Craft & Hobby Association Mega Show 2015 part 1
Now that I am mostly over the yearly cold the seems to lurk the halls of CHA, it is that time of year: my CHA Trade Show recap! CHA, otherwise know as the Craft and Hobby Association, has a Mega Trade Show every January, full of all kinds of wonderful arts and crafts manufacturers, demos, classes, meet and greets, designer showcases and new trends!
Since I am proudly part of their design team, this year Amazing Casting Products/Alumilite Corp. asked me to create some food samples using their new product Amazing Remelt and to do demos at their booth! My friend Jami Poe Bostjancic, a talented cake designer, taught me some of the ins and outs of fondant. As she noted, working with fondant has some similarities to polymer clay. I decided to make a sun and moon for a mini cake, mushrooms on a cinnamon and brown sugar cupcake, chocolate bunny and mini presents all out of fondant for the requested samples.
Fondant can easily be pushed into Amazing Remelt molds and then quickly popped out onto a cold cutting board to dry. Here I have prepped and readied my molds to be packed to go to CHA.
As per the website: “Amazing Remelt is a Non Toxic, 1-part reusable mold making material for room temperature or low exotherm materials. Amazing Remelt softens at 120°F and becomes liquid at 135°-140°F. It can be remelted and reused to make new molds time and time again. Ideal for making molds for smaller items such as jewelry, embellishments, and chocolate molds.”
I assisted Susan M. Brown, Amazing Casting Products Design Team Leader and awesome artist in her own right, in assembling the Amazing Casting Products Hot Product display. I was able to take some photos of the display before the end of booth set up on the Friday before the show.
Susan brought some awesome little signs and clips from Deflecto, which helped hold up and highlight signs and info about the Amazing Remelt. I seriously need to buy some of the Deflecto Craft Organizers and Sustainable Office products now that I know they work so well.
On Sunday the Craft and Hobby Association had a awesome gala event where they donated funds to charities and announced the winners of the Hot Product Categories! Amazing Casting Products/Alumilite Corp won Hot Product in Cake and Food Decorating at CHA for Amazing Remelt!
The Amazing Casting Products booth had all kinds of samples of what one can do with their products. Depending on the day they had different samples and demos, from bracelets, pizza cutters, pens, plates and more! Now that Amazing Clear Cast Resin has received FDA certification, meaning it’s food safe, you can even make plates and bowls from their resin!
President of Alumilite Mike Faupel, wanted to make sure all the samples were easy to see, pick up and handle to showcase the versatility of the products.
I did afternoon demos at the booth of my push molds such as those seen in my CHA Sneak Peak Post.
This year I wanted to make a booth display that was a little different. I started with vintage cabochon molds and used layers of Amazing Clear Cast Resin and Alumilite Metallic Powders, glitter and rhinestones. Each little cabochon was a mini galaxy piece that I wanted to attach to a gown.
I first started creating a caftan but I wasn’t happy with the look, so I saved the fabric for another project and rummaged through my collection of thrift store finds. I found a red glittery gown that had seen better days. I made some alterations, changing the straps, fitting and how the gown would drape. I slowly glued on each cabochon with 36000 and rhinestones with Gem-Tac, as suggested by my stunningly talented cousin Kathleen Rojas, owner of Oso Rojo Costumes.
With the addition of a cape, and making necklace my “Cosmic Radiation” gown went on on display at the Amazing Crafting Products/Alumilite Corp booth.
I was so happy with how the resin and inclusions sparkled under the bright trade show lights!
Come back later for Craft & Hobby Association Mega Show 2015 post, part 2!
Until Next Time, Safe Travels!
Reindeer Romp at the LA Zoo with the SoCal Chapter of CHA!
Hello and Happy Holidays! So many things have been going on lately; with events, family, arts and crafts December already is zooming by! One of the wonderful events this month is thanks to the Southern California Chapter of the Craft and Hobby Association and the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens.
