Love for sale...

the love of a sweet paper-mache giraffe, to be precise. Yes, we need the room and Miss Fifi is now looking for a home...she cost us $250, but you can have her for just $99 and that price includes uncountable amounts of Decoupatch paper...

sorry, you gotta pick her up yourself, we can't ship her...

she is 5"3' tall and made of paper-mache

call 919-872-4767 if you are interested...

Cid Pear Sale

The talented Tina Givens is moving her studio and she's having a clearance sale on papers of all kinds. She's got some of the loveliest papers ever and she's selling them at $2 a pound. She's got really sweet designs, cards, 12x12 papers, envelopes, you name it. She's in North Raleigh, at 8341 Banford Way. You can call 676-2247 for more info...the sale is M-F from 9-5:30 through the 5th of February. See more at CidPear.com and don't get any of the good stuff before I get a chance to go through it, ok?

Tina's designs have been on stationary for a while, but now she's turned her hand to designing fabrics and she's writing a book with Lark Press...I look forward to seeing her book as the few projects she's let me peek at have been very compelling...

Lunch in Hollywood

So today I played a bit of hooky and skipped out on my work at the CHA show to go visit my friend Kaari Meng at her studio shop, French General. I got a rental car and drove from Anaheim to Hollywood with the car radio playing KCRA. I cruised past palm trees and under the Hollywood sign on the hill until I found her fabulous shop tucked away among old movie studio buildings. French General is located in a tiny house that used to be used for the stars to rest in between takes. The ghost of Clark Gable could still be sitting on the back patio, smoking a cigarette and watching the birds flit in and out of the roses.

Everywhere you turn in Kaari's shop there is a beautiful collection of lovelies. I couldn't take a bad picture. Well, that's not quite true. We took 12 pictures of Kaari and I standing in various locations in the store and somehow each one of them was fuzzy and out of focus...maybe because we were laughing too hard?



Even though I kept interrupting them, Kaari and her talented assistant, Dawn, stayed hard at work creating her project of the month kits. They buzzed around tables stacked with vintage trims and cuts of fabric and I made myself at home with a cup of tea and some rice crackers. I could hardly keep my hands off the kits; the beads are so compelling in their tiny tins. I took a few pictures and we chatted about old times and old buttons.



Here is Kaari signing a copy of her book for me...this is a favorite book of mine and a best seller at our stores. We share a love of old trims and I was honored to hear that two of the bracelets in Kaari's book were inspired by my cuff bracelets from years past.



These sweet little vintage chenille snails are Kaari's gift if you order something from her site this month, just let her know you read about it here. I think these snails would be perfect for adding to a sweet Valentine gift.



I love the French General kits. Each month you get the ingredients to make a pair of earrings, a necklace and a bracelet with fabulous vintage findings, beads, ribbon. The instructions are in each kit and they are packaged in lovely tins with antiqued french labels. If you need a gift idea for me, I think this would be perfect.

Notes from CHA

I really am working hard here at the show. I spent some time on Sunday walking around and looking at loads of great new items for the store. I also spent time meeting some crafty celebrities at the Lark Books booth.

Here I am with Candie Cooper in the Plaid booth. She was working there as a demo artist and her demos had folks lined up for hours. Somehow I allowed her to rope me into her evening plans and the next thing I knew...



We were having drinks with Donna Dewberry. Yes, that Donna Dewberry. You have seen her on television a million times and in person, she's the nicest woman you'll ever meet. Before I could get to know Donna really well, though, I found myself off to dinner...



with the Crochet Dude. Yes, he's even funnier in person AND his cat is named Cleo! Obviously, after my grandmother and daughter...



We ended up the night hanging out with the Beadalon folks and Katie Hacker. She's written about 100 beading books (only a slight exaggeration!) and she's also a mom and an organic farmer. Do you love her? This is a picture of Katie taking a picture of me taking a picture.



Just in case you think that all we do at Craft Industry trade shows is drink, here is a picture from today. I am standing with Thomas Mann at his booth. He has dvds with fab sawing lessons and KITS that you can use to make awesome TechnoRomantic jewels. YES, of course I ordered them for you!



Please excuse the bad picture of these kits. I swear, you'll love them when you see them. And the How to Saw dvd is so fabulous. Thomas promises he can improve anyone's sawing in just 30 minutes and I think he's right. We'll also have some of his exclusive parts, special textured metals and more fun goodies.



That photo at the top of this post is of a display I really liked with some filigree and watch part adorned birds...tweet tweet!