About Plaid - Company Background

In the Beginning...

In the beginning, Plaid's founder, David A. Cunningham, aimed "to create a diversified yet synergistic company that would provide the most complete, comprehensive programs available to market and sell craft products". The "Plaid" means "a series of lines that cross to form a pattern". His family tartan became the logo.

Plaid's first product category was a series of how-to books, instructing crafters on such projects as beading, decoupage, needlecrafts, floral arranging, and macrame. However, as the company and the customers grew, Plaid soon discovered that there was a large demand for unique products that would help crafters create these and other types of projects. That is when the company first began to expand its offerings to reach the broad range of crafters.

Over the years, Plaid has produced a variety of products. Many have been driven by current trends, such as candlemaking kits, miniatures, and sculpting. Other products, such as Mod Podge and paint, are timeless. As trends have come and gone, the versatility of these products has allowed them to remain strong throughout the years.

Reaching New Markets

Plaid has made great strides in reaching new crafting audiences and still strives to bring creativity to new markets everyday. We can now include decorative painters, stitchers, glass crafters, home decorators, rubber stampers, crafters and more in our family of creators. Our products reach a wide variety of crafters in more than 50 countries. For more information about purchasing Plaid products abroad, please visit the International Store Locator.

How have we done it? In recent years, Plaid Creative Group has added related companies in the crafting industry to our family so that we may deliver a more rewarding and differentiated crafting experience to a wider audience of crafters. Our newest additions to the Plaid Creative Group include, Bucilla in 1996, a leading manufacturer of needlecrafts, and All Night Media in 1999, a manufacturer of high-quality rubber stamps.

For years, Plaid has continuously forged it's way into arenas previously untapped by craft manufacturers. Just take a look…

• Our line of stencils and Decorator Products, including faux finishes and Decorator Blocks, introduced Plaid to the home improvement market. We addressed the growing needs of the female consumer in a traditional "men's" store.
  
  
• Plaid was the first craft company to sell products on television - through infomercials and QVC. This method of promotion has created a new distribution outlet for crafts worldwide.
  
  
• Plaid was the first to develop a Pay for Publication program where Plaid will pay crafters who use Plaid products in published magazine articles, books, or pattern packets.