Cosmo Cricket

CHA: Craft and Hobby Association or Come Home Awesome

CHA was a great show for us!

Of course there was set up. From this:

To this:

To this:

And this:

My favorite thing in the whole booth may have been this:

Angela Daniels came over claiming to be the hardest crafter at CHA, but I had to work really hard to appear this bored!

The Advantus dinner was the best one I've been to yet. Live music, good friends and holy, moly, quacamole! I think the three pounds I gained over the event were all from mashed avacado and chips!

It was great seeing old friends, young friends and making new friends. But I missed my family so much!

This is a really long show for me and being gone a whole week makes people appreciate you when you return. I got long hugs from Kate, Abby and Jack. Suki ran around hysterically for about 30 minutes. Ethan, my 15 year old, didn't give me a hug, but the smile on his face betrayed his too-cool-for-hugs act. I think Eric may have missed me most. Yesterday he made my breakfast and coffee while I slept in. He even frothed the milk and added a couple drops of vanilla to make it special.

I can't close without thanking Merdrey Chew for the darling fabric and yummy candies. My kids devored the gummy sushi and cookie pandas in less than two minutes flat, and now they all think very highly of Singapore.




 

The Winner of the Minis

Hi Everyone,

I'm off in 10 minutes and I'm not ready! But, the school lunches are packed.... good luck the rest of the week Eric.

Congrats go to our winner of the Mini Decks, Cynthia B who said, "Your tags look great! I'll go ahead and say good luck at the show...but I don't think you'll need it. I saw all the cool sneaks of your new lines, so I'm sure you'll have an awesome show!"

I don't really have time for anything else this morning, but I did make a cute bag I never showed on the blog. Look at it until I get you some photos from the show floor!

Tips, Tricks and Trends: TV Dinner Layout

(There's still time to enter our random drawing for one of each new Mini Deck. See yesterday's post for details.)

Make and Takes collated √
Crafter's Home Presentation finessed √
Eyebrows waxed √
New shoes... well three out of four isn't bad right?!?!

I just couldn't find anything that I liked. It's all good though, except that my current shoes are a bit too high to be comfy and being 5' 10" in bare feet, posing for photos with most of you is best done in flats. Oh well, I just hope you'll understand if the photo of us shows your smiling face next to one of my "girls" while my head is cropped out of the frame.

On another note, as I was creating projects for the CHA booth, I realized just how far I've come since we started Cosmo Cricket six and a half years ago. I remember my very first layout. It was quite rumply because I had used Elmer's glue to stick things down. I didn't even know a tape runner existed!

Looking at my current work, I am amazed at how much I have learned. It occured to me that there are beginners out there, that trends change and that crafters come up with new tricks all the time. So, I hope these little graphics illustrating some of the tricks I've learned over the years help the beginners and spark the seasoned paper crafter's creativity too. 


Other tips for this layout:

I used two Gluber strips, one for the twisted part and also one for the other half that contains the few pleats. They are great for holding down ribbon! 

Leaving a white border on your photos will help them stand out against patterned backgrounds.

I made this page for a friend and so the journaling is left blank. I have been doing this a lot lately and I like that they can add their memories in their own handwriting.

You can finish your seams by pulling the threads to the backside of your project and taping them down, or like in this layout, just cut them a little long and add a dot of clear drying glue to the starting and stopping points. 

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Tags and a Giveaway from the New Lines

It's getting down to the wire. I have only about 200 make and takes left to collate, a Crafter's Home presentation to finess, a pair of shoes to buy and a bit of waxing left to do. CHA, here I come!

I can't wait to see all my friends at the show. If you're going to be there, please stop by booth 529 to pay me a visit. I'll even bribe you with a fun make and take!

We'll be making a tag from one of the new lines each day of the show. They are all a bit different since we are featuring each of the papers in the new collections. In fact, I just pulled randomly collated envelopes to make my samples and what you see above is what I got... just as if I were a show attendee.

I had fun coordinating these all for you. I hope you are pleased with your set! You'll get to see the paper in action, make a flower, touch and feel the awesome new brads and play a bit with the Tiny Text. 

If you're not going to be at the show, leave a comment today wishing us luck and we'll enter you into a drawing to win one of each mini deck from the new release. (We will ship the prize once the product is in the warehouse.)
 
We'll pick our random winner on Wednesday morning. Good luck everyone and happy Monday! 

