CHA Armchair Attendee Week: Trends, Part I

What's a girl to do if she can't make it to Chicago for the summer Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) trade show? Why, attend virtually, of course! Last winter, I blogged an "Armchair Attendee Week" for write.click.scrapbook. and had a blast tracking the show online and posting about it. We're in Summertime Daily mode over at write.click.scrapbook. so I decided to host my own CHA Armchair Attendee Week here at Right Side Up.

Here's the plan for the next three days:

• Wednesday - Trends, Part I: Patterns & Motifs
• Thursday - Trends, Part II: Products
• Friday - My "Must Haves"

I'm going to start with some shameless self-plagiarizing. I am cutting and pasting the introductory text from my January 30th write.click.scrapbook. post below (with updated links and a couple of small edits, of course!). Don't worry, after that it will all be new material. :)

Introduction

Some of you may be wondering what it means to be an “armchair attendee.” How can you “attend” the show if you’re not there? Well, here’s my process.

• In the weeks ahead of the show, I regularly frequent websites that compile manufacturers’ sneak peeks. Most manufacturers “sneak” their new releases prior to the show via their company’s blog/website, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and that can be exhausting to follow without the aid of websites that do the work of compiling sneaks for you. Two good websites for this are Scrapbook Update and The Scrap Review. Each presents the sneaks a little bit differently: Scrapbook Update provides a clickable list by date of sneaks (the list can also be sorted by manufacturer by clicking at the top of that column) and The Scrap Review blogs sneaks as they appear.

• As I look at sneaks, I make sure to check out both official product images as well as any projects showcasing the new products. Often a line or a product that doesn’t grab me at first looks different when I see it on a layout or a card.

• Once the show starts, I watch online for photos and videos from the CHA show floor. Not all companies do sneak peeks or extensive sneak peeks and seeing new products together with projects made with them in the booth can inspire. You can try searching #CHAshow on Twitter, check magazines' and manufacturers' Twitter feeds/Facebook pages/blogs, or follow targeted CHA forums (like the CHA Summer 2012 forum at Two Peas in a Bucket or Studio Calico's CHA forum).

• The most important piece of my process: I make my wishlist! That was made much easier this year by Pinterest. I started a CHA Summer 2012 board and every time I looked at sneaks I pinned ones that grabbed my attention. (Don't worry, I won't buy it all!)

Summer Show: Some Context

In many ways, the summer show is a bit predictable. There are always lots of fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, winter, and Christmas lines released. Those lines represent the upcoming seasonal highlights, and manufacturers want to be sure that their customers have what they need for the holiday season. However, just because the themes of many of the lines are predictable, that doesn't mean that there isn't great variation from year to year in the way product designers interpret those themes. There are also still many lines released at the summer show with non-seasonal themes, but most manufacturers throw a holiday line or two into the mix amongst their other collections.
 
Continuing Trends: Patterns & Motifs

Depending upon your perspective, you will be happy to hear that many pattern and motif trends from last winter's show (and earlier) are continuing. I am still seeing a ton of chevron prints, woodgrain patterns, polaroids, banners/flags/pennants, and hexagon motifs. There are some new twists here that are keeping these trends fresh, for example, Studio Calico's elongated hexagons and American Crafts' Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go woodgrain chevron patterned paper.

 

I don't want to dwell on the obvious, however, so let's move on to a newer trend. I'm only going to address one major trend for this show, as it's really the only new standout for me.

Speech Bubbles: A New Dominant Trend
I'd say this is the dominant pattern/motif trend at this show, at least from the armchair perspective! (I'd love to hear from those of you at the show to hear your take on this.) A good thing I love this trend, right? :) Manufacturers are interpreting this in lots of different ways:

Studio Calico's Yearbook collection includes wood veneer speech bubbles:

Pebbles's Seen & Noted collection has speech bubbles all over the place, including a speech bubble patterned paper, phrase cards, and chipboard speech bubbles, but my favorite take on the trend within this line are the chalkboard stickers:

Another fun take on this trend comes in the form of washi tape from October Afternoon's carnival-themed Midway collection:

Simple Stories' new Sn@p brand provides the most colorful take on this trend I've seen yet. There are so many takes on the speech bubble within this new product line! I'll post two here, but you should really check out the whole line on their blog here and here!

 

Pink Paislee is showcasing this trend via stamps in the Portfolio collection:

 
Let's peek at one more take on this trend before closing, this one a patterned paper with patterned speech bubbles from American Crafts' Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go collection:

The more I look at what's being released this summer the more I am thinking this might be my favorite show in a good long while, like maybe the last five years! (This does not bode well for the wallet, of course!)

I'll be back tomorrow to look at product trends. I'm seeing another hugely dominant trend there, but will comment on some ongoing trends as well.

Feel free to comment here if you think I've hit the nail on the head, missed the boat, or missed reporting on a favorite new or continuing trend you've noticed.