Phew…what a whirlwind of a week we had in Anaheim at the CHA Craft Super Show and the Winter Convention and Trade Show! It took a few days, but I have finally made a respectable dent in the post-travel mayhem of dirty laundry, craft supplies, and snapshots to sort out. I was hoping to post here a few times from the show, but we were on the go, non-stop, 24/7 – no time for sitting at the computer!
For me, the highlight of every CHA show is always the people. Nothing beats connecting in person with friends, colleagues, and customers to relish and rave about all that is new in our wonderful world of craft. Of course, C&T has some new and totally rave-worthy products – the Liquitex® Surface Design Center, Lutradur® Mixed Media Sheets, and our upcoming new book imprint, Stash—Fabric Arts for a Handmade Lifestyle.
So after the first day of the Super Show, we braced ourselves for the weekend masses expected on day 2. We built it and they came! The C&T demo table at the Lisa Liza Lou booth was full all day – Creative Troupers Tina Kay and Joy Lily kept people happy and busy with creative ATC and fabric painting projects.
Joy shows how to paint white tone-on-tone printed fabric with gradient colors of Liquitex paints
Tina shows how to create ATCs with upcycled papers and Lutradur, using Liquitex paints and mediums.
Continue Reading…
The Chapel Hill Newspaper recently published a feature on Hollis Chatelain. It tells the story of how vivid inspirational dreams led to beautiful, moving quilts which then led to numerous quilting awards, one of which changed her life. Click here to read the full article and learn how you can help Hollis in her mission to use art to promote awareness of world issues.
We were lucky enough to work with Hollis on creating Imagine Hope Notecards. It’s a collection of 12 notecards with four inspiring images in a beautiful package. Hollis’ quilts are a great reminder that no matter the medium, art has the power to change lives.
Good times! Lots of laughing, prize-winning, making and taking, experimenting, painting, scrapping, sewing, learning…definitely more creative inspiration packed into one place that you could even imagine!
At the Lisa Liza Lou booth, all the C&T surfaces were shining brightly. Our demo table was full all day, literally not one minute passed where there weren’t people learning about new surfaces, paints, mediums and techniques. You can catch videos here on our YouTube channel of the booth before the show opened, plus a quick interview with artist Sarah Hodsdon, who spent the first couple hours of the show at our demo table, painting a Ready-to-Go! Blank Canvas Book that will be auctioned off tomorrow night at a charity raffle.
Danielle shows off her canvas book
Jan paints a board book
Also at our table was the host of the Diva Craft Lounge, Danielle Forsgren. She painted a fabulous canvas book, using lots of yummy Liquitex® Iridescent Medium for extra diva sparkle! And joining them to play was Jan Mollet Evans, author of C&T title “Scrap Your Stuff.” Jan painted a gorgeous pattern on a Ready-to-Go! Blank Board Book. Continue Reading…
I am very happy to be a participating in a very important event beginning February 2, 2010. Virginia Spiegel is launching ToteTuesday, her newest effort to raise money for the American Cancer Society, and the event will run through the end of March. To date Virginia has raised over $190,000.00 from fundraisers involving the fiber arts and all of the money raised from this Fiberart For A Cause fundraiser goes directly to ACS.
ToteTuesday is not just any fundraiser. It’s also a showcase for everything that is fun and creative about the fiber arts. Themed totes are filled with unique, beautiful, and inspiring items from the worlds of fiber arts, knitting, art quilting, mixed media and surface design then auctioned off to the highest bidder. You can expect to see totes offering original artwork, autographed books, hand-dyed fabrics, gorgeous yarns, handmade journals, fun and useful materials/tools for mixed-media and surface design, and much, much more.
My book, Fabric Art Collage, 40+ Mixed Media Techniques, will be included in the Tote named Fabric Art Collage. Also included in the Tote will be fabrics, dyes, fibers and many more cool items donated by Peggy Schroder. A list of more than twenty themed totes and their contents can be found here.
I hope you all will stop by the event, bid on and buy cool stuff, and create beautiful things. Check out Virginia Spiegel’s blog for more information.
Rebekah
Calling all quilters, sewers and crafters! American Patchwork & Quilting is challenging all of us to join up and participate in their “Make a Pillowcase, Make a Difference” campaign for charity.
