Happy Valentine's Day from Oakhurst!

 
Hi there;
I am a day late getting this off to you...must be something about waiting for winter! When Robin, Melissa and I went to CHA last month, we were suprised to have rain in Anaheim for two of the three days. Of course, we were totally unprepared for rain, me in my sandals and no umbrellas. We had a great time walking the show floor checking out all of the latest goodies. I hope you were able to follow us on facebook to see some of them. It was a special treat to wander into the Impression Obsession booth and find vintage stampers, Suze Weinberg and Dee Gruenig sitting there chatting. As we talked to some of the other store owners, I think I may have been the only one there in business long enough to remember them both :) This November we will celebrate our 20th anniversary!

So...what was new? Well we definitely saw LOTS of gold! Shiny things were everywhere. Paper featured touches of foil, there was bling of many varieties, several new companies, and some things that really show that eventually old becomes new! As for that, Hero Arts debuted their new Ombre ink pads (remember rainbow pads) and their little square pads, can't remember what they call them, but they are a re-do of the old Personal Stamp Exchange Pixie Pads, a small pigment pad that is divided into four little pads of different colors. Actually there were many companies who featured their own lines of ink pads, mostly to color coordinate with their papers.

Ranger Ink debuted their new dye ink line that will eventually replace the Adirondack inks. We should soon receive the first 12 colors. Happy to say they have a really good red ink that has been missing forever! They also have black and white in pigment, perfect for embossing. They will be introducing a new Tim Holtz Distress color each month.

One of our favorite new companies was Altenew. It is a little stamp company that features layering flower stamp sets. The sets are clear and you start by stamping the largest flower in the lightest color ink, adding a couple more images decreasing in size and each in a darker color. Owner, Tasnim uses a damp brush to make these flowers look as though they are done by a professional watercolorist! We should have our order late this month followed by a March class taught by Melissa.

We LOVED the new releases by Taylored Expressions. I took several photos of samples of the Build-a-Scene collection. The paper pad includes sky, grass, all prints of paper you would need to build your scene. The stamps and dies provide everything you need to further create/embellish your scene....houses, cars, you name it. That collection is currently in the store, and the even newer collection with Easter images is in transit.

One of our real finds was from My Mind's Eye. We ordered a couple of paper collections (yes, one with gold foil), but were really excited to see the new part of the company called My Colors! This is a very well thought out collection of solid colors in both 12x12 and 8 1/2x11. There are Basics, a small line of really basic colors that everyone would need, larger line of canvas textured colors that offers several shades of each color, a line of 30 heavyweight colors, and a line of 30 colors in a mini-dot texture. At this time, we ordered the heavyweight and dot. My Mind's Eye acquired several seasoned employees from another well-known paper company that was purchased by a larger company and relocated. These people bring a lot of knowledge of paper basics to My Mind's Eye. MME also had good candy in their booth which Melissa found in the bottom drawer of their desk ;)

By the way every vendor at CHA has candy....must be some plan to put buyers into a sugar induced coma!

Spellbinders had a very nice booth with some lovely samples. We have lots of Spellbinders on order but they will be shipped over the next several months, not all at once. We have a very comprehensive catalog from them, so if you are die-crazy like we are, stop in and sit a while with the catalog and a pen and paper to make a list of the dies you 'need'!

The Art Impressions booth must have had 5000 samples! How fun to see their whimsical images in action. Many of them spin and move in other fun ways. We are looking forward to having Art Impressions featured at Stamp Escape.

Another exciting booth was Elizabeth Craft Designs. We got to visit with our friends Els and Joep and of course with Karen Burniston as we checked out all of the new dies and peel-offs. We were so excited to meet Susan Tierney-Cockburn, the new addition to the company. You will know Susan from Susan's Garden. a collection of wonderful dies to make realistic paper flowers. She is the perfect addition to ECD and she and Els promised that Susan will teach at Stamp Escape 2016!

Our goal (hopefully realistic) is to be able to announce the 2016 confirmed teachers at The Great Yosemite Stamp Escape 2015! We shall see....the best laid plans and all of that :) And yes, 2015 Stamp Escape is full with a waiting list. If you haven't signed up for 2015, don't be afraid to put your name on the waiting list, just in case! Call me!

I will fill you in further on other finds at CHA as they are closer to being shipped. Oops....forgot an important one, Graphic 45 Atrisan Style and home Sweet Home collections are shipping tomorrow so look for them by the end of this week (about the 6th).

Be sure to check out the upcoming classes and call to sign up soon as they will fill up quickly. Also, if you are planning to attend classes, please check out the Basic Tool Kit list on the Classes page so you will have everything you need to be successful at class. I think I failed to tell you in the January newsletter that our class fee for most classes is now $18. The teachers took a modest $3 increase...still at least $10 less than other stores! Thanks for understanding that costs for the teachers do increase over time, and they try to offer you creative projects that are certainly worth the cost of the class.

Hoping for rain......

What's New?

Taylored Expressions January release, Build-a-Scene is here! Melissa is featuring this collection in her class at the end of the month...and by the time you read this, we should have the February collection, too.

By the end of this week, we will have the Graphic 45 collections, Artisan Style....sort of Art Deco in shades of peach and aqua. Also the home Sweet Home collection that reminds me of a 50's housewife. The colors are light blues and shades of red. I picture this as a recipe/scrapbook with my Moms recipes and photos of her. Hmmmm a project for me?

Of course, we have Valentine's Day papers, stamps and images ready for your last-minute cards. And we are looking forward to St. Patrick's Day and Easter with paper, stamps, and dies in stock with more to come.

The latest Memory Box  and Poppystamps collections of dies are selling well and re-orders will be placed soon. Let us know if there is something you need.

As always, we are happy to special order items you need if they are available to us either through the company or one of our distributors. Just keep in mind that we can't order just one item from a company, so special orders can take several weeks. Thanks for your patience.

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