The "Unique LA" Winter Show was a blast.
Since the show is known for its unique independent design and gifts, the selection of merchandise available for purchase was beyond belief. I had a great time checking out the different booths, demonstrations, food, and photo opportunities that were available for show guests to enjoy. I found a booth with personalized socks, handmade chocolates, all the way to upcycled jewelry made from car parts.
The Craftside Publishing Booth featured a fun "Ugly Sweater" that folks could pose with (Photo Op Stop). Notice all the fun 80s icons you find on the sweater. It was a big hit with the show visitors.
The "Craftside" booth, arranged for a two day whirl wind of mini workshops and "Make & Take" demonstrations.
For those who are not familiar with the term, "Make & Take" is a short craft project that you make in a very short time (usually 10 minutes or less). Most stores and craft shows charge a fee for these type of mini workshops but at the "Craftside" booth they were free to make.
Each artist contributed their time and materials to provide this fabulous opportunity to learn a new craft and/or technique to the various visitors to the "Unique LA" show.
Normally you do not get the opportunity to take workshops from such amazing talent in one location, unless you have access the C.H.A. trade show. Stefanie Girard worked hard to bring together all these talented ladies to LA to give local crafters a taste of what we normally get to experience at the designer trade shows. This was a great opportunity that I am glad I did not miss.
The Saturday Line Up:
In the photo below (from left to right) is
Stefanie Girard,
Cathi Milligan, and
Linda Swingle.
Cathi Milligan, who you may have seen making her hand blown glass jewelry on the television show "DIY Jewelry" gave a glass workshop at the show. This was a special treat for jewely makers in attendance at the show.
She taught a handblown glass necklace technique at the show, using beautiful bits of fired glass. The students loved this project. After all, you can never have enough glass beads and jewelry pieces.
Cathi also has a book out called "Mod Knots" (which is a fun book with modern macrame project ideas and techniques). She has also done some fun projects for "
Craftzine" and has a shop at
Etsy where she sells jewelry making supplies, glass blown beads, and other beautiful artwork.
She had all the cool tools and some beautiful glass pieces to make a colorful glass focal piece. Her new store has in house classes and monthly special events that I highly recommend attending. She also has rental time for the kilns at the studio for your own projects.
Her Shop is "The Glass Studio, 5052 York Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90042 (phone 323-257-0764 call to find out hours and event line up).
Linda Swingle, who is well known for the beautiful paintings and murals that she does...also taught some workshops. We were very lucky to have here at the Unique LA show. Over a period of two days, she taught two different
workshops that introduced folks to rubberstamping and water color painting techniques. I took the water color painting techniques workshop and could not believe how good my water color project came out.
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| Linda teaching painting techniques |
Linda has a
blog that lets you know where she will be teaching next at http://lindaswingle.blog.com/about/
For those of you who love sewing, the ever wonderful Nancy Langdon was hand to share some of her sewing secrets and techniques.
Nancy Langdon's book (above) and the Amineko Kitty.
Nancy Langdon, is the author of "
Sewing Clothes Kids Love". Nancy was on hand to give a workshop on ribbon rose techniques. The line was so long that I never got a chance to do the project but it looked beautiful. I did get a chance to purchase some of the cool ribbons that she sells.
And one of her patterns, for a very versatile purse that uses as much detail and material as I am inspired to add....or at least the pattern is for my daughter to sew (since I don't know how to sew that well).
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| Sewing Clothes Kids Love! |
Nancy also brought a selection of her beautiful ribbons, unique patterns, books, and samples of the outfits she made for her book (Sewing Clothes Kids Love). The young lady in the photo to the right is wearing one of the outfits from the book. They are easy to wear and very colorful.
Next up was
Stefanie Girard, who is the author of "
Sweater Surgery" (cool projects to refashion or re-make your old sweaters), taught a fun class on how to make felted flowers from recycled sweaters. The classes were full of excited students who enjoyed learning new techniques and making these fun felted pieces.
Stefanie Girard can be reached via any of the following links:
http://thecardalbum.blogspot.com/ http://sweatersurgery.blogspot.com/ or http://craftside.typepad.com/ , http://recycledcrafts.craftgossip.com/
The ever wonderful
Christi Friesen made a special trip to Los Angeles to give
workshops in polymer clay techniques featuring elements from her book "
Polymer Clay and Mixed Media". I loved the way she made working with the premo polymer clay so fun for the folks who stopped by and took the workshop. She had students of all ages. The kids especially loved how easy her techniques are for them to follow. They could learn to make polymer clay birds, hearts, and a variety of other exciting creatures. Her books would inspire anyone to try this craft. By the way, the formula for Premo has been improved and the colors really pop.
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| Christi Friesen |
Christi also has a great sense of humor which the following photo can attest to:
The Sunday Line Up:
Cheryl Green did a fabulous scrapbooking Paper Cut Workshop, using materials from "Club Scrap".
You may know
Cherryl from her producer position on the Carol Duvall show or her many craft projects, crafting articles and other written media publications. She is one very talented artist. She also does some gorgeous rubberstamping workshops, too.
Jeanine Stein, who is the author of "Re-bound" which features some of her book binding techniques. Jeanine hosted a mini workshop on how to bookbind, featuring a very cool book making technique. This was another one of those workshop that I wanted to do but did not get a chance to sit down and complete the project. Even the the "
Amineko" characters had to get in on the workshop action. On their lap is a sample of the mini book project that Jeanine was teaching.
The Sunday
special treat for jewelry makers
was a workshop by
Lauren Anderson, author and jewelry making artist, did a workshop utilizing some exciting chainmaille techniques. Lauren is well known for her work which is featured on the
Beadalon ads. She also designs for Beadalon and you can find her patterns both online at her etsy store or at craft supply stores like Michaels and JoAnns.
Then there were the "
Amineko" characters who have been traveling art and craft shows alike. They were visiting and being admired at the "Craftside" booth.
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| Amineko crocheted Cat |
•*¨*•.Happy 2011.•*¨*•
