Dapple Designs

Well, now that I've had a day to reflect on all the goodness at CHA, I have some thoughts to share.  I'm so thrilled to say that I see a trend toward vintage.  Last year there were just snippets of vintage here and there mixed in with tons of adorable.  I have nothing against adorable, but really there needs to be a balance.  I'm happy to say that vintage got much much bigger this year.  I didn't see nearly as much adorable.  I saw lots of glamour and vintage and sewing.  All my happy things everywhere I looked.  I also saw rubber stamps, really truly rubber.  Most of them were cling mounted, which is a great way to bridge the distance between clear stamps and wood mount stamps.  The man at the Hampton Arts booth told me that rubber stamps are making a come back.  Oh, a girl can only hope he's right.  I saw lots and lots of mixed media in the samples in the booths.  So much inspiration everywhere I looked.  Spray ink and paint were everywhere.  I saw lots of black and white and sparkle.  It was so classy.  Metallics were big too.  I may be coming back into style again.  

I had such a good time with this make and take.  This was from a new company called Ecogreen Crafts.  The ATC base is recycled and it's on my must buy list now.  It has a great weight and heft to it.  I think it could take anything I can throw at it.  The dye ink is all low VOC and all that good stuff and it was a nice big oval pad that was easy to hold in the hand. I loved their stamps.  They're all designed by Julie Andrus and come in sets of cling mount on rubber.  This one was one of my favorites.  The little embellishments are recycled glass and I lovey love those.  Such a wonderful company, very friendly and a great make and take.  I'm sure we'll be hearing lots from this one in the future. 

Oh now this was a favorite company for me, too.  This little charm beauty is a make and take from Vintaj.  Another company that's new to CHA.  Lots of pretty metal here.  The butterfly is a metal charm that was plain and flat, sort of a bronze color.  I ran it through a cuttlebug folder with a shim of metal under the folder where the charm was.  We ran it through 3-4 times, back and forth, and it embossed!  I never would've thought you could emboss a heavy metal charm in a cuttlebug folder.  Then I went around to the decorating part of the booth where lots of alcohol ink got dropped on the charm and smeared around.  I used copper and silver mixatives and pool and lettuce inks to get this patina look.  The other little metal pieces are from Vintaj, too.  I can totally see incorporating some of these beauties into my button charm bracelets.  I know we'll be hearing lots from this little company.

This is the make and take from Glitz Designs.  I just had to show you because flowers are all the rage and this one is unique and was pretty easy to make.  I made mine fast, so it's a bit wonky, but I'm sure you could do a better job with more time.  Again look at all this vintage.  I'm so happy.  Ok, so first the middle part.  It was a long strip of patterned paper about an inch or two wide and probably 12" long. We spritzed the front and back with liquid spray starch.  This made it soft to work with, but then it dried crisp.  Very cool trick.  We rolled it and then twisted and scrunched it gluing it to a small piece of paper. We used hot glue, man I hate hot glue, but it worked here.  I always burn my fingers with that stuff.  We trimmed the paper around the edge of the inside part with scissors so the paper underneath didn't show.  Next we took a coffee filter, I know a coffee filter!  and we sprayed shimmery ink on it. I don't know what kind it was, no name on it.  We smooshed down the coffee filter and folded it under and glued it to another little scrap of paper.  Once it was all hot glued down, we glued the top piece on and the pretty rhinestone in the middle.  Glitz Designs really rocked this make and take.  So unique and funky.