Saturday in an Unfamiliar Place . . .

It is Saturday – and I am at the mail center.  Doesn’t seem all that unusual – until I mention that I have not been here on Saturday since June 24.  Six of the past seven Saturdays, my surroundings have looked more like this . . .

 

And on the oddball Saturday when I was at home, we were preparing for Mom and Dad’s 60th Anniversary Gathering.

So many thanks to those of you who spent time on our booth on my trips to Kissimmee, Florida . . . Shakopee, Minnesota . . . Grapevine, Texas . . . Collinsville, Illinois . . . Mount Clemens, Michigan . . . and last weekend Sharonville, Ohio.  I drove more than 7,000 miles, was pulled over three times along the interstate or in weigh stations for safety inspections, and spent seven hours in Alachua, Florida at a tiny repair shop while the alternator was replaced.  And did I mention that the air conditioner on the truck is broken and there was no time between trips to get it fixed?  Good thing I like warm weather . . .

Last weekend was Stampaway in Sharonville (northern suburb of Cincinnati for those of you in the hinterlands), which means it was also the Stamping Gala in our store in Dayton – starting on Monday before the show and ending on Sunday after it ended.

I made this collage of pictures and included it in an e-mail that I sent to our list earlier this week, but some of these pictures (and others that I didn’t include) are better with explanations.  A lot of these pics were taken during the Friday Night Preview Party, and this year’s theme (for the fourth or fifth time) was “A Night Out in Nightwear”.  Hence the jammies and other strange outfits, including mine . . .

 

Connie Williams is the reason that there is a Stampaway (this year was the 25th) – with an assist from Judi Watanabe from Judi-Kins.  As I understand it, Judi took Connie to a show in California many years ago – and Connie decided that we needed something like that in the flyover states.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Connie decided after last year’s show that it was time to slow down a bit, so Ted Cutts and his Royal Acme Family of Companies (Art Gone Wild, Inky Antics, Stampers Anonymous, Darcie’s, and now Verses) took over the operation.  The roses were Ted’s salute to Connie for a job well done.

  

There was a time when Ted and Michelle (in the Pinocchio shirt) had a quiet life with a 15-foot booth and no kids.  But time passes, companies and families grow, and we have had the joy of watching Trevor and Katie grow up.  And you should hear Katie sing – I part of a song from Frozen during a microphone check on Friday that was simply amazing.

     

More of Ted’s extended family these days – and I missed a few . . .

  

Three of the vendors who made visits to our store during the Stamping Gala – Pat Niemuth from Northwoods Rubber Stamps, Michelle Currie from Pink & Main, and Tanya Doner-Kostynuk from Riley & Company.  Pat has been so busy for so long teaching classes at Stampaway that it has taken nearly 20 years to get our schedules to mesh.

 

Sally Lynn MacDonald from Gel Press was supposed to be in the store, too – but her first flight to Dayton on Friday was cancelled so she barely made it here in time for the preview party.  Sally Lynn drew quite a crowd, whether in her curlers and nightwear or in more normal attire – I got a kick out of her hat rack in the booth.

 

Anthony Gilbert from Anthony’s Paper Craft had a full weekend with us, whether posing for pictures and demoing in the booth or teaching a class in the store on Sunday after the show.

 

A 2016 presidential candidate took time from her post-election duties to make a brief appearance in the store (she devotes her time to underprivileged children – we have four foster kids on the block these days).  The store was a rocking place all week.

 

My great-niece Amelia and her parents even took a brief tour of the show on Saturday – not too sure what Amelia thinks of all of these people.  Wonder what she would have thought of them the night before in their jammies . . .

    
  

Speaking of which . . . a few of the dress-up shots that I took of the customers on Friday evening . . .

And a shot of most of them together during the judging for best customer costumes . . .

   

And another handful of vendor shots . . .

 

Including Phil Krebs from Art Impressions and Rick Holland from Our Daily Bread Designs – they give sleepwear a whole new meaning . . .

