The Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) is an international not-for-profit trade association consisting of thousands of member companies engaged in the design, manufacture, distribution and retail sales of craft products worldwide.
For more about CHA, the value of membership, or its award-winning Conferences & Trade Shows, please visit www.craftandhobby.org.
After planning and laying the groundwork for more than a year, the new bead section of the Craft Hobby Association (CHA) is officially launching! Recently named the CHA North America Bead Association, this gem of a section brings bead store owners, designers, and suppliers together to offer one another support and strengthen their corner of the crafting industry.
The leadership team of this new section is made up of strong co-directors, including
I’m serving as the director and Julianna Hudgins is the secretary.
Together, our main goal is to help strengthen the bead industry, which is suffering from a 25% closure of brick-and-mortar stores over the past few years. On the surface that trend may seem to affect only bead store owners, but it affects everyone down to the consumer. Being involved in this section of CHA will allow us to see outside the four walls of our own businesses. Whether we gather at CHA conferences and trade shows, the Tucson Gem & Mineral show or the Bead & Button show, each meeting brings about an excitement of new ideas and the opportunity to talk with people who do what we do every day, helping to improve the beading industry.
Additional benefits in the works for members of this section are private forums, networking events, business seminars, webinars, vendor connections, and more. But the key to meeting the section’s main goal is going to be a word I like to call “coopetition”, which means the members coming together cooperatively to enable us to be competitive for our individual businesses. We will strive to be cooperative as a section in sharing success tips and strategies so we can individually strive to the best in the way we operate, in our product selection and customer service, and in the shopping experience we provide our customers.
Being a section of CHA allows us to learn from the amazing ideas of the entire crafting industry (which has lots of crossover) while being able to focus on the needs of our industry specifically. The sections are in control of the mission and agendas set by their members. And, like every part of CHA, it brings people together to strengthen their businesses while simultaneously strengthening the industry.
Become a Member Today and Enjoy all the Benefits CHA Offers! Special offer to new members, sign up now and gain access to theCreate-n-Connect Trade Showfloor for FREE! That’s a $200 Value! Click Here to Join Today!
Being a member of the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) has helped Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko conduct business and network with our fellow craft industry professionals over the years. But we recently had the chance to utilize a newer benefit to CHA membership—contacting one of the CHA Experts and Resources—that gave us valuable information to save us a lot of time.
Business regulation changes can be a bit difficult to sift through, especially when trying to separate fact from fiction. I contacted CHA 2013 Regulatory Resource, Paul Milne, to get the low-down on the requirements for annual testing of products. He answered me quickly, giving me valuable advice and letting me know how other vendors have responded to specific regulation changes as well. His helpful advice steered our business towards correct compliance to recent regulation changes that may have taken us a lot longer to discover on our own. And since time is money when you’re in business, he saved us money as well.
If you’re like me, your job requires you to know a little across a lot of areas. But when you need a deeper knowledge in a particular area or a different perspective, the CHA Experts and Resources program gives you just what you need. You’ll find objective, third-party expert available for information that directly affects your business. It’s like a reference library, but of people instead of books. And the variety of professionals covers a broad spectrum of business know-how to benefit every aspect of your business. I encourage you to try it today!
Become a Member Today and Enjoy all the Benefits CHA Offers! Special offer to new members, sign up now and gain access to theCreate-n-Connect Trade Showfloor for FREE! That’s a $200 Value! Click Here to Join Today!
In order to manage the numerous social media streams available (and necessary) a new job has been created at many CHA companies, often titled: Social Media Manager. These jobs and indeed careers did not exist a few years ago.
Based on the need to teach and explain how products work, the craft industry became a social media early adopter. Designers and crafty entrepreneurs began to channel their artistic skills in new ways to effectively represent a company or product to the world-at-large. Utilizing online presentations, tutorials, tweets, YouTube videos and Facebook postings they made their presence felt.
I found that most of the work I now do is ultimately used online in some way. The majority of my studio work is to ensure that I create interesting and informative content for an online viewing/reading audience on behalf of the crafty CHA companies for whom I am engaged.
