November 2009 Paperific Report!!

The latest Melbourne Paperific show has just been on (actually it finished a whole week ago) and here is some of my personal report - I've been doing them for years, so no reason to stop now.

Here's a typical Paperific sight, a demonstrator with several visitors, all making stuff in a Make and Take. Such a good idea (I'm sure most of the vendors say "what a hassle", but there's no better way of showing off your wares!).


Then there's ... oooh, lots of stamps! I've been thinking that there are too many fairly-cheap, imported stamps around in recent years, and they all seemed a bit "churned out" to me. No, I have no evidence to back up this opinion, just the fact that I've been to a few shows in a row and not purchased any stamps. But this year, I felt that nice stamps are coming back again (not intending any offence to the people who've been making awesome stamps all along, of course!).










And then we come to ... punches. Drool. For a stamper, I sure do buy a lot of punches. Gosh they are satisfying. EK Success have a new style out, which save space. And that means new designs. I'm giddy! And the old ones are still around, and as good as ever. Punches age well - five years down the line, a circle punch will still be in fashion! And Martha Stewart has brought out a range of punches. Very pretty, and sure to be influential. I noticed one that was a little pop-up village. Now that's a little specialised for me!

I scored another bird punch (big brother of last year's one), some photo corners, some brackets (yep, these things {}) and a bunch of little flowers and stuff - older style ones, just filling out the corners of my collection.




Then I spent longer than expected at Twiddlybitz, looking at chipboard and wooden constructions. Wow! Congratulations to their design team, the display looked amazing! We're going to make the Advent House (just as soon as we have a minute!).















And here she is, the new Queen of Paperific, Naomi Swan. She's taken the reins from Stacey, who started it all, and she's running with it. Oh, wait, I think that was a mixed metaphor. She's stepped into the big shoes, and she's walking around saying "Look at me, I'm Mummy!". No, that doesn't sound right either.

What she's doing is running a fun and lovely show, the first of many. In this photo, she's looking radiant and happy, which is odd, because she was feeling awful and on the way to the doctor!

Well done Naomi, it was a great day out for us visitors, and I'm sure it was a super day for vendors.

Next Paperific is 5-7th March 2010, at the Showgrounds again.

Oh, and by the way, I used public transport to get there from all the way on the other side of the city. SO EASY! The tram was is sight of the front door. So there's a recipe for arriving cool, calm and collected.