Get out your craft supplies!  March is National Craft Month. To celebrate, many of the craft companies are planning lots of activities and specials, so click to see these activities all listed on CraftPlace.org.

I’ve always loved crafting and have created crafts from childhood. Oh, all the crafts I have worked with – drawing and painting, sewing, designing doll clothes, batik, macrame, stained glass (this was my only drop out due to too many cuts and blood), decoupage, paper crafting, embroidery, cross stitch, beading (both jewelry and sewing), crochet, needlepoint, quilting, crewel, rug hooking, and mosaics. I know there are plenty more that just didn’t pop out of the top of my head. I love taking classes and whenever a class was available on a craft technique, I took it.

Let me know what you love about crafting. Me – I love how relaxing it is and how little everyday life stresses fade away when crafting. You can come home from a hard day at work and let a little crafting soothe you. As a designer, I can get stressed by deadlines creeping up, but when I start working on the projects, I’m in heaven! I also love the creative aspect – no two craft projects are the exact same, so you’ve created something totally unique. Its also something that you can do with your kids for some really good times together. The list of perks from crafting just goes on and on!

Seriously, let me know about your crafting loves or experiences!

Phyllis

Welcome back for more great products and displays from the Craft and Hobby (CHA) Winter Trade Show held in Anaheim, CA. If you missed my first CHA review post, please visit it to see some great color and design.

One of the fun trends I saw at CHA was paper sculpting and the Die Cuts With a View (DCWV) booth had so many fabulous projects, I took photos of all just about of them.

The bird, fish and peacock were all gorgeous and my favorite was the peacock with its tail “feathers” cascading to the floor.

Loved the paper flowers!

The paper sculpture tree held streamers of the beads from their bead line. DCWV also won the best booth for an island or peninsular. The DCWV booths at prior shows were also spectacular, including the one with full size paper dresses.

June Tailor had several new products in their gorgeous booth. Two of their new tools were the Rosette Template and the multi-size flower template as shown with the layered felt flower. The rosettes made with the Rosette Template can be used as accent pieces on boots, knit caps and much more. With your imagination, you can come up with tons more uses. The fringe on the cap in the top center was made with their new fringe tool. And I love the colors of pink and orange color combination they used in this section of the booth.

The gorgeous rose and hydrangea pillows were created with the Rosette tool and I guess you can tell that I love this tool!

I ran into the talented and beautiful Claudine Hellmuth at the Ranger booth after she finished her demonstration using her product line for Ranger -  Studio Paints, Studio Brushes and Studio Sticky Back Canvas.

Debi Schmitz of Expo International is just adorable!  She’s pictured above holding some of the new feather swirls that come in both the bright colors she is holding as well as the more neutral colors that are pictured right below her. They are beautiful, no matter which color!

Peacock’s are really trendy in both design, decoration and motifs. Their peacock feather adornments were gorgeous, especially with the bling in the center.  The hats are about 5″ – 6″ and are so cute. Expo had an entire line of the small hat adornments.

The EK Success booth had a line of crewel kits for their Dimensions Brand, all designed by Lori Siebert. I’ve always loved crewel and embroidery and am excited to see this type of needlework being featured.

In the recent years, Duck Tape has been put to much more creative uses than just being used as tape, with all kinds of fun things being made with it including clothing. Shurtech Brands displayed a prom dress and suit, all made with Duck Tape.

Vanna White was at CHA again, presenting the Lion Brand Yarn runway show. Vanna has been the spokesperson for Lion Brand Yarns for over 14 years. This display of their yarns really made a splash of color!

I don’t usually get excited about irons, but this one is the exception. The Oliso steam iron the “iTouch” is fabulous and its on my shopping list. You just leave it flat and after a few seconds, prongs come out of the bottom and lifts the iron up from the surface. You don’t stand this iron on its “rear” end like most irons, but leave it flat. When you get ready to use it again, just touch the handle and it lowers back to the surface. So no burned or scorched fabrics!  And since it stays flat, is harder to knock over. Oh, another thing I love about it is that it fills on the side instead on the front top end.

