Jo and I got back from Anaheim a few days ago, where we were busy attending the CHA Winter 2009 trade show that I told you about last week. Let me just say… Whew!

The CHA show was fantastic, hectic, educational, inspiring, and enormously fun. We saw so many great new products and met dozens of wonderful people. Our brains are jam-packed with tons of ideas, and we can’t wait to show you lots of fun new projects in the future.

We spent two full days at the show and visited as many booths as we could. With over 900 exhibitors in about 325,000 square feet of exhibit space, that was quite a feat to attempt, but we were satisfied that we’d seen it all by the end. Many of the vendors had fantastic make-and-takes, and we participated in a lot of them. Some booths were very generous with giveaways, so we ended up with a lot of great product samples to take home and play with. Then there were the brochures, catalogs, business cards, and tote bags. There was a lot to carry and and we walked all day, so we were pretty sore and exhausted by the end of the day. It was worth it all, though, and we’d do it again in a heartbeat. Just take a look at all the stuff we brought home!

Here are the highlights of our time at the show and some of our favorite new products.

The Sandylion booth was our favorite for make-and-takes. They had several different projects during the show, and each one was cuter than the last. My favorite one was the mini scrapbook made with fun tropical-themed papers and vibrant, colorful stickers. Look how cute!

The ladies from Hero Arts made us feel incredibly welcome at their booth, where we got to do a different make-and-take each day. Their line of Sparkle Clear stamps, which come with sparkle gems right in the package, was very inspirational and we just loved them. We were lucky enough to get to bring some samples home with us, and can’t wait to use them. The gems really add a great touch to the pretty Valentine’s Day card and flower brooch that we made.

Quilled Creations had what was probably the most awe-inspiring booth we saw, thanks to the hundreds of gorgeous designs made from the teeniest, tiniest spirals of paper. The amazing part was that all the designs can be made from just simple strips of colored paper. They had tons of kits and supplies to make it easy to learn. Quilling takes a lot of patience, but what a huge pay-off.

One of my favorite booths was the idea-ology booth, which featured items designed by Tim Holtz. Jo and I have both been reading Tim’s blog for ages, and have been intrigued by his new Grungeboard product line, and wondered how fun it would be to use. Nothing could prepare us for how incredibly cool this stuff is to work with, though. It has a texture unlike anything I’ve seen before! It’s more like leather than cardboard, and it is really flexible. At a make-and-take at the idea-ology booth, we used some grungeboard, masks, paints, and ink to make a really awesome luggage tag. I can’t wait to come up with new Grungeboard projects!

The Quayside Publishing booth had a make-and-take hosted by Stephanie Girard, author of the book titled Sweater Surgery: How to Make New Things with Old Sweaters. Stephanie showed us how to cut old wool sweaters (that she had washed in order to ‘felt’ them) into pieces to make pretty flower brooches. Wool felting is a project that Jo has been dying to try, so she’s really excited to have some new techniques and felting skills under her belt.

The folks at the Unibind booth not only gave us our favorite tote bag of the show (it had just the right number of pockets, and was lightweight and super comfortable), but they impressed us with their bookbinding equipment. Custom photo books are becoming more and more popular these days, and now you can make them yourself at home with the Unibind PhotoBook Creator. This tool is similar to Provocraft’s YourStory Binding Kit, but after seeing them both in action at the show, we liked the Unibind a lot better. The equipment is smaller, works faster, and has a more professional looking spine in our opinion. You can bind any sort of paper into one of these books, including metallic, vellum, plastic, or cardstock. So cool!

Die Cuts With a View presented the most unique new scrapbook paper we saw at the show — it was made with 70% recycled paper! Available in a pad called the Green Stack, this paper is not weak, like you might think it would be. In fact, it had a wonderful feel to it and was surprisingly tear-resistant, even when folded into the cute little box/bag that we made at the make-and-take. The paper felt almost like vinyl, in a subtle and good way, and we really enjoyed working with it. Not to mention the fact that the patterns were awesome. I also really loved the chipboard animal tags we used (also 70% recycled!). Isn’t that little skunk so cute?

The folks at the DMC booth were super friendly and incredibly generous with giveaways and prize drawings. In addition to the cute “got thread?” T-shirts that they gave out, they also handed out awesome kits with stencils, floss, needles, a marking pencil, and a book or bag to stitch on. Amazing! The booth was filled with glorious collections of floss and threads in every color imaginable, and it was truly a feast for the eyes. They certainly inspired me to whip out an old cross-stitch project that I never did finish last winter.

The BagWorks booth appealed to our sense of organization in a major way with all their adorable totes, bags, and organizers. Besides their regular array of products, they featured a line called “Everything Mary” that we just loved, loved, loved! They let us decorate an adorable little tote at the make-and-take, which is already a staple on my craft table at home. I can’t wait until all the new stuff hits the stores!

Sculpey introduced a new line of clay called Bake Shop, which is formulated for use by kids. It starts out super soft and requires very little conditioning, so it’s great for tiny hands that aren’t strong enough to handle regular polymer clay. Just like regular Sculpey, this clay bakes to a hard finish. We brought home a few samples of this clay and Jo’s daughter loves playing with it.

We had so much fun at CHA and learned so much. We can’t wait until we can return again. If you attended the show, we’d love to hear about your experience there!