Creative Crafts Show SEC Glasgow October 2018 – Review

In my previous post, I mentioned this Creative Craft show on at the SEC in Glasgow and debating whether or not I should go. This is one show that is on twice a year – spring and autumn – but this one was combined with the Crafts for Christmas show as well so you got entry to that as well. I ended up going today because it turned out to be a beautiful day; dry and sunny and just in case it really does snow tomorrow I thought why not lol.  I was on facebook looking for information and photos yesterday and trying to get better info about what might be there.  I did find some photos from a stamping shop that is there, they have a lot of stamps,… so I thought maybe I should check it out.

The weather was very crisp air, blue sky, sunshine – really enjoyed my drive up (not back = traffic :/ ) and I enjoyed my walk along the river to the exhibition centre.  Took me 40 mins to drive there and an hour and 20 mins to drive back because of Friday afternoon traffic.

I parked and walked across the bridge and over the exhibition campus.

It really was tempting to just keep walking along the river as it was such a nice day but I was headed indoors to an exhibition hall with no windows to the outside world lol.

So the exhibition itself was pretty big and covered all kinds of crafts – fabrics, yarns, beads, cross stitch, japanese stitching, lots and lots of papercrafts, and then random things like the Dogs Trust and the Cat Protection people.  I took some photos of some of the stands, others didn’t allow photography!

These crafters are all doing sashiko make and takes and I would have loved to join in but there were no places available.

As I mentioned, it was also attached to the Crafts for Christmas fair, so there were a lot of food and drink and gift stands too.  Lots of Scottish fudge, cheese, lots of alcohol – Edinburgh Gin, Moonshine, Vodka, whisky etc.  More food companies, including a turkish stand that had baklava, turkish delight and olives, that I meant to go back to but forgot!  And another one roasting nuts and that one smelled delicious as they were roasted with cinnamon and vanilla and I forgot to go back there too But really I was specifically there to look at or look for(?) papercrafting supplies, and there were a lot, like this lovely display of Nuvo drops and other products, and just along on the right you can see a whole display dedicated to Lavinia Stamps.

I’m fairly sure I’ve never seen that much glitter all in the one place!

Something for everyone – every craft a pound!  I didn’t look as the stand was jam-packed with people!

Stampin Up were there and I had promised my friend that I would check out their stand and the Stamparatus for her.

And of course they were demoing it and using it for make and takes.  The first thing that struck me was that it seemed a lot smaller in RL, I expected it to be a lot bigger after watching this video.  I’m not in the market for one of these but my friend is interested.  I have my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform and I’m more than happy with that. I wanted to see just what else it could do that really made it stand out from the others.  I knew it had two lids/flaps so I wanted to see how she used that.  I can see how if you were making 100s of the same card with two or more layers eg flowers with layers – then that would eliminate one extra step of setting up the second layer.  But really how often would you be making 100s of the same card to make that repetition worthwhile?  I’ve watched tons of layering videos from Jennifer McGuire who uses the misti, and that woman makes loads of cards at a time, and she is still very quick, stamping all of the cards with the first layer and then all of the cards with the second layer and so on.  So I don’t see a need for it personally, though it is a unique feature that they can use to sell the product.  I’m just not sure I would use it.

I had a thought though of how to replicate that feature – buy two tim holtz platforms and then use both lids on the one platform.  Just set up a layer on each lid, then swap them out, or use both platforms lol.  It would still be cheaper than buying the stamparatus lol I’m not sure I would have many occasions where I would use both lids? flaps? leafs, leaves? and there does seem some clumsiness about how to store it so you don’t break one of them.

These people had quite a big stand with a lot of desirable goodies on it, especially from Ranger and Visible Image.  I recognised the name as they have a shop in Edinburgh but they told me today that it will be closing and they will be online only from now on.  That’s a shame as it’s a bit of a destination shop for stampers visiting the capital.

They were also doing demos on a Tim Holtz Glass Media Mat (I’m so glad I already got mine or I might have been tempted to buy one at the show), and the demos were mostly of alcohol inks and the new Alcohol Lift Ink – I already have one but I did pick up some reinkers for it today as they always seem to be sold out online.

