One of the fun things at the CHA show was Kathy, the Crafty Chica's cutout. We all took turns having our picture taken and it was a hit throughout both the supershow and tradeshow. Kathy was autographing her books, so exciting for her with the release of her new novel Waking Up in the Land of Glitter. Anything is possible and she makes it happen! The photo op gave me a chance to sport a tattoo, the only one I will ever have!

The Make &Takes were lined up and dear friend Candie Cooper was sporting an awesome Tee and demoing Plaid's Simply Screen stencils and paint. The line there was constant and long!

Trying out new products is always fun as well as being fundamental to my career as a designer. Keeping up with what is new and incorporating it into my work in my style makes for some very interesting results! We played with Cloud Clay from Amaco, a very strong, pliable air dry clay. Marie Browning and I made Zebra Unicorns instructed by the very talented clay artist Michelle Zimmerman.

Yesterday I tweeted about decluttering which resonated with several people. This time of year in mid winter lends itself to the task of clearing away unneeded or unused items. It can seem a daunting task yet like everything when feeling overwhelmed break it into manageable steps. It does really work, a drawer or shelf, a box at a time means an entire room done before you know it. Life is busy, stuff happens and stuff collects, it is a fact for all of us. Attach no emotion to it other than the sense of accomplishment and enjoyment when each step is done. Clearing space allows for a new opportunity to come into your life.
Always follow the JOY! Debra. CEO!

Back from the CHA show (Craft & Hobby Association) in Anaheim! It was a busy week beginning with the two day consumer Craft Supershow. The highlight of the consumer show was the Inspired at Home PJ party Friday evening. I felt like Vanna White as I got to carry Tiffany Windsor's laptop around while she and Maria Nerius broadcast to the Facebook fans. The 100 participants in the PJ party had so much fun crafting and winning all kinds of door prizes. Each table got to try a different craft from sponsors such as Walnut Hollow, Beacon and Plaid. Aleene was there as well with her daughters Tiffany and Heidi, it was a great evening and Tiffany made all of the volunteers a beautiful momento necklace. She is such a lovely person and I thoroughly enjoyed the event and the creative energy was sparked with fluffy robes and a variety of bunny, turtle and monster slippers!

The tradeshow opened on Sunday with the bagpipers which always begins the show with an exciting energy.

Carla Schauer and I exhibited in the L&D (License and Design) section of the tradeshow. Her Dad built amazing folding shelves which were perfect for the booth and I added the fabric accents. The majority of the exhibitors in this section have flat art but there were several designers exhibiting as well. It is an opportunity to meet with Art Directors flown in from the gift and home decor industries and manufacturers at the show usually visit this section on the last day of the show.

The L&D section grew this year but the show itself was smaller due to the effects of the economy. The Craft Supershow before the tradeshow with the thousands of consumers who did attend showed though the enthusiasm that people have for crafting. Creativity is now well established as being instrumental for our health and well being. Celebrate Creativity! More from the show this week!

Always Follow the JOY! Debra Quartermain, CEO!  

CHA Tradeshow!
License & Design #2639

I am off to the show! Never feeling prepared and there is always so much undone plus last minute emergencies but it happens to us all. Looking at what is done though, feels good! Excitement is starting to build, flight leaves in four hours so this Cinderella better finish packing and get ready! The Eternal Optimist is ready and thanks to my daughter's very talented photographer boyfriend Dylan Buell I have some brand new photos, about time! Been five years since an update so wish me luck on that star up there or cross a finger or two! Always Follow the JOY! Debra CEO!

It has been fun taking part in the Sizzix Scoreboard Blog Hop especially with designer friend Eileen Hull's brand new line to be launched at CHA! We got to play with the new die shapes, so versatile! The last one is the gift box, when Eileen sent out the samples, she thoughtfully included some buttons in my package knowing my love of sewing and all things related!

It turned out very cute and so easy my pretty little button box. Use scraps of ribbon and glue overlapping across bottom and top of box. Cover sides with a strip of ribbon gluing it all the way around. Make four loops and stack on top of box. Glue buttons together in pairs to make four sets of legs. Glue four buttons together and glue to center of ribbon loops. This pretty little box matches our booth colors in the L&D section of the CHA show, #2639. It will be handy to keep tacks, pins etc in, useful and pretty, what more can you ask for! Follow the JOY! Debra, CEO!

The CHA Craft Supershow is only a week away! It is going to be a two day consumer show followed by the CHA, Craft & Hobby Tradeshow. Fran  Freda are busy packing, thought I noticed a couple of boas and bikinis! Working chick attire apparently!

At the show!

Jan 22 Inspired at Home Craft PJ Party  7-9pm

Jan 24-27 Exhibiting L&D, License & Design Section Booth #2639 with the talented Carla Schauer.

24-27 CHA Designer Global Gallery Display 30 Designers create designs inspired by 30 CHA member countries!
 
24-27 Demos at Homearts Booth

24 Sunday Designer Showcase 12-5pm, Room 303 open to Editors, Publishers and Manufacturers, Meet & Greet 5-7pm

25-26 Monday, Tuesday  F+W booth #4228, 11:30-12:30, Sweatshirt Remix book demo

I am busily preparing new designs, display pieces for the show. Getting excited to go and reconnect with everyone, to be part of the creative excitement and energy!

Follow the JOY! Debra, CEO!

