Good morning SCT Friends, Catherine here with you on this cool and blustery morning at SCT HQ!

Last Friday several of the SCT team headed to Phoenix, AZ for our annual industry trade show, Creativation. This trade show brings together the Craft & Hobby Association in one large convention centre room which is attended by retailers, designers, bloggers and media all to see the product releases so many of our favourite companies will have available in the upcoming year. Are you thinking it must be like being a kid in a candy store? It is just like that!

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Our team was on the floor for three days, planning our upcoming editorial, catching up with industry friends, meetings around the clock and of course, trying to bring as much of it as we could to you through Facebook LIVE and Instastories. We wanted you to see all that we could share and loved the time we spend with so many of our partnering companies. If you missed it, be sure to look back a few posts ago, visit our Facebook page or visit us on YouTube to see all the videos.

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New this year we co-hosted a little event with our friends at Simon Says Stamp called “Meet Me At The Show!” Our original thought was maybe 60-80 friends and companies may join us. In the end, 220+ friends and companies joined us! We had 14 make n’ takes, an incredible goody bag, great good but the best…seeing our community come together in one big room to celebrate papercrafting. We tried to get one big “Ellen” style selfie and I think Susan, our Editor-in-Chief, did a great job!

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Our final stop was a tour of the brand new Scrapbook.com facility. Do you really want to feel like a kid in a candy store? Scrapbook.com is the best candy store EVER for papercrafters! Their new offices are beautiful from back to front and the warehouse is the most efficient, bright place you can imagine. Such care and attention to all of the needs of their team and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a happier place to work. While we can’t really show you much in the way of photos, we did enjoy some special time with Jessica Harrington, the CMO. As our largest distributing partner for the magazine, we love this partnership with them!

Of course while in Phoenix we enjoyed many dinners with our team and industry friends including Vicki Boutin, Shimelle, Paige Evans, Melodee Cloud and more. If you’re ever looking for some fun places to eat be sure to check out The Henry, The Arrogant Butcher, or Chico Malo. All amazing! Team member Meghann Andrew was in charge of where we ate and she did not disappoint. A nice way to end a long day!

One more fun part? Celebrating our 30,000th follower on Instagram the moment before we all boarded our planes to come home. Meghann and I needed to celebrate that!

Can you see that we were a little tired but so happy? Fun way to end a great five days! Thank you to all our followers here, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and more!

Now, if you’ve read all the way to the end, then you know we have a Creativation giveaway for one lucky reader! We collected some fun products from our many of our friends and today’s surprise package will have products from American Crafts, Photo Play Paper, My Mind’s Eye and even a cute little pin from Doodlebug! For an opportunity to win, leave us a comment below and tell us what your most anticipated product is from the show! Please leave your comment by January 31st! Good luck!

They say when you enjoy what you do it never feels like work. I could not agree more. Our Scrapbook & Cards Today family is a special one and I’m incredibly blessed to work with them.

Have a wonderful weekend friends! If you have any questions at all about the show, please feel free to email me at catherine@scrapbookandcards.com!  xoxo

~ Catherine Tachdjian, Publisher