still here

Anaheim Convention Center Welcomes CHAW 2013

Despite my earshattering silence, I've been up to stuff lately. (Aren't I always?) Last month was the annual winter trade show from the Craft & Hobby Association (aka CHA). I was happy to again work with Pink Paislee /Heidi Swapp in their beautiful booth.  We had a team meeting the night before that included an introduction to Heidi's new media team (the sweetest girls, ever!) and a wonderful class from Heidi Swapp herself. There was also dinner and orientation for working the booth --all of it was lovely and much appreciated.

With Rebecca and Heidi

With the Heidi Swapp Media team (except for Kim, sadly)

 Booth duty was great fun as always and I really enjoyed being able to do make-n-takes for one of my shifts. If you know me at all, you know how much I love doing make-and-takes and demos. And teaching too for that matter!

With Elaine at the booth Make-n-Take Counter

On the subject of teaching, I'm hard at work planning some public classes this year. It's been awhile since I taught at a store. Lately, all of my gigs have been at private events such as crops and retreats. So, I'm kind of excited about getting back into the retail stores and meeting more happy, scrappy people. I'll be sure to post more once I've got things in place. While I'm thinking of it, if you are interested in keeping up with my teaching and other crafty shennanigans, be sure to follow me on twitter: twitter.com/MammaJammaBlabb

At my other favorite booth Epiphany Crafts with Cathi & Tina

A few weeks after CHA was over, I was back at the Anaheim Convention Center, this time for the Scrapbook Expo. I worked for two different vendors there. First, I did setup (and teardown) with the lovely people of Paper Wizard. In case you're not familiar with Paper Wizard, they are makers of beautiful, intricate pre-made laser cut titles and accents. The owners are an adorable husband and wife team who were a joy to work with. And they are music lovers, so we had tunes going the whole time we were setting up the booth. It's as good as better than whistling while you work!

With Eric & Bonnie of Paper Wizard after tearing down the booth

During the show, I worked a day and a half with another lovely family, this time the owners of Mon Ami Gabby, purveyors of a beautiful selection of elegant embellishments. It's always dangerous for me to be around a lot of luscious trim and flowers and the like. Like being a kid in a candy shop.

With Chris at Mon Ami Gabby

With Marina and Chris

 I was able to take some classes, too. I did a Melissa Frances bookbinding class taught by the lovely Kim Garner, a "Hot Off the Press" elegant cards class with Sophia of Strictly Scrapbooking and an awesome organization class with Tiffany of The ScrapRack. Plus, I had a half day to walk the floor for awhile with a friend I used to work with, and then for while with one of my besties. I guess you could really say I packed in all that I could in the few days I was there.

With Tiffany of The ScrapRack

With Kim of Melissa Frances

With Sophia of Strictly Scrapbooking

Now, I'm inspired and motivated and working up some ideas for National Craft Month to blog about . So, be sure to check back soon!

CHAW 2012 pics

It's been three weeks since the CHA Winter trade show ended, and here I am finally posting some of my photos and highlights. I was surprised to find that I'd taken a lot less photos than I normally do and that they were a different type of photo. It probably had something to do with what my focus was for the show (meaning I was thinking ahead to what product lines I'd order for classes). So, the fun project photos of projects are a bit thinner than usual.

First off, the lovely folks at Epiphany Crafts who are very much on my mind right now (coincidentally, I happen to be back at the Anaheim Convention Center again this weekend working the Epiphany booth for Scrapbook Expo). Isn't the garland in the booth amazing? It was made of cupcake wrappers and coffee filters and it was absolutely beautiful! Epiphany introduced a couple of "must-have" new tools. I totally have my eye on the pennant tool - too cute!

Next a few pics from the Heidi Swapp booth. First, have to say again that it was an absolute pleasure to work the booth and be there for her big re-debut. Heidi had the most AMAZING samples to inspire visitors. I loved the innovation and creativity of her new products and the many projects on display.

The glass display cabinets were changed out daily with fresh eye candy. This was easily my favorite display using the "Instaframes" which make any photo look like a cool polaroid.

The Instaframes are part of the Memory File collection, which also includes beautiful file boxes and sets of die cut patterned folders. I was enchanted by the cute projects using these folders.

And while I'm on the subject of "Heidis" (yes that was plural), I had the privilege of having one of my layouts displayed in the Heidi Grace "Clever Handmade" booth. I guess the company was a bit short of samples, so the night before the show started a call went out for some samples to be made. It was a great experience, and a bit of a challenge since I had only a handful of supplies picked up from the booth the night before the show. Heidi really wanted to show off her new embroidery pattern rubons, so I did quite a bit of embroidery on this layout:

The Maya Road booth is always one of my favorites. They are an embellishments & trims company so that is right up my alley. They have some great designers and always display so many adorable samples.

  

AccuCut is another booth that always features tons of samples and inspiration. I've never opened any of the mini books to see if the insides are decorated or not, but it's fun to browse the covers.

And of course, the showstopper for samples is Graphic 45. Their booth is so full of amazing samples that I can never quite absorb them in one visit I usually have to stop by multiple times to really appreciate the full display. I will leave you with some of the amazement...