I have been looking for a way to connect and work with other people with similar social media responsibilities. I approached Andrej Suskavcevic, CHA’s President & CEO, and Sue Turchick, Vice President, Membership to see if CHA might offer a networking opportunity within the CHA family of recognized “Sections.” Happily, they responded immediately and have supported this idea by organizing space and a block of time for an inaugural meeting of the proposed Social Media Section. This meeting will occur on Tuesday July 23, 2013 – 5:30-7:00pm as part of the summer Create-n-Connect Conference and Trade Show in Las Vegas.
This meeting is geared to those whose job responsibilities range from Social Media Manager to Blog Design Team Manager. We are looking for individuals who are content creators for CHA member companies and work daily to promote craft in one or all of the social media channels.
I believe that we could learn a great deal from each other. I also believe that we might work together on some bigger joint initiatives in the future. Please consider attending this event. If you have a social media manager please consider sending them to this meeting! If your social media person is not or has not attended CHA in the past, consider sending them to the January 2014 meeting. I am certain we will have even more to discuss, learn and develop as social media continues to change the way companies sell, market and build brand loyalty.
Michele Freitag, our local Horizons Teacher, invited me, Laurel Pollard, to join Village Elementary School as they celebrated Enrichment Day last week.
As both the owner of New England Paper Crafts, a widely respected regional promoter of paper crafts, and Team Leader of “Inspire! New England Paper Crafts” CRE8TIME team, I happily took advantage of the opportunity to share a number of delightful paper crafting products with some of our littlest friends.
As you know, no event is ever “small.” No matter what the volume of attendees are going to be served, any event is going to require distinct investment, many of which I’m sure you’re all too familiar with. Here are only a few to consider:
Project design
Sourcing and buying supplies
Kitting the project
Coordinating volunteers/staff
Marketing and promotion
Producing the event
Following the offer of this level of contribution, the question immediately becomes: “What CRE8TIME marketing tools are available that make it possible to capitalize on this investment? What will broaden New England Paper Crafts’ reach beyond the event itself?”
In order to maximize our investment in time, money and energy I expect to put into organizing this event, I quickly found advantage by cross-branding our event with CRE8TIME. The non-profit organization offered multiple promotional tools I could easily take advantage of for FREE:
The CRE8TIME brand immediately lends credibility to our team’s initiatives:
More appearances become available to us, resulting in added visibility and promotional options from this expanded network.
Industry suppliers are more likely to support, and, it turn, promote our efforts.
Media outlets take a closer look at our press releases and are more likely to cover our story.
The CRE8TIME facebook fan page wall is “open,” giving us the opportunity to direct our message to upwards of 5,500 CRE8TIME enthusiasts.
The pre-made CRE8TIME marketing materials, including fliers and bag stuffers, can quickly be customized for each event. This allows our marketing to reach well beyond the frame of any event – both visually through event photos posted after the event, as well as hard copies handed to each event attendee. They are immediately downloadable under the “file” tab on the CRE8TIME Facebook Group for Businesses.
The online CRE8TIONS Gallery is available for posting photos of our projects, allowing for a list of supplies and step-by-step instructions. Embedded with this process is the ability to add hyperlinks to source pages at will. Once we have opted-in our CRE8TION as “viewable,” it then becomes picture-perfect content to take advantage of the social network sharing options available in the CRE8TIME Gallery, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
So, armed with card kits and two enthusiastic volunteers, Kate Pfirman and Joan Toomey, we hosted eleven bright-eyed kindergarteners for CRE8TIME at Village Elementary School’s Enrichment Day. These active children came ready to dig in to the project and they loved the opportunity to cut out their own Sizzix Flip-Its cards!
At the end of the session there was no stopping our new friends from jumping in for “free cut,” where they were able to pick from a stack of designer paper and use any of the steel-ruled dies available in order to make their choice of die-cuts to carry home with them to personalize other projects. “Hello Kitty” remains a huge hit with the little ladies!!
We not only reached the eleven kindergarteners at the CRE8TIME make-n-take, we reached their families with the bag stuffers we created. We connected with our local community through links posted in the Parent Group Facebook page (to which the school is affiliated) as well as a release with event details and photos to the local press.
