I was very lucky as I had won a pair of tickets on Twitter - I'm not 100% sure how much tickets where, but I think they where around the £5 mark. Slightly less than some of the other craft shows I've been to at Event City in Manchester.
I have to begin by saying just how amazingly well organised it all was. The Facebook and Twitter feeds kept you up-to-date with where to park and other little tit-bits of information. Parking was very clearly signed and there where parking attendants to make sure you parked in the right place and knew how to get across to the arena. We didn't queue for long at all (and we arrived just after it opened) and where given a very handy guide with a map, all the different stalls and a few discount vouchers. Toilets, refreshments and other important areas where clearly sign posted to.
I was pleased to see that there was plenty of space to walk around between the stalls so there was no pushing and shoving, elbows to the ribs or walking sticks on toes. It was pleasant to walk around and I didn't get the 'I need to get out of here now' feeling I have sometimes had at these events.
We headed over to the Make and Take area first to book onto the MDF and Papers mini workshop and then grabbed a drink before hitting the stalls. We walked around first, taking it all in and making a mental note of which stalls we wanted to revisit then we shopped.
The majority of stalls where paper craft. There was lots if you where really into card making! I'm not a big card maker but I did buy some lovely decoupage sheets from House of Zandra to use in my journals. There was a small amount of fabric and wool, a couple of bead stalls and some decopatch as well as MDF shapes.
Our MDF and Paper Make and Take workshop was fabulous. We both really enjoyed it and did go and buy some MDF pieces to play around with. You can see us below admiring each others works of art!
We had a good morning at the festival and enjoyed it. We had a good discussion afterwards and would love to see a much wider range of crafts next year - more wool and fabric, some buttons and Fiona would like to see candle making to.
There is another event in the Midlands later in the year and I'm hoping they'll be back at Bolton Arena next year. Check out their website here
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