This year I attended the Kitchener
ScrapFest. I don’t usually make any weekend plans in April. Being a Chartered Accountant in an accounting firm usually comes with a few working weekends in April’s tax time. This year, however, my sister was anxious to check out the merchants and maybe snag a deal on a manual die cutting machine. So, off we went! The area for vendors is the same size as the area for crops. BOTH areas were full!
I took a picture of the booths for the stores where I regularly shop. There’s a third store about 45 minutes from home that was in attendance but I only shop there once in a while and they didn’t bring a lot of product. They were hosting a make and take mostly. I didn’t take a picture.
The first one is
Scrapalicious. I ordered a couple new metal dies from them and asked them to bring them to the show since we would both be there. Their booth was full of stuff. I love the examples they have on display in the store and the booth had some I hadn’t seen before.
One person was doing a demonstration with microfine glitter, outline stickers and Copic markers. I didn’t realize Copics could also transfer colour to transparent glitter. I didn’t watch all of the demonstration because I was anxious to pick up my package first.
The other store I frequent is
Scrapbook Queens. I really liked that the people who worked in the booth all wore glitter crowns so it was easy to tell who worked there and who didn’t. The Scrapalicous workers all wore the same pink sweater too (pink is the colour of the store’s custom cupake logo.)
Sometimes it’s the little things that matter in your booth! For example, I also saw a booth where the entire floor was covered with those foam square puzzle-piece type mats. I’ll bet that helped the workers A LOT because standing on a concrete floor all day is hard on your feet and your back. They make those squares in colours, black or grey, so you could choose to have it blend in with the floor or choose to colour co-ordinate it with your booth.
TWO booths included paper quilling goods. I was surprised. I bought a circle sizer, an ABC guide and some strips. These are real and proper quilling strips which I have not had the luxury of working with before. After tax season, I will be playing around with them for sure!
The highlight of the day was a new (or new-to-me) stamp maker:
The Artful Stamper. They had both detailed/realistic designs and some whimsical ones too. The level of detail in the stamps is stunning and the designs are just beautiful. Some of the samples were to die for, but I recognized that there was A LOT of X-acto knife work done to cut out and layer most of them. One of their artists was there who was also launching her own line of stamps. Her name is Ryn Tanaka and her line is
Designs by Ryn. (I guess I was meant to meet her because I have named some of my characters and one art drawing “Ryn”. It was my way of feminizing my husband’s name, Ryan. It’s the only Ryn I had ever heard of before today!)
My sister fell in love with one of her several humming bird stamps. We decided to keep the booth in mind and, after we got what we came for, if there was money left-over, that’s where it was going!
Besides a manual die-cutter, my sister was looking for Tombow markers which are watercolour markers. We couldn’t find any at all! She did do a make’n’take with Crayola water colour markers. They are a “direct-to-stamp” technique. It was so easy, the kids can do it! Still, we were hunting for Tombows to have something to compare. Then, I happened to spy some Pro-Markers that said “AquaPainters” on them. Sure enough, they are watercolour markers. The booth owner kindly showed us how they worked and my sister was sold! They were EXACTLY what she needed!
Forget the manual die-cutter – she scooped up a set of AquaPainters and we skadoodled back to The Artful Stamper and she snagged the hummingbird (and
a cute santa kitty. I picked up a fairy and some mushrooms for the background.) As soon as we got home she started colouring. She was all smiles and joy the whole time. Here is her work-in-progress. The reeds are an embossing folder I have from Quickutz. She coloured them in with the AquaPainters. Then she stamped and coloured the hummingbird and cut out all around it. When these pieces go on a finished card, the bird will be popped out with foam tape. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
Me, I have plans for my new die cut shapes. If those plans ever get carried out, I’ll be sure to post them! If you would like to go to ScrapFest too, there's another one in Oshawa in October.
