Hobbycrafts, Birmingham 2012- disappointing...

Went to the NEC over the weekend for the Hobbycrafts show, which is always a highlight of my year but, I must admit that, this year, I was a bit disappointed with what I saw.

As anyone who has visited the show will know, the stands are set out in rows with an aisle down the centre and each stand has a letter and number code. When I have been to previous shows, there have been enough stands to have them coded up to the letter 'j', yesterday the letters only went up to 'g' and that was only from about G1 to G3. Considering there are an average of 48 stands in each aisle, there were around 150 less stands than at previous shows. We had managed to walk round every stand writing down what we wanted to look at again by around 11.30am, when it would usually be closer to 1pm. It was, however, also very obvious that less people were visiting too- lots of stands had plenty of stock left towards the end of the day and there wasn't the usual squash to actually look at some stands (although the amount of people with motorized scooters or pushchairs(!) did still manage to make looking at some things difficult).

Lot's of big name brands were not there such as create & craft and polka doodles. It is obviously an expensive time for the retailer as I'm sure a stand is not cheap and the internet makes it possible for people to get the products without leaving home, but I hope this is not a sign of things to come as I much prefer being able to see a product in the flesh before I buy it.

That said, there were a small number of exciting new products to be had which I will post about in more detail later- nowhere near as many as in other years though- I actually came home with some money left for once!

Harry Potter 'Hedwig' card

Here is one of the cards that I made, what is now, weeks ago! Finally used the Harry Potter themed acrylic stamps bought from the NEC last November (just in time before the next visit!)

It is quite a simple card, started with a craftwork cards A5 scalloped white card blank. I used my favourite 'stormy sky' distress ink to colour the background, carefully trying to blend the ink to make sure there wasn't any lines. I then used my 'chipped sapphire' distress ink, alongside the 'indigo blu' stamps to create the design at the bottom of the card using the 'friend' message & the 'arch window' stamp. I also added the dark blue organza ribbon for the bow down the spine of the card.

The main topper needed a bit more work, but was definitely worth it (I think so anyway...)

I wanted to stamp the main owl image onto acetate so that I could use gilding flakes behind it but my black stazon ink pad was short of ink. To solve this problem, I used my versamark ink and then embossed it with a black embossing powder from 'Heat It Up!' that I've had for years. I then used a double sided adhesive sheet to prepare the acetate for the gilding flakes. I then cut the image out, leaving a small border, and attached it to my card using foam pads.

All in all, I think it's a beautiful card, that was fairly simple to create with a beautiful set of stamps!