Flat Leilani does the CHA CHA in Chicago!

Sorry, I've been MIA but I was traveling with Flat Leilani last week. We had a really great time, even though we spent a lot of time in airports, 5 states in a week! In the middle of our trip, we spent a few days in Chicago for the CHA show. The show is actually held in the city of Rosemont.

And whenever we're there, we just gotta have some famous deep dish stuffed Chicago style pizza at Giordano's...it's soooo good!

Because it's summer, all the pretty flowers are everywhere! Flat Leilani found herself a good spot to cool off from the heat.

One of our first stops at the show was to the Flower Soft booth. What a great surprise to learn that our Mapunapuna Ben Franklin store had won First Place for a Retailer's Display contest. Congratulations to Caroline and her creative staff! Go visit the store to see the beautiful samples that they have made.

As we walked around the show, we bumped into some of our crafty friends. Here's Lindsay Ostrom with her Flat Fanny. Lindsay has been very busy, she had some lines of really cute scrapbook paper that she designed over at Pinecone Press. She's so talented!

Speaking of busy and talented, Flat Leilani was so tickled to meet  my friend, Tim Holtz! Tim is everywhere at the shows because he has so many companies he designs and creates for. He and I talked about maybe him coming over for a visit...wouldn't that be fun!

All in all, we had a great trip and I'll be sharing more photos a little later. Thank You All for taking time out of your busy schedules to stop by and visit. Have a great week and Happy Crafting!

Flat Leilani starts her adventures!

Hope you all had a Great weekend! Looks like Flat Leilani already started having some fun with her new friends. Chris from Crafts in the City took her along to the Relay for Life at Magic Island.

Here she is with Coby(left) and Jenny(right) from Market City BFC and Chris(center).

Here she is taking a break from walking the relay, checking out the beautiful luminarias that line the track.

Flat Leilani is having such a great time with everyone, please tell her "Hi!" when you see her! Thanks for stopping by today and have an Awesome Week!

Host a Vacation Guest and get a chance to win!

Can't believe it's already July! Hmmm...July. Seems like the summer is slipping away so fast and I don't see a vacation on my calendar anytime soon. Then, I got this idea from my friend Lindsay Ostrom. I'm thinking I'll have to settle for vacationing vicariuosly through the adventures of Flat Leilani!

Who's that, you ask? Well, Flat Leilani is a Hawaiian cousin to Flat Stanley. For those of you who don't know Flat Stanley, I'll explain. Flat Stanley started as a 1964 storybook by Jeff Brown.

In 1995, Schoolteacher Dale Hubert turned it into a project to promote letter writing. Many school teachers particpate in this project and it connects students from schools all around the world. You never know, one day, a Flat Stanley might even show up in your mailbox for a visit!

The idea is for the letter recipient to take Stanley along and document the visit with pictures. Then, mail all of that back to the sender. The students then make a scrapbook journal of where their Flat Stanley went, including the letters and photos.

Since the start of the project, Flat Stanley now has a lot of different relatives and friends.

And so, here she is,  Flat Leilani!

If you'd like to play along, here's what you need to do. Email me at joyofcrafting@gmail.com with your mailing address so I can send you a Flat Leilani to play with. You can color her and dress her up any way you want. Then, take her on some adventures with you and take some photos. Email me the photos, so we can share with everyone where she's been hanging out. Flat Leilani's got a lot of vacation time, so we'll do this until Sunday, August 15th.

Of course, Flat Leilani and I will be so thankful that we'll be sending some omiyage(gifts) to a few random host participants!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you all decide to invite Flat Leilani to spend some time with you!