More paper sculpture – the pinwheels in the Silhouette booth were cute and fun!

For you sewers and quilters, Sullivans USA had some exciting new products that caught my attention. The top photo shows cutting rulers that sharpen your blades as you cut. In addition, they have a new mat, Add-a-Mat, lets you size the mats as you need them.  This is a great idea for travel where you need to take a cutting mat, like to classes, or are limited in storage space.

CHA has a lot of educational seminars. Tony Ford, the COO of ArtFire and CHA’s Emerging Technology Expert, conducted two classes. I attended both, which were outstanding. I attended a seminar by him at the CHA summer show last year and learned so much. So I made sure to be at both of his seminars this time as well.

One of the fun things that took place at the CHA show was a flash mob dance before the show opened. We’re standing around above trying to blend in and look natural in the crowd before the flash mob.  All of us wore pink She’s Crafty aprons from Charity Wings and had to cover them up prior to the flash mob.

I’m looking forward to working with many of the fabulous products that I’ve shown you, so it will be a fun year!

Happy Crafting,

Phyllis

After spending several days in southern California for the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) winter show, I came home inspired and excited. I took photos of the fabulous products and displays, so many photos that I will have to divide my CHA review into two parts. CHA is a huge show with such a variety of products in about all crafting cagtegories. The variety is one of the things I love about the show.

The trends that I noticed at the show included lots of paper sculpture as well as bead sculpture, glass mosaics, beads and needlework to include both embroidery (and Crewel) and felt. I’m sure I missed some other trends, but these caught my attention.

I was working in the Gutermann booth surrounded by the beautiful and high quality Gutermann threads.

I love the wide assortment of the in both cotton and silk.  Watch for designs and projects that I will be creating using their threads – comiong soon!

I took a closeup of one spool of the varigated thread.  I loved the pattern created by the thread winding and the brilliant varigated color. Opening your eyes to things close  around you can give you beautiful patterns.

Brazzill Basic Papers had beautiful displays of sculptured flowers.  This display was hanging in a corner of the booth. A beautiful, larger display was in the center of the booth, but they were so busy and crowded with buyers, I could not get to it to take a photo.

Therm O Web demonstrated a new glitter – Glitter Dust, that gives a light sprinkling of glitter by aerosol.  The paper sculptured heart consisted of various sizes of flowers, all with a light coating of Glitter Dust.

Knitting and crochet are so versatile, as can be seen by the display in the Bernat booth with these chairs.

These chair covers were knitted and crocheted using Waverly for Bernat, based on 5 of Waverly’s popular patterns.  The yarns are in color collections based on the colors of the patterns. You can see my favorite 2 chairs below.

Aren’t they wonderful!!

And I just love these sweaters and accessories also in the Bernat booth. I will take one of each! I really love the colors of this display.

The ILovetoCreate booth was filled with several wonderful displays created by EdoHeidi Borchers and Tiffany Windsor. Heidi created the mosaic boots using over 2000 pieces of mosaic tiles and buttons. They were gorgeous!  The dress was designed by Heidi and Tiffany with 90 paper plates hand cut into over 5000 petals, glued and painted to look like faux leather.  This was a stunning display to show the uses of Aleene’s glue.

This large column, designed by Tiffany and Heidi, is decorated with 1200 paper plate hand and die cut into over 3300 pieces.

This display of mosaics was also designed by Heidi and Tiffany for ILovetoCreate. I love the skirt!  It’s made with broken china – cups and plates.  Its really a work of art! The table and chair are mosaics using broken china.  All three pieces created a beautiful setting.

ILovetoCreate also has Tulip paints for body painting. A different design was painted each day.  The pretty model is Savannah Starr, Heidi’s granddaughter. I wonder if it tickles but it would be fun to paint and wear!