   

And then there were ours – I am proud (?) to say that other than the Spiderman slippers, everything I wore was already residing in my house . . .

Late in the afternoon, I announced to the masses that at shows there seem to be two ways to draw a crowd.  One of them is to be Tim Holtz . . .

The other is to give away stuff.  Since taking a picture of those assembled for our giveaway was spur of the moment and I didn’t have time to figure out how to take a panorama on my phone, I took three pictures and got most of them.

And Judy Ferrell got one of me sending eight people home happy . . .

The Mother of All Trunk Shows . . .

I got a call this morning from the store – “You have to see this – Tanya is setting up on the front walk!”  I just laughed – it really wasn’t a surprise – and went to the store at lunchtime to see for myself . . .

This is our friend Tanya Doner-Kostynuk from Riley & Company, Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps & Karen Burniston Dies (make sure you get it right when you see her – it’s “TAN-yuh”) – and she is a hoot.  Tanya has one of those personalities that just fills a room – or in this case, a sidewalk.

 
 

When I stopped by, Tanya was flying high on caffeine and adrenalin – the sidewalk had been full of shoppers since she set up.  And yes, customers were shopping directly from the trailer!

If you’re coming in this weekend for Stampaway in Cincinnati, you’ll have a chance to extend your weekend by a day – we invited Tanya to come back to Marco’s on Sunday from 10:00-4:00, along with everything else we have already scheduled.

Click on this link to see the schedule for the entire week of our Stamping Gala!

Your Message in Fabric . . .

I see lots of t-shirts when I am traveling – some pledge allegiance to sports teams, some to brand names (I am always amazed that people pay for shirts that advertise for Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Under Armour and more).  But t-shirts with unique messages are the ones that catch my eye.  Here are a few that I have seen recently . . .

 

These were spotted in Colllinsville, IL this past weekend.  The fellow on the left said he has lots of t-shirts with messages (he wore a different one on Sunday) and enjoys how people react to them.  And Christy says she is often asked to “pose” for a picture when she wears this shirt.

This is the 15th year a show has been held here in Collinsville... Janice and Susan worked with us at the very first one!  I told Susan that I appreciated her advertising . . .

Here’s one from the show in Shakopee, MN a few weeks ago – this is my kind of a balanced diet.

Sometimes, we get a trip down Memory Lane – I posted this one on the blog a year ago when we were in Lakeland, FL – it’s from the first StampFest back in 1996.  My string of perfect attendance there began with the first show we ever did there in 1997.

And some of them are handmade – these are also from last year in Lakeland.  I promised them last year that I would use this picture on the blog – this year, they reminded me about my promise and thought I hadn’t used it then.  Just found it – I did – but it’s worth repeating and hopefully they will see it this time.

These aren’t t-shirts, but they have a message – Deb Buchanan set up a Facebook page promoting the Collinsville show and encouraged folks who joined the page to wear “chalkboard nametags” so they could meet each other.  She even brought prizes – a couple of times each day, the promoter asked for ladies wearing chalkboard nametags to gather at the front entrance and a prize drawing was held.

I didn’t have a chalkboard nametag, but I “won” a prize – Deb and her friend Mary (center) helped me tear down the booth at the end of the show!

60 Years . . .

I have so much catching up to do – this seems to happen every year during the summer show season.  I think my best bet is to try to sit down each day and share a few images that I have observed over the past few weeks, interspersed with new releases and the Stamping Gala in our store that’s only about a week away.  So let’s begin with a milestone . . .

 

June 28 was my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary.  The celebration was held just last weekend, and it was my fault – I left for a show in Florida on their anniversary, and last weekend was the first one I had been home since then.  Thankfully, everyone else was available then as well.

 

Amazing how little has changed since 1957 . . .

 

And how much has changed.  There was a time that doesn’t seem so long ago when I was the little one sitting on their laps – now I get to sit on the Old Folks’ Couch with them and Amelia has the prime seat location.

Of course, no family occasion would be complete these days without a picture of Grandpa with his pride and joy . . .