Join Us! CHA Chicago Summer 2010

Thanks for visiting Craft Critique! If you've come here from a search engine or from a direct link, you might be missing out on more content! Please visit CraftCritique.com. And for more amazing content such as projects, artist interviews and more, sign up for our Monthly Newsletter.

It's that time again!  Time for the Craft Critique Team to bring you top notch coverage of the latest and greatest in Crafting!  We are at CHA, the Craft and Hobby Association's trade show.  This is the event where all the best manufacturers of you favorite crafty products and tools reveal their new lines and gadgets!

A few quick notes to help you keep up with Craft Critique this week.  Things get pretty crazy, and the posts are gonna start moving fast.  If you receive our posts via your email, you might want to pop over to the website instead.  There you will find links to our Twitter, Facebook, UStream and YouTube accounts as well.  There will be a lot to see/read!

We also have a a bunch of amazing prizes to give away this week!  To enter all the Craft Critique CHA raffles, be sure to sign up for the brand new Craft Critique Newsletter!  Just click HERE and drop us your email!  The new Craft Critique Newsletter will feature exclusive content not available here on the website; celebrity interviews, inspiration, trend spotting, and even special sales and coupons from our sponsors!

So what do we do at CHA?  Well a bunch of our awesome reporters come with us... and we swarm the floor like little craft-sniffing hedgehogs in search of the best in crafting.  We tweet about it, YouTube it, and post what we find here.

Then we go back to our hotel rooms and blog all night long.  Seriously, it's 2am now... I love you *that* much.

So who are the leaders of this group of Crafty Minions?

First there's me: Sarah Moore.  I started Craft Critique 3 1/2 years ago based on a crazy 2am idea... and now here we are, Craft Critique Inc. thank-you-very-much.  I handle all the marketing for Craft Critique and oversee the operation as a whole.  I come up with all the big ideas... and spend most of my time honing important crafty relationships with amazing people who Craft Critique wants to collaborate with down the road.

 Sarah (middle), hobnobbing with Cathie and Steve from HGTV's Creative Juice

Then there's Simone Collins.  She's in charge of all of our vendor relations.  She contacts manufacturers whose products we'd like to review, and then assigns those reviews to our reporters.  Then she makes sure all the reviews actually get written and the reporters have what they need to get their job done right.

Simone, fondling felt.  She's very serious about her work.

Dana Vitek is the smart one.  She changes all my colons to semi-colons and removes as many ellipsis and she can... but not this time, because she's sound asleep (ha).  During CHA Dana stays up all night yelling at us to stop having fun and start typing so she can "edit our damn posts and get to bed already."  She also makes sure I'm not late for my appointments and we don't lollygag.

So that's the Editorial team here at this show.  Of course we have a handful of reporters here with us as well, and you will be hearing from them throughout the week.  Please look for us on the floor and introduce yourself!  We love to meet our readers!

This year we will also be selecting the Best In Crafting at CHA.  So if you are in attendance at the show, please tell us what you saw that you loved!  Also feel free to email us with your crafty product opinions.

Once again, thank for tuning in and reading.  Stay tuned for an exciting week, and don't forget to sign up for the Craft Critique Newsletter to enter all our CHA raffles!