A day at the Make It Show

Today I spent the day at the Make It Show, a two day event held at the FIVE event centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. It's not an event on the grand scale of the NEC shows, or the recent one (CHA?) that some of you lucky American ladies have recently blogged about, but it has the huge advantage, for me, of being only 10 minutes' drive from my home. And less travelling time means more shopping and inspiration time.

Oh and inspiration was there in shedloads this year! There seemed to me to be more exhibitors than in the last few years, many of whom had demonstrations, make-and-takes and static displays on their stands. The static displays give you a really great idea of what the latest fashions in crafting are, and this year the main look seemed to be delicate and dainty (two words that don't come naturally to me) with fine stamping, subtle watercolouring and very little in the way of bling or grunge. But of course those are the products they are trying to sell us this year - what we'll actually fall in love with and BUY is a different matter!

I planned my day to start with a workshop showing us how to decorate a box from the MDF Man then did my shopping, and finished off with a make-and-take at Imagination Crafts.

OK, here's my shopping - I've not bothered to photograph the envelopes and cello bags, you all know what they look like! And many apologies, I didn't make a note of the names of the stalls I shopped at.

First of all, a fab bargain bag which will be absolutely great for crafting with the grandchildren. There are literally dozens of packs of Crafty Bitz embellishments and gems, about 6 packs of card blanks and two 12 x 12 paper pads. All packed into a strong fabric tote bag for just £5! 

Next, some dies I've had my eye on for a while, I wanted to see them in real life before deciding exactly which I needed

I was also looking for a replacement bow maker, my old one having lost a couple of teeth. The new one came with a DVD and two rolls of ribbon. The pastel paper was also on my shopping list - my only unplanned purchases were the gorgeous set of stamps, featuring London, Sydney and Paris, and the sweet little bird and nest embellishments.

Now on to my makes at the show. The Make and Take involved rubbing two shades of Alchemy Wax - a product I'd never used before - through a stencil, and finishing the card with a butterfly die-cut covered with a sparkle paint.

Uh-oh, I see one of the pearls has moved - I'd better go and fix that!

The highlight of my day was the box covering workshop. I don't usually do much in the way of mixed media, so I learned a lot, got myself gloriously messy, stuck, stamped, inked, tore and twisted to my heart's content and finished up with an item I feel VERY proud of. I was fascinated to see that although we all started with the same pack of materials, every box came out looking totally different.

I was a bit alarmed that we weren't provided with rulers, knives or paper trimmers (Elf and Safety, you know) and had to do all the cutting, measuring and getting lines straight by eye, the mathematician in me was having a nervous breakdown about the lack of measuring and trimming, but I left her in the corner sobbing and got on with things without  her for once.

the finished box

Papers for the sides and base, distressed at the edges

inside the lid was decorated with stencils, grunge paste, distress inks and mica powders

frayed hessian topped with fabric stamped with distress inks formed the base layers of the lid

cord coiled into a swirl and a ribbon-tied key to finish.

 There's not an ounce of snark in this, but I can't resist sharing it with the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, where the challenge is M is for Mixed Media, because I'm just so blooming chuffed with it. I went about as far as I could get out of my comfort zone - and I survived!