Check out our cute Michaels Make and Take at the CHA Supershow

Here's the adorable shirt they are making at the Michaels booth at CHA Supershow!

Participants are having a lot of fun creating their shirts.

Crafty Chica is helping them at the Make&Take!

Day 2 Frenzy at the CHA Summer Supershow!

We are busy bees again today at the CHA Summer Supershow 2010! But that doesn't mean we still aren't having a blast with CHA attendees! Check out Pattiewack as she smiles for the camera at the Joann Make&Take It! She's having a lot of fun showing attendees how to use Tulip® Fashion Graffiti™ products to make a custom t-shirt.


Our sales team is also getting hands on with attendees! Both Kelly and Mark (below) tied on their aprons and are helping out in the Joann Make&Take It Booth! By the way, doesn't it look like that kid is having a blast?


Here's Mark demonstrating how the Tulip® Fashion Graffiti™ Fabric Paint Cannon™ works. If you haven't used it, it is so much fun! It gives a spray paint mist just like a spray can, but it's totally non-aerosol and safe for the environment.



Here's a video demo from last CHA where Maya shows us how it works!


Meanwhile, back on the iLoveToCreate booth home front, we have been making more fab Collage Pauge® Instant Decopauge frames.


We are also making more cool water bottle bracelets using Tulip® One-Step Fashion Dye™, Aleene's® Fabric Fusion®, Blumenthal Lansing buttons.


Here are attendees making their bracelets. The finished product is soooo cute!

Oh and for you at home readers, we are having a contest to coincide with our show where we are giving you a chance to win your own Tulip® Fashion Graffiti Spray Paint Kit™! Make sure to leave a comment on our blog contest page to win!

Friday After 5 at iLoveToCreate!

Most people don't like to stay late at work on a Friday after 5, but our employees do! Check out Michelle and Leah in our dye area. They are having fun with our Tulip® One-Step Fashion Dyes™. And their results look amazing!

Here's Leah, our Traffic Manager using the ombre technique on her hoodie.

Don't these colors look "cool"? Pardon the bad pun.

And Michelle, our ILTC Creative Director hasn't worn this shirt in years. She custom mixed dyes to make a cool olive green color. She's totally in love with the results and we are too!

Check out our new Tulip® Color Change™ products!

Tie Dye Water Bottle Bracelets with Tiffany Windsor

Right now at the CHA Summer Supershow we are having a blast making Tie Dye Water Bottle Bracelets with host Tiffany Windsor! Don't they look fab?


Here's Tiffany during her live demo. She's using scraps of fabric made with Tulip® One Step Fashion Dye, Aleene's® Fabric Fusion®, the Sizzix Big Shot, and Blumenthal Lansing buttons along with water bottles to make these awesome bracelets.


And here she is in action on the live webcam!

Tiffany's sis Heidi Borchers cut out all the bracelets. Her friends had helped her collect them! About 5 bracelets can be made with one water bottle.


Here's a look at an overview of the crowd.

TRENDSPOT: Girl Power!

DC Comics super heroine, Wonder Woman, who first appeared in 1941 received a dramatic - and amongst her fans, controversial - makeover with the June 2010 release of Issue No. 600 of her monthly comic book series. Here's my impression: The original Wonder Woman is all-American, strong yet feminine, and pantless. The updated version of Wonder Woman looks like a vampire out of the Twilight series. Kind of a 'goth romance' look. I must say the tights/pants and the cropped motorcycle jacket will make it much easier for her to fight injustice and crime.

What makes this story trend relevant for me is the influence she is having on fashion and makeup. MAC Cosmetics revealed that the company is partnering with DC Comics' Wonder Woman to create a limited edition color cosmetics collection featuring the illustrated superhero. Set for a spring 2011 launch at all MAC locations worldwide, the lineup is expected to include lipsticks, eye shadows, blush and nail polish ranging in price from $13 to $49.

Alexandre Vauthier is currently one of the hot names on the Paris couture scene, with Rihanna and Madonna leading the fan club for his moulded-to-the-body, sci-fi silhouette. His fall/winter 2010 couture collection is Wonder Woman inspired, with plunging V necklines and dangling sleeves that were today's super-heroine's answer to the cape.

