CHA Summer Show, part 2: imaginisce, mixed media, COPIC, Mepxy!

When you walk through a show as big as CHA, you realize there are hundreds of things you've never tried.  You may have heard of this, or seen that, but never really picked it up and went for it.  Guess what?  I went for it.

The lovely people at imaginisce let me try everything!  I used their cordless glue gun called the i-bond, i-top 2.0, d-stress, POGO, i-punch and i-rock tools.  First up, a d-stressed globe blinged out using the i-rock.  The i-rock is a setting tool that transfers heat through their gemstones, called hot rocks or gem rocks, melting the adhesive below in 3-5 seconds.  The machine only takes 10 seconds to heat up then you place it on top of the stone, count to 5, the wah-lah!  You have a set stone.

I also used the i-Rock and i-Top to make some children's jewelry that I'll be gifting.  Here is the headband and matching ring.

imaginisce d-stress tool

imaginisce pogo
adhesive dispenser

The coolest tool, in my opinion, was the d-stress tool - it is what gave the edges of the globe ornament it's distressed look.  The runner up is a product that will be released this fall - the POGO.  It's a hand held adhesive dispenser that holds 250qty 7mm adhesive dots.  Just press down and it dispenses one dot below.  Initially I wasn't sold on the i-punch, but the truth is, it is pretty cool to have so many different punch sizes available in one handheld tool.  I usually use my crop-a-dile, but that only offers two punch sizes.  The i-punch offers 6 sizes and went through my chipboard like a knife through butter.  Ok, maybe I had to put a tiny bit of effort, but you get my point. :)

imaginisce i-punch

So is it me, or has scrapbooking gone to a whole new level?  There are so many artistic influences that the basic cut-and-glue techniques look almost archaic.  Mixed medias ruled the show floor - canvas and paper, ribbon and cloth, paints and markers, sprays and glitter.  The more the merrier, at times.

Seriously, these artists (that's what they are!), make me feel less than inadequate in the scrapbook display arena.  I mean, you're reading the blog of someone who has never experienced COPIC markers.  So guess what?  I checked out COPIC, as well as another new line of fine art markers - MEPXY.


Meet my Copic Cowboy.  I colored him for my older son, who is adoring it.  It was my first experience with these highly addicting markers.  I now understand how people can get hooked on them.  They are easy to work with, blend beautifully and come in over 300 colors and 4 different styles.  The nibs are replaceable if needed and the barrels are refillable.  As the salesperson at their booth said, "An investment in Copic markers is a lifetime investment."  These markers also work with an airbrush system for more super-cool artistic effects.

A new alternative are MEPXY brush markers.  (Mepxy is pronounced like Pepsi but with a "m"). I colored two tags with these beauties and felt the quality and colors looked nice as well.  These are also high-quality alcohol markers that have two sides, blend beautifully and come in 200 different colors.  My only complaint is that they don't have a nib picture on each end of the pen, so I constantly was opening the chisel nib side instead of the fine tip nib end.  The distributor featuring these noted that they have a larger ink capacity than the competition (2.2 cc vs 2.0 cc) and their pens were also refillable with replaceable nibs.  Expected shelf life is 3 years and each set comes with a colorless marker for special effects.


While my own inexperience still lingered, I came across a table of women playing with all types of paints... so I jumped right in and played too.  I'm not too proud of my tag - but I did try out about 5 different paints/sprays on it, just to give it a whirl:

My favorite paint was the Jacquard Lumiere paints.  I sponged some on using stencils and a make-up sponge (see the green shiny paint above?).  PRETTY!  This was also one of my first stencil adventures, so I kept using stencil after stencil with paint after paint (after spray), loving each new layer.


And speaking of paints, there are paintable papers!  Here's a picture of three samples from the show.  The papers can be painted using water color, daubers and more!  If you want to clean up the paper, add water and wipe it down.  The very cool thing about these is that your paper will match your colors!



As much as I could go on, it's time to hang out with the kiddies.  So I'm going to save the last bit for later.  I'll post again soon!