In addition, New England Paper Crafts tweeted, facebooked, pinned and CRE8TIME galleried all this terrific content – not only on our sites, but cross promoting via social media with industry suppliers (thanks AGAIN, Little Yellow Bicycle!) and CRE8TIME.
With the promotional opportunities already structured within the CRE8TIME organization (**and fully supported by the responsive staff at CRE8TIME!), we were able to promptly turn an intimate event like ours at a local kindergarten class into an opportunity to broaden our reach to thousands of people!
Without a doubt, the “Inspire! New England Paper Crafts” CRE8TIME event for the eleven kindergarteners at Village Elementary School was a monumental success. With a little extra effort and no additional fee, by partnering with CRE8TIME and combining our marketing power, New England Paper Crafts was able to increase our visibility exponentially.
If your organization is preparing an event, why don’t you take advantage of these tools and make your next event a successful CRE8TIME event, too?
Happy Day, ~ Laurel Lee Pollard New England Paper Crafts “The 411 on paper crafts in New England” Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Blog
As members of the Craft Hobby Association (CHA) for more than 30 years, H.A. Kidd and Co. has benefitted in many ways, including the opportunity to see new products and conveniently meet with associates and partners around the world at CHA conferences and trade shows. As members of the Canadian Chapter, we benefit from being part of a local, focused group in several ways.
Local industry insights. The industry news and information that comes from CHA is incredibly helpful, and we’re able to discuss and digest this news in our local chapter to specifically understand how it applies to and affects us as Canadian business owners. The insights gained during these discussions helps our business remain strong.
Business support from local members. Because member meetings always include different strategies to support your business, we walk away from each meeting with inspiration and easy-to-implement tips to keep our company successful.
A source of local resources. Connecting and working together with other Canadian business owners in the crafting industry gives us additional business resources that are invaluable. Being a part of a local group gives us a feeling that we’re a part of an organization that not only keeps its finger on the global industry pulse but that recognizes our unique local needs as well.
I encourage you to participate in your local CHA section or chapter to gain these benefits to grow your business.
Become a Member Today and Enjoy all the Benefits CHA Offers! Special offer to new members, sign up now and gain access to theCreate-n-Connect Trade Showfloor for FREE! That’s a $200 Value! Click Here to Join Today!
The Create-n-Connect Conference & Trade Show is a sure bet! Create the connections to help you grow your business, discover the latest and greatest creative products on the Show floor, learn from inspirational speakers and participate in innovative sessions that will set your business apart from the competition. Register today!
http://tinyurl.com/cncvideo
One of the biggest benefits to membership in the Craft Hobby Association (CHA) is the amazing educational opportunities at each conference and trade show. As an independent retailer, I find the seminars, panel discussions, workshops and classes invaluable to my business, and I enjoy several perks from them.
Perk #1: Instruction from the pros. Respected industry professionals teach the education programs presented at each CHA conference and trade show, so you can be sure you’re learning from accomplished colleagues. Whether it’s successful craft business owners or creative crafting powerhouses, all workshop or class leaders are knowledgeable resources for the topic they teach. Learning directly from a product’s designer is one of my favorite education perks because the enthusiasm a designer has for the product gives me a creative boost, and I’m able to pass that enthusiasm onto my customers.
Perk #2: Programs on the latest topics and products in the crafting industry. At a CHA trade show, you can take classes to help you market your business better, know the latest craft industry trends, create inspiring classes for your customers, and more. I pride myself on having an educated staff that can demonstrate how to use products and let the customers try them as well, so many of the classes we take surround learning the latest products. The teachers provide generous class kits filled with product, so we’re able to demo and create more samples without opening stock.
Perk #3: Ready-to-use ideas for your business. From social media promotional tips to business management strategies to creative display ideas, I return from each CHA trade show and conference inspired with tons of ideas that I can start using right away for my business. Coming back to the store with finished samples using the newest products allows me to display and translate those samples into immediate classes, which means additional revenue right away.
Perk #4: Fantastic networking opportunities while you learn. Attending classes and business seminars allows you to network with fellow store owners, product developers and designers to gain further connections valuable to your business. I have met many knowledgeable and friendly CHA members just by sitting down at a session. The information and tips shared by fellow attendees have led me to purchase from a wide variety of vendors and have given me the confidence to try new things in my store.
