Evo's Show/People Report
The San Mateo Art and Rubber Stamp Festival
February 23 & 24, 2002 - San Mateo, CA
Sponsored by Heirloom Productions
3900 NW Cherokee Lane
Newport,OR 97365
Voice/Fax(541)574-8000
Heyyyyy, Folks...
If you weren't there, you should've been...
This show was great, can't remember when...
We've seen sooo many new and old stamping friends.
For real.
A bit of history... this show celebrated Heirloom's 10th year of doing rubber stamping shows. San Mateo 10 years ago was their first rubber stamping show ever.
The San Mateo show isn't one of your biggest shows to attend, dontcha know... however, I think it may be one of the best to attend in the San Francisco Bay Area. Why? Well... lot's of why's.
First "why" is because we're there... it's the only show in that area we fly to from Florida. But... that's definitely not the only "why" it's a good show and definitely not the only "why" you should've been there.
Second "why" is that it's always the same weekend of the sewing/craft show next door. Two shows to go to in one weekend! :{<> Who can resist?
Third why? Third why is "just because". In the south (where I was born and raised), a "just because" reason for anything is a gooood reason. In the south... we listen to "just becauses". ;}>
Our first year at the San Mateo show was in Feb 2000. That year, driving to the show from our hotel ... any of you that read our show report may remember my report ... we saw a magnificent rainbow in the morning sky as we drove to the show. I'm excited to report that we saw another this Sat morning as we drove to the show. And... it also was perfect and magnificent. I'm hoping that all of you that came to the show saw it too. We used to see many rainbows in Florida... not so many anymore... so to see a truly perfect one again in the morning sky in San Mateo was truly a delight!
And... to add to our delight... we saw 3 wild Mallard ducks swimming in the Summerfield Suite's swimming pool Saturday morning before we left for the show! First time I've ever seen wild ducks swimming in a tame pool, so please excuse my excitement and amusement. They were soooooooo beautiful. Two males and one female. They were so entertaining as Mr Evo and I walked by on our way to breakfast that I had to stay a tad longer after breakfast just to watch them in the pool. And, I'm happy to report that yes! It was worth the "tad longer" stay.
Early Sunday morning I visited a few booths to see what I could see. I truly intended to visit more booths later that day, but I didn't make it. Soooooo... here's what I did see Sunday morning:
California Paper Goods: Papers, papers, more papers... and stamps! A wonderful variety of papers... enough to boggle the eye. The stamps that caught my eye were... USA stamps. A stamp for each state... including the state bird and flower of each state. At this time of our lives in the US... this is a good "thang". I loved these.
Polly's Pals: Oh My! I don't get out much to see what's happening in the real world, so Polly and Mr Polly showed me the new Dreamweaver Embossing Paste. Folks, this is truly amazing. What you do is... you tape your stencil down, you color with chalk, and then... are you still with me??? Then... you take a spatula and spread this paste across your stencil and when it dries????? The stenciled image is raised and even is colored exactly as you chalked the image. Want a glittered look? Then add translucent glitter before the paste dries. And,at this show, Polly's Pals introduced their 3 part overlay designs. I loved them all!
Handstamped From The Heart: Ohhhh, Nancy Winn who I met wayyyyy back in 1995 on aol in rschats when I was first in business and she was thinking about it. Met Nancy in person briefly at the San Jose show Mr Evo & I went to in October, 1996. Nancy was demoing this weekend, beautifully, backgrounds with Marvy Markers.
Jim Stephan: Jim had 9 new sheets of images at the show of Butterflies, Mediterranean, Asian and Postal images. And... the thing that really caught my eye... Direct to Paper Foam. What is it??? It's for shadow stamping, window pane stuff, mosaic stuff, reverse stamping stuff and... you can both cut and punch the foam! :{<> I told you I don't get out much, soooooo, I was thrilled to see and learn about this in Jim's booth.
Stamper's Anonymous: Poetry Dog Tags. Yep... 250 different tags with 250 different words to create your own tag poetry. Only two dog chains were included with the tags, but, the beauty of this is... the tags are great as card embellishments also.
Thanks to Kimberly and Marie (who isn't even a stamper! :{<>) and Julie for all your help this weekend. We appreciate you and couldn't have done the show without you, for real! And, thanks, Julie, for your cinnamon popcorn! A first for us... Mr Evo and I are still munching!
And, for nature-loving stamping friends... one last Happening:
After getting our booth packed up and in the rented minivan, Kimberly and I were taking a break outside the bldg when an especially amorous male humming bird forced a female down in the parking lot and did his "mating thing". Said male took off, flapping his wings and looking verrrrrry happy. Tiny female sat in parking lot and didn't move. Concerned that the female humming bird could be hurt by cars moving in and out of the parking lot during the loading up of the show, Kim & I walked over to her. She still didn't move. Kim reached down and put her hand out. Ms Hummingbird grabbed Kim's finger and allowed herself to be moved to safe ground beneath a tree.
Whoa. What can I say. First time in my life I've seen a humming bird's wings still. And to see one trusting a human enough to let her be carried to a safe place was an event to be remembered forever. Even without the show? San Mateo was worth the trip. Thank you, Ms Hummingbird, for allowing me to be a part of your life. I'll remember you forever.
Ellen :}> Evo