Tiffany is pictured here with me when I ran into her at the show. Besides being a great designer, Tiffany also hosts the Cool2Craft network.

The Kunin Group had adorable projects in their booth with colorful felt, including the this fish pillow and the stuffed fish.

The cell phone cases were one of the displays in the Kunin Group booth.  They are just too cute and are by Jodie Haffa of Lova Revolutionary.

David Tutera, wedding expert and host of My Fair Wedding on WeTV, has a bridal accessory line with Darice. Some of the products are used for the beautiful table setting above. And as you can see, I got to get a picture taken with David.

Mich Turner of Little Venice Cake Company, London, has a line of baking accessories also with Darice. Mich, the Queen of Couture Cakes, is demonstrating on the Darice stage.  Those cakes really look yummy!

Check back for part 2 of my review of CHA.  I have lots more to show you!

Phyllis

I just returned from the Craft and Hobby (CHA) Winter Trade Show in Anaheim, CA, in the Convention Center next door to Disneyland. It was great seeing lots of new and fun products as well as lots of friends. I attended several of the educational seminars that were packed with information. I took so many pictures (almost 300), so I have bunches of photos to go through so I can post them (much less than the 300) and  show you the things that caught my attention.

But I want to go ahead and post a link to one of the fun events of the trip. I participated in a flash mob dance “She’s Crafty” before the opening of the show. It was organized by CharityWings.org to earn money for charity and the flash mob consisted of almost 100 artists, designers, business owners and more. It was my first flash mob but I was enjoying the moment and kept forgetting to count the dance steps.

Please check back soon to see my photos from CHA of new products, great displays, and more.

Phyllis

I’m really looking forward to attending CHA, the trade show for the Craft and Hobby Association for a few days and as well as the warm weather in Anaheim, CA.  I always love attending this show to see new products, take the educational seminars, and for the exciting atmosphere of the show.

I’m excited about the seminar The New Dynamics of Art Licensing that I along with Brenda Pinnick and Karen Embry will be teaching while we are in Anaheim. We have been really focused in putting the seminar together with some great information.  (You can click on the NDAL button in the sidebar to see more on what is being offered.)

At CHA, I will be working for Gutermann, so you can find me in their booth most of the time.  I’ve always loved the beautiful Gutermann threads and am delighted to be working with them.  So if  you are attending CHA, please stop by and say “hi”.

The Designer Showcase  is having a change in the format this year, focusing more on what the designers can do for a company.  I’ve always exhibited in the Designer Showcase and had been giving a lot of thought to my showcase this year. Then it just all finally  came together in a mental snap so all I had to do was gather up things I wanted to use and do a little printing. This year, it will also be open to everyone, except for non-CHA members.

I will be involved in something else at CHA that is really fun, but I can’t talk about it yet. But I can mark it off my bucket list. So you will have to check back to find out what this is – it will be videoed and out there for the world to see.  I just have to make sure I don’t mess up, but it will be among friends.  Speaking of friends, that’s another reason I love to attend CHA – to catch up with friends, network, and gab a little.

Check back and stay tuned – I may come back with a little gossip, or not (probably not). But I will have lots of photos of new products, great displays, splashes of fun and splashes of color.

Phyllis

I love crafting and always have. I started crafting as a kid. Before I became a professional designer, I took every craft class and tried every type of craft that came along. I still take classes whenever possible and love trying new (to me) types of crafts. I’m a huge fan of glass and when a fused glass class became available recently, I jumped at it, signing up immediately.  We made 2 projects during the evening classes. I really enjoyed playing with the glass in arranging colors and pieces to make my first project, a shallow dish. I wanted it to look abstract and while it won’t win an award, I love the way it turned out. It was very informative and interesting in seeing how different colors of glass and opaque and transparent glasses work together.

The class included a second project which was a pendent. Somehow I thought the pendent would be much easier – wrong!  I tried arranging several small pieces to create a design. But because everything was so small, I kept bumping the pieces after I arranged some, messing up my design. A large pair of tweezers would have helped. It was getting late so I took the easy way out after many attempts with the small pieces and used 2 large pieces.