The educational opportunities at the CHA trade show and conference are amazing. As soon as each show’s educational programs are posted, I begin planning to attend as many classes and seminars as possible. I invite you to do the same.
Become a Member Today and Enjoy all the Benefits CHA Offers! Special offer to new members, sign up now and gain access to theCreate-n-Connect Trade Show floor for FREE! That’s a $200 Value! Click Here to Join Today!
Kept Creations, owned by Kim Parkinson in Whitman, MA, recently joined CHA, having only been in business for a few months. Kim heard about the CRE8TIME Movement and the call for support from CHA Members. The message resonated with them on a personal level and they decided they HAD to support in some way!
On May 4th, they held a FREE Mail-Art CRE8TIME Social Event. The event was hosted by Mandy Fariello, in order to build awareness of Mail-Art and celebrate creativity with CRE8TIME. Mail art (also known as postal art), is visual art pieces sent by mail. Mail-Art can be anything that you send to friends, relatives or even to others that just want to receive art.
During the Mail-Art Social, Mandy had CRE8TIME signage posted around the store and large pieces of paper that participants contributed art to. The Collaborative Art is what you see acclaimed artist, Catherine Matthews-Scanlon, working on. As a finishing touch, after the social the participants received a piece of the project in the mail. What a great reminder to CRE8TIME every day!
Be sure to CRE8TIME on Saturday, June 1st from 10:00 am – 4:00 pm, for an encore of Kept Creations FREE DeNami Designs Make-N-Take CRE8TIME Event at the Kept Creations store.
The address is:
15 South Avenue
(Route 27)
Whitman, MA 02382
For more information about this, and much more, Kept Creations art news, check out their website at: www.KeptCreations.com.
At first I was thrilled to hear about the Cre8time movement. As the owner of Artbeat, a creativity store and studio, my goal is to encourage people to take time and make time for creative activities.
Then I read something about finding 8 hours a month to devote to creativity.
You’ve got to be kidding!
Who can possibly find 8 extra hours in their busy life? Not me!
Then the inspiration hit: if the challenge of finding extra time for creativity is that daunting, let’s do something really small. Small can be good. Small can be powerful:
Small meals are healthy.
Small businesses drive the economy.
Small cars are better for the environment.
Small babies are cute.
Small steps can lead to big gains.
What if we did creativity small, too – a month of creativity, 8 minutes at a time?
I talked with my staff. Surely we could find 8 minutes every day to do something creative for ourselves!
We gathered five different materials (sticky canvas, Bristol board, Woolfelt, collage boards and watercolor paper) and cut them into three-inch squares. We made bundles of 30 (6 of each type) so we’d have an easy kit for making something different every day.
Why 30? Studies show that it takes 30 consecutive days to establish a new behavior. On the 31st day of the month, we would have a set of creative Post-it notes that could be assembled into a visual quilt – or repurposed on greeting cards, book covers, as coasters, etc.
We all decided to give it a try for the month of March—National Craft Month. We came up with four simple rules:
1. Pick a time each day for an art break. Make it a habit!
2. Plan the materials you’ll use for each surface. Something simple is perfectly fine.
3. Play for eight minutes! Let your mind relax and your fingers move.
4. Post the results on our Facebook page.
So, how’s it going for us at Artbeat? Well, we were pretty prolific for a few days. I picked up a
box of watercolor crayons that are creamy and wonderful to use, and that I hadn’t touched in months. Karyn, who is a henna artist, sketched an intricate design with glitter glue. Kory painted an abstract design on a sticky canvas. I needlefelted a rainbow. We all loved it. It seemed do-able.
Then life interfered. I had to knuckle down and work on my taxes. Karyn had family come to visit. Kory went off to Barcelona for two weeks of study. None of us followed through on our thirty days – the first time around.
But we started. And that’s something.
Here’s what we learned:
It IS possible to schedule creative moments into a busy workday.
8 minutes can be a long time. When you pick up your materials and enter the creativity zone with a single focus, time seems to stand still.