Tips, Tricks & Trends: Summer Love Layout

I just love working with this happy line... even using cloudy sky photos. These pics were taken by my good friend, Will Fisher of William Fisher Photography and that is his darling daughter.

Will doesn't scrapbook and so I have left a little journal spot blank for him to fill in the details.

Here's how you can get this look:

One last tip: combine lines. I just realized that I used some Sweet Disposition on this layout. In fact, we made the two lines to coordinate together.
 

Related articles

Tips, Tricks and Trends: TV Dinner Layout

2WENTY-THR3E Fabric: Phillip's Pillows

With the holidays and CHA sneak peeks, I never got a chance to show you all these fun pillows I made with our 2WENTY-THR3E fabric collection.

I must confess, they were not made for Phillip, but instead named for his screw driver. In fact, I made them for a new friend who seems to be, as she put it, "my sister from another mister." We have different moms too, but we seem to have A LOT in common. So much so that it's a little bit surreal.

Since we are so similar I knew she would love these and she did. It really made my day to get her reaction. Don't you just love when someone appreciates something you've made?

Honky Tonk Mixed Media

I don't have images of our mixed media projects to share just yet, except for one. I'm a little shy about it since I did it myself and this isn't really what I'm best at.... still learning I'd say.

Anyway, I have a little friend that loves her cowgirl boots and I think she'll enjoy this after CHA is all said and done.


When I find some time, I want to do more mixed media. It's a huge challenge, but so fun to play with!

Now for our winners. Congratulations go to:

Our Summer Love winner, Natalie Elphinstone who said, "Oh my goodness. I WILL be needing every single piece of this!"

Our TV Dinner winner, Dianne Jenkins who said, "LOVE LOVE TV Dinner! can't wait to get my hands on some mid-century modern!" 

Our Sweet Disposition winner, Madelene who said, "This is the prettiest retro kit I have ever seen! I adore it."

And finally, the winner of Honky Tonk, Vera W Yates who said, "Being a Texan, this collection is a must have. :)"

Ladies, send your info to julie at cosmocricket dot com and I'll see to it that you get your goodies.

If you didn't win, maybe this can perk you up.... we're giving away beautiful and oh-so-soft scarves at CHA while supplies last. It's always cold on the trade show floor and besides, who doesn't want a pretty red scarft with embroidered guitars on it?!?!? 


 

CHA Peek: Especially for Card Makers!

The fabulous Debbie Olson has done it again.  Every card she makes is a work of art.  I thought all you card making, stamp loving, paper crafting friends would love to see how the new lines work for something other than the scrapbook layouts we have been showing.

First up, Honky Tonk. The boots and sentiment are from the new stamps and nobody colors them better than Debbie. I love the canvas brads and it seems she does too because I spotted one in three of the four cards.

TV Dinner is next and is actually the same color palette as Honky Tonk.... Debbie curved the sentiment stamp slightly, a definite perk of foam mounted stamps.

I like to give "date-night" restaurant gift cards  as gifts to friends and I think this card would be absolutely perfect to accompany them. I may have to send one to Debbie as a thank you after I lift her design.

Next up is Summer Love. I never thought of this as a romantic line, but it sure looks LOVE-ly here. The glitter makes those hearts look like candy to me. So, so pretty!

And last, but not least, Sweet Disposition. Debbie created a beautiful paper flower, but I think my favorite part is the little tag she made by fussy-cutting a story book bit of the hexagon paper.

If you are as excited about this release as I am, you may want to enter to win some of it for free?! If so, please see our previous four reveal posts to leave a comment on them to enter. We'll announce our winner Friday morning. Good luck everyone!
 

Reveal: Summer Love

Ombre prints, sun-bleached patterns and a bit of nostalgia. I'm in love with Summer Love.















Enter yourself to win by leaving us a comment. We'll announce our random winner on Friday morning. Good Luck everyone and thanks for all the kind words and support! Happy 2013!!!
 

Reveal: TV Dinner

Get your automic vibe on and whip up some tasty projects (recipe books for sure!) with this mid-century, kitchen, inspired line. It's scrap-o-matic! 















You know the drill by now... leave a comment and we'll enter you into a drawing to win some TV Dinner. No worries, it's low in sodium and calories, has zero trans fat and is still absolutely delicious. Our random winner will be announced on Friday!