I plan to go back and create some more fused glass pieces as well as take other classes on different mediums. Even though my days and business are based on creating, I still find it relaxing and inspiring to craft and love working with my hands to make something.

I hope you are having a crafty day! (And if you have children, introduce them to crafting if you haven’t already – it will start a life long love of creating something!)

Phyllis

This has been a busy week, unwinding and getting back in the flow after attending the amazing Creative Connection Event held in St. Paul. Days 2 and 3 were devoted to classes, various panels, and other speakers and panels at breakfast and lunch.  (My prior blog post detailed the first day with exciting BlogHer panel discussions.) I chose to take 4 classes on these 2 days although there were several panel sessions I would have loved to attend.

Its always fun to have some arts and crafts play time and to work in different techniques than I’m used to.  There were many  classes to choose from but I chose to take all 4 of Traci Bautista’s classes with different focuses of art journaling.

There are so many surfaces you can journal on and, as shown by Traci, fabric is one of the surfaces that can be used.

Our table early during first class with our basic journal pages in process.

Karen Embry and Brenda Pinnick are very intent on their journal pages.

In another of Traci’s classes, she is explaining different page techniques and the binding of journals.

Our table in another class – lots more more product and lots of swapping between tables.

A journal page I was working on during one of the classes.

Art journaling can get messy so its best to cover up both surfaces and clothes.  Its amazing that I didn’t get any paint on the shirt I brought to protect my clothes. If I had been in my studio, I would have had paint in my hair, on my face and all the way to my feet.  But it was impossible to keep my hands clean!

On Friday evening, the event had a cocktail party with book signing by the authors in attendance.  I didn’t pass up a chance to have my picture taken with several of the authors.

Jo Packham, although the same height as me, is a giant.  She is not only the editor for Where Women Create and Where Women Cook, she is the co-founder of The Creative Connection Event. I know TCC event took a tremendous amount of planning, but Jo pulled it off to perfection.

Holly Becker is the author of the popular decorating blog Decor8 and her book Decorate is an international best seller. Holly is a tremendous speaker and was the dinner keynote speaker Thursday night along with Christina Ferrare.

Kelly Rae Roberts, author of Taking Flight, was also part of a very informative breakfast panel of speakers.

And I love this group photo at Crafty Chica’s (Kathy Cano-Murillo) signing, left to right – Eileen Hull, myself, Ann Butler, Kathy – Crafty Chica, Karen Embry, and Brenda Pinnick.

I remain inspired from this event and am already looking forward to next year’s. If you are thinking of attending, you won’t be disappointed!

Have a inspiring day!

Phyllis

I am looking forward with excitement to The Creative Connection Event, co-founded by Jo Packham, Editor in Chief of “Where Women Create” and “Where Women Cook”.  Held in St. Paul, MN starting September 17, this is the 2nd year of the Event. I decided to attent after hearing great things about last year’s event.

Geared toward creative women, the event focuses on handmade and on food and cooking. I guess I don’t have to tell you that since I had to choose one direction, I chose handmade. In addiiton, a day will be devoted to social media and blogging.

And, Pitch Slam slams are being held one afternoon where one can pitch a product or literary idea to a panel of professionals for each of several fields. The Pitch Slams are limited to 9 people for each category, with the 9 people selected randomly.  It was a “whoohoo!” moment for me when I found out that I was selected for one of the pitch slams. So, I am busy working on my “product” to pitch in a time frame of 3 to 4 minutes.

The Creative Connection Event will also have a market place and a book store, 2 of my favorites for any event!

I haven’t been to St. Paul, but have been to Minneapolis a few times and love the area. I’m especially looking forward to visiting the area and attending the event! All this plus some good friends who are also attending should all combine for an inspirational few days, learning new things and great networking.

Check back as I will write all about my experiences at TCC!

