February Class/Events Calendar

Seeing how February is here, I thought I would remind you all that the February calendar is posted here. We are offering some really great classes, as we have a pretty full calendar. We have added more knitting classes for which we have had a lot of requests for. Our Crochet Night and Sit & Knit Nights continue each week, as it is nice to get out of the house and meet with people that share the same hobby as you. These meet in Meeting Grounds Express Coffee Shop in the front corner of our store.

Season continues to teach the Beading 101 and Beading 201 classes and has come up with some nice designs for the months to come. Beth will be teaching the Cut + Paste class, complete multiple layouts and a craft project with the fun filled class kit she has created. Nicole has designed a very sweet mini album from the Sweet Love line by Little Yellow Bicycle. Sarah Lynn along with the help of Heather have designed very cute cards for our Card Chaos Class. We are offering more classes so be sure to check out the calendar and for class descriptions and pictures of the projects done in class click on more details once you are on the calendar page.

Calendars, Calendars and More Calendars!

Around here we have already been thinking about spring and have started receiving some of our seasonal spring merchandise. It is so bright and refreshing to see it in the store. We have also been changing out our calendar displays and I just had to show you how cute they are. So do you remember this one that I posted in December?

Well Sarah Lynn and Shannon, who work in the Paper Crafts Dept. have been busy recreating this calendar and a few others. They love working with a mixture of different products to create the magnets for each calendar. Here is the what they recreated using the same red tin from the December calendar...
Isn't it Cute? They have also made a few others, and one of my favorites is the April calendar made from the galvanized tin, using the mdf holder and is decorated with the Letter Box line from American Crafts, which I absolutely love.
You can pick up all the supplies needed to make these fun calendars here at Crafts Direct.

CHA Finds!

After the second day of the show we have found some new products and a new vendor that we really like. The new vendor that Jason and I are excited about is Epiphany Crafts. They are still working on their website, but we loved the concept of their product. We thought it would be great to use their products to embellish tacks, magnets, and bottle caps, to use with the calendars that we love making, along with magnetic memo boards and cork boards. Their booth was so adorable I wished I would have taken a picture of it.

I talked about Extreme Glitter in this post from CHA Summer. I have to say that it is even more exciting now that Plaid is coming out with 2oz. bottles, and 4 new colors. Doodlebug, well, what's not to love. I am a big fan of their Summertime line. They created this adorable shadowbox using products from the line.

So this photo to the left is something that has inspired me. I must try it out when I get home. Making Memories Slice machine has been out for some time now, but we have never tried to cut fabric with it. Well at the show that is exactly what they were doing, creating appliques. They applied a fusible webbing to the back of fabric and cut out various shapes and applied them to tea towels, onesies, baby hats blankets, and more. I am very excited to create some fun appliqued projects. They are coming out with some other products that will make the slice even easier to use.

There is more to share but it has been a long busy day and it's getting late. I will share more new products and great ideas that we have found with you tomorrow, so stay tuned...

CHA Winter!

Genna, Shannon, and I are in Anaheim! We all had an amazing day, and are definetely looking foward to the next couple of days. Shannon and I spent the day taking a sneak peek at some our favorite companies (We R Memory Keepers, American Crafts, Cosmo Cricket, Little Yellow Bicycle... and SO many more)! We're so excited to see more at the show. Genna is blogging later about her adventure.... (check our Cricut blog) more to come later....

Help for Haiti

Haiti is very near to my heart. If you know me and my family, you know that my youngest son was adopted from Haiti over 4 years ago. I say youngest son because my oldest son is currently living in the same orphanage that Eli was in. My family had started the adoption process earlier this month to bring JP home.

My wife, Lori, and daughter, Avalon, went to Port-au-Prince in November to help the orphanage with some projects and were able to meet JP. JP had been waiting about 2 years for his adoption paperwork to be completed and was about ready to go to his new family in Montana, but that family decided to not follow through with the adoption. When we heard about this, we knew that JP was supposed to be our son.

Dear friends of ours, Sara and Marc Orjansen, are also in the process of bring their two children, Vaniesa and SeBee, home from this orphanage as well. Sara traveled to Haiti with Avalon and Lori in November and met her children on that trip also.

Now with the current situation in Haiti, our hearts are breaking not knowing what condition JP or the other children are in. There are currently 26 kids living in the orphanage. We communicated with some people at the orphanage on Tuesday. They are currently telling us that there has been damage to the orphanage and beds need to be replaced. The children are doing OK, but are scared. They have opened the building to others in the community, and will run out of food and water soon. Please help us support these children and the community around the orphanage.

Our adoption agency, A New Arrival, is collecting donations. A New Arrival is a registered 501 C(3) non-profit adoption agency, licensed since 2000 in the State of Montana. They received full Hague Accreditation from the Council on Accreditation July 15, 2009 and are licensed through 2013.

You can make a donation directly to A New Arrival by going to www.anewarrival.com and then click the "Donate" button.

If you would prefer to give to one of the international organizations, here is a list of some that I know are doing an amazing job for the people of Haiti:

• Donate $10 to the Red Cross by texting "Haiti" to 90999
• Donate $5 to Wyclef Jean's www.yele.org by texting "YELE" to 501501
• Donate $10 to the Clinton Foundation by texting "HAITI" to 20222
• CNN list of other organization that are working in Haiti

Thank you for any donation you can make that will help the country of Haiti in this time of need.

Scott, Lori, Avalon, Faith, Eli, and JP Schlecht

New Floral Aisles!

The Floral Department has rearranged their aisles!

Learn Something New this Year!

We have our January class & events calendar posted here, as well as February's. That is right, I said February's. We are offering many great classes and our instructors are looking forward to teaching you something new this year. Our ever so popular Card Chaos Class is back in session, as well as our Cut + Paste Class. In February we will also be adding a Hat & Cable Knitting Class, as well as a Knitted Lace Scarf Class. Both for experienced knitters that know how to knit and purl stitch. Our Happily Ever After Classes have been going over very well for all the brides to be and dates will soon be added in February. Be sure to take a look and hopefully we will see you in one of our classes.