It is also rumored that there is a Wonder Woman movie in the works for 2013. Super exciting!

Alyson's shirt - As seen in Altered Couture!

In the iLoveToCreate studios, we totally love to make new fashions and then wear them and show them off! Case in point, check out Alyson wearing this fabulous Tulip® One-Step Fashion Dye™ creation that is blinged out with Tulip® Glam-It-Up!™ Iron-On Crystals™, additional rhinestones and flowers.


It was actually featured in a recent issue of Altered Couture! Allee Marderosian created it with a cool matching skirt especially for the mag. Love it!

Behind the Scenes at the CHA Summer Show 2010!

We're having a party at the iLoveToCreate booth at the CHA Summer Supershow 2010! Check out the adorable frames that are being demoed by Fiskateer Stephenie Hamen using Collage Pauge® Instant Decoupage and Aleene's® Original Tacky Glue®!


See? We are really super busy at the moment. People love coming to our booth cause there are always a fun and original projecs to make!


Here's the frame that Kathy a.k.a. Crafty Chica is in the progress of making!


Here's Kathy's daughter Maya creating in the booth. A pretty frame for a pretty girl!


We love to see how everyone uses similar materials, but comes up with totally different looks!


Like this cute frame by this Make&Take it participant!


And we're broadcasting live in the booth with Cool2Craft Tiffany Windsor. Crafty demos and interviews all day!! Here's a schedule for today and tomorrow's live broadcast!

Disaster Zone at the iLoveToCreate booth

Yesterday as we were tearing down our tradeshow booth at the CHA Summer Tradeshow in Rosemont, an unfortunate accident occured! Thank goodness no one was hurt!


We were taking down the projects and products from the booth wall and placing them on our Make&Take It Station until we could pack them up. A forklift operator came by and ran into our tables knocking them down along with all the glass jars, projects, and stuff on the table. Tear down is hard enough, but a mess like this on top of it is definitely not fun to clean up!


Unfortunately, the large jar of glitter (we have a video of it being filmed here) that we were going to give away was harmed in the process, so no glitter giveaway for you guys :( Not cool at all! It looked so pretty in the jar!

So excited for the CHA Summer Craft Supershow!

Our booth is set up and we're anticipating the arrival of crafters at the iLoveToCreate booth at the CHA Summer Craft Supershow!

We even had our first glue emergency of the day! Check out how Alyson turned a frown upside down with Aleene's® Fabric Fusion®. Good as new! Isn't her sparkly top adorable?



Join Tiffany Windsor today as she broadcasts live via webcam from our booth! A full schedule for the Cool2Craft broadcast from the iLoveToCreate booth can be found here.

The Right Glue for the Job

When embarking on any craft project involving sticking two things together choosing the right glue for the job is crucial. One glance at the adhesives aisle in your local craft store and you can see sometimes choosing which glue you should use can be a daunting task. Don't worry, today for I Love to Create I am going to hold your hand through the entire selection process plus throw in a few gluing tips.


Fabric Glue
For those that don't sew a fabric glue like Aleene's Fabric Fusion can be your best friend. Without ever threading a needle you can often times fake a stitch or add an applique like on Customizing Your Kicks with just a dab of glue. One word of warning is to be careful not to get too heavy handed when gluing fabrics together as some things will darken from the glue.


Decoupage
Yup technically it's a glue with a fancy French name. If they sold Collage Pauge Instant Decoupage Medium in Gallon Jugs I'd buy it that way. Unlike most glues that don't show, decoupage can say it loud and proud on your craft project in glossy like I used on my terrarium picture frame, matte or my personal fave glittery!


Temporary Hold
Sometimes as odd as it sounds, you don't want your glue to stick forever. Aleene's Tack It Over and Over is the perfect temporary hold glue for projects like appliques or in my case holding a stencil in place for glass etching.


Fabric Stiffener
Not only does glue adhere things, it also stiffens things. Sometimes you want the stiff without the sticky and that is where Aleene's Fabric Stiffener and Draping Liquid comes in handy. Very handy when making things like say string lamps or doily bowls. Did I mention you can add paint and dye to it to give it color.


