The Rubber Stamping Ideas design team was well represented at Hobby Industry Associations annual convention this last month. Deena Canup, Shirley Parks, and myself made a valiant effort to seek out the best of the new products at the show, and to learn great new techniques we can show you over the coming months. Erin Turner and Melissa Zeno, contributing authors from scrapbooking.com, joined us as we did our best to find all of the really cool stuff at HIA.

I love the new stamps coming out from Inkadinkado. You'll find this company changing its style and moving towards a very artistic feel. Look for great new things in their Stamp Around the Block line. These wonderful, 7" long cube stamps are perfect for creating borders, bookmarks, books, and much more. They are lightweight, easy to use, and easy to store. This is the perfect stamp to help bridge the gap between scrapbooking and stamping, too.

Speaking of bridging that gap, the new clear stamps by Stampendous are great. These stamp work on an acrylic block. They are very affordable, with a full alphabet being priced at $14 retail! They are easily stored on an indexed sheet, making this a great stamp addition for those who love organization or have little space. Check them out at Stampendous.com.

Speaking of Stampendous, Fran Seiford, creator of Stampendous has designed some wonderful papers for Paper Adventures. These papers use many of Fran's stamps to create wonderful artistic backgrounds, vellums, and aged paper looks. I fell in love with these as soon as I saw them.

Erin Turner writes some of our beginning stamping columns. She loves the scrappers palettes by Ranger Inks. I know we'll be seeing some great new stuff from Erin as she gets to "play" with such perennial Ranger favorites as Posh Impressions inks, Adirondack powders, and much, much more. Oh, and before I forget. Look for the new Adirondack pigment pens. They come in the full Ranger of Adirondack colors, have a fine tip, and vivid earth tone colors. Watch for these in a store near you.

The wheeled tote by Tutto is wonderful. It is actually big enough to easily accommodate 12 x 18 inch sheets of paper, plenty of pens, and much more. Shirley Parks, loves the fact that this tote is big enough to hold many stamps, but will fold flat for easy storage! When stored, this tote only takes up 3 ½ of storage space! And the inline wheels on the tote help it turn on a dime, make it easy to pull and easy to work with --- even when full of great new samples from HIA!

Eureka stamps offer a great line of word stamps. These stamps work well by themselves or can be combined with a larger capital letter stamp to give it that old, hand lettered feel.

Deena Canup fell in love with a new line of Afro-centric stamps by Rubber Necker. These stamps are so lovely, that no matter what your heritage, you'll appreciate the artistry and style of these designs. While visiting with Rubber Necker, I feel in love with some Art Deco style dress designs. You'll love the classy style of these stamps. And make sure to check out their collage, quilt and Celtic images as well.

Magenta has added some new images to their collection. They have also expanded their selection of papers and pewter sticker embellishments. And, Magenta also created some new Jumbo Rollagraph wheels for Clearsnap.

Clearsnap has been busy these past few months as they prepared to unveil some great new products at HIA. Among the wonderful new things I saw were all 28 of the fluid chalk pads created in cat's eye styles. These are wonderful for the direct to paper lovers among us. And while we are talking about direct to paper, you have to pick up the new stylus tip adaptors that make using cat's eyes a breeze. Plus Clearsnap is bringing out new stylus tip designs, new jumbo rollagraph wheels, embossing inks for the jumbo rollagraph, and much, much more. Ask your local stamping store about these great new products.

Tsukineko introduced the new Versaline inkpad. This pad was unveiled at HIA, and is truly amazing. Make sure to read my product review on virtues of this pad designed to stamp a clean image on even the most detailed stamp. The ink is embossable, prints cleanly and check this out. You can wipe the ink right off the stamp with a towel! Tsukineko also dazzled the Staz-on lovers with new colors of this fabulous solvent-based pad. Look for a new shade of blue, as well as a purple and an orange in stores near you soon.

Hero Arts has made a move into artistic stamping with some of the new stamps. They also added great new alphabet stamps, some wonderful new shadow stamps and much more. Make sure to ask your local retailer for a copy of this catalog. This is the perfect idea book, catalog, and wish list all rolled into one! You'll find some great new "real flower" stamps and ideas on how to use them in this catalog, too!

US Artquest continues to offer some great accessory products. Their gold leaf, assortments of adhesives, metal embellishments and much, much more make this a favorite among stampers of all types. Check out their website for ideas on their products and make sure to look for more information on this company here at Rubber Stamping Ideas. USArtquest will soon be distributing stamps for Fred Mullet. Fred's line of nature print stamps is unrivaled in the stamping world. And US Artquest offers some of the best accessories for working with these, or any other stamp.

Serendipity Papers introduced some great new mulberry cardstock. These two-sided papers tear like regular mulberry paper, but have a heavier weight to them. You will adore working with this for anything from card making to creating a scrapbooking layout. And while you are checking out the Serendipity paper selection, look for their themed paper packs.

JHB Buttons has a great line of buttons in a variety of themes. You'll find these perfect for embellishing your projects. I've used these high quality buttons many times before and I am always amazed at the styles, variety, and distinctive nature of the buttons. Ask your local retailer about these and make sure to visit their website for project ideas.

Art Impressions added more stamps to their watercolor line. You'll see us using these here on Rubber Stamping Ideas soon, as we feature an article on this company in May. This is an easy to use technique that gives "WOW" results to almost anyone.

Toybox continues to amaze us with their artsy stamps. I had a great time visiting with this company and learning how to create a rich look with Clearsnap's Vivid inks and the Colorbox stylus combined with the distinctive style of Toybox Rubber Stamps.

There were so many more booths at HIA and so many more wonderful products. I wish I had the time and the space to mention them all. Since I can't get all of these things mentioned, I'll work very hard with our designers to get samples and ideas up for you to visit here at Rubber Stamping Ideas.com.

If you have any questions about this, or any other rubber-stamping article, write to me at Bhamilton@shopa-z.com.