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On Paper
Listed under: Trend Report
Published: Friday, February 09, 2007
After a busy week at the CHA Winter Convention and Trade Show in Anaheim, California, Paper Cellar's Deepa Mehta reflects on the key paper trends
At our stand we felt the pearlescent, glitter and textured handmade papers were very well received as they don't have any similar itmes in the US. Also, we have a new spinner stand that holds over 720 packs of different embellishments, which caught everyone's eye and caused people to stop - and order!
One of US celebrity, Terri O's favourite items was the mini scrapbooking books, which she called a mini brag book. It's perfect to pop into your handbag and then pull out and show off your baby pictures.
The bling and glitzy items are still very popular and everyone liked how we were expanding the craft offering with the Gift It range, which includes aprons kits to make and decorate your own apron, as well as our mini t-shirts and baby grows, which crafters can stick on a card, put on a teddy bear or in a shadow box, or even on a scrapbook page. We were obviously doing something right as we had Martha Stewart's entourage taking pictures of the Paper Cellar products.
On the whole, the paper sector was very well represented, as it is the world's largest trade show there seemed to be every possible paper craft item on exhibition. In the USA I have heard that scrapbook is on the decline and that people are a little bored of it. This is good for companies who have a foundation in card making as this area is definitely on the up. I am still a believer that a form of scrapbooking will start to become popular in the UK, not as much as card making, but as I have said before everyone has at one time put a photo in a frame and given it to someone - and scrapbooking is the same but with a few embellishments stuck on the page. I think in terms of design for the UK, the 12x12 are a bit intimidating and therefore smaller sizes need to be considered.
To be honest - a lot of things from some of the big manufacturers looked quite similar - it was very much keeping up with the Joneses. However, there were some really fantastic rubber stamp lines and beading companies, who were amazing! I think rubber stamping is going to come back in the UK in a really big way, like it was around four year ago. I think everything is country specific - in the UK, while card making is popular, people who are currently creating cards are looking to do other things, so my predictions for 2007 are home decor, rubber stamping and gift wrapping and colours that are bright, vibrant and striking will make more headway.
One of US celebrity, Terri O's favourite items was the mini scrapbooking books, which she called a mini brag book. It's perfect to pop into your handbag and then pull out and show off your baby pictures.
The bling and glitzy items are still very popular and everyone liked how we were expanding the craft offering with the Gift It range, which includes aprons kits to make and decorate your own apron, as well as our mini t-shirts and baby grows, which crafters can stick on a card, put on a teddy bear or in a shadow box, or even on a scrapbook page. We were obviously doing something right as we had Martha Stewart's entourage taking pictures of the Paper Cellar products.
On the whole, the paper sector was very well represented, as it is the world's largest trade show there seemed to be every possible paper craft item on exhibition. In the USA I have heard that scrapbook is on the decline and that people are a little bored of it. This is good for companies who have a foundation in card making as this area is definitely on the up. I am still a believer that a form of scrapbooking will start to become popular in the UK, not as much as card making, but as I have said before everyone has at one time put a photo in a frame and given it to someone - and scrapbooking is the same but with a few embellishments stuck on the page. I think in terms of design for the UK, the 12x12 are a bit intimidating and therefore smaller sizes need to be considered.
To be honest - a lot of things from some of the big manufacturers looked quite similar - it was very much keeping up with the Joneses. However, there were some really fantastic rubber stamp lines and beading companies, who were amazing! I think rubber stamping is going to come back in the UK in a really big way, like it was around four year ago. I think everything is country specific - in the UK, while card making is popular, people who are currently creating cards are looking to do other things, so my predictions for 2007 are home decor, rubber stamping and gift wrapping and colours that are bright, vibrant and striking will make more headway.
