(Textured backgrounds are very addicting to create. Now I just have to do the foreground!)

More CHA Chances

Find Claudine Hellmuth tomorrow at:
9am-12 Ranger Booth #4843 - demo

2 -3:30pm Lazar StudioWERX Booth #3772- meet the artist - stop by for a fun photo - become a life sized Poppet®!!

4pm-5pm F+W Publications Booth #1509 -- book signing and demo ONE FREE book to each person. LIMITED quantities!

Sherri Haab
10 am - 11 am Watson and Guptel booth, demo

Traci Bautista has events going on as well but I'm not sure when. Surely worth checking out though!!

Sherri Haab at WG Booth!

If your at CHA this week (and I hope you are...although why would you be checking email?) check out Sherri Haab at the Watson & Guptel booth on Monday 11-12 and Tues 10-11.

More on artists at CHA coming tomorrow!

And if you want to keep an eye on what fun projects Sherri has going on, check back here or at her blog.

Friday Goodies- CHA CHA CHA

(A card I designed this week)

If you randomly find a magic genie and he's offering you 3 wishes, use at least 2 on this.

The website doesn't do it justice but CHA stands for The Craft and Hobby Association. Their press release says "You’ll have the chance to explore 3200 booths featuring the newest offerings from 1100-plus companies –divided into six product sections for optimum buying convenience. "

I'm drooling....in Oregon...where I will be ALL of next week. But if YOU are in the Anaheim area, go check it out.

Also a few of the CCP artists will be there including Traci Bautista, Sherri Haab and Claudine Hellmuth. Check back on Sunday. I'll post the where and when they'll be along with the instructions for a project Sherri will be demoing. See what other fun stuff is going on here.

Have a great weekend!

Monday! Monday!

I'm trying to learn to create patterned paper to use for my cards, etc. This is my first attempt. This could be *very* addicting!

Turning Your Hobby Into a Business

Claudine Hellmuth is one of several artists taking part in the teleworkshops at the smARTist telesummit 2007. The summit starts tomorrow and runs through the 26th. Check out their website for all the topics covered but the main focus is how to turn your art into a business. Claudine's session will cover life as a published author and how to become a workshop instructor. It all starts tomorrow so if you're interested, check out their website here.

Weekend Work

I'm spending the weekend making up hours I've missed or will miss here at Creative Catalyst Productions. Something about being in the offices on the weekend is nice. It's just me and the cat and my podcasts.

As soon as I finish Jacqueline Sullivan draft one to hand off to Zach, I'm going to work on the Try This at Home Challenge. I've been watching Lesley's video and am both excited and nervous. It's so fun to watch. It's much harder to *do*. I understand this is just part of learning curve.

However, a quick trip to the craft store yesterday made me realize I hadn't listened well enough to some parts of the DVD and I need to make better notes! (It also made me notice yet again that I succumb WAY TOO EASILY to bright shiny objects in craft stores.)

I've got some general themes though and I'm excited to get down to business later today!

Glue-ish Stuff

Apparently there is some toxic glue-like smell coming out of the studio and editing suites. Every time Susan and Lynn come upstairs for anything they look around, sniff, say something about a glue smell and then inevitably look my way.

The "I have no idea what your talking about, glue?" doesn't work because, well, from my current view I can see a Modpodge, a gel medium and a tube of fabric glue. (If I turned out my pockets we'd probably find a glue stick and Elmer's.)

We've descended into sniffing around corners, opening bottles and comparing notes. What is the cause of this *glue* smell? The final solution is that tonight I'm cleaning up all the half-started projects and we'll see if the smell disappears. Or at least they'll no longer be able to look suspiciously in my direction.

Wikimedia Commons- A collage artist's dream

Wikimedia Commons: These two words should be music to collage artists' ears. Wikimedia Commons is a source of photography and images on the web where the individual image creator designates the type of restrictions for each image. Some images can be used with absolutely no restrictions meaning you can photocopy them as many times as you want and use them in your work. Other images may have restrictions that indicate you must share the work you create with the images with the Commons. Just remember to check the type of license the artist chose at the bottom of each image. Ready to see all the possibilities? Go to Wikimedia Commons and enjoy!

Shelving at Fred Meyer

This is part of the wikimedia's commons. You can find the author of the picture and the picture itself in its full resolution glory here.

Countdown

Countdown until the weekend begins now! (It actually probably started *hours* ago.)

There is talk about starting an official Creative Catalyst Production blog. A place to hear from the artists and see work and all sorts of neat stuff. That's kind of exciting. I'm not sure how much I'll have a part in that. I know I'm learning the tiny details of newsletters however. Usually I design Craft Cat, hand it over to Jim who converts everything over into the appropriate formats for the actual newsletter. The result has been a lot of running up and down of stairs and emails of lists of corrections that need to be made. Finally I just decided that I need to learn the program and compile the final product myself. THIS is why the newsletter won't be going out until Monday. I absolutely LOVE creating the newsletter...turning it all into the correct HTML code is sort of like trying to hike up a learning curve and having a bunch of little <'s and >'s and "'s, etc come rampaging down at you full speed.

ps- The above is my first attempt at carving a stamp a la Gloria Page. Part of a card for Craft Cat. It's amazing how doing something as simple as carving a rubber box can feel so rewarding.

(Update: We now have a blog! Check it out here: Creative Catalyst Productions Blog)

Artist Wednesday

Robert Rauschenberg
Sandra Sider
Jonathon Talbot
Clare Verstegen

2007 and GO!

One of the cool aspects of my job is that I get to ask artists questions. I hope to start bringing their insight into Craft Cat as their incredibly busy schedules allow. For the January issue (it's changing to once a month) I asked them their New Year Resolutions. Some couldn't get back to me due to super flues (yuck) or being on vacation (yay!) but I'll have questions for them in the future. So watch for the latest Craft Cat for their goals for 2007. In the spirit here are some of mine (art and non art):

-eat vegetables at least once a day (the irony here is that I'm a vegetarian...aaand that corn chips don't count)
-paint/draw/craft, etc at least 5 hours a week
-write a family member once a week
-blog at least 3 times a week (my goal is Mon, Wed, Fri)