I Need to Make Something With This

Here is just one more thing I brought home from CHA. If you missed my posts, I was at the Craft and Hobby show in California all last week.

Doveen, the owner/designer of Dove of The East presented me with this sample ring of all her ribbons. I have been selling Dove of The East in my online store since the first time she released her items at CHA several years ago.

Her ribbons are spectacular! Just when I have told everyone I know not to let me buy anymore ribbons.....I get this set to choose from! I would like to wear this as a necklace though. I'm going to make sure these samples turn into something great too!

It sure was a big week for everyone. Here are my beading links!

A Bead A Day

Is it too early to "think spring" or will that make it get here faster? Lisa used her Soft Flex Trios in an attempt to hurry spring along.

About.com Jewelry Making

Are you ready to load up on some Valentine's jewelry tutorials? Are you even making jewelry for this holiday?

Art Bead Scene

Meet the pretty girl with lots of brains plus a whole lotta soul!

Carmi's Art/Life World

After a week at CHA Carmi chooses the sweater surgery necklace as her favorite event.

Cindy Gimbrone aka Lampwork Diva

Instead of biting her fingernails down to the nub, Cindy makes Grunge Beads!

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles

Melanie looks to the skies for the inspiration for some new cloud carvings

Jean Campbell

Jean met up with two very cool artists this week: Gorgeous wool designs (including wool beads!); wonderful women.

Jewelry & Beading

Cyndi is so happy that the third year of the Bead Journal Project has started. This year, she's making a bead embroidered bracelet for each month of the project.

Snap Out of It Jean! There's Beading to be Done!

book review by jean: here's a cool title, harking back to the 60s...Crunchy Granola Charm eBook by Yvette Doss !

Strands of Beads

Melissa creates a new necklace design using cute heart beads from Rings & Things.

A New K and Company Line

I am disappointed that my photo of these stunning samples is a little out of focus.

No doubt in my excitement to get up close I wobbled.

This is a designer I did not know, but as it was K and Company I knew that the finished products would have to be lovely.

I already went to see the line on scrapbook.com where I will place an order later today.

This is Susan Winget:

Susan has created beautiful watercolor paintings that express her love for the outdoors.

It was the bell jars that drew me to this wall. I need to make one now.

Claudine Hellmuth

This as one of my favorite art boards at CHA.. Claudine Hellmuth's Sticky-Back canvas art samples.

That's her dog Toby who passed over the Rainbow Bridge and Claudine when she was little!
Claudine released a new product called "Extra-Time." As soon as I get some I will do a demo for you!

Vintaj - I LOVE THEM

This was the most beautiful booth at CHA.
I'm not just saying that. They won the award for the best booth too!

The old barn boards just drew you in. The artful arrangement of the samples made you just want to stop and hang out with the whole Vintaj family. There were so many questions to ask about how they created certain pieces. Really, I thanked my lucky stars I was there in person.

Vintaj makes so many beautiful embellishments that you see their pieces in virtually every art, craft and beading publication. I came home and immediately added them to my blog links list and looked for them on Facebook too.

The gang gave me a sample pack of Vintaj parts. I am going to make something extra special with them very soon!

A Little More Eye Candy From CHA

It is impossible not to love Lisa Kettell's circus dolls and other fairies.

She was doing a book signing and had so many of her samples with her. All you hear are "oohs and ahhs" when you get close to her. You might expect to find a little kitten or puppy in the vicinity...but they are Lisa's dolls and altered fairies. You have to slap your own hand from immediately grabbing one to hold.
I took a picture of Lisa for my blog...but I didn't do her any justice so I encourage you to make her a Facebook friend so you can see all the pictures others took with her at the show!

I think this booth generated some of the most beautiful samples.
I am not that familiar with Pink Paislee, but their blog is beautiful and they launched this line called "Queen Bee" at the show.

A truly inspiration floral tribute of paper!

Packing

Hello friends.

My 13.00 a day hotel internet access ended this morning so no new photos will be posted for a day or two. Don't you hate those charges? I have no idea why Marriott doesn't just offer WIFI free.
I had a wonderful last day at CHA and after an early dinner out we are packing and watching the State of the Union speeches while packing. I hope all my paper doesn't tip the scales past 50 pounds at the airport. Fingers crossed.
I still need to show you the beautiful Vintag booth and some other neat new projects. I will be home soon!

Friendly Plastic at CHA

Here is some eye candy from CHA. These are some of the samples from the Friendly Plastic booth!

They were demoing several great techniques and it was nice to hear the voices behind the writers of the Friendly Plastic blog. Aren't these beautiful?

Friendly Plastic just emailed me yesterday morning the results of their recent contest. It was so great to get the email and then pop by the booth to see the award winners in person.

Ruth Rae Is at CHA

Does this blue heart look familiar?
It's the piece centred on the cover of Ruth Rae's book. It is stunning up close!

I didn't realize how large this piece was. I also didn't know that fabric doors covered the heart.

Ruth gave a very interesting talk about some of her techniques and I have to say it was a pleasure to listen to her. I bet her classes would be excellent.

I went to Amazon tonight to order this book. I added it to an ever growing list....

I Might Be Coming Out Of Teaching Retirement!

This card display stopped me in my tracks. First of all, the cards are spectacular. The designer is Vicki Chrisman. She is the nicest person. I was so happy to meet her!

She has designed a shadow box die with AccuCut so I immediately went to their booth to order it.

