Report: Riverside, CA Stamp Show

Hello All,

We just returned from our whirlwind of a trip. We enjoyed the crowd at Riverside. So many of you were so excited to see us there. Their energy was contagious and even though I had been up since 3:45 AM and had the show Friday from 5-8PM, only to return Sat at 9AM, somehow God gave me strength to be cheerful and excited. Amazing.

The most popular accessories that we continued to sell was the Quickie Glue pen. A must for all stampers and crafters. Crystal Lacquer, coupled with the Fun Fluff, the Versafine Pad in Black Onyx and Sepia Brown, the Sparklets glitters and the Essential Glue Pad. Those were such hits.

My philosophy in stamping remains simple, simple, simple. (hence our motto, Simply Elegant, Simply Fabulous) I'm one of those who are skeptical about any new doo-dad that comes along seeking to improve stamping. To me it means more precious space, more money and just plain more stuff. Often I'll just "experiment" and demo with a product without selling the item. Some things get weeded out, but some become indispensable. One example is the Versafine Onyx Black. I've been stamping for almost 20 years now and black pads have been around since the old days of address stamps. You would stamp a design, but even after drying the ink, as soon as you colored it in with a marker, it got mucked up and ruined. Then the pigment pads came along... I thought, now I can stamp in black. Same thing... stamp, color and ruin, repeat! Soooo... embossing powder came along. Now I could stamp in black (I thought), sprinkle the clear embossing powder and heat, then color in. It wasn't the perfect situation, since the black came out a little grey and feathered and the hassle of heating the powder, not including the fact that you always had a glossy finish to the design. Then along came the Versafine pad. Hmmm.... it seemed like the same ol', same ol'.... not! I stamped one of our detailed designs and no feathering and a jet black image. Ok, now comes the real test. Coloring with yellow! I carefully began to color the design, expecting the same muck and ruin, but it was absolutely beautiful. I quickly colored with pink, green and blue. Still beautiful. By they way, for those who watercolor their stamping, this pad is perfect! So it stayed a permanent addition to my staple accessories. We still didn't sell them initially, but with so many requests and the difficulty of finding the product if stamp stores weren't nearby the area we were exhibiting at, we decided to sell the product as an added benefit to our customers who have come to trust our stamping intuition in stamp accessories and make our "stamp tour store" a one-stop-shopping place.

Anyway, back to the stamp show, we met all kinds of stampers. Many long timers and some new. The ones who have remembered us from long past, were delighted to see us in person again. It was so fun. We were hoping for some sun, but when we arrived, it was raining. How funny to have left Seattle dry and arrive in CA all wet...doesn't compute:) All their sunny faces made the trip enjoyable. One highlight was finding a Hawaiian BBQ place called Waikiki in the Ontario Mills Mall area. Great foods and good prices. Definitely comfort food. There were so many restaurants to choose from. Great area to eat at.

The show went on from Friday 5-8PM and Sat 10-5PM. We got packed up at around 7PM and had a flight to take out 9:40PM, only it was delayed indefinitely. What made things a bit challenging was that we had hoped to eat at the airport only to find all of them closed! Only Round Table Pizza was open. Their menu was limited at that time of night, too. Finally, the announcement came that we would be flying out around 11:30PM to arrive at 1:45AM Sun. I never thought I would ever "sleep" at the airport. I mean really "sleep", like on the ground, lying prostrate. I was so exhausted, that my pride was gone and sleep was all that mattered. And oh, what sweet sleep!

We slept warm and cozy back at home. There really is no place like home.

Blessings,
Nami