Northern California Chapter of the Craft and Hobby Association... and a Coloring Activity

I've been a member of the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) since December 2014. My annual membership fee ($160) has paid for itself over and over in the value I've gotten since becoming a member. Obviously, there's the annual Mega Show. Did you know that members attend the show for free? Transportation and hotel add up quickly, but the conference itself doesn't cost anything. Even if I got nothing else out of my CHA membership, it'd be worth it for the Mega Show.

But CHA membership has even more perks! There are savings on business-related services like UPS, Hootsuite, Staples, and Avis, just to name a few. Members get a subscription to Craft Industry Today magazine. There are frequent webinars and workshops for members that have been very informative and helpful. We have access to so many resources within the industry. Most of all, we have each other. My fellow CHA members are so incredibly supportive and helpful. Crafters really are some of the nicest people.

With any organization, what you get out of it is directly related to what you put in. For that reason, I've attended everything I can attend and volunteered for everything that needed volunteers. I'm now the kids' crafts representative on the CHA Trends Committee, which basically entails researching and writing about trends in the crafts marketed toward kids. I'm helping out with the Social Committee by welcoming CHA new members and answering questions for prospective members. And I'm on the leadership team for the newly formed Northern California Chapter of CHA.

We held our first NoCal Chapter Meeting in June. There were seven of us at this inaugural event. We had a great time getting to know each other, talking about our hopes for the Chapter, and planning a big event for October.

Lisa, Gloria, Cindy, Evelyn, Kirsten, Peter, Susan

A few days before our get-together, I'd come up with a fun idea. I took a page from The Art of Coloring Animals (affiliate link)....

.... and chopped it into six pieces. I kept the piece with the face for myself and put the remaining five pieces into ziplock bags with my business card. At the event, I explained that I'd like five volunteers to color a piece of the design using any media and then scan it and send it to me. I did not tell them what the completed design was, nor give them any further guidelines. 

It was a lot of fun when the pieces started coming in. I hadn't told them which direction was up, so I enjoyed seeing which direction each person thought their image should go! As you scroll through the pieces, see if you can guess what the complete image is. Here are the artists and their creations:

Susan McGarry is a talented glass artist. You can see her work at Artifill.com. And, as it turns out, she lives walking distance from me! If not for our NoCal CHA Chapter, I might never have known there was a CHA member living practically down the street. Susan colored her piece with colored pencils and gel pens.

Lisa Fulmer is a designer, author, teacher AND marketing consultant. You can see her crafts at lisalizalou.com. She colored her piece with Copic markers.

Kirsten Malone owns Twenty Stitches. She used Faber Castell artists pens to color her piece.

Peter Ouyang is the V.P. of Product Development & Marketing for Sakura of America. He colored his piece with Sakura Gelly Roll pens.

Gloria Robertson colored a piece as well, but between her travels and technical difficulties with scanning, she hasn't been able to get her artwork to me. 

My piece is the one that gives away the design. Did any of you guess it was a horse?! I used Prismacolor art markers and Prang, Crayola and Prismacolor colored pencils. 

Ready to see the (almost) complete image? It's so neat seeing the pieces come together.

If/when I get Gloria's piece, I'll update the collage. Thanks again to Leisure Arts for providing me with this gorgeous coloring book!