After successful careers as both ad agency art director and design firm owner/graphic artist/illustrator, Cathe gravitated toward creative blogging and crafting with an emphasis on repurposing, and a passion for vintage style. Inspiring others through her blog, JustSomethingIMade.com, Cathe has been a regular collaborator to Country Living magazine, where her work is often featured. Flea Market Style magazine has also recognized Cathe’s work, naming her blog the Best Vintage Artist’s Blog.
Cathe resides in Northern California with her husband, Jeff, and three teenage children.
Contact:
Web: www.justsomethingimade.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JustSomethingIMade
Princess Lasertron, also known as Megan Hunt, is a bridal designer, blogger, and best friend. Her trademark combination of handcrafted design and business prowess with a dash of magic has earned her cult celebrity status in the wedding industry. Since 2005, Princess Lasertron has grown to a three-person company that serves over 250 brides each year. Their line has expanded from simple hairpieces and brooches to gowns, bouquets, and DIY craft kits. The Princess Lasertron brand has reached hundreds of thousands of brides through magazines, television, and online media. Princess Lasertron lives in Omaha where she devotes much of her time to supporting local entrepreneurs and creatives through her coworking space, CAMP. She works through the night making floral accessories for brides, designing dresses for fabulous people, and sharing inspiration with her customers through her website. What she loves most about her job is meeting and collaborating with passionate dreamers, speaking in front of great big crowds, and being able to take her daughter, Alice, to work every day.
Christen Olivarez is Director of Publishing for Stampington & Company and Editor-in-Chief of Somerset Studio, Somerset Life, and Belle Armoire Jewelry. She leads a talented team of editors, designers and photographers and oversees the production of Stamping & Company’s 30+ magazine titles. She’s an avid reader, knitter, and art journaler and a supporter of the Slow Food movement. In her free time, you can find her curled up on the couch with yarn in hand, or out searching for the latest and greatest restaurants.
Kelly is an artist, author, and possibilitarian. She is the author of Taking Flight: Inspiration + Techniques to Give Your Creative Spirit Wings, a best selling book that encompasses all aspects of what it means to live the creative life. She is also the author of Flying Lessons: Tips + Tricks to Help Your Creative Biz Soar – a series of popular e-books where she shares everything she knows about how she transitioned out of her day job and into a creative life as a full time, self taught, successful mixed media artist. Her work has been featured in a variety of mixed media books and publications, including Cloth Paper Scissors, Somerset Life, Somerset Studios (her artwork was on the 03/2010 cover!), Where Women Create, Memory Makers, and more. Much of her artwork is licensed and can be seen in stores nationwide on a variety of products, including decorative wall art, sculptures, home decor items, and so much more. In essence, she is an artist and all around lover of life and people who seeks to express a sense of vitality and connectedness in her paintings and writings. Having spent most of her life in the company of women, her pieces grow out of the kindred support she has felt from many of them throughout her life. She is unendingly grateful for the spirits of these women who walk with her, in flesh or in paint, on her incredible journey into art, love and life. Kelly currently lives in Portland, OR with her outdoorsy husband John, their new baby boy named True, and their airplane-eared dog Bella. You can read her popular blog and learn more about her at 
Stacy Julian is a recognized leader in the scrapbooking industry and the visionary founder of Big Picture Classes (BPC). Launched in November 2005, BPC is the first online community offering creative e-learning with members around the world. Stacy is a passionate sought-after speaker and the author of four books including her most recent, Photo Freedom. Her television appearances include the Discovery Channel’s Home Matters and the PBS series Scrapbook Memories. Simple Scrapbooks Magazine (2002-2008), where Julian was the founding editor, has been mentioned in The Chicago Tribune andWoman’s Day as a leading consumer publication for the scrapbooking industry. Stacy has been a certified professional teacher with the Craft and Hobby Association since 1997 and lives with her husband Geoff, five energetic children, and a tank of somewhat neglected goldfish in Washington state.
Alicia Woodward, LCSW, is editor-in-chief of Living Without magazine, the nation’s leading food, health, and lifestyle magazine for people with allergies and food sensitivities, including those with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. Alicia has been with the magazine since its inception, serving as editor of the premier issue in 1998. Now in its 13th year of publication, Living Without’s mission is to help readers live well–and thrive–on their special diets.
Chris retired from a career in marketing communications and advertising to pursue her artistic passion–knitting and texture play. She teaches workshops coast-to-coast for guilds, TNNA, conferences, and shops and in her hometown, Madison, Wisconsin. In addition, she has her own line of knitting patterns available through retail yarn stores.
Her approach to knitting is that the process and the end product should both be a joy, and she designs her patterns with that in mind.
Chris is noted for her Crayon Box Jacket and inventive Ladder Scarf and Ladder Shawl. She encourages knitters to “color outside the lines” where it’s more fun, and to “think outside the box” (she has occasionally been accused of actually not having a box).
Lori Beitler and Susan Pestrichello founded Stitchuary after their interest in knitting took them to the New York Sheep & Wool Festival, a place that piqued their curiosity in “yarns from local farms.” To begin, they compiled a list of breeders and independent farmers from across the United States to bring hard-to-find artisanal yarns to a broad audience of knitters who might not otherwise have access to these products. Stitchuary.com, an e-commerce site, was then created so knitters could attain breed specific small–batch yarns year-round. At Stitchuary.com, knitters can select yarn to purchase by region, breed, yarn weight, color, blend, and more.
Steven has been combining art and craft since his mother Christa taught him to knit as a boy in Wisconsin. By the age of eight, he was creating sequined gowns for Barbie dolls and knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. It was only a matter of time until his love of design led him out of Wisconsin to New York City, where he studied at Parsons and graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology. Since then, his international career has allowed him to lead a glamorous life in Hong Kong, Milan, Paris, and Miami. By 2003, success in the fashion capitals of the world had begun to lose its sparkle, as the corporate life led him further and further away from the creative process he so loved. When it became clear that something had to change, Steven headed to Rosemount, where his sister Monika Oeltjen had settled. Together they opened The Yarn Garage and set about creating a scene, which is after all, what Steven does best.
Gale Zucker is the co-author/photographer of the book Shear Spirit: Ten Farms, Twenty Projects and Miles of Yarn (PotterCraft, 2008) and the photographer for Mason Dixon: Knitting Outside the Lines (October, 2008). She recently completed photography for a new title, Craft Activism: People, Projects & Ideas from the New Community of Handmade, to be published by PotterCraft in September, 2011. Gale is an award-winning editorial and commercial photographer who’s worked on assignment for Smithsonian, Yankee, Wine Spectator, TV Guide, CraftStylish, USA Weekend, Woman’s Day, and for The New York Times, as well as for non-profit foundations and businesses. Gale has been teaching Photography for Knitters workshops since 2009, leading classes in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, California, Minnesota, and Washington state. A lifelong knitter and crafter, Gale lives in shoreline Connecticut with her family and blogs at 