Phyllis

The exhibitors at the Summer CHA Trade show showcased some really cool products and displays in spite of the heat outside!  I attended the Craft and Hobby tradeshow which was held in Chicago during July and had a delightful time checking everything out.  The focus of the summer show is scrapbooking and all the papers and products that go with creating anything with paper.

Amazing paper dresses have been created for Paper Runways in past shows and this show hosted a Crafty Couture Runway featuring dresses made with mixed media.  Two displays featured 18 dresses with the 6 winning entries to be featured in Coth Paper Scissors magazine.

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer‘s dress won “fan favorite” with her fabulous dress of art journaling and made with paper.

This dreamy white dress was created by Lorine Mason and Eileen Hull.  It may look like fabric, but the dress was created with white craft foam.

As a purse and shoe addict, I loved the displays in the booth for Zutter Innovate Products. Check out this paper purse and the paper shoes. Aren’t they “to die for”, although I wouldn’t dare to walk the show with heels this high. Let your imagination run wild and you can create anything with paper.

The Ribbon Ring booth made your mouth water and your stomach growl with their displays of luscious pastries made with ribbon. A chocolate cake, a wedding cake, cupcakes, bonbon’s and candy were all gorgeous!

And although it was July, Christmas trees covered with paper ornaments were displayed in the DCWV (Die Cuts With a View) booth. All of the trees were beautiful but I especially loved the whimsy of the upside down Christmas tree.  I took some close-ups of a couple of the other trees to show the beautiful paper flowers.

The eCraft electronic cutter by Craftwell caught my eye. I love that this cutter does not use cutting mats and can cut to any length. And as a bonus, the color choices for the cutters are yummy. With this sleek and streamlined design, it looks like the sports car of cutting machines.

I just adore the seals and sealing wax in the Manuscript Calligraphy booth. I love the way the sealing wax with the seals can be used to decorate gifts and notes as you can see in the close up of the gift wrapped boxes on display in their booth. If I were to receive a gift wrapped so elegantly, I would have a hard time tearing it open…but I would, just carefully on the back side.

The day before the show opened was filled with educational seminars, workshops and classes. I presented a seminar on Adobe Illustrator covering the basics of using Illustrator and the tools. CHA has a well rounded education program geared to all memebers – designers, retailers and manufacturers.

Here’s a peek at the show floor.  Although busy, I caught an aisle during a brief lull.

Happy crafting to all of you! I’m already looking forward to the winter show in Annaheim, CA.

Phyllis

After attending the CHA Winter Conference and Trade Show in Los Angeles last week, I returned home feeling rejuvenated and ready to jump back into work. It was a great trip with both meetings and catching up with friends. Several interesting booths and demonstrations caught my attention and I want to share them with you.

Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts, the founders of Zentangle were demonstrating Zentangle techniques in the Sakura of America booth. I love Zentangles so I stopped and created one. The Zentangles created my the attendees during this demo are shown together. Also pictured are Maria and Rick demonstrating on another day and a picture taken of me with them. Creating Zentangles is not only easy, its therapeutic and relaxing.

The Lion Brand Yarn booth had a fabulous exhibit using yarn. The colorful male figure along with the tall shapes and hula hoops, all covered with yarn, made for a really colorful and exciting display.

The theme of the DCWV booth was a “Paper Runway” featuring fashions created with paper. Yes, all these gowns are created with paper and made for dynamic diaplays. My photos don’t really do the life sized dresses justice. In addition, paper chandeliers were hanging in the booth.

During my last day at the show, I took a break around lunch and walked to Olvera Street which was close to my hotel.  Olvera Street is a block long street filled with restaurants and small shops and stalls filled with colorful Mexican merchandise. A couple of pictures below show a section filled with fun masks and star lanterns hanging from a shop balcony.  

Now, back home, I’m delving into my next project, a quilt book. I can’t wait to show you the fabrics I will be working with.

Stay warm and lets hope for an early spring!

Phyllis