Made Some Stamped Flower Pins for Hero Arts

These fabric flowers started from a simple Tweet that Jennifer McGuire posted a few weeks ago:

"All you Hero Arts fans - can any of you sew? Reply if you do. Thanks!"

I replied to tell her I knew how to sew (thanks for teaching me at a young age, Mom!). A few days later, I got an email from Jennifer asking for my mailing address so she could FedEx a box with all the supplies to make these amazing flowers. Hero Arts needed hundreds of these to give away at their booth during CHA.

I had seen this video from Sally Traidman several months ago so I knew I had a great tutorial to follow. These flowers are also on the cover of the current Hero Arts catalog and their website.

Sure enough, I quickly received the box with a lot of stamps (Three Leaves, Large Flower, Striped Flower and many more), batting, red and green fabric, paper flowers, buttons, thread, embroidery thread, fabric glue, pin backs, and white felt. I offered to make 50 flowers. They needed a quick turn-around on this project. I landed up FedExing 49 of them to Jennifer's hotel at CHA in LA.  I lost track of the 50th one; I found it later. For 5 of the flowers, I stamped on the reverse side of the red fabric to get a different look. That's the flower in the center of my collage.

Here's how the back of the flower looks. I glued the pin back to the felt circle and I also stitched it to make sure it stays secure.

Here's a picture of one of the flowers on me. This was such a fun project. When I was sewing the third flower, my sewing machine started acting up. I wasted a whole afternoon and evening troubleshooting everything (needle size, tension, upper and lower threading, bobbin). I even added drops of machine oil into the bobbin area for maintenance. I almost put my hands up in the air to give up, but I was persistent. I finally beat the sewing machine into submission. :-)

Thanks, Jennifer and Hero Arts!

Photos From the CHA Super Show

I've been wanting to upload these pictures all week and here it's almost Friday. My non-crafting life is a little too busy.

I had the best 2 days at the CHA Super Show! I didn't go to see products, I went to see people...very talented and sweet people! I didn't get photos of everyone; I was too excited talking to people. Here's a list to match names with faces:

1. Simone from Clear and Simple Stamps

2. Kelly Marie & Courtney doing a make-n-take

3. Carol Duvall! I didn't meet her, but it was a thrill just to see her.

4. Karen Giron & Tina Fussell

5. Sankari Wegman, Lori Tecler, & Susanna Boyd

6. Moxie Fab Cath, Go To Gal Teri Anderson, & Ashley Cannon Newell

7. Maile Belles, me, and TinaFussell

8. Me, Ewunike, Sankari, & Lori Tecler

9. Me, Sankari, & Tina

10. Jenn Balcer, Sankari, & Tina

11. Me & Amy Tsurata

12. Me and Carolina Buchting

13. Amy & Tina

14. Tina in the Clear & Simple booth

Let me give you the back story as to why I was there. Back in December, Tina (Travelingmama) tweeted that she was coming to California for CHA. I replied that I would definitely have to consider attending. When else would I get a chance to meet her? She lived in Morocco up until December and is in the US visiting family until they move to Denmark in the Spring. It was an easy decision to make. Thanks Tina making the trip! I don't think I would've made the effort to attend otherwise. I also got to meet her beautiful mom and sister.

I loved Ashley Cannon Newell's spontaneity. From one day to the next, she booked her trip to CA. We drove together from the Orange County airport to Anaheim. We actually met in the ladies room in the airport...funny!

On Saturday I had a great lunch with Tina and Sankari. Loved these ladies!

I also got to meet Tiffany Johnson, Charlene Austin, Stephanie Day, Carly Robertson, Beate Johns, Tenia Nelson, Taylor VanBruggen, Karen Motz, Ashley Nguyen Newell, Latisha Yoast, Nancy Grant, Daniela Costa, Paper Crafts magazine editorial staff, and if I left someone off the list please forgive me. (Edited to Add: I forgot to mention Ivy on this list. I met her when I met Amy.)

If you would like any of these individual pictures, let me know. I'd be happy to email it to you. Have a good one!

Calling Cards

Hi everyone. I flew back from Anaheim on Saturday night. I wish I could have stayed longer to attend the tradeshow part of CHA. I didn't get to see Jennifer McGuire, Lisa Spangler, or Julie Ebersole. I really wanted to meet them. Later today I'm going to post the pictures I took while I was there.

The night before I flew out, I remembered I wanted to take some calling cards with me since I would be meeting a lot of familiar and new faces. I remembered these calling cards How About Orange featured last year. They are fabulous! I got a lot of compliments on them and I promised I would remind everyone I met where to get them. This free download was created by Cameron Blazer. I didn't notice until writing this post that she also has a multi-line version of the PDF file. You open up the PDF file type in your name and contact info just once and it gets replicated in the whole file. Just print on some nice cardstock (I used some HP Matte Brochure Paper) and trim. The cut lines are included to make that task easier. Thanks, Cameron!

Happy Valentine's Day - Color Inspiration Challenge

Hola Paper Crafters! I made this card for Kristina's Color Inspiration Challenge #57. I really struggled with the design of this card. I tried so many different layouts. I worked late at school today, so I missed Kristina's deadline by about 5 minutes. Oh well, here it is anyway.

I created the focal point of the card with my Silhouette. I cut this heart design 5 times (4 of them in kraft cardstock and 1 of them in designer paper). I glued all the layers together to make my own chipboard. I love doing that! I attached a button with some twine. The rest of the card is pretty simple.

I'm going to CHA in Anaheim next week! I look forward to 2 days of crafting fun. For me, it's only a little over 1 hour flight. Once Tina (Travelingmama) said she was going, I told her I would definitely have to go. I mean she's in the US all the way from Morocco! Several other talented designers will also be there (Sankari, Kelly Marie, Amy Tsuruta, and Courtney Baker). I would love to meet Jennifer McGuire and Lisa Spangler from Hero Arts. Allison Kreft Abad from Hambly Screen Prints will also be there. I've met Allison before, but I definitely want to do the Hambly make-n-takes. Are you going to CHA? If so, let me know.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

Card Ingredients (all SU! except where noted)

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes
Paper: Cameo Coral, More Mustard, retired designer papers, Kraft

Ink: VersaMark
Tools: Silhouette using downloaded heart design, Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers), Scallop Edge Punch, Word Window Punch

Other: More Mustard button, linen twine, So Saffron ribbon, white embossing powder, foam tape (3M)