CHA Day 2!

Hey! This is Liz filling in as guest Blogger for Chris!

Its been another long but productive day here at CHA! Today was all about getting catalogs, placing orders and trying to win some cool prizes. Highlights for me were the Pink Paislee booth, Graphic 45 booth.... and meeting Elizabeth Kartchner! Mary and I split off from Chris today to cover more ground. After placing a few orders, Chris was excited to run into Margot Potter and get a signed copy of her new book, Bead Chic!

After last night's excitement, we were all up for just hanging out at the hotel. We ordered some Chinese food and settled in for a long night of going through catalogs! (Its almost 1am central time and we are just winding down). There is just so much great stuff to look at, its hard to pick!

Tomorrow is already our last day! I can't believe it. Its be so much fun so far. We will fill you in tomorrow night (or later today!) when we get back. I have TONS of product pictures to share!

An amazing day...

We would never have guessed that today would end the way it did. Here's how it started (read on for my longest blog post ever)...

After a little construction as our wakeup call at 5am, and very little sleep, we headed over the the convention center after breakfast. I look forward each show to the informal opening ceremony, which usually consists of the CEO making a brief speach, followed by bagpipes playing. But today, we were in for a treat. Thanks to one of our sales reps, we had a prime spot (parked in front of Basic Grey, no less), to watch the Chicago Police Dept. Pipes & Drums march by several times playing their bagpipes amazingly before the show opened. Of course, we placed quite an order at Basic Grey, then headed over to Advantus. While I worked on placing our orders, Mary and Liz did a cute make & take with Tim (you know who I'm talkin' about). By the way, you will want to check out the Configurations from Tim Holtz... these things rock! And next, Graphic 45's new line, Steampunk Debutante, is truly one of a kind! The group working the booth was in full costume. The Crafty Secrets girls are always so fun... love Vicky's craftiness! We popped by Making Memories' booth for a drawing, and wouldn't you know... we won our first prize of the trip (um... a little machine called the Slice). The 7 Gypsies booth was not as large as it usually is, but what was there was amazing! We spent quite a bit of time at Webster's Pages (soooo beautiful!). KaiserCraft, with their staff from down under, had some beautiful new products (we gave it three thumbs up)! We visited friends from many other booths, like Lily Bee, Jillibean and Jenni B. We got a little carried away buying ribbon from May Arts, so much so that the staff finally came over to us to take back their paperwork (call us impatient).

Ok, so after sitting down for dinner, Mary looked at her watch and we quickly realized we were late for another event! Fortunately, we hadn't placed our order yet, which worked out well because... the event was stellar! ProvoCraft announced the release of a brand spankin' new machine called the Cricut Imagine. We'll tell you all about it later because what we couldn't have imagined is what was in store for us... Not only were there strolling waiters (bringing food and martinis), there was an airbrush tattoo artist and glow sticks. Ok, now this all sounds silly, and is out of the norm for my blog posts, so I'll get to the point. In another ballroom, we were greeted by the PC execs (and many others) to hear about the new products. What we didn't know was that they had arranged for us to witness some amazing art happening... Have you ever heard of David Garibaldi? If not, check out http://www.garibaldiarts.com/. He's a performance painter, who completely blew us away with his talented renditions of John Lennon, MLK, Mick Jagger, Einstein (and of course, the Cricut). In our later conversation with Mark Montano (dressed in Elvis glam), it was so amazing we're still not over it! By the way, if you're ever in the area, check out the bathroom at the Intercontinental Hotel... I've never seen anything like it before! We're off to bed (finally), but will post more tomorrow. Stay tuned!

CHA or Bust!

We made it to Chicago (in about 5 1/2 hours, thanks to a bit of construction in IN). Mary, Liz and I are busy planning out our first show floor day tomorrow... today was just events (5 of them) where we gathered goodies and placed a few early orders. I was surprised to see just how cool the new lines from Glitz are... I know a good number of you who are going to be all over this one! I'll try to post often from the show... look for updates in the evenings!

Weekend Crop Update

The girls are in their final stretch of the weekend crop! We'll be doing our final event, the layout contest, shortly. I thought I'd post a picture of our big winners last night... there were so many prizes, like a Clip It Up base and 3' Ribbon Organizer, Cricut Cartridges, Slice Design Cards, Tim Holtz stamps, Glimmer Mist, Vintage Groove jewelry kits, Creative Options totes and more! Couldn't make it to this weekend crop? Our next one comes up in October... see you there!

Indie Girl Arrived

Welcome, Indie Girl! Sassafras' new line is probably one of my favorites thus far. Indie Girl is the perfect blend of Sass and Vintage... I hope you'll love it too.

