The Report From Memory Trends

Memory Trends, the fall tradeshow where companies release their new products for the next several months, was a lot of fun. We played a little bit, but mainly, we spent several late nights writing orders. (Check out these pictures of our late night “booty call.” That’s Robin, better known as “BZ,” our assistant manager, and me, Christina, the owner of Carolina Memories, wearing my signature tradeshow slippers.)

We saw a lot of cool trends, and we just wanted to share them with you:

Black and white – Almost every designer seems to have a new black and white line and we are already getting some of these into the store, such as one beautiful new line from Creative Imaginations. Some designers were using their black and white lines, with red mixed in, for Christmas this year. It had a lot of “pop.”

Vintage, distressed and subdued – The vast majority of new papers seem to be taking a cue from lines like Signature Suite by My Mind’s Eye and Basic Grey. We love these lines and new ones such as Cosmo Cricket because the subdued colors and textures allow the photos on a scrapbook page to really stand out. We’ll also be receiving the new “Magnolia” line by My Minds Eye.

The “digital look” – Digital designers have influenced traditional scrapbooking by overlaying text and designs across photos on their digital pages. There are new generations of rub-ons coming out from companies such as Daisy D’s which have large titles and flourishes and are meant to be overlaid across an enlarged photo.

Clear stamps – It seems like every company is now doing their own version of clear, acrylic stamps with alphabets, doodles, flourishes and more. You can expect to see us bringing in a lot of these new lines! They are especially easy to use for scrapbooking because you can stamp a title on a page and see exactly where you are placing it.

Florals – The floral craze continues, although many stores are upset with Prima’s inability to ship them products in a timely manner. We ordered some of Prima’s new products (and will hope they get here eventually). Also, many new lines are adding paper and fabric floral embellishments, so we’ll have these coming into the store as well.

Chipboard – The use of chipboard to create slightly raised designs on pages is continuing. Since you can paint, glitter, or cover chipboard with paper, it is a very versatile embellishment. We saw chipboard becoming fancier and cheaper, and ordered several new product lines for the store.

Pets – Scrapbooking pets continues to be a popular trend. Many companies have responded with new scrapbooks and products for pets. We ordered many of them.