I had a great time at the Heirloom Productions show at the Gwinnett County Fairgrounds in Lawrenceville, GA today. I enjoyed meeting so many PaperCrafter's Corner readers ... and I enjoyed meeting some of you who hadn't heard of us yet too! Welcome to all of you new readers that I met today!
Haven't heard of Heirloom? Since I'm mostly a scrapper rather than a card maker, I hadn't heard of them either until I started researching area events for PaperCrafter's Corner. If you're a hard-core stamper or card maker you probably heard of them "through the grapevine" and were in attendance today!
Heirloom Productions is the sponsor of Rubber Stamp & Paper Arts Festivals throughout the country. Don't we all agree that next year they need to advertise their event on PCC so that more of you can make plans to attend? (Hint, hint!) Scrappers & new stampers would enjoy the event, too!
Today, there were 27 vendors represented at the show. According to show regulars, there were once at least twice as many vendors represented (a few years ago).... but as we all know, the industry has suffered a constriction over the last 18 months. The vendor numbers today were roughly the same as the vendor numbers in 2009.
Imagine 27 vendors offering stamp-oriented products. So many rubber & acrylic stamps that I don't know how anyone could choose! Lots of punches, ink pads, speciality markers, embossers, stencils, embellishments, papers and more.
The good news is that show regulars noticed that today there were many more attendees than at last year's show! (The above photo was taken toward the end of the day as attendance dropped-off.) And I noticed that most of those attendees were carrying shopping bags! Actually, many of them had planned ahead & were carrying wheeled totes & suitcases. Wow! Are we hopefully seeing an end to the constriction in the paper crafting industry?
One of the highlights of my day today surrounded finally meeting people IRL (in real life!) that I've communicated with thus far via email & phone only. Shout out to the Scrap Chic Boutique (Decatur, GA) owners, Casey Spinks of CTMH and Stacey Hyder of Carolina Crafting Concepts! And here's a picture of me with PaperCrafter's Corner Product Review Team Member Brenda Jones. She's such a hoot!

Another highlight of my day today was my "job" manning the (free!) make & take table at The Stamping Studio. I was nervous at first, but after a few minutes, I was into the swing of things & really enjoyed teaching the make & take. It was a fun, challenging, multi-step, 15-minute card! Gorgeous! If you're going to the show on Sunday, you'll have to check out the 2-minute quick card they'll be teaching.

Were you at the show today? Are you attending on Sunday? Isn't it great fun sharing your love of stamping & paper crafts with so many fellow addicts? Feel free to share your thoughts / impressions (haha, nice pun) in the comments section below. We'd love to hear from you!
Here is a list of the vendors that were in attendance today: Heartfelt Creations, Scrapbook Creations, Tessler Stencil Co, Marco's Paper, Designs Unlimited, The Stamping Studio, Lost Coast Designs, Stamp Camp, Morningstar, Stamps on Fire, Heartfelt Impressions, Pop-Ups, Stamp Zia, Another Stamp Company, DRS Designs, Movable Parts, Stampland, Sweetstamps.com, Impression Obsession, PK Glitz, The Stencil Collection, Endless Creations LLC, Woodware USA.com, Close to My Heart (Casey Spinks), Stamp On It, DeNami Design, The Paper Cut, and Carolina Crafting Concepts.
Oh! And by the way, the festival will be in Anderson, SC in September 24 & 25, 2010. Heirloom doesn't have the details available on their site quite yet.