Rubber Stamp Show

Today my sister and I went to the Gateway Rubber Stamp Getaway in Collinsville, Illinois. I haven't been to one of these events since 2005 so I was looking forward to seeing what was available. There were door prizes all day, booth demonstrations and make/takes. There was a pretty good crowd there so we didn't stand in line to do the make/takes but we did stop and watch a few of the booth demonstrations.

At Rubber Cottage I picked up a new stipple brush and 5 new Adirondack dye ink pads. My friend Roni just raves about these ink pads so I thought I'd try them out =)

Next we stopped at Mrs. O'Leary's Art. She had a very popular area as most of the things she had were vintage and collage items. She even had stuff from The Queen's Dresser Drawers. I picked up 2 inchies stamps- one from QDD's and the other from Artful Illusions, a smallish stamp with chess pieces and an ornamental iron gate stamp - also from Artful Illusions.

This is where I met the rude woman. The vendor had 4 or 5 catalogs with the stamp images and item number. It was easier to look in the catalog and find the item number then go to the drawers to get them. Otherwise you would have hoards of women trying to get into the drawers. Well, I had a drawer open getting my selections out and this nice woman was commenting on all the stamps in the drawers. I only turned my head a bit to smile and tell her that if she looked in the catalog first it would make it much easier to find what she was looking for. Well, this other rude chick just shoved my drawer shut and reached in front of me to open another drawer. I was squatted down and I almost fell backwards on my butt. I was tempted to grab her by the hair and yank her out of my way. I mean - it was really, really rude. Then every other time I would see her, I felt like tripping her or something mean. It really brought out the worst in me =( But I digress...........

We stopped at The Eyelet Outlet and I picked up some crown brads, Eiffel Tower brads, and some cat back brads. I really wanted to buy some crown charms but man, they were expensive. I couldn't see paying $1.65 per charm when I could get a pack of brads for $2.99.

Then there was Just For Fun Rubber Stamps. Here I picked up an ATC Back, a Christmas verse, a birthday verse and a ripped spiral paper border stamp. I would have liked to spend more time at this vendor but it was another popular place and it took us 20 minutes just to check out.

Next stop - Stamp Camp. This place had tons of background stamps - to bad I didn't really need any LOL! I did find this set called That's What She Said - you can see it here, second set from the top. I also picked up 2 cat face stamps, a small bingo card stamp, and a fun frame stamp.

The only other place I purchased anything was at Red Lead Paperworks. I found this sweet little pixie stamp that is perfect for ATCs. I also picked up a stamp that says Fairy Princess and it's a wood mount. This vendor also had lots of acrylic shapes, charms, tiny glass bottles - all kinds of little tchotchke's.

I had a great time looking around and if I thought I could go again on Sunday, I would do it in a heartbeat. The only thing I couldn't find that I wanted was a distressed looking ruler stamp. And the only thing that really bothered me - well, besides that rude witch - was the price of the charms. I just thought they were overpriced. For instance, if you look at the charms on the Red Lead Paperworks site, they show 3 charms and a price - but what you may not know is that is the price per charm (on most of them).

I'm off to play with my new goodies!