What IS a "Craft 'n Chat"?

A Craft 'n Chat is an opportunity to get out of your home, where lots of distractions (laundry, cleaning, paying bills...) are taking up precious crafting time.

When you attend a Craft 'n Chat, you get 6' of table space all to yourself. You enjoy a comfy chair and lots of ample lighting.



You can either bring some projects you want to work on (cards, scrapbook layouts, mixed media projects, etc.) or you can find projects to do by touring the "Tool Room", where you will find hundreds, upon hundreds of various dies to cut out shapes,

3D projects, boxes, bags, shaped 12x12 papers, interactive cards, sentiments, borders and much more.

Also in the Tool Room for crafters' to enjoy using while attending a Craft 'n Chat are:

Paper Punches

Ink Pads

Blending Brushes

Embossing Folders & an Embossing tool just for the folders

Stencils

Thin metal dies & die-cutting machines

Rubber stamps with images and sentiments and even some with coordinating dies

Markers

Coloring pencils

Paper cutters

Attending a Craft 'n Chat gives you the luxury of playing with hundreds of unique products without having to buy them for yourself. The Tool Room is a "lending library" of sorts for crafters to enjoy using a vast variety of goodies.

What else is included?

Crafters get to enjoy doing creative research in the Library Lounge. In the library, there are books and magazines galore to give a crafter ideas and inspiration.

The kitchen is available for crafters to use while they attend a Craft 'n Chat. Some crafters choose to bring their own snacks or meals and they can use the refrigerator and microwave. There is also the "Beverage Center". Crafters enjoy using the Keurig machine, the ice-making machine and will find pods for coffee, tea and even some specialty drink pods. There are cannisters for hot cocoa, iced tea, lemonade as well as all the various condiments for beverages.

And, one of the best parts of a Craft 'n Chat are the "chats" amongst crafters. Several friends have started off not knowing one another until they attended a Craft 'n Chat. Crafters can be the best "cheering squad" for fellow crafters. Ideas, opinions, suggestions and most of the time, praise and admiration are received from fellow crafters when one needs it.

At some Craft 'n Chats, I will provide snacks. Most of the time, crafters just bring what they want to munch on.

At the end of the day, crafters usually go home with a completed project or two or three or...but mostly go home feeling a sense of accomplishment and refreshed. A lovely day spent creatively crafting and socializing.

I hope you will join us for a Craft 'n Chat soon.

The Rubber Stamp & Scrapbook Getaway Show

When: Friday, May 15th - 10 AM till 5 PM
Saturday, May 16th - 10 AM till 4 PM

Advanced tickets via website are $6.00

Tickets at the door are $8.00 cash

Ticket to Friday Night Party + Friday & Saturday Admission is $40

To participate in the Friday Night Make 'n Take Party this year, you need to purchase your ticket in advance via the website. The price you pay includes the Friday night party and both days admission into the show.

The Crafting Cottage is providing 4 projects for the Make 'n Take Party and they are GORGEOUS!!!

The event is being held at the Finger Lakes Mall in Auburn, NY

This show has been coming to our area for over 12 years!!!

Even though the vendors have thinned out due to the economy, etc. there is a fabulous group of vendors attending this year's show:

The Crafting Cottage!!!! WHOOWHEE!!!!!

Blue Knight Rubber Stamps

Creek Bank Creations

Toomuchfun Rubberstamps

Eureka!

Creative Memories

Shopscrapbook 101

My Paper Crafting Store

Stampin' Up

I can remember in years past, crafters complaining that they didn't have enough time to visit all the vendors. Now, crafters get to enjoy a slower paced show. Take time to do all the Make 'n Takes being offered. I can tell you that The Crafting Cottage will have a few awesome projects to make at our booth.

I, personally, appreciate Steve and Michelle from Toomuchfun Promotions returning to our area year after year and bringing vendors along that sell products one can actually see, touch and sometimes even "test drive" before purchasing.

At any rate, my friends, check out the website and visit the individual vendors via their website links included. Of course it is nice if you can find a few items to purchase - but I can tell you that the exhibitors also just appreciate the opportunity to personally show you their products in action and to chat face to face with paper crafters.
Click Here to visit the Show's Website

The other BIG paper crafting/stamping/scrapbooking show that is fun to attend is at the end of August this year. Here are the details:

The SSAT (StampScrapArtTour) Show

When: Saturday, August 29th - 10 AM till 5 PM

Sunday, August 30th - 10 AM till 3 PM

FRIDAY NIGHT MAKE 'N TAKE EVENT IS ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 28TH

FROM 6 PM TILL 9 PM

The Friday night event requires a separate ticket that you can only purchase online from SSAT.

The Crafting Cottage will be participating again this year.

We are also doing the Friday Night Make 'n Take Event.

For more details - please visit SSAT's website.

Over the Easter weekend, I will be getting several products prepped and ready to be placed in the mini-shop at The Shoppes at Oldies But Goodies as well as in the mini retail shop here at the Crafting Cottage.

Those attending any upcoming events or staying at the Cottage will be able to check out several brand new goodies from Waffle Flower, Taylored Expressions and Altenew.