Community counts. Having each other to remind us, having to post to Facebook, sharing our ideas with the CRE8TIME staff, all are energizing and motivating.
An art break 8 minutes every day? We all can do it! Who knows, someday we may get to that 8 hours after all!
By Bob Negen, Retail Expert, Author and Speaker, WhizBang! Training
There’s a Chinese proverb that says the weakest link is stronger than the most powerful memory. I know, I know, some of you are thinking, “Well, what in the world does that have to do with marketing?” The simple answer is everything.
A major key to success in all your marketing efforts is to build on past successes. To make sure that everything you did right last year, you’ll do right again this year. There is something you can do that will dramatically increase the probability that every marketing activity you engage in will be more powerful, more profitable, each time you do it.
Create a marketing book. In fact, as soon as you’re done reading this post, start creating a marketing book of your own, or nominate a trusty staff member to get it started for you. My colleague, Aubrey is responsible for maintaining our marketing books at WhizBang! Training. Aubrey prints out every marketing activity that we engage in here at WhizBang! Training and it is noted in this book.
For example, in our marketing book you can see printed documentation of our intensive training sessions, sales, and our public events like the Retail Success Summit, etc. Every email we send out and every Tip of the Week also gets printed and put in the book along with the reports from our email service provider with the open and the click rates. You see, we’re gathering information we need to make smarter business decisions in the future. Building success!
So make sure to put everything that is related to your marking efforts in your marketing book! Every time you get a press release printed in the media, it goes in there. Notes you make about special events and promotions, put them in there! Emails and social media posts you send about your promotions… well, you get it. It all goes in this book. It will be invaluable to you.
I will share with you super easy and proven marketing tips and techniques on how to make more money in your store! Each of these programs was created to stand alone. But, of course, you will gain much more value when you attend both. In fact, I am so confident that I will give you a full refund from my own pocket if you don’t walk away with immediately actionable tactics on how to pull in new customers and boost your sales.
Don’t waste another dollar on your marketing efforts… join me at the Boot Camp!
Bob Negen discovered his entrepreneurial spirit at the young age of 23 and opened one of the world’s first kite stores. In 20 years he helped change the public’s perception of the kite from a child’s toy to an “eco-friendly” hobby for families and people of all ages. In those 20 years he grew his company from $17,000 to over $3 million in annual sales. In 1998 the company was named “Retailer of the Year” by the Kite Trade Association. Bob was also instrumental in helping create a nationwide yo-yo boom. At one time his company employed eight full time yo-yo professionals performing in schools, malls, nationally broadcast parades, professional sporting events, and other large entertainment venues. While building the national craze, his company opened “Yo-Yo Universe” kiosks in over a dozen malls, hired and trained over 150 employees using his unique training system, and sold over $2 million worth of yo-yos. All in a little over 6 months! His yo-yo adventure forced Bob to boil down 20 years of hard-earned experience about life as an entrepreneur into a fun, but no-nonsense, only-if-it-works outlook on business. This “make it fun, but get it done” attitude has given Bob an expert edge not only in marketing but also in practical, proven customer service practices, solid common-sense employee management, super efficient operations, and focusing the entrepreneurial spirit.
Welcome to the official blog of the Craft & Hobby Association
Check back weekly for the latest news and information from the craft and hobby industry.
The Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) is an international not-for-profit trade association consisting of thousands of member companies engaged in the design, manufacture, distribution and retail sales of craft products worldwide.
For more about CHA, the value of membership, or its award-winning Conferences & Trade Shows, please visit www.craftandhobby.org.
After planning & laying the groundwork for more than a year, the new bead section of the CHA is officially launching! buff.ly/13XZWkgCraft & Hobby Association 1 hour ago
Google's Matt Cutts: Stock Images Do Not Impact Search Engine Rankings buff.ly/11GRgMK?Craft & Hobby Association 3 hours ago
Source: Instagram Will Get Video On June 20 - TechCrunch buff.ly/17fV9BgCraft & Hobby Association 5 hours ago
crafty canada
chaexperts
Craft & Hobby Association
CraftPR
CraftyCoordinator
kericunningham