There were lots and lots of cards on display and people demoing techniques.  This stand had a lot on display.  I think they were called Cardio but I have never heard of them before.

There was a lot of Tonic Studio products on a lot of the stands – I guess because they are UK based – but hardly any Sizzix!  There were a LOT of stamps, some of them were really nice and some brands I had never seen before.   And there was so MUCH cardstock and paper there, and all kinds of paper, and especially glitter paper and card (probably because of xmas lol) but I had just bought some recently so I didn’t really need any more.

Now when I saw there was going to be a Hochanda stand I got a bit excited expecting them to have a lot of product for sale, given how much they sell on their channel.  Imagine my disappointment when all they had was a tombola and a raffle!  The Hochanda stand was really disappointingly small but I do like the chairs.  Maybe instead of transporting these giant chairs, they could have packed some stamps and dies!  They weren’t selling anything!  Their big show is next week at the NEC in Birmingham so they go all out for that and did the bare minimum for Glasgow I get that perhaps the Glasgow show isn’t big enough for them and they focus all their energy on the Birmingham show but not everyone can travel that far and I think we deserve more than a tombola quite honestly!  IDK but it was pretty disappointing not being able to buy anything but a raffle ticket, so I didn’t bother.

I was very excited to see Pebeo there and offering live entertainment in the theatre!  I stayed for some of it and they were just amazing and they had special offers on for the show which is always nice.  I really need to get myself more of their mixed media products but it seems difficult to get them unless I go to a real shop.  Incidentally, I saw a lot of it in a real shop when I was in the Netherlands a few weeks ago but I didn’t buy any because of my tiny suitcase.

S is for Stamp?  So that’s it, I was there for a few hours, and then left later than planned and got stuck in traffic, but it was a good day overall and worth the trip. What would have made it better?  More recognisable names, some big stamp companies, maybe some of the online shops could have had a presence there, more make and take and workshop options, and more organisation – some of the stands were chaotic and it was difficult trying to find what I was looking for.  Yes some of that is caused by manic papercrafters lol but some just looked like a random collection of stuff with no co-ordination.

I would say there was more papercrafting stands than anything else but I did see some fabric stands, yarn etc. The ticket today was £11 and then the show guide was £2 which is a bit expensive I think for the guide anyway.  If I had bought my ticket online in advance it would have been £9 but I didn’t know if I wanted to go or not so I didn’t buy one in advance.

And here is the little collection of stuff I bought there. Nothing too outrageous.  So I got some Oxide colours that I didn’t have already, some of them are from the new and final 12.  I bought a really big jar of embossing powder – usually they are 15ml size but this one is 160ml!    So that will last me a long time haha.  I bought a few more alcohol inks and the metallic mixatives which always seem to be out of stock online when I try to buy them, and also the alcohol lift reinker because I have the pad but every time I try to buy a reinker they are always out of stock too.  I got extra magnets for my stamping platform because sometimes I think two is not enough.  Then I don’t know if you can see that stack of white tape at the top of the photo but that is all double sided tape and they were selling it 10x for £4, any width you want, just pick any 10, so that was a good deal.  I bought some Ranger watercolour paper because it is supposed to be whiter than regular watercolour paper so I thought I would try it out, and then there was this stand with all kinds of painting products – brushes, paper etc, – and they had a section that had items for £1, or 6 for £5, so I bought some canvases, and some watercolour pads from them.  Oh and I got some precision tip bottles for glue and some Dina Wakley collage words for mixed media.  So I didn’t go crazy   and I got some good deals.  I bought a few things as xmas presents from the food and drink stands, and a few crafty things for myself but I didn’t go crazy lol.  There wasn’t anything new there for me, but there was a lot of new and cool stuff there, but I’ve already seen it all on youtube lol.  There were lots of Tim Holtz stamping platforms and glass Media Mats for sale, nearly every papercraft stand had them lol.  There were a few things I forgot to go back around and get but I really wanted to get out of Glasgow before the traffic got busy – didn’t manage to do that but I tried lol.