I don’t normally post about my personal life… but this I just had to share! For the past five days I have been teaching how to use new Martha Stewart Crafts products at the largest craft industry convention in the country called The Mega Show by CHA (Craft & Hobby Association). I was so completely honored to be a member of the amazing Plaid Crafts team for the week – and of course overjoyed to be representing one of my favorite brands…

Originally this was going to be my first year attending.. walking the immense convention floor and checking out the latest and greatest new craft products that will soon be hitting the store shelves. You have to be credentialed as part of the craft and hobby industry to attend, it’s not for the general public – and they accepted me, yay – that was good enough! Lucky for me, every year this convention is held in Anaheim, CA… less than 30 minutes from where I live.

Then I got an email from the marketing manager at Plaid (the company that manufactures Martha Stewart Crafts paint, decoupage and stencils) asking if I’d be interested in demonstrating/educating conference attendees on a few brand new items for the Martha Stewart Crafts collection. Can you say omg – dream come true for me! A phone interview and a few emails later it was confirmed – I was hired and I couldn’t be more excited! 

Martha Stewart is releasing an assortment of fun new items… from new colors of regular paint and chalkboard paint, to a brand new line of furniture paint and waxes… but what I’m most looking forward to is the new erasable liquid chalk!!! Use the liquid chalk like paint, but once dry it won’t smear like chalk and it’s fully erasable with water!

Arriving I didn’t know what to expect, one – because I’d never attended the conference before and two – because I’d never been an educator before. And this is what I saw first… are you kidding me? My picture on a poster board… I felt like such a big deal! lol!

And so the crafting madness began! Our booth was directly in the front of the conference and I constantly had a line of avid crafters waiting to learn about the new products. My {make-n-take} was incredibly popular because it was SO darn cute!! We made chalkboard plaques embellished with Martha’s silkscreen adhesive stencils (my fav!)… Plaid created the project and I did a full hands on demonstration. It was SO popular in fact that we ripped through over 500 chalkboards in less than two days… and that was all we brought!

Of course they included my favorite paint color ‘beach glass’ in the project – that is until ‘caribbean cool’ is released! Yay… more turquoise colors to come soon! 

We used the new ‘chalk inspired’ silkscreen stencils to embellish wood plaques painted with MSC chalkboard paint… peel the stencil from the backing and place on your surface…

Press the silkscreen firmly to the surface…

Then using a paint dauber, gently pounce paint through the silkscreen…

Gently peel the silkscreen away to reveal a much more detailed design than you could ever achieve with a regular stencil…

The crafters really had a blast with this project as you can see it was just darling!

We also added a little ribbon to the back of the plaque to hang on the wall.

I had such an amazing time with all the crafters – and the Plaid Crafts team treated me like a movie star. I cannot express to you just how grateful I am for the opportunities that have come my way from simply sharing my passion with you all – crafting. xoxo

HUGE thanks to my girl Amber from Damask Love for taking these awesome pictures of me!