This shadow box card would be a great paper arts class! So many options and possibilities come to mind. So, don't be a surprised if I teach a class with it this spring!

Objects and Elements at CHA

I know a lot of you have been following the Objects and Elements blog and their launches this last year. Me too. I did a post about their Ice Resin back in July.

Their booth at the show is just beautiful. I wish I had better pictures of some of the samples. Their blog is one of my links...but for some reason I can't get it to show that they have recent updates. I have tried several times to get the link to update itself...but that's okay, don't worry about the date. If you go there you'll see the most beautiful pictures!

This is a sneak peak at some of the kits they are launching in a few weeks. Truly beautiful jewelry components are in each of these tins.

The classes I took with Susan Lenart Kazmer several years were life changing. She opened my eyes to the found object world.

I wish them the absolute best! Here's hoping the show is a great one for them!

My Beading Links With A Project From The Road

I made this cute felted necklace in a class at CHA today!

Yeah, I got to make some art!

This class was taught by Stefanie Girard, the author of Sweater surgery. Ever since I shrunk my sweater last month I was thinking about other ways to use the wool that resulted from my washing machine error.

We got to cut up any of the sweaters she brought to the class. She had a whole stash of pre-shrunk pre worn sweaters. Up cycling at it's finest! I picked these green and pink colours to work with. We also got to choose any of the beads and embellishments we liked.


My bird was cut using a Sizzix die. I never thought to use my dies for jewelery making! All I had to do was a little wire working gather all the items into a necklace. Oh, and I used the sweater button hem edges to make the necklace ribbon. I loved what I made and will make some more of these at home.

Now I am happy to post my bead links for the week!

A Bead in Time Is there such a thing as social networking jewelry? Lisa dug through a bag of Necco valentine candy hearts to create a one of a kind "twittery" necklace.

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done! Want to know what rubber duckies and Autism Awareness jewelry have to do with each other? Check Jean's site out!

Art Bead Scene Do You Rock? Here's your chance to show others that you do!

Jean Campbell Jean reviews Kerry Bogert's wonderfully whimsical new wirework book, Totally Twisted.

About.com Jewelry Making Catch up on the latest jewelry related podcasts. Tammy found some excellent ones for you to listen to.

Carmi's Art Life World Carmi has an easy idea to thank a sponsor.

Jewelry & Beading How do you feel about using inexpensive materials in your designs? Chime in and let your voice be heard!

Cindy Gimbrone aka The Lampwork Diva An Emily Dickinson poem describes Cindy's newest piece of jewelry.

Lorelei's Blog: Inside the Studio Lorelei won some great lampwork beads and a chance to write a tutorial on how she used them.

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton Andrew shares the new additions to his bead stash - goodies from Cindy Gimbrone, Diane Hawkey, and Nancy Schindler.

Strands of Beads Melissa shows off a new earring design made from beautiful cubic zirconia from Artbeads.com

The Ranger Project Wall

This is the wall of amazing art my Ranger Melt art project joined. There are so many different ideas and uses for Ranger's Ultra Thick that you could stand here for hours.

This piece is my personal favorite.


I don't know how Leandra did this but she managed to create this stunning bird cage by painting ultra thick on this wire....it must have taken hours!

Something Exciting From The Show

Day one of the Craft and Hobby show is always a long one. You stop to chat a lot and you never see as much as you thought you would. Late this afternoon I discovered this fabulous table display.

To my delight this is a brand new line with Making Memories called Vintage Groove. It was designed by Jill Schwartz who's jewelry and accessories I have been buying for years. I had no idea she was launching this collection of findings, charms, pendants and kits.

If you like this necklace...you are going to crazy for all her pieces.

This is just a small photo overview of some of the items in the booth.

I might try and line up for the make and take tomorrow!

Ahhhh. I want it all!

The fabric embellishments are to die for!

Melt Art Is The Hottest Ticket

I can finally show you the piece I submitted for Ranger's latest designer challenge. My piece along with more than a dozen others is going to be unveiled in Ranger's booth at CHA tomorrow.

Our challenge started when we received a huge assortment of melt art products.

These are part of the Suze Weinberg line, so I was very anxious to create something special knowing Suze was attached to the concept. Our only rule was to stick to the wood frame we received (size wise) and to try and incorporate the idea of "the hottest ticket." My piece is a "ticket to Mexico".

Since I knew that the Frida postcard would be my main centre piece I decided I needed some monkeys. You might not notice it now but the small red statue is a monkey and the purple plastic it is sitting on is the mold I made of it. I poured black UTEE into the final mold to make the Frida style monkeys. The flower molds were made from dollar store hair accessories.

My poor hubby had to listen to me agonize over the placement of everything. Every day I changed the layout. One day he just finally went in and rearranged all the pieces. I was running out of time and needed to glue everything permanently in order to make my post Christmas deadline.

I wanted to create a lush garden similar to what Frida might have had at home. Everything you see...accept for the metal flowers is Ultra Thick Embossing Powder melted and poured into a mold. I had two pots going and mixed up so many colours. I had a great time! I used a little glitter in the end too..since Suze has great glitter colours in her line too! Don't you love the monkeys?

This was a great challenge. I will be using my left over products to make new samples again soon!

On My Way

Good Morning to all my readers who check in on me with their morning cup of coffee. I hate to have you see an old post...so this is a little hello from me. Hopefully, my plane has left Toronto and I am somewhere over Chicago by now. Have a good day and a good weekend. I'll be posting new images from California soon!