Craft Hobby and Stitches Trade Show

Hello blog visitors, Kirsten here with a quick report on our two days at the UK’s annual trade show for crafters of all kinds at the NEC Birmingham. We set off yesterday morning at 6.30, it was still dark & the full moon was beautiful. We made good time & arrived at the NEC just after 9. It was my first time to attend a trade show & it was HUGE. There were hundreds of stands, offering all kinds of crafts & hobbies, from stamping to knitting, to painting, to dress designing…. Everything you could think of & some you had no idea existed, such as owls made of polystyrene & funky foam.

 

 

There were demoes on virtually every stand & we would watch for a few minutes before grabbing a catalogue & promising to return before moving on. We spent the entire day visiting all the stands, taking notes & then last night we managed to plan four classes & get a few ideas for the Extravaganza Day in July. Then today we walked the show again, caught up with lots of fantastic crafters & confirmed orders. We journeyed home tonight very excited about the next few months & looking forward to the new goodies arriving so that we can start making samples, which we hope will give you lots of inspiration. We also made new plans for the blog & we’ll be telling you about them very soon.

 

 

The first photos are from the Lavinia Stamps stand – so many gorgeous samples. The beautiful box frame below was made by Lisa, (clicking on the pictures should enlarge them).

 

 

The three bottom cards in the photo below are also by Lisa. We’re expecting the stamps we ordered from Lavinia to arrive quite soon & we’ll get them on the website as soon as possible. I can also confirm that the June workshops will focus on Lavinia Stamps.

 

 

 

This was gorgeous centrepiece on the Sizzix stand.

 

 

                                                     A close up of one of the elements.





                       Also on the Sizzix stand. Retro images were very popular throughout the show.





                                                     Beautiful vintage frames from Sizzix.





                        A selection of die cuts from the Tim Holtz Alterations range on the Sizzix stand.





               The next three photos are of the Anne Marie Designs stand, you’ll be seeing some
                                             gorgeous things from this company soon.










 
                                           Some of the samples on the Tando Creative stand.





                          And finally, Lisa with the wonderful Julie Hickey of Craftwork Cards.

Thanks for looking, I’ll be back with my regular blog post tomorrow.

Kirsten.