Hi everyone and welcome! The wanderer returns... back from the US and a fabulous five days at the annual Craft and Hobbies trade show that is now known as Creativation. This year we made our way to Phoenix, Arizona, and for my first time in the States it was an amazing adventure (though as someone who's scared of flying a 10.5 hour flight required wine, movies and a soundtrack to drown out engine noise!) It was a huge privilege to spend lots of time with Linda Coughlin, the incredibly hard working owner of The Funkie Junkie Boutique for those four days; to finally get to meet this wonderful lady in person after so many years made the trip so special for me from the outset and I am eternally grateful to her. Here we are alongside the amazing Marjie Kemper, another of my creative heroines, attending the education sessions; (Marjie Kemper, me and Linda Coughlin) The business sessions were a wealth of information - such a huge opportunity - and I also got the chance to play during a workshop session with the one and only Seth Apter! He's as amazing in person as he is online and if you ever get the chance to take one of his courses grab it with both hands - you won't regret it. Even more wonderful was the fact that I got to share the experience with Linda and two of my AVJ sisters, Deb Riddell and Sandy Diller!!! We just had to capture that moment for posterity - us, trouble? never!; (Deb Riddell, Seth Apter, Sandy Diller and me) On Saturday the show floor opened and retailers/designers/buyers from across the globe piled in to see what's gonna be hot in 2017, with many of the top names in the industry sharing their latest releases. Here's my 'imposter' shot stood alongside three legends of the business; (Marjie Kemper, Rachel Greig, Eileen Hull and lil' ole me!) I was incredibly fortunate to have been invited to demo myself at the Sizzix booth for the one and only Eileen Hull - she has a brand new Journal die coming out this Spring and I have to say it got me more than a little over-excited when I received some cuts to prep prior to arriving in Phoenix!!! Here is the official Journal photo (I got to see this for real and it's even better in the flesh!!!); And here's the Sizzix Bigz XL die that makes it; In a nutshell it will cut you scored, hole-punched, corner-rounded covers for traveler's notebooks, Midoris, planners and mini journals. Want to see how it works? Here's a video taken by Marjie Kemper sharing my demo at the Sizzix booth - thank you so much to her for capturing me and so many of the other designers 'in action' at the show - check out her YouTube channel to subscribe and see more; Having worked at trade shows in the past I was fully prepared for the fact that as a demonstrator you don't get to complete a great deal what with constantly stopping to run through the product details, answering any questions that the audience may have. So a fair amount of prep had been done before I flew (guess what my carry on bag contained - wasn't losing any of that!) By the end of three days (12 hours) of show and tell I had completed a grand total of three journals. These have now joined all the other gorgeous samples created in advance by Eileen's brilliant Design Team on the road with her as part of the Paper Trail Hopefully she'll get chance to share photos of them all with you when time allows. Before they disappeared I managed to grab some photos of my completed journals (apologies for the quality but the make n take tables weren't designed for this sort of thing!!!) The 'Alphabet Journal' with some of Eileen's fabulous new flowers; with inserts including some yummy Tim Holtz papers inserts; The 'Junk Journal' with a Wendy Vecchi flower cover; Tags, tuck spots and pockets galore including a new design from Eileen Hull; Eileen has designed dies to cut words that can be stitched; Love that Eileen's pocket doubles as a cute little house; And finally this one's all Wendy Vecchi with stencilling and texture galore; and more coordinating design paper inserts inside; Can you see now why I'm so ridiculously excited about the potential for using this die?! I'm thrilled to confirm that my friends in the US can pre-order Eileen's Journal Die at The Funkie Junkie Boutique HERE. For those in the UK the campaign has now begun on Facebook to see how many of us also want to buy this die, as without demand these things don't always reach our shores. So if you, like me, would love the opportunity to place an order with a UK retailer please leave a comment at the end of this post so we can inform them ahead of the UK trade show in February. With that it's time for me to return to the craft room and get some projects made/deadlines met. I'm also planning on making a new video with a complete walkthrough of the journal design so if you have any questions please let me know. Thanks for joining me today - have a great week, take care of yourselves and have fun! Jenny xxx