Nikki Sivils

Bella Blvd, Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker and Jillibean Soup have announced that they are going to be hosting a cooperative blog crawl the weekend of March 5th to promote their three companies.

The blog crawl will include both the companies’ main sites as well as their design team members’ sites. In an unusual twist, each company will give away one of the other companies’ products on their blogs. In all, the companies say over 50 handmade items and prizes will be given away. This is a great chance for consumers to win some great scrapbook stuff!

What’s the marketing lesson here for other companies? This is a great chance for these companies to tell more potential customers about their companies as they cross-promote among themselves. They will also attract more attention in the scrapbook community doing this as a group than they would have gotten doing a blog crawl by themselves.

The Scrapbook Update staff just got home from the Craft & Hobby Association Winter 2010 show in Anaheim! I will be writing several CHA posts here for Scrapbook Update, as well as sharing some personal stories from the show on my own blog over the next week or so.

While at CHA, the number one question asked of me had to be “what are your favorites? What do you love?” The answer is not simple. As I search through my six hundred photos from the show I’ve yet to delete an image or eliminate a brand as a contender for my picks. The vibe on the show floor was so positive, and the products being released were fantastic. What a wonderful thing it is for me to be struggling to narrow down my favorites! I’ve never before had that problem at a show!

Today, I’ve decided to share my favorite “trinkets & treasures” from the show. From buttons to flowers to jewels the show floor was overflowing with bits and pieces that made me want to get creating right away. Here are some of my top picks:

Jenni Bowlin’s embellishments were all vintage treasure. Her buttons and butterflies were so amazing!

Kaisercraft has a cute new line called Devonshire, and I love this embellishment pack:

K & Co. has a vintage inspired line called Handmade. I loved these flowers:

Nikki Sivils came out with four colors of fantastic burlap covered buttons-

Websters Pages booth was filled with beautiful treasures. These sparklers are flat on the back (meaning there is no button shank) so they’re ready to go on your pages!

The Girls Paperie has these adorable charms that have it all – glitter, cute words, rhinestones, and lovely metal detail.

One of the sweetest lines at the show, Dear Lizzy by American Crafts charmed me for sure. These crocheted flowers will be so much fun.

Tim Holtz added some amazing items to his idea-ology line. These buttons were my #1 favorite from the line. They are metal (and other materials) – not painted plastic – so they’re a quality button that could be used on so many things.

Making Memories introduced a whole line of simple to make jewelry that is vintage inspired. Looking at the flowers and charms I saw a lot of things I wanted to use for my scrapbooking as well.

Finally Queen & Co came out with these Ice Rox. They are adhesive backed dots (like jewels or pearls) except they’ve got a multi-faceted shine that is off the hook. Photos don’t do them justice.