Only just over a week till CHA! I am busy creating for deadlines, another box out the door today and then onto final show prep. The cold winter days find me enjoying my bright warm upstairs studio with my office conveniently next door. After twenty some years I have the space to work in I really love. I will post pics later, right now in preshow chaos I think not!

I love my home, almost two years here and still everyday I wake up grateful to be living here. I especially love when friends enter my home they enjoy it as much as I do. The front entry is large enough for my Mom's fireplace and antique chair. The mantel is decorated with winter snowmen, greenery and mini lights. It brings me JOY everyday. Follow the JOY! Debra, CEO!

We are women in a world where many of us are so very fortunate. As my good friend and champion of the world the Marvellous Ms. Margot Potter has posted this week we still live in a world where women are treated in many parts of the world as less than human worse than animals. Tortured, executed and mutilated without rights. We have made great strides in women's rights but there is so much still to be done. In 2011 in Canada there will be a Womens World congress with women from all over the world coming together to look at advancing women's rights globally.

I attended a meeting locally recently and was very surprised to hear the statistics on the inequalities of women here in my own province. Pay, representation we are way behind men in these areas yet women comprise an equal part in the work force. Politically our very small representation affects the attention issues relating to women and children receive. It is not to say they are not dealt with but not in the way that women advocates would. To truly understand an issue you have to be part of it.

Why are we not stepping out there more as a group? So many of us are busy with jobs and family in ways most men are still not. If you are single parent raising children you are most likely a woman. If there are aging parents to deal with it is most likely your role. Where does this leave time to be part of a system, open yourself to criticism when standing up to a mostly male dominated arena. Yet it is mandatory, we are each other's keeper and young girls who cannot even attend school because they do not hygiene products for during their periods, how unjust is that.

I believe in this life, the goodness, the richness, the JOY of it all and I also believe we are meant each of us alone and together to make a real difference. I have daughters and one of the gifts I wish to leave them is that I was part of making a difference in their world. Always follow the JOY! Debra, always the Creative Eternal Optimist!

Well less than two weeks till CHA! Debra is surprisingly calm but Freda & I really think it is because she is sleep deprived and so not really with it. The evidence being her overlooking our minor indiscretions of birdseed in the sheets and slushy footprints from the front door, up the cupboards into the sink. (the tub just seemed too far to go for a footbath!)

Want to meet us in person at CHA? Shameless self promotion here as our very divine Ms. Margot Potter would say! Stop by our booth in the License & Design #2639 section of the show, we will be there in the feathery flesh along with some other of our fowlicious friends like Oliver Owl!

Travel to the show we hear for us Canadian birds will be a little tricky, stuffed in the luggage between Debra's unmentionables, nice color choices though if you like pink, pink and more pink! We embellish but hey we are the height of embellishment ourselves.

So see you at the show just follow the bird tracks! Follow the fowl Fran & Freda!

The New Year has arrived! In two weeks it is off to CHA, the Craft and Hobby Association tradeshow in Anaheim! This is the big international show of the year with a two day consumer Craft Supershow first followed by a four day tradeshow. Like so many of my designer and industry friends the show is a marathon schedule for us all! It is wonderful and exciting to reconnect with everyone and to see all the new product and tools! I am also brilliantly trying to mask sheer panic at this point while finishing deadlines before the show. This would also explain why I am writing my blog at 2am.

At the show!
Jan 24-27 Exhibiting L&D, License & Design Section Booth #2639 with the talented Carla Schauer.
24-27 CHA Designer Global Gallery Display
24-27 Demos at Homearts Booth
24 Sunday Designer Showcase 12-5, Room 303 open to Editors, Publishers and Manufacturers
25-26 Monday, Tuesday  F+W booth #4228, 11:30-12:30, Sweatshirt Remix book demo.

In the February issue of Crafts 'n Things magazine a black and white tunic is featured from my book Sweatshirt Remix along with a couple cute bird designs I did. Here I am at fall Quilt Market wearing the tunic shown in the current magazine issue.

So will I finish everything on my lists, no because life has a way of reminding us always that it does not stop for big events like CHA. There are still kids to be fed and hugged, the dust can build, the laundry too (a mountain of laundry literally!) but the important moments, the people we love are there to remind us always what truly matters in life! Follow the JOY always! Debra, CEO!

Another year comes to an end and 2010 is almost here, a new year, a new decade. Every year is filled with events, constant change, many minor, some major and with people we share some part of our lives with. Those we love, those we know and connect with all shape our lives. Some leave us and it is always too soon, we grieve and remember them with love forever in our hearts. 2009 held several major life events for me personally, my Mom's passing and both daughters graduating one from high school and one from university. I enjoyed the gifts of a couple of new very dear friends and a wonderful man has come into my life. I danced in the waves of the Pacific Ocean and swam in the warm Atlantic off Haiti. It has been a year of many blessings for which I am truly grateful.

(California at the ocean, photo by dear friend Michelle Zimmerman)

The waves of the ocean are constant yet everchanging. As far as the eye can see the blueness stretches, crystal shimmers from the sun dance across the surface. Such a timeless and infinite beauty with magical motion in each wave that frolic across the sand.

Like the constant wondrous waves of the ocean the past year has been filled with wonderful women who I am very grateful to know and who are my friends. They have taught me much about life, about commitment and caring, creativity and character, listening and loving, showing up and sharing. THANK YOU to the women who are part of my life, thank you for being there, thank you for being magnificent, marvellous, awesome YOU! Thank you for the JOY! With gratitude & love, Debra