EXTRAVAGANZA 2013

Hi

We had a great time at the extravaganza at the beginning of the month, thank you to everyone who came along and supported us, demo'd for us and especially our staff team who work so hard to make the event happen. 

I have loads of pictures that I wanted to share with you. You might want to make a cuppa this is gonna be a long one! 

First of all a couple of shots of the new shop, as you can see it's bigger and brighter than the Lingfield shop used to be

Out in the marquees the demonstrators were busy showing off lots of techniques and samples.

In Marquee no 3 we had four demonstrators. The first is Kay Carley, hard at work, who was working with the lovely JOFY stamps and had created some really beautiful samples

 Next up is Paula Pascual who was working with Sizzix dies she had some lovely samples that really brought the dies to life

 Then we had Kay from IndigoBlu, it was her first time with us and she came armed with some great samples. The Kromo crackle and gilding flakes were both really popular

The final person in Marquee 3 was Francoise Read who was working with her own Woodware stamps and she had some really striking samples which again brought the stamps to life and are now up in the shop

Moving to Marquee No 1 next (you were probably expecting no 2 but this is the order I happened to photo in, never was very organised!)

First up Tando Creative. Di Oliver and Karen Gist (I'm really sorry but Karen was missing  when I walked round to do the photos and I didn't get chance to go back again) had the biggest display. 

On the front of Di's desk below you can see one of the Octagonal Advent calendars which Mark Gould a regular at the Craft Barn had turned into a Dalek

Di released some great new Tando memo boards which can be painted with any colour acrylic paints and then turned into a chalk board with the new clear Chalkboard paint from DecoArt. 

Next up Jenny Mayes who was demoing the Hobby Art stamps, Jenny is always popular and she really makes stamping accessible

Then we had Liz Welch who was working with Friendly Plastic creating everything from jewellery to card embellishments

Helen Chilton is one of our core tutors and she was working with the PaperArtsy Lynne Perrella stamps and the fabulous new Pebeo pearlescent acrylic paints (which are to die for) and the Pebeo glass paints which become really vibrant when used on other surfaces.

Up next were Jean and Malcolm from Crafty Individuals. 

We share Gio on both our Design Teams (you'll see her a bit later on)  and Gio had made them (and me) lovely crowns to wear so Jean and Malcolm were the King and Queen of the demos!

Jean was using a mix of her stamps, dies and masks. Here are some of the samples they had

 Next we had Carol Cockbain who was assisted by Cheryl. They were demoing the Sweet Poppy Stencils with the Imagination Crafts Sparkle paste. 

 Carol has a class coming up on these and you can see the projects that they will be making below

Next up was Lina McDermott who was working with the Imagination Crafts decoupage stamps and stencils. Lina had some wonderful samples and we think she should do a class with these in August

 Moving on we have the lovely Linda Brown who as well as demoing her range of PaperArtsy stamps, dies and die cut chipboard pieces, also had a delivered a packed Masterclass on the Monday

Kathy was showing people the mini albums that have been made in the min album club.  We had created lots of kits featuring just a couple of the albums and they were  really popular.  Unfortunately Kathy was taken ill and had to go to hospital during Saturday but we are pleased to say that she is all fine now.

Rachel, who normally works in our shop, was a real star and stepped into the breach for Sunday explaining how the mini albums were made. Good job she'd had  a bit of practice beforehand taking photos for the kits, lol.

Next up was Neil who was dressed as a Steampunk gentleman (I did say I thought he was going for the leprechaun look - not sure how well that went down, lol)

Neil does most of our Art Journaling classes and has introduced his own range of book cover kits. He was also amazing stepping in at short notice to cover Lindsay Mason's Masterclass when she had some heavy personal things happening

Then we had the lovely Leandra who not only demo'd but also provided three elves to help look after the other demonstrators on Saturday. We are also really grateful to Mark who helped out in the shop, plus putting up signs by the road and all sorts of other tasks over the weekend

The Grunge Paste that Leandra was demoing was massively popular and so was the Treasure Gold

OK we are into Marquee No 2 now and up first is Helen Meighan who is behind the Helidots brand. She was playing with her new products which are a baby range of peel off shapes and papers.  As always her samples were very pretty.

Couldn't resist taking this picture of the lovely Jackie, she's such a bubbly person

 Next we have the very talented Jo Firth-Young who is behind the JOFY range of stamps from PaperArtsy. This was the best selling stamp range of the Extravaganza. Jo somehow manages to mix quirky with grungy to create pretty

Remember earlier I said we'd see Gio later? Well here she is the very gorgeous Giovanna Zara - maker of crowns extraordinaire! Gio was demoing Craft Individuals stamps and Cosmic Shimmer misters

 Michelle Johnson was with us from Stix 2 who had released some lovely new foils and some really sweet Kraft tags. She also had released her own techniques DVD which was really popular 

Nest up is the wonderful Andy Skinner who was showing the Gelli Art plates and his own range of masks with Decoart paints

 Andy had  promised to paint his nails if he reached his next blog follower target and whadda you know he had to sit and demo with turquoise nails!

Plus on Sunday he demo'd the So Soft fabric paints and the new Ink Effects range which you use to create transfers for fabric

Next is Jane who is one of out tutors, DT members and also helps in the shop and mailorder/internet orders, a woman of many talents! She also does wonderful things with dies and Copics, lol

 Finally Chris Dark who was with us on Sunday only. She did some wonderful samples with the Kaiserkraft stamps which we now have up in the shop 

Just want to share the next couple of pictures, they are from Di Oliver's Steampunk goggles class. Cardmaking Paradise subscribers should spot a few familiar faces!  

 Thank you to everyone at Cardmaking Paradise and especially Sara for your continuing support and for my lovely owl box, I will pop another post up about my fabulous owl box shortly :0)   

Overall it was a good weekend and being the first at our new place, we did learn some lessons. For example we have already organised a shuttle bus to and from the station next year for people wanting to use public transport (never leaving that to the last minute again!). If you have any other feedback you can email me at sandy@thecraftbarn.com

Hope to see you soon