Talking Trends with the IHP DT

Walking the floor of the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) Trade Show is always an adventure! What could possibly be more exciting than getting to see three huge showrooms of brand new products that you can hardly wait to get your hands on? Only one thing: getting to share that experience with your girlfriends!

From the very beginning, the i {heart} papers team has had strong ties to Paper Craft Planet. Our mutual love of paper and paper-crafting was the foundation for our friendship, and CHA has given us the opportunity to meet face-to-face and translate those online friendships into real life. It's so much more fun in person than it is on screen!

As we walked the CHA floor we were drawn to certain products and projects...when we discussed them over dinner we discovered some emerging trends. That's what today's challenge is all about.

Of course, not everyone can attend CHA. We were quite sorely missing some of our team mates...and the general public is not eligible to attend. Thankfully, those of you who couldn't be there can live vicariously through the next best thing: photos! Check out these in this post from Susanna, and several posts from MoxieFab!

One of the big trends we noticed at the Winter Craft and Hobby Association trade show was pinwheels. It’s super easy to create your own in no time at all and I did just that for the challenge. My pinwheel’s made from a 6” square piece of Echo Park designer paper. I chose the paper carefully, making sure to pick a piece with patterns on both sides that would look nice on my finished pinwheel. After securing the folded pieces with a brad, I added a big button to the center, tied with a little orange baker’s twine.

The pinwheel is attached to a clear tube (you might remember I used a similar tube to make a magic wand for our DT challenge a few months back). After filling the tube with brightly colored gumballs, I attached the pinwheel to the top of the tube and closed it. I made a little tag to attach to the tube using a sentiment from the Paper Smooches Eco Friendly set, arriving soon at IHP.

Be sure to check out the trends that are being showcased by the rest of the IHP DT and the PCP Super Novas. Here’s where to find them:

• Carolyn
• Deb
• Gretchen
• Loretta
• Lori--you're here!
• Lynn
• Tracy
• Kate

and our guests from PCP:

• Adela Rossol
• Lisa Somerville
• Lyn Bernatovich
• Susanna Boyd
• Taylor Usry
• Wendy Price

Materials Used:
from i {heart} papers: Echo Park Country Lane Collection Kit, Divine Twine orange baker’s twine, SRM Stickers plastic magic wand tube, Spellbinders circle dies, Paper Smooches Eco Friendly stamp set, Tsukineko Memento Tangelo and London Fog inks

other: Pumpkin Pie cardstock (Stampin' Up!); pink button (Michaels)