An Expensive Sunday Afternoon

Usually, I keep to pretty inexpensive pleasures. Last week’s art exhibition for example had a very moderate entrance fee, and the tour of the Town Hall didn’t cost anything at all. Today, however, I went on a more costly adventure.  I read in the paper about a scrapbooking trade fair taking place at an exhibition hall not too far from where I live, and decided it might be fun to go and have a look around. After a long winter in hibernation I’m kind of itching to “do things” now.
 
The thing about trade fairs, though, is that they never come cheap. First of all, you have to pay a pretty large sum of money just to get in; even though their sole purpose is to sell stuff to you.



The purpose of the entrance fee (I suspect) is to make you feel obliged to then buy a lot of things marked “bargain” or “sale” or “three for the price of two” to make up for that extra money you had to pay to get in there at all. Sneaky, but it works.



Browsing around among the stalls at a fair like this, even if you’re not really all that much of a scrapbooking fanatic (as I kept telling myself…) - it’s very easy to still find yourself picking up some plain cards at one stall, a few sheets of coloured paper at another, a box of little flowers at a third, some pretty ribbons at a fourth… Paying for each item to separate salesmen keeps you in the illusion that you have hardly spent any money at all!



I think I had not quite grasped before how much scrapbooking has been growing as a hobby also in Sweden. I browse my Australian friend Rose-Anne’s blog sometimes – she keeps making beautiful cards at incredible speed and mentioning names of tools and things that go way over my head. (I still have no idea what a cuttlebug is!) Walking around this scrapbooking trade fair made me feel even  more like an amateur. So many things I had no idea how to use! And in spite of that, the amount of money in my purse kept mysteriously shrinking.

Luckily I had only brought a limited sum of money, and the decision not to use my credit card. So I got out before I got ruined! And here’s my booty:

Now all I need is someone with a birthday coming up soon so that I’ve got a reason to make a card!

.~.~.~.

The exhibition hall where the trade fair took place is an interesting place in itself. I’ll get back to that in my Picture Book blog next week, I think.