The start of a New Business

Welcome to the DivaSchmivas blog. My name is Lorine Mason and my partner is Cyndi Hansen.

Have you ever met someone and you just hit it off - when you try to explain your vision for a project they just get it. That is how I met Cyndi. I was heading up a CHA committee and was looking for designers to help with a display for an upcoming show. I had already agreed to take on the overall job but was also faced with leading the designing of two rooms as I was short of volunteers. Well, my lucky day arrived when I talked with Cyndi - who responded to my request with a few questions. Basically she asked me to convince her why she should join CHA and attend the show. Well - I put on my thinking cap and gave her the reasons I joined and then asked a few questions and just for good luck threw in some designing ideas to get her interested. It worked - we talked some more and I mentioned my vision for the Birthday Party Kitchen Room display. I don't remember discussing the painted backdrop complete with an aqua refridgerator idea or my total vision for the room, but before I knew it - Cyndi had emailed me a rough drawing of how she envisioned the room complete with - you guessed it an aqua refrigerator from the 1950's along with clippings and tear sheets from magazines she must have had lying around. WOW! She blew me away. We have been friends ever since.

We often discussed working together but things just never fell into place. We discussed working on books, tear sheets as separate designers with a commom goal and many more scenarios but never really came up with a firm plan. We decided last fall that since I was heading out to the Houston Quilt Market, I should fly into Little Rock and stay with her and then we would drive to Houston together. That is exactly what we did and after spending many hours discussing things - tossing out ideas, and comparing notes - we formed the DivaSchmivas. Now the fun will truly begin. . . . Next blog - CHA Anaheim plays host to the DivaSchmivas!