This year the LA Zoo is holding a special seasonal event called Reindeer Romp. From November 28 to January 4 real reindeer have made the L.A. Zoo their home for the holidays! To add to this wonderful experience this weekend of December 13th and 14th, at the Reindeer Romp event there is a special craft area for children to create animal themed ornaments with papercrafting supplies, from 10-4 (or until supplies last)! This special craft area is made possible by the many awesome craft businesses, companies, designers and crafters that make up the SoCal Chapter of the Craft and Hobby Association!
Here is some of the Zoo-rific Ornaments, featuring Ellison’s SureCut Endangered Animals Dies and Sizzix Bigz Ornament Die. With generous donations from Ellison, Stampendous, Cool2Craft, Faber Castell, Aleene’s and Curacao there was enough supplies to create ornaments for 600 children for the two day crafting event!
With only the first day of crafting done, already there was so many happy children and familes!
As a proud Steering Committee Member of the Southern California Chapter of the CHA I was happy to volunteer for both days of crafting with other talented and generous members of the Chapter!
There is still time to bring your wee ones to see the wonderful animals and make holiday crafts on December 14th! Help us promote awareness of endangered animals and have festive fun with cute holiday ornaments!
Until Next Time, Safe Travels!
Craft & Hobby Association Mega Show 2014
It is that time of year again: my CHA Trade Show recap! CHA, otherwise know as the Craft and Hobby Association, decided to change it a bit this year by not having a Winter and Summer show but one big mega show! There were so many vendors, new products, demos, make n takes and networking opportunities at this show! I had a great time and met so many wonderful talented people but it was a very busy show! While this is not by far covering everything and everyone I saw at CHA, the following is some of the highlights I was able to take photos of.
This year I was asked to do demonstrations at the Amazing Crafting Products/Alumilite Booth, showing people how to make their own Art Themed Lapel Pins. I finally got to meet, in person, some of the other members of the Amazing Crafting Products design team.
Here is President of Alumilite Mike Faupel, Design Team Leader Susan M. Brown {sbartist}, staff member Carolyn Daly, and I at the Amazing Crafting Products booth.
Here I am demoing Amazing Mold Putty. It was wonderful to find so many people with interests in molding and casting their own artwork.
Artwork from the talented design team was on display at the Amazing Crafting Products booth, showcasing the detail and beautiful pieces they were able to make with the products.
Here is one of the demo tables at the Amazing Crafting Products booth, highlighting products and their many uses.
I got to see again the talented and ever gracious Mark Montano. He was signing his book line at the Eclectic Products booth and doing demos of crackle art frames at the DecoArt booth. I now have all of his books!
At the iLoveToCreate booth showcased several artists’ work in “Creativity Changes Everything” display. Mark Montano’s work was part of this display. He had created a lovely vignette, representing his creative career in home decor and fashion, along with a diary about his creative life printed directly on a dip-dyed dress.
ILoveToCreate booth also had this lovely decopauge piece made from rolled magazines. The lantern was made using Tulip One-Step Tie-Dye, Aleene’s Tacky Glue, and tissue paper!
I stumbled across the Nine Lives Products glue booth and was I glad I did! They make glue out of recycling styrofoam waste. They create three types of glue: Glu6 Nonporous, Glu6 Paste and Nine Live School Glue.
The Glu6 Non-Porous Glue is made from all-natural ingredients that non-toxically dissolve styrofoam waste, shrinking it by more than 30x its original size. The goo left over from this process they turn into non-toxic glue! Styrofoam piece shown in the photo is what goes into one tiny bottle of their glue.
The talented Suzann Sladcik Wilson, book author and CEO of Beadphoria, Inc. was at the Buttons Galore and More booth debuting her beautiful new button jewelry line. Her line of button jewelry kits come in all kinds of different themes, and include everything you need to make lovely rings and pendants.
Suzann was doing some demos at the booth. Here is just a small sample of what she made with her wonderful kits.
