My 10 Favorite Things I Brought Home from Haven

Last week I gave you suggestions for what you should take when you go to a conference. Earlier this week, I shared Home Decor Shopping in Atlanta after the conference. Now that I’m back home and have unbacked my extra suitcase (a must!), I really had a chance to see what treats awaited. It’s like Christmas in August!  Some things are better than others (I don’t need another water bottle!) and some things are downright awesome!

The Swag Bag

When you check~in at registration and get your badge, you are given the infamous “swag bag”. Full of goodies donated by all the sponsors and vendors, this year’s bag was a gift in itself. The Husky tool bag is everything you would need for any DIYer’s cache of supplies. This bag is HEAVY. Advice: take it to your room immediately!

husky-swag-bags

When you have a moment, open your bag, squeal with delight like a kid on Christmas morning.

Packing Your Stash

As I mentioned in my 10 Items to Pack in your Bag for a Conference, you may need to ship things home, which is what I did last year. I got smart this year and brought an empty suitcase. It’s cheaper and easier to check an extra bag than ship a box home. I recommend opening boxes and plastic packaging and throwing away anything that will make the bag lighter and more compact. This is essential if you are flying, as I was.

packing-suitcase

When I unpacked my suitcase, I couldn’t wait to show Sweet Shark all my goodies. And now I’m going to show you my favorites.

My 10 Favorite Things I Brought Home from Haven

These are in no particular order.

This post contains affiliate links to products that I love, have used and recommend or plan to use. If you order a product through this post, I may receive compensation, but you will not pay one penny more.

The Gadgets

The Rust~Oleum Spray Paint Grip was my very favorite thing from Haven 2015. I’v never liked using spray paint: your index finger gets stick from squeezing the button on the can and your finger gets soaked in paint. This gadget changed my whole opinion of spray paint. It’s so easy now to use spray paint. No cramped finger and it stays clean. I was thrilled to have another one.

rustoleum-spray-paint-handle

I’ve borrowed a Dremel from a friend once to cut off ends of drawer pulls. I know that there must be many more uses for this tool and I plan to discover what they are.

dremel

I visited the Shaw Floors Booth and was really impressed with their easy to install flooring. And it’s pretty, too. This handy tool caddy is perfect for keeping in your DIY tool kit. It’s cute and pink!

shaw-tool-kit

The Supplies

You can never have enough Frog Tape. What would we do without this tape that makes painting so much more efficient.

Frog-tape

The display at the 3M Command Strip Booth offered great ideas for using command strips and velcro fasteners for wall storage. I can’t wait to have an office where I can put their ideas to use. The nice man in their booth showed me the new 3M paint tape which curves and tears at a clean, right angle. They also have a new sandpaper which is bendable and foldable ~ great for rounded areas when you are trying to distress furniture. Got to check these products out at my local Home Depot.

3M-products

The Paints

As painters or DIYers, we love paint ~ milk paint, chalk paint, enamels, lacquers, stains. The fun part of learning about new paints is getting to try them out in workshops and bring them home to try on your own projects. Haven is one place where paint companies share new products.

Behr Paints, available at Home Depot, have several new color collections this year. I brought home a mug in my personal favorite color palette.

Behr-products

FolkArt Paints, available at your local craft stores, has new milk paint and chalk paint colors. I chose samples of each in my favorite shades of pinks and blues.

Folk-Art-paints

The DecoArt booth had chairs painted to display their different paint types ~ chalk, lacquer, high~gloss and more. You could chose one to paint on raw wood pencils. I loved the Maxx Gloss in aqua. See my pretty pencil?

DecoArt-paints

I have to say that my very favorite workshop was Amy Howard of Amy Howard at Home. This lady rocks when it comes to producing the most versatile line of paint products: chalk paint (her One Step), milk paints, lacquers and more. We got to try a brand new product, Vintage Wood, Better with Age; this brush~on product for raw wood creates the look of weathered wood. Paired with Amy’s new Vintage Plaster or her Cerused Lime Wax, you can create some gorgeous pieces. Later I sat at the Amy Howard at Home booth with instructor Tina and used Toscana Milk Paint and Light Wax to create a beautiful old world look on moldings that looked like it came out of a French Chateau. Her paints are carried at Ace Hardware Stores.

Amy-Howard-at-Home

The Cards

Any conference is a place to meet and network with colleagues in your field. Haven is a wonderful way for bloggers to exchange ideas and learn what other people are writing and posting about. Bringing plenty of business cards was also in my 10 Items to Pack in your Bag for a Conference. Each day I’m picking a few cards to check out other bloggers’ blogs. Without those business cards, we would never remember everyone we met.

business-cards

That’s my list of My 10 Favorite Things I Brought Home from Haven. You might want to check out some of these new products next time you are at Home Depot, your favorite crafts store, or Ace Hardware or Amazon.

What was your favorite? What 1 thing do you wish you had?

Where I’ve linked up this week:

Creative Circle   Homemade Link Party   Make it Pretty Monday   Oh My Heartsie Girls Wonderful Wednesdays   Recipe Sharing Party

Thoughts of Home on Thursday   Vintage Charm Party   Wonderful Wednesday   Your Inspired Design

Similar Posts

4 Comments

  1. Carol,
    I would love a Dremel. I’ve been looking at them at the hardware store and thinking I should buy one. They are lightweight enough that I could handle them. Most power tools are way too heavy for me to manage.

    The Haven swag bag looks like it contains products equal in value to the Haven conference ticket price.

    Judith

    1. Judith, I will let you know more about the Dremel when I get a chance. I’ve though about the cost of the product give away vs. the cost of the conference. It’s not equal, but it certainly does make attending more attractive. Just another of the many positive things you get out of going to Haven.

    1. Bonnie, happy that you liked the post. There were several more goodies that I hope to use for projects in the coming months. Check back!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.