Adventures

‘Twas the day before the Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show, but just in time for the Craft SuperShow–which is the one open to the public! Yesterday’s event was full of make-and-takes (yes, just as it sounds, you make it, then take it with you) and new product demonstrations. Many of my very favorite crafty peeps were there, appearing at some booth or other, or walking the floor like me and checking out the sights and smells (yes, glues, inks, paints, markers often have a particular scent, too…and the food wafting over from the food court. But for now, a diet of paper cutting, glitter sprinkling, coloring, and cake decorating kept me quite full and satisfied.

1) “Create” was the theme of the day! 2) First stop, Provocraft, where I’ll be doing my demos with the Yudu screenprinting machine on Tuesday. They’re unveiling a new Cricut Cake machine for decorating your baked goods! All edible crafting–yum. 3) And it’s hard not to spot Crafty Chica Kathy Cano-Murillo’s booth at Duncan’s ilovetocreate. Here’s me poking my head through the crafty chica cutout!

4) The Crafty Chica make-and-take of the day was a silk fan–using the super juicy markers from her new line, we decorated the plain white fans. 5) Representing the east coast, Craftster was there, with skull-and-craft tool T-shirts and… 6) helping folks make buttons and showing off the awesome wares that their community of crafters makes.

7) I made a machine embroidered drink cozy for my sister–not a lot of work, since the machine does it all for you, but the options are endless–you can upload your own fonts and designs on one of these things! 8 ) At the American Sewing Guild tables, I stitched up a drawstring bag for charity. 9) Then I headed over to check out Debbie Stoller, who was signing at the JoAnn booth, showing off her new line of Stitch Nation yarn! Congrats, Debbie!

10) Her yarns are so soft and all natural and…wait for it…affordable! The perfect thing to get my crochet on (learning crochet is my crafty New Year’s resolution). Luckily, Debbie has me covered on that front, too. 11) Then it was lunchtime, and who should I meet in line, but Sonya Nimri, crafty author and all around crafty lady extraordinaire. She in turn introduced me to Jenny Doh, who’s launching a new crafty hotspot, Crescendoh, in March–stay tuned! 12) After lunch, back over to the Provocraft stage where Sonya demonstrated some really easy and fun leather and felt jewelry techniques using the Cuttlebug machine (usually reserved for scrapbooking, but here’s an example of something being more than meets the eye–Sonya discovered that this paper cutter can cut leather very cleanly too!) Then she stuck around to give away signed copies of her new book, Beadalicious–you better believe I lined up to get one!

That’s all to report for now (I’m exhausted!), but stay tuned for a few more days of crafty fun and reporting from the CHA trade show.

[ Posted on January 24th, 2010 ]