Make it! Farnborough 2017

I won’t lie – I was aprehensive about going to Make it! because I have very little money at the moment (vets bills!!) and I feared I would go on a wild spending spree… I went with the right friend though – she got cash out that morning and was only going to buy with cash, so I followed her lead and didn’t overspend!

Make it! Farnborough is in a hanger on the Farnborough airfield (it’s quite a treck from the gate – we felt like we drove for miles!!) and there were lots of exhibitors and all sorts of different crafts, so if you are new to crafting it’s very exciting – all sorts are on offer for you to try. There are lots of exhibitors selling wool for knitting and crochet (one had some amazing HUGE knitting needles that looked more like toy wooden swords than needles!), some selling MDF shapes to personalise, crafty storage, stencils and stencil brushes, all kinds of ink pads, patterened paper and card, sooo many kinds of adhesives and more stamps and dies than you can shake a stick at!

My friend and I were very taken with Encaustic Art (painting with an iron and wax – it looks so cool!) but we decided that we already have very expencive hobbies and we didn’t need to start another!

Phew! you would think shopping was a sport – we were both very tired by the end of the day.

So… I hear you say, what did I get? Well, as I said I was very restrained. I had made myself a little list of things I needed vs some stuff I would like to have if I had any money left over (ha ha ha ha!! The optimism…). So on my list was Nuvo Jewel Drops (I already have all the Nuvo Crystal Drops, but non of the glitter drops, and when I saw the Jewel drops I had an “I MUST HAVE THOSE” moment, follwed by a look at my bank balance and a “not this month” realisation, but as a result I’ve wanted them for a while and know I would use them rather than lose them in the back of my craft cabinet to collect dust), the brand new Nuvo Aqua Flow pens (I saw Vicky of Clips n Cuts demo them here and I just had to get them!!), a ‘pick-me-up’ tool for embellishments, the Heartfelt Creations Black Friday 2016 set of border dies and a Hampton Art Stamp Perfect tool.

I got some, but not all fo the things on my list and a few surprise items snuck in to my basket. I did get the Nuvo Jewel drops and Aqua flow pens (squeal!!) and a Silhouette pick-me-up tool so I could tick them off my ‘needed’ list. Unfortunately I didn’t realise that Heartfelt Creations had a ‘Black Friday’ collection and a ‘Black Friday 2016’ collection, so I bought the beautiful ‘Regal Borders and Pockets’ dies, only to find out when I got home they weren’t the ones I thought they were (d’oh!)… never mind – they are lovely and I will be able to use them on future projects! I hadn’t put a non-slip patterned embossing folder or stencil on my list because it has been on my ‘want one, but it has to be the right one’ list for so long that I’d forgotten I wanted one, but when I saw this stencil I knew I had finally found ‘the right one’ so I snapped it up with glee.

I got a little bit over-excited by some WOW! glitter embossing powders and woosh that was me with not enough money to get a Stamp Perfect, but I did find some Gorguss buttons and 8×8 patterned paper that will go with my Gorguss stamps PERFECTLY so I’m very happy with my haul.