Spotted at CHA #5: Crafty Crafty Celebs!

There were many craft celebrities demonstrating at the show. Here’s a quick review and an update on Suede’s tee.

Suede, Project Runway designer and winner of Season Five’s Green Challenge, was creating Fashionista Rock Star tees in the Simplicity booth and promoting the launch of the Simplicity SUEDEsays ™ collection of sewing patterns. Here’s the finished yellow Rit-dyed tee shown earlier. Awesome, Suede rocks!

Mark Montano, artist, author and TV host, introduced two new books at the show. In The Big-Ass Book of Home Décor, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Mark shows how easy it is to make perfect pillows (the jewelry of the home), wonderful walls, marvelous mirrors, terrific tables and more!

The other book is Pulp Fiction, Perfect Paper Projects, published by Design Originals. In the book, Mark does a lot with newspapers, book pages and magazine pages. He recycles and transforms them into all sorts of stunning objects, like this butterfly shadow box (here’s the one I made at his make-n- take-it),

to flower brooches, paper earrings, ornaments, masks and stationery. I can just imagine adding a few brush strokes of Rit dye to many of these projects.

Tiffany Windsor, host of Cool2Craft, a live interactive craft TV channel, spotted with her sister Heidi Borchers, host of EcoHeidi, which is an interactive show that runs on the Cool2Craft website. Heidi is well known for her creative recycling projects, and her book, Green Bling, published by Leisure Arts. Tiffany is also the host for the new Inspired at Home, Ideas for Living a Creative Life TV show on cool2craft. Go to Cool2Craft for a schedule of these great craft shows and then become part of the interactive audience.

Drew Emborsky, known by crafters as The Crochet Dude , has developed a complete line of crochet hooks, tools and kits under the Boye brand for the Simplicity Creative Group . One of Drew’s most innovative tools is an extra large crochet hook for crocheting thick yarns and T-shirt yarns. Drew plans to use Rit dye in some of his future crochet projects.

Cathie Filian and Steve Piacenza are the creators, producers and hosts of the popular lifestyle shows, Creative Juice and Witch Crafts on HGTV & DIY. As national spokespeople for Plaid, they are preparing to launch a new Plaid TV show for the internet. What a dynamic duo they make! You can feel the creative juices flowing when you chat with them. Cathie is a long-time user of Rit dye.