To take part in the pillowcase project, just make a pillowcase, find a a shop hosting One Million Pillowcase Challenge events in your area, and donate the pillowcase to the shop! Every pillowcase will go towards making a difference in your community. Your pillowcases will provide comfort for a cancer patient, hope for a foster child, encouragement for a battered woman, or beauty for a nursing home resident. Over 7,400 pillowcases have already been donated, but lots of help is needed to reach the goal of 1 million pillowcases.
“We are asking quilters to make and donate 1,000,000 pillowcases to local charities to show the world how caring quilters are. As I travel the country, I often hear stories of generous quilt shops and quilters who have turned their hobby into a conduit for good in their communities. That is the same charitable spirit that drives this challenge,” said APQ editor Jennifer Keltner.
APQ has set up an online counter to track the number of donations. They also have free pillowcase patterns available for download and tips on where to donate. This is a great example of how one person can really make a difference. The C&T staff will be setting up a pillowcase lunch hour in 2010. How will you contribute?
One of the things I love most about Lutradur® is that it doesn’t tear or fray. It’s perfect for durable pouches and pockets. I’ll be in the Graphic Products booth #4061 on Tuesday 1/26, showing CHA Trade Show attendees how to make this super easy 4″ square accordion-fold wallet to store or travel with artist trading cards. We’ll be using Liquitex® Matte Gel Medium to collage the wallet covers with beautiful Unryu papers from Thailand, made with strands of kozo (fibers from the bark of mulberry trees), mango leaves, and other organic textures.
Our friends at Walnut Hollow are joining us at our 3rd annual Stay-n-Play Café at the CHA Trade Show. At the Café, each attendee gets a Ready-to-Go! Blank Canvas Book. Then they travel at their own pace between 6 different stations to try new products and techniques from C&T and our partnering manufacturers. People will stay, play and be inspired for two hours, and leave feeling confident with their new skills and ideas to share with their customers, students and colleagues.
C&T author Rebekah Meier has designed this gorgeous canvas book for Walnut Hollow that shows off their super cool Creative Metal™ line of tools and metal crafting supplies. She also used our favorite - Liquitex paints and inks!
If you are attending the trade show, you won’t want to miss this big event on Sunday 1/24/10 at 6pm! Sign up today at www.chashow.org for workshop #0609. It’s a HUGE bang for your buck – lots of free samples, too!
Join C&T Publishing’s Lisa Fulmer this Sunday night, January 17th on Inspired at Home Radio with Tiffany Windsor. The show will broadcast live from 7:00pm – 8:00 p.m. ET.
Lisa, both a talented artist and the Marketing Manager here at C&T, will be talking about the launch of our new Liquitex® Surface Design Center. If you’ve ever been curious about surface design or painting on fabric, don’t miss this opportunity to get all the buzz and industry information!
Click here for the link to the live online radio program.
Our new author Lura Schwarz Smith is in an exhibit called “Imagery and Imagination” at the La Conner Quilt Museum in La Conner, Washington that runs January 13th – March 28th, 2010. Lura will be there for a special reception, lecture and exhibit tour on Saturday January 16th at 1pm.
Lura is the author of the February release Secrets of Digital Quilting—From Camera to Quilt. Once you see her work, you will understand why she was asked to feature in an exhibit.
One of her quilts was included in the 100 Best American Quilts of the 20th Century.
To learn more about Lura visit her website at Thedigitalquilt.com
Would you believe this fun little Steampunk Angel was designed using 6 of our wonderful products, plus 2 fabulous products from our friends at Beacon Adhesives? Now that’s packing it in!
For our first giveaway of the new year, you can win a HUGE prize package that includes all 8 of these products! That’s right…one package of each of the four surfaces, one jar of paint, one bottle of ink, and one bottle of each of the adhesives!
To enter to win, leave a comment here or on Facebook telling us whether or not you will be at the CHA SuperShow or the CHA Winter Convention & Trade Show….or if you will be attending CHA vicariously through us, by reading our live daily blogposts and tweets during the shows!
If you are coming to CHA, stop by the Beacon Adhesives booth #3069 on Monday, January 25th at 4:00pm — and I will show you how to make this Steampunk Angel! If you’re not coming, we’ll miss you…but I will post the project instructions for this little Steampunk Angel here on the blog in February.
Comments will be closed at 9amPST on Monday 1/18/10 and the winner will be announced later that day. Good Luck!
