If you follow me on Instagram, you saw that I recently visited the Whatever Craft House in Newton, Kansas for the Creative Soul Camp retreat with Stephanie Ackerman. 

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
‭‭-Philippians‬ ‭4:8‬

It was so fun getting to know Christian women from around the United States and having the common connection of Christ spark great friendships. 

My roommates (Ruthie and Gayle) and I shared the “pink room,” and as it turns out Gayle and I live pretty close to each other, what are the odds?!

The house is a super cute and over 100 years old. Here's a peek around it:

Meg cooked some delicious meals and gave us lots of treats. (I through my “no refined sugar” out the window as to not be a stick in the mud, but I'm trying to get back on track now that I'm back home. Summer is so hard!

We went antiquing, and I found some great sheet music from a used book store to use for art projects. If I had a way to get home some bigger things it may have been bad. There was so many great finds at Bearly Makin’ It Antiques Mill. Oh, and I bought some fabric. Beautiful fabric! Definitely stop by Charlotte's Sew Natural if you're ever in Newton, KS.

Oh, and of course we did some crafts.  ;)  I didn't take many photos of it though since I was busy creating at the time.

So needless to say, we had fun!

The craft industry headed off to Phoenix, AZ again this year for the annual trade show. Once again I worked in the Brother booth demoing the ScanNCut and DesignNCut, but I did have a chance to jot up and down the isles and see some of the awesome new products other manufactures have coming out this year.  Here's a few things that caught my eye:

Disclosure: Erin is a paid consultant and has received  products from Brother to evaluate. However, the opinions expressed are entirely her own and based on her use of the products.

This post contains affiliate links. If you buy from these links it won't cost you a penny more but Erin will make a little bit of money (not enough for a pony). 

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The CHA Trade-show is a fun time to see new products and connect with industry friends.

This year I was working in a booth or in meetings for most of the show so I didn't get a lot of time to just meander around looking at products, but I did see some great things by taking creative routes to lunch...

• Like this adorable little scotty dog washi tape holder by WeRMemoryKeepers
  

• You know I'm a sucker for The Crafter's Workshop stencils!
  
  
  
  

• You have got to see Faber-Castell's new Cement Texture Paste and Asphalt Texture Paste! They are the coolest and look (you guessed it) just like concrete and asphalt!
  

• Ranger has Journal Insert Pages...handy to use for travel and then slip them into your art journal when you get home.
  
  

• Love these Xiem Art Rollers, you can cut them to the size you need.
  

• ArtFoamies were a big hit in the mixed media world at the show...love how you can bend the long ones to get the shape you need (ie: the hair on the sample below).
  

• Cosmo Cricket had a lot of new watercolor kits.
  

• Yarn sweet yarn! Can you believe you can make a shawl with this Lion Brand yarn? (It's so new they don't even have a link for it yet!)
  
  

• Or a scarf with the Scarfie yarn!
  

• Now this iLoom is something my nieces would love since it involves an iPad (and app).
  
  

I'm sure there's plenty I missed, but I'm really excited to get my hands on some of these and try them out! What ones are you hoping to try???

It's CHA time! Which mean all the new craft products are being unveiled and will be hitting store shelves soon. -It's an exciting time of year for the arts and crafts industry, and I'm thankful to get to be a part of it.  

I'm over at the Brother ScanNCut booth demoing the NEW ScanNCut2 machine...and they even blew up a photo of one of my projects display on the outside of my demo station.  :)

The theme of our booth is a candy shop so we have lots of samples of delicious looking papercrafts, sewing, and embroidery candy...along with the real stuff of course. May Flaum created this little vignette with the help of her ScanNCut. 

As I was headed out the door to the show I whipped up a few of these adorable candy huggers from an SVG file Lia Griffith created, the lucky few that got them loved them! If you're looking for lots of great SVG files you've got to check her site out.

Also during the show I've been whipping up this kirigami pattern because it reminds me of candy! Philip Chapman Bell created the PDF file and I've been cutting it out on my ScanNCut2 and then assembling them.  It's super fun!

 After the show wraps up I'll be sure to post a follow up on any cool new products I come across while a the show!

Happy crafting!

Disclosure: Erin is a paid consultant and has received  products from Brother to evaluate. However, the opinions expressed are entirely her own and based on her use of the products.