CHA 2013 with Plaid

I was asked by Plaid Enterprises to lead some stencil demos and make-and-takes at the Winter 2013 CHA in California and I of course said YES! It is so great to get away from my daily design tasks and be creative with people.  The Plaid booth was decked out with so many fun examples of what you can make with their products, everything from ModPodged frames to glitter covered bowling trophies, super fun stuff. Well, my project was stenciling mason jars with Folk Art enamel paint and these awesome sticky stencils. The creative folks at Plaid painted an area of the jar with chalkboard paint for labeling the jar contents, people ate that up. The stencils we used are sort of like ColorForms material, remember those? Well, they are rubbery and wrap around surfaces easily and remain sticky after you wash them!  I got to chat with people as they stenciled words or other iconic images onto the jars, it was gratifying to say the least.

My booth mates and new BFF’s were Jade Harrington of JaderBomb, Rachel Faucet of HandMade Charlotte, and the ever popular Cathie and Steve of Creative Juice. Handmade Charlotte is a must see line of stencils with a sweet retro, indie feel the them, I especially love the campfire theme! Beckie Farrant, blogger and sweetheart also lead some crafts in the booth.  And Cathie and Steve are the mad minds behind this new development for Mod Podge, Mod Podge Meltables. Fun silicon mold designs that you fill with this melted formula using a hot glue gun and the Mod Podge Meltables sticks(no it’s not glue and i’s not Mod Podge). So no more resin mixing mess! Dries in minutes and can be painted – ENDLESS USES! Blogger and smartie Heather Man of Dollar Store Crafts posted this great video of C&S doing a demo here. Notice below my pic with Glossy, the Mod Podge mascot, she’s pretty sassy.

Oh and I got to meet the Graphics Fairy, Karen Watson, bestower of free graphics, a humble and sweet doll of a gal. And ran into my fav craft gals Vickie Howell and Kathy Cano Murillo, both always fun and spreading the creative energy.  Also got paid a visit by Miss Erica Domesek of PS-I Made This who ps… has a new book coming out soon!

The best of all is we all had great food and drinks and drinks and drinks each night and I can gleefully say I got to know this group pretty well. FAMILY was a word that kept coming up. I was grateful to be a part of the Plaid weave and you may be hearing more about my adoption into this family, stay tuned!

Then I headed off in a rental car to Los Feliz to unwind, see some cool street art, eat tacos, then head back to Brooklyn.  A great West Coast visit! Well, In the mean time, enjoy my pics below!