CHA next week and Renegade Craft Fair in SF

I haven't written in a while because I have been so busy at work (and at home AFTER work) preparing for CHA. I leave for Chicago on Tuesday and booth set-up begins the following morning. I am excited about the show - I think our booth is going to look great! We are doing some special things with the Fantastiques characters with regards to booth design/ decor and I think everyone is really going to love the product. We got a great response when we let shops preview the product at the last CHA show, and the launch we have prepared for them for this show is going to be big, colorful, and whimsical of course.

I will be doing a Stay n Play in our booth (#3023) on Fantastiques and one of our July Ready-to-Go! Blank Board products - the mini shadow boxes. The project is kids party favors and they are super cute and easy enough for kids of all ages to make. I also designed a Stay n Play project on our Ready-to-Go! Blank Canvas book, which comes out in October. The project combines papercraft products and techniques with sewing and fabric related products and techniques and I am hoping it inspires papercrafters to get their iron out and sewers to explore using rub-ons in their creations. I'll post pics and project sheets right after the show!

I am going to SF this weekend to check out the Renegade Craft Fair - I am really excited to see what new, cool things the DIY and indie craft set have come up with lately.

That's all for now - gotta book it to work!

Papercraft project sheet up at ctpub.com

At the winter CHA show, C&T Publishing launched their Ready-to-Go! Blank Board Indie File Box and the packaging includes an image of the Seed Keeper project I designed. I also instructed a Stay 'n Play of the project in our booth to a very enthusiastic group of attendees. Now the project sheet is posted here at the C&T Publishing site and I'll have it posted here at my blog shortly.

Board books are really versatile and fun to craft with - the creativity is virtually limitless - so if you like the project, check out C&T Publishing's entire Ready-to-Go! Blank Board Book line.

CHA - crunch time already?!

The recurring question I have been posing to myself this week at work goes something like this:

How can I possibly be running behind in planning for the CHA trade show when the shipping crate isn't even back from Quilt Market yet?

And then I realize (again) that the image I had been carrying around in my head throughout the most stressful part of Quilt Market prep, the image that conveyed that after Market a walk down Easy Street would be my immediate destiny for at least a little while, was actually just a coping strategy, and it's time to get real. Ah well. At least I am starting to see Easy Street on the dawn of the horizon now, coming up right after I return from Chicago. I swear it is really there this time.

With all these plans I am putting in place, I should probably extend those plans to include the clenching of Easy Street. Just in case it starts to slip away...