Once the weather remains warm enough to take the chill out of the back building at the Crafting Cottage, I am going to finally be able to comfortably work out there and set it up to be an onsite "warehouse" of crafting products and be another classroom.

Purchasing more crafting products is probably not on everyone's "Must Do" list. Believe me, I get it.

I know some of us enjoy the "Retail Therapy" of purchasing new goodies. Some of us are into new shoes. Perhaps a new purse. For me, personally, I enjoy finding new ways to organize my crafting supplies. I also enjoy treating myself to new stamps or dies or embossing folders - with coordinating stencils.

My son and youngest daughter don't understand how I can possibly find ANOTHER stamp set or die set to purchase (for myself - not even for the business)!!! They'll say, "Mom - really? Don't you already have a trillion of these already???"

My daughter, Tara, is more understanding and supportive. Tara "gets it". We both love to create artistic projects.

Even though I know that purchasing another stamp set or die set or package of stencils may not be on your radar right now, I will still do my best to stock the mini-shops of the Crafting Cottage so that when it is in your budget to treat yourself - you know, a little

"Mu Mu Sheroo" - you will find something fun, creative and unique to add to your crafting stash!

This past weekend, I participated in the Crop & Create Spring Event. Thanks to our Crafting Sister, Sue Leven, I now participate in as many of these events as I can. They are hosted by the group,

Scrapbook and Cards Today out of Canada. They were mostly known as the magazine - which sadly had to close the magazine due to high costs of publishing.

Even though I advertised in the magazine - I never really paid attention to these Crop & Create virtual events they offered. The events used to be always "in person". However, after COVID, they adjusted to doing them virtually and to everyone's happiness - it was a huge hit.

Over the course of the weekend, which I attended with over 2,300 fellow crafters across the globe, we were taught how to create 36 very different cards using a variety of techniques and products.

Granted, some of the cards were not my "cup of tea" - but I still learned something.

I miss attending the in-person paper crafting conferences that pretty much stopped after COVID. The companies would teach workshops throughout the four day event, introducing my fellow shop owners and I to the newest product launch. So much has changed in the industry. Now, I look forward to trying to participate in as many Stamp & Scrapbook shows as I can. I get to interact with crafters, teach classes and sell some products. I also enjoy sharing information about the retreats at the Crafting Cottage.

Here are a couple of the cards I questioned why I would ever make these again.

I sent pictures of the "cleaning cards" to my hubby to show him what I had made. Here was his response:

The instructors were all awesome! Gina K., Jennifer McGuire, Jenn Shurkus, Simon Hurley and Cathy Zielske - to name just a few - were so much fun. The classes are two hours each and you can watch them live so it enables you to interact with the instructor but you can also watch later at your convenience as the taped classes remain available to you for a very long time. Here are just a few of the other cards I completed:

I have already signed up for the Fall event. I highly recommend looking into not only their Fall Crop & Create Delivered being offered - there is still time to register - but visit their website to see all the various virtual classes and events they offer. Below is the link to visit their website.

Scrapbook & Cards Today

Even though today's temperatures seem to be in the 60's - just last week we had snow and ice storms. It was one of those days last week that I won't forget.

I was safely tucked away in my home, still in my pj's, crafting away in bliss, when I received a message from the Culligan man texting that he could not get up the driveway - so he was going to leave the water bottles at the end of the driveway.

I looked out the window - and sure enough, I could see where he had tried to drive up our driveway (it is a very long and winding hill). I figured I would just run out and let him know I got his message and no problem.

Except there was a problem. When I threw on a jacket and stepped into some sneakers - as I attempted to walk on the driveway - I became Dorothy Hamill swirling and skating, then sliding crazily across the black ice!!!

Change in plans. Back to the safely of my warm home. I now knew that it would become a "mission" to simply get to my car, much less safely drive down the driveway and retrieve the water bottles that were now sitting in a snow bank.

Then, I remembered - I had gotten one of those seed/salt spreaders for just this kind of situation. One of them, was battery powered! Yeah! This would be one of my "MacGyver Moments".

So, I bundled up and pre-salted my pathway to my car and while I waited for the ice melt to do its job, I had turned my car on to start melting the snow and ice off the windshield.

I came up with the brilliant idea of pretending I was going to mimic the big SALT TRUCKS and as I would drive down and up the driveway, I would hold the automatic ice-melt spreader outside the window, thus spreading the ice melt on one side of the driveway going down and then on the other side of the driveway coming up.

Brilliant plan! Except, there was a problem.

A wise word of advice, my friends. When one is going to use an automatic ice melt spreader to spread salt while driving a vehicle, be sure to OPEN the driver's side window FIRST - THEN push the button to start the machine - because - OF COURSE the button is going to get stuck in the "ON" position before you have opened the window and the machine will be spewing salt chunks all over the dashboard, against one's face, lap and despite all efforts to turn it off and get the window open - one's plan of being so clever will amount to a, "What the hell was I thinking" moment.

With that, I wish all of us a warm week of true Spring weather. The birds are out and about chirping away and I am seeing some early Spring flowers popping out of the ground. Stay strong. Stay healthy. Stay safe. And, as always -

Stay Crafty My Friends!!!

Cheers,

Georgiana