Buttons Galore and More also had a great line of miniature buttons for your mini crafting needs. I just had to buy some samples of to play with!
Lion Brand Yarn had a stunning “7 Wonders of the Yarn World” installation created by fiber-artist Nathan Vincent. I only got photos of 6 of the 7 wonders because of the crowds. You can go to the Lion Brand Yarn Blog to see more photos!
The installations that represent the “7 Wonders of the Yarn World” theme stand about 5 feet high or taller!
While doing resin demos I met a very nice lady, Fiona Lin of Linpeng International Inc. Her family’s company Fiona Accessories (named after her) had a bead booth with a wide selection of both loose beads and finished beaded accessories. Their specialty line is a series of hand painted beads and bracelets. While they often sell to museums, gift shops and supply beads for craft stores Fiona was more than willing to sell beads to me for my artwork.
I bought quite few strands of beads from Fiona to make new jewelry with. They had a wide variety of shapes, patterns and cuts of beads I had not seen elsewhere.
While wandering around the CHA show floor I came across this darling polar bear sculpture at the Activa booth. While they had this sculpture displayed at past shows I never got a chance to stop and see the detail. I was glad I did and I found out about all the different clay and sculpting materials they carry. I even ended up realizing I had been using some of their products while in college and had no idea! When they heard I did sculpture and mold work they gave me samples of Hearty, a non toxic air dry modeling clay and CelluClay, a non-toxic papier mache recycled paper medium to try out.
Seeing demos of making perfectly torn paper for paper crafting made me stop by the Perfect Paper Crafting booth. While marketed mostly towards paper crafting I see their tools having wonderful uses in mixed media art. My two favorite tools they carry is the Perfect Airbrush, that turns almost any marker into an airbrush and the Perfect Tears, that helps you make controlled, beautiful, soft, torn-paper-edges.I saw so much more that I didn’t get to photograph but in the next few months I hope to test out and show you all the new products I found.
Until next time, safe travels!
Beadsmith 1 Step Looper Tool review
Happy New Year Everyone! For a crafter like me what better way to start the new year than with some crafting fun? Over the Holidays my husband got me a new jewelry tool, a Beadsmith 1 Step Looper Tool.When I went to the Winter Craft and Hobby Association Show of 2013 I got to see the staff at the Vintaj booth use this great tool. Since many of the products showcased at CHA are often not yet available for shipment until months down the line I had to wait to get this tool, which also meant my squirrely little mind forgot about it until I saw other people reviewing and posting photos months down the line. It had some mixed reviews but overall most jewelry makers liked it. I tried looking for the tool locally but no luck. Again it drifted from my crafter’s mind. Thankfully my husband remembered I was drooling over this tool and ordered one for me!
If you look at the above photo, you will see that the package says Vintaj on the front. No worries, it is still the Beadsmith 1 Step Looper; the Vintaj line tool is still made by Beadsmith, it just has turquoise handles while the one with the Beadsmith name on front has black handles. Even the info on the back of the package is the same. The tool trims wire 26-18 gauge, taking the place of needle nose pliers and wire cutters normally needed to make a looped end to jewelry wire. Here is the official video by Beadsmith about the tool. (YT: 1-Step Looper) (YT: 1-Step Looper) (YT: 1-Step Looper)
Starting with several beads threaded on a 2 inch headpin I threaded the wire through the lower jaw and extending out through the hole in the top jaw of the tool.
I squeezed the handles together and the wire gets cut by the tool. In fact it did it so quickly I was rather shocked at how easy it was and how little pressure I needed.
I continued to squeeze the handles and it curled the wire into a very neat and even loop.
Normally making a loop like that requires me eyeballing the length of wire to cut it in the right area, using a wire cutter, getting a pair of round nose pliers to curl a loop and sometimes squeezing it into place with a flat nose pliers. This can take a minute of so for me and a necklace requiring a lot of loops can take some time. This tool made the loop in seconds.While I was very happy with the results I had heard some complaints that the tool sometimes didn’t always close the loop tight. I tried making several loops and all of them came out with neat closed loops. I started to try out all kinds of beads and wire, finally I was able to reproduce an open loop.