New Embellishments from Making Memories

We have a whole basket (soon to be on the wall) full of embellishments from Making Memories. They're bringing back the metal... there are frames, tags, flowers and more! This eclectic line has a little vintage and a lot of fun!

Ruby Rock-It Challenge Call

Hey everyone - time's almost up for our July challenge! We asked you to create a project using the new products from Ruby Rock-It. I just wanted to let you know you only have until tonight to email your photos! Don't be shy, you don't need to be critical of your own work. :) We'd love to see what you've made with it! Email a photo of your project to chris@scrappychiclivonia.com. Voting begins after the newsletter comes out this week!

Summer Shop Hop

Are you up for some summer shopping fun? Buy local! Buy independent! Buy Michigan! We're participating in a Summer Shop Hop! Here's how it works...


1. Print out the shop hop card here in Word format, or as a .pdf here.

2. Visit and spend at least $20 at each of the independent Michigan stores listed on the card

3. Have your card punched at each location

4. Turn your card in before August to any one of the participating stores and you could win one of 10 baskets of crafting goodies valued at over $50.00!

Cosmo Cricket Sneak Peek: Pixie-Licious

CHAS Sneak Peek: Pixie-Licious Ok gang, here's the deal... Cosmo Cricket is previewing their newest line and giving away new stuff on their blog (of course!). They'll be giving away an entire collection to a LSS! That could be us so we can give it to you, our deserving customers... You'd also get a set for yourself, as well. Just go to their blog (linked above) and let them know that Scrappy Chic is your favorite local scrapbook store!

Calendar Updates

I just posted some updates to our event calendar tonight. The Weekend Crop is now open to individual days and extra per-person seating! If you've been waiting to sign up for one or more days of July's Weekend Crop, now's the time.

I've also posted tentative events through November... yes, I know it's thinking far in advance. But at least you can plan your Fall crops and shopping visits. Enjoy the rest of the beautiful weekend!

Guess What's Coming Tomorrow?

Graphic 45 will be here tomorrow! Woo hoo - sooner than I thought. Halloween in Wonderland is amazing, and I'm not the only one to agree to that... I hope we can keep it on the shelf long enough. It should be out by Saturday morning!

My New Family Member

I'm constantly posting entries about new products in the store. To avoid getting in a rut, I thought I'd share what I've been up to the last couple days. We have a new addition to our family, one we thought we'd never have (my husband was a huge opponent on the subject). But, after some work on the kids' and my end, we agreed to get a kitten. If you haven't heard the story, the landlord found a litter of kittens in the trees near the store parking lot. They were a little malnourished, very young, and their eyes weren't yet open. After a few weeks of care, she got the kittens ready to find new homes. She knew we were interested in the little girl, so she held onto her in case my husband caved (success).

So now we have a Scrappy Chic kitten at home named Princess. The kids are enamored with her! I can tell even Dad has a sweet spot for her now (it was only a matter of time, as cute as Princess is).

Have a B-Day Bash!

Imaginisce's new line, B-Day Bash, is in stock! This adorable neutral birthday line is great for any party pages. Check it out next tiem you're in.


We also have several of the new Kitschy Kitchen products from Melissa Frances! We've all been waiting for this one - it's a keeper! We expect more products in the line, hopefully soon, so keep an eye out for an update on those.

New Slice Products

Design Cards - Happy Trails and Funkadelic (oh yeah, baby). There are also new foam I forgot to mention... We have two new Slice craft sheets for the Slice. These products keep on coming!

What's New for Summer?

We have a few new things so far this week... there is new Banana Leaf paper from Creative Imaginations. I love this stuff! It feels almost like thin wood, but would look so cool embossed or die cut, even as a border on a page. It comes in several colors.

We have five new lines from Reminisce. They are Bubbly (cute sea creatures), Jungle Cats, What's in Your Neighborhood (vehicles, stop signs, etc.), Retrobot (love it), and Dinorama. There are a few papers and coordinating stickers for each line.

The three new seasonal Cricut Cartridges arrived - October 31st, Pumpkin Carving and H20. These cartridges are usually only available for a limited time, and are a much lower price than standard cartridges.

I don't think I mentioned the new line of stamps we received. Oxford Impressions stamps are unmounted rubber stamps in amazing quality and styles. The sheets are selling quickly, and are too cool for school!

Happy 4th!

I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July - what a great holiday it is! We celebrated here by offering our Freedom Dash. Tons of people (so far today) have saved tons on merchandise throughout the store, and more will tonight at 6pm! I was excited to see so many people waiting to get in when I arrived this morning. I love being able to give back to our customers... here's to you all!