Hi, it’s me, Christine. I was very fortunate to have spent this past weekend at MakerFaire (a very cool techie and crafter show sponsored by Make and Craft magazines) in beautiful San Francisco (yay!). The show was held at the San Mateo fairgrounds, and really had a very fair-like vibe. The grounds were full of sculptures, human-powered carnival rides, vendor booths (both selling crafts and showing how to make things), even a racetrack for the power tool derby (where participants raced contraptions they had created from power tools). A parade would happen by every once in a while, as well. One was an awesome brass band and the other was a parade of motorized cupcakes. In the craft building, Jamie (the publisher of North Light Books) and I did a little make-and-take with the Crafty Chica herself, Kathy Cano-Murillo. Kathy is a great supporter of North Light Craft books, and it was great to meet her in real life and make one of her matchbox shrines (note that both Jamie and I were sure to use glitter!). And we even received one of her bobbleheads! Very cool, indeed.
Did anyone else make it to MakerFaire? If so, what did you think? I probably have a few more blog entries about the whole experience (and a lot more photos) in me, so check back later in the week!
On this final day of the month, I'd like to announce the winner of our book give-away! Thanks to Brahdelt for submitting your work to our March Challenge gallery and sharing your use of personal imagery with us. Please email me (tonia.davenport@fwpubs.com) so I can send The Art of Personal Imagery your way!
We'll be starting a new month and a new challenge, tomorrow, so stay tuned! And don't forget to check out the free project of the week for some final personal-imagery goodness!
As we are nearing the end of the month, and therefore, the end of our March challenge, I wanted to let you know that we'll be giving away a copy of The Art of Personal Imagery by Corey Moortgat very soon. If you'd like to be in the running, remember to upload at least one image to the March 08 Challenge folder, located in the Public Gallery for this group. The image should be an example of how you worked with this month's challenge and should also include your name in the caption. On March 31, we'll randomly draw a name from everyone with art in that folder, and that person will be sent a free copy of the book! We want to see what you've been up to, so please share!
Like my other mixed-media team mates, I, too, had the opportunity to attend the CHA (Craft and Hobby Association) trade show this past weekend. While there, I was busy snapping photos of some of our favorite mixed-media and collage artists signing books and demoing at the F+W booth.
And Tena Sprenger and Carol Wingert working the crowd in the booth demo area, filming the whole thing and signing copies of their book Lifelines.
Watching these artists in action, whether at demos or in a class setting, really is a fabulous experience--their energy and enthusiasm swept me up and got me hankering to get out the gel medium and start playing. More to come...
Yesterday I returned from CHA, along with my partner-in-crime, Jessica. Despite UPS delivering my box of demo supplies after my demo, nearly missing our flight home, my checked bag not showing up at baggage claim, the battery in my car parked at the airport parking garage being dead when I went to leave for home . . .despite all of that, I really had a great time at this year's winter CHA event in Anaheim. How could I not have had a great time getting to visit with such talented friends and mixed-media authors like Josie, Jane, Claudine, Alisa, Michael, Traci,Bernie,Margot and many others?
In addition to meeting with old friends, I also made some new connections. I got to chat it up with Jennifer, Carmi, Vickie and Cathi, among others.
I was very excited to see that acrylic/plexi was abundant at the show! Several manufacturers were showcasing plexi covers for journals, there were plexi scrapbook page frames, plexi cutout letters and shapes and my favorite find, a corner rounder that cuts chipboard, tin, leather and, you guessed it, Plexiglas! It's called the Round-it-All and is made by Zutter. I will definitely be getting my hands on one of these soon.
Another product I was drooling over was a nifty new line mediums from Golden Artist Colors. They're called Digital Grounds and they create a surface for you to print ink-jet images onto non-porous surfaces! This means coating foil or mylar with the medium and then running it through your printer. It also works on fabric, acrylic skins and more.
I'll save some products for Jessica and Christine to talk about too, but one final thing I was pretty geeked about were the new Pageframe Designs. They offer 12 x 12 sheets of flexible acrylic that can be easily cut, stamped on, embossed and so on, and come in a couple of different thicknesses. I want to get some to try combining it with good old Plexiglas for jewelry pieces.
If any of you attended CHA and have your own exciting finds to share, please comment and let us know about them!
