Packaging and 5% off of Cards & Envelopes.  Promo: CHAW09, Expires: 2/25/09.

My photographs are on my daughter’s camera and I have to have her help to download them.  I’ll post pictures of some of the most darling projects that I saw, as well as some beautiful scrapbooking pages.