Last year,
I went to Creativation for the very first time, and I absolutely loved it. I've been going to industry trade shows ever since I started working at
Stitchcraft Marketing, but until attending
Creativation, they have all been focused entirely on needlecraft (knitting, crochet, needlepoint, etc).
Obviously, I love yarn and knitting, but every waking moment is filled with it, so it's really a fresh of breath air to spend time seeing other creative crafts outside of the yarn world. This year, I found myself drawn to a lot of the paper crafts - cardmaking in particular kept catching my eye, Some of the display samples were absolute works of art, far cooler than anything you would find in a card store. I wish I had taken more photos, but this is the only one I had on my phone:
The Edible Arts booths are always worth checking out because they make the most incredible things that I couldn't imagine eating, they're so spectacular. Last year I was delighted to spot a few knitted cakes in the Satin Ice booth, so imagine my surprise when I saw this:
Wow! You can't tell from far away, but every piece of that cake has a realistic texture for the yarn, knitted fabrics. It's stunning. The cake artist (I assume that's what they call themselves) behind it was doing live demonstrations showing how she creates the knitted designs in fondant, and she was working pieces for a new cake:
Some of the big-box yarn brands had eye-catching display; I loved this wall of Pantone colors on the back of the
Lion Brand booth, which was so big, I couldn't get it all in one shot:
Red Heart's pom-pom version of Starry Night also tickled my fancy:
My other favorite part of Creativation is the Make & Takes, which are fun, free crafts you can do in a booth and take home with you. There were lots of fun washi tape crafts (I decorated a plastic storage container and a clothes pin), but one of my favorites was learning how to do an image transfer onto packing tape in the
Scotch Brands booth. Here are the votives that my colleague and I made at the show:
I will definitely be playing around with this technique and I'm sure a tutorial will be appearing on this blog at some point.
Invariably, I come home with some swag, although I really try not to these days - I have so much stuff as it is! However, the
Sizzix booth had an irresistible sloth brooch make & take that I ended up bringing home to finish, since I am epically slow at sewing (hmm, seems like a bit of irony there, no?). I also brought home an adorable DIY cat ornament kit from
Fabric Editions, in addition to all of these other goodies:
For those of you who follow me on Instagram, expect to see lots of these things pop up in upcoming Timelapse Tuesday videos and other posts! You can also see more photos and video from the show by
visiting my Instagram profile and watching my Creativation highlights:
I'll be contributing to a post for the Stitchcraft Marketing blog covering the craft trends spotted during the show later next month, but here are a few things that struck my fancy while walking the show floor:
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| Letterboards and funny quotes aplenty. |
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| Cacti and succulent motifs are still super popular. I like the idea of plants I can't kill! |
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| Avocados are the new llamas. |
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| Kawaii amigurumi! |
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| Yarn craft is still very much doing Hygge (not pictured: Red Heart even has a yarn called Hygge). I fell in love with these oversize mitered square pillows from Caron. |
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| Macrame is having way more than a moment! |
Now that I'm back from the show, I'm excited to try some new-to-me crafts when I need a break from knitting, crocheting and weaving. I can't wait to share them with you - let me know which crafts interests you most in the comments!
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