I am back from the Creativa, Europe’s biggest Craft and Hobby Show where I worked at the PanPastel Booth. What can I say…I mean….playing five days with one of my favorite paint media ? HEAVEN :)
Just looking every day at those yummy colors first thing made me happy…color – you know how much I love color – LOL.
It was a really interesting – and I mean it in a good way ;) – convention.
First of all we had a section where people could just try to the products and play – and it was just mind-blowing what they sometimes would come up with. Usually at conventions you either have a demo at the booth or/and Make and Takes. I like those too, but the try out area, actually helped people to either loose the fear to use the PanPastels at all, released an amazing push of creativity or let them just be lost in playing.
Another thing I enjoyed was the fact that there wasn’t just Scrapbookers or Mixed Media people drawn to the booth. Not because that would have been to boring, lol – no, no…. My favorite thing to explore was to talk to the people and figure out what they did in a creative way and how they visioned using those PanPastels.
It was sooo much fun and it opened my own horizon a lot too again. Sometimes you are so tight to the paper craft industry that you forget that there is a whole other world out there…There were Quilters and Patchworkers, Decoupage Lovers, Pastel Painters, Plaster Artists, Acrylic Painters, Graphite Painters, People that did Pottery, Wood Artists and so much more! The most exotic to me and funniest was the introduction on using PanPastels for Taxidermy. One later-to-become-a-customer was actually just strolling by accompanying his wife and he happened to be a taxidermist – someone who stuffs out and preserves animals. He saw me demoing, and at this moment I was stippling something. He stopped and the first thing to say was “I am not a crafter, I am not an artist, but I need to get an intro here” – LOL. So ..sure he go the whole introduction and he told me how he was struggling on mimicking the red area of the Pheasant. We were mixing colors like crazy and brainstorming on how to fixate it the best and there was one happy men going out of the booth with the right colors to mix. 
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Here is Johannes, who was working with me at the booth all the days- such a fun guy, awesome and gentleman-like colleague and a hard worker – so happy to have spent time with him, I giggled a lot too . Johannes actually told me the first day that he is not really creative – at the end of the show he was explaining with lot’s of enthusiasm all the colors and how they work to the costumers (look at him going!) and he actually painted ! HA – but I didn’t take pictures! Isn’t that the coolest? Someone who thinks he is not creative starts just playing and enjoys the process. Seriously what is up with all of us thinking we are not creative? We all are- we just need to let it go and just do it :) I was once again confirmed!
Another highlight was meeting a lot of people – here is Silvia. Fun to see her again. I spent a lovely lunch break with Alexia – who I only see once a year and I so enjoyed it :)
Dani from Creavil came by for a bit :) and in the background you see the booth of Karten-Kunst – so love the two running the shop- they are such a sweet and fun couple!
Here are two JumpStarter Anna-Lena and Jaine who currently live in Luxembourg.
Sam wearing wings :)
Here is Rebecca at the Prima Booth – she had awesome Make and Takes and we had a lot of fun together after the show and went out two times to dinner. We also had a wonderful dinner with the Lisbeth and Betina – too bad my photos didn’t turn out at all. Thank you Lisbeth and Betina for an amazing evening – you rock so much!!!!
All in all the five days were pretty busy, but we had a good time and enjoyed it and I learned a lot more about one of my favorite paint media. It actually didn’t stop me at all to create a brand new PanPastel workshop today, which I will be teaching throughout the next couple months ;) Sneaks are coming soon.
Wishing you an amazing day…and don’t forget keep playing and get the creative juices flowing ;)
huge hugs
Nat
Comments (7)
Gwen
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It was very nice meeting you and of course I had to buy some pan pastels which my son and I tried immediately when I came back home. I am looking forward to more inspiration on your blog. Take care
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Sue Clarke
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What a fun post and I just played with some PanPastel with a template tonight.
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Toñy Hernandez Ramos
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Me alegro de que disfrutaras tanto esos día. Un besito.
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Martha Richardson
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I love your different perspective on this show…try it out…hmmmm!! might become the new make & take…glad you had a fabulous time!
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france papillon
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looks like you had an awesome time, so i’m happy for you! the try out table is such an amazing idea!!!
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Bev W.
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Always fun playing with what you love!! glad you had a good time:)
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stampingwitch
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schön was euch zu sehen und ganze mal von der anderen seite zu betrachten :-)
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