A Dream Realized!!!

Hi Everyone,

Well I am just back from the 2009 CHA (Craft and Hobby Assn) Winter Show where I exhibited for the first time in the License and Design Section. I can report it was a very successful show for me.

If you look back in my posts you will see the models of how this booth looked in my head and to see it actually come together was such a thrill for me. I actually got a little misty when it was all set up to see it in the flesh. I had been working on this project officially since August but it really has been since June when I first started thinking about exhibiting. My booth came in second in the L&D area for best booth after my friend Sarah Hodsdon's remarkable and wickedly creative cardboard covered booth. Once I get permission I'll post a pic of her booth too. We were right across from each other and had two of the liveliest booths in the section. It's a good thing we are good friends!

Although traffic was light at the show, the people who were there were serious which was wonderful. I met a lot of great people, including manufacturers who want to have my art on many different product lines which is after all the goal of all this.



The complete thrill of the show for me is when Mary Engelbriet came to my booth. I am such a huge fan of Mary's illustration art work as well as a fan of her magazine Home Companion, which I think is one of the best creative home magazines ever published. I am not one to usually get star struck but I sure was with Mary and she couldn't have been more lovely to speak to. She has inspired me in so many ways that to hear Mary say she loved my work was about the highest compliment an artist can get, and kept me on a high throughout the show. Thanks Mary for your encouragement and hopefully not thinking I'm a dork for being a bumbling fool talking to you!

Please go to the Home Companion Magazine website and post comments that you want them to bring the magazine back. I for one will be lost without it! It is a superb magazine that truly deserves to be saved.