Sure enough when you have a large or odd shaped bead the wire loop doesn’t always loop closed. After looking over what I was doing I realized the issue was the bead shape and/or how close the beads are pushed on the wire to lower jaw of the tool before the handles are squeezed.
Here is the odd shaped rose bead next to a small crystal bead. An oddly shaped bead can prevent the wire from laying even against the tool, and there will be a slight gap in the final loop. This can even happen with more even-sized beads if you are not careful how plumb the piece is. However there is a very nice upside to it not being a tightly closed loop; If you are working with clay, glass or wood beads you can risk the chance of the wire loop digging into if not out right chipping the bead if the loop is made too tightly, but with the loop slightly open you can carefully close the loop with a pair of round nose pliers and have perfectly shaped loops every time. You can also use the slight opening to add more links or rings onto the piece before closing it with pliers. I plan on using the slightly open looping aspect to my advantage with future projects.
I made this earring and necklace set in about 15 minutes using the Looper Tool. I honestly took me longer to pick the beads and thread them on the wire than to use the tool and assemble. It is so easy on the hands if you get muscle cramps in your hands (like I do) or even arthritis this will make jewelry making easier.I would rate this tool as must have for any jewelry maker who makes lots of wire loops and wants awesome results every time.
Until next time, safe travels!
Craft & Hobby Association Create & Connect Conference and Trade Show
Another Craft and Hobby Association Summer show has come and gone! This year it was called the Create & Connect Conference and Trade Show and was held in Las Vegas. While this was by far a much smaller show than the Winter CHA yearly show, it was still a great show to attend. There were better opportunities to talk and network with vendors and designers. There was also plenty of new products and artwork to see! I got there a day late due to health concerns and forgot my camera so I had to take photos with my phone but here is a few of the booths that I just loved and have to share with you.
As per normal Die Cuts With a View (otherwise known as DCWV) had a stunning display of papers, bead, embellishments and artwork! These three lovely shadow boxes were attached to the outside of their booth showcasing some of their products and talented designers.
DCWV had both their Summer and Winter collections up and were doing wonderful make-n-take canvas and necklace art.
Those lucky enough to be there the last day of the trade show and the last few hours had the chance to buyDCWV papers and Blue Moon Beads. Here is some of the items I was able to purchase from them the last hour. 🙂
The talented Suzann Sladcik Wilson, book author and CEO of Beadphoria, Inc. was at the Buttons Galore and More booth doing demos on how to turn their whimsical line of buttons into wearable art!
Here is some of the Buttons Galore and More buttons turned into rings!They have so many designs and styles of buttons that could be used as embellishments in many art forms.
Next we have the awesome Violette Stickers, a small but growing sticker company with some of the most beautiful stickers. They were at the Winter CHA this year but I somehow didn’t see them. I am glad I got a chance to really look at their stickers this time! They have lovely reproduction Victorian art stickers and fun and funky modern art stickers.
Here is some of their sticker selection I bought. The photo does not do them justice. They have vivid colors, sharp detail and some of their lines of stickers have clear backing making them perfect for layering in resin!
I love to Create booth had a wonderful collection of Summer themed art using their line of products. The talented Kathy Cano-Murillo founder of CraftyChica.com was doing demos at their booth of all kinds of wearable art! The Tulip One-Step Spray Dye Kit they are now selling is a no fuss way of dying fabrics. I love the ease of use and vibrancy of the colors!
The ever popular Graphic 45 had a gorgeous booth full of Steampunk and vintage print papers and embellishments. The display of finished art using their products was just beautiful and I love that they are doing more home decor tutorials using their products!In the next few months I will be using all of the wonderful products I got at the show in new artwork. 🙂
Until next time safe travels!
Ancient and Contemporary Inspired Artistry