All Purpose Glue
No crafty home is complete without a good all purpose go to glue around. Aleene's Original Tacky Glue is one of my favorites. Now that I have a kiddlet using non-toxic glues is important to me. Liquid Fusion Glue is put to use more often than any other glue in jewelry studio. Not just on jewelry I use Liquid Fusion on majority of my craft projects from turning TVs into picture frames to my neighbors trash into a toadstool. Remember when gluing things together like for jewelry lightly sand the surface when you can to give everything tooth.


Acid Free Glue
And you thought gluing paper was the easiest of all gluing tasks, wrong. When embarking on a paper crafting journey like perhaps scrapbooking or anything involving photographs you want to be sure and opt for an acid free glue like Aleene's Acid Free Tacky Glue.


Spray Glue
I must admit I have only recently discovered spray glue and all I can say is Aleene's Tacky Spray, where have you been all my life. Sometimes you have a lot of surface to glue like when attaching a piece of painted black velvet to a canvas and a spray glue can be a life saver.

This is just the tip of the adhesive iceberg. There are metal glues, industrial glues foam glues and more. Just remember there is always a specific type of glue for each project.

Make&Take It Creators Inspire us

Check out these cool projects created in our iLoveToCreate™ booth at the Summer 2010 CHA Tradeshow!

Love all the colors used on this ART bag.

We heart guys who make crafts. Kevin Craft (whoa, can you imagine having that for a last name - awesome!) made this bag for his Mom.

Doesn't this bag using the Tulip® Tie-Dye Fashion Kit™ in Ombre Plaid look amazing?

We can't wait to see what people make starting tomorrow at the CHA Supershow!

Upcycling & Revamping: It's kinda our thing

Here at iLoveToCreate, we love creating new and fab showstoppers for our CHA Summer and Winter Shows! At the same time, we love to reinvent and use what we have on hand to revamp something old into something new again.

Case in point: Cheryl Ball created a rainbow of fab flowers for headbands last winter show using all our colors of Tulip® Fabric Spray Paint™. We wanted to reuse them once again for the summer show, so we put them on stems and arranged them in some pretty Duncan® Ceramic vases!

It was a super easy way to mix it up a bit, but not have to break the bank or put a lot of work into new samples.

So the next time you are bored with something you made, think of how you can add a little twist to it. That tie dye shirt that didn't turn out perfectly? How about cutting it up for rosettes or braiding it to make a necklace or bracelet. Instead of tossing out a ceramics piece that didn't turn out the way you wanted, try smashing it up in pieces to make a cool mosaic frame using Tacky Glue. You just have to think of how you can turn something around and reuse it in a new and creative way!

While the Crew is at CHA, we'll have a BIG Giveaway!

We try our best to keep you up to date with what is going on at our end while at the CHA Summer Tradeshow, but we know it must be tough knowing you really wish you could be there!

So with this in mind, we thought we'd send a little love your way! We are giving away 5 Tulip® Fashion Graffiti™ Spray Paint Kits (a $15 value) in a random drawing to 5 lucky commenters below!

All you have to do is leave a comment below this post telling answering this question...

What do you love to create using iLoveToCreate™ products?

Contest Rules
– Leave us a comment below telling us what you love to create using iLoveToCreate™ products!
– Only one entry per person, we want to give everyone an equal shot at winning!
– Contest coincides with the end of the CHA Tradeshow and Supershow, so entries close midnite on Saturday night, July 31, 2010!
– Please leave us your e-mail in your comment so we can contact you if you are the lucky winner.

We're excited to hear about what you love to create! Have fun!

CHA Summer '10: More show booth action!

Crafty Chica's slip dress - oh so bright and colorful!

And the shoes that match the dress! She revamped and glittered this pair from Goodwill!

This dress was inspired by a Peter Max illustration. Doesn't the graphic on the black and white stripe look cool?

This mannequin was inspired by Sex in the City 2!

Here's another view! It was created with Tulip® Soft Fabric Paint™.

And we used our 3D paint on felt to create this funky lip curtain!