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Thursday, March 10, 2016

Some of my favorites (and not so favorites) from #NAMTA

I was very fortunate to have been able to attend NAMTA's Art Materials World here in Houston last week. It's a trade show similar to CHA but caters more to those in the fine art world. The show was held in conjunction with CAMEX, the Campus Market Expo for college stores. NAMTA occupied one exhibit hall in the George R. Brown Convention Center and CAMEX filled up the other four so there was lots to see.

The amazing folks over at Canvas Corp Brands had a booth at NAMTA and so graciously allowed me to attend with them. I helped them to set up and tear down their booth as well as demoed some products and helped out where I could. I've pimped myself out for way less than that so I think everybody won!

I thoroughly enjoyed spending some time with CCB's Randy and Christine Meier as well as all my other best friends who I just met. Erin Reed and Heather Kindt were on hand to help in the booth and I had a great time getting to know them. Ken Oliver Crafts shared booth space with us which means I got to hang out with Anita Houston and John Cox. I know, try not to be jealous.

I took some pictures which you can see in my NAMTA album on Flickr and I filmed a few short videos that you can find in my NAMTA playlist on YouTube. There are a few companies I want to specifically mention because they stood out for one reason or another.

Amodex is by far the best product I've ever used to get paint and ink stains off my hands. I don't ever want to be without it. Amodex is a family owned company and I got to visit with two of the family members: Beverlee and Marica. Can I just say I love them? I truly do, they're incredible women!

Mauricio Velez in the Hemptique booth taught me more about hemp than I probably wanted to know! I honestly had no idea how strong hemp is but now that I know I will be binding all of my books with hemp rather than waxed linen.

Did you know that you can buy hemp paper? And there are crocheted and knitted items made with hemp that are as soft as cotton but much stronger and heavier. Plus hemp is available in any Pantone color. There's just no reason not to use it.



Casting and mold making really caught my eye for some reason so I was drawn to the ComposiMold booth where Stan and Shawn were showing off their heat and pour mold making compound that is reusable. Let me repeat that. It's REUSABLE! I kid you not. You make a mold, use it all you want to and when you're finished with that mold and don't need it anymore you just stick it in the microwave to melt it down so you can make a different mold from the same material. And as if that isn't awesome enough there is also a ComposiMold YouTube channel. I knew I liked these guys!

Go ahead, ask me about frontal polymerization, I dare ya. Thanks to Dr. John Pojman I can now hold my own when the topic comes up at dinner parties. I could have visited with Dr. Pojman all day long without losing interest for a single minute, and y'all know how tiny my attention span is. His company is called Pojman Polymer Products or 3P...which makes him the 3P CEO. Get it?? And if that isn't delightfully cheesy enough for you he also rocks a bow tie and boasts the world's largest collection of pocket protectors. Plus I repeatedly called him Mr. Pojman because I didn't realize he was a Ph.D. and he didn't correct me one single time. Walter White wishes he could be as cool as this chemist! 

Pojman Polymer Products makes 3P QuickCure Clay which is a little tub of magic. You can mold with it or you can mold from it. You expose one end of your clay piece to a heat source and within a matter of seconds the remainder of the piece starts generating its own heat so after a minute or two the entire piece has literally baked itself.

After his demonstration I went back to the CCB booth and told Anita what I had just witnessed. That girl rarely abandoned her post at the demo table but she literally dropped everything and went to visit Dr. Pojman. When she came back we both agreed that we love him.

I will have more demonstrations of these products coming up soon but in the mean time I hope you will visit their websites, subscribe to their YouTube channels, follow them on Facebook, etc. They all get the Shannon Green Stamp of Approval...whatever that's worth!

One company did not get the coveted Shannon Green Stamp of Approval. I'm mentioning it here with the hope that they will see this and take steps to improve their customer relations. There was a product in the Filofax booth that caught my eye and the nice girl in the booth gave such a good demonstration of it that I was dying to feature it in a video where I could encourage 20K of my closest friends to rush out and buy this product with me.

I asked Demo Girl if she would mind repeating her whole speil so I could film it to share on YouTube. She was delighted to do just that but felt like she should run it by the boss first. That was totally understandable so I waited while she asked The Boss in the back of the booth. I didn't think there would be a problem since no one ever turns me down when I ask to feature a mass produced retail product. Videos are often prohibited in stores that sell handcrafted items but manufacturers of mass produced items usually jump at the chance for free advertising and promoting.

That wasn't the case with Filofax. The Boss apparently was not "the boss" and felt like he needed to call corporate before giving me permission to make a video where I tell people to go buy their product. Okay seriously?! My jaw literally dropped open and I was speechless for maybe a whole second or two. When I recovered I told him that was fine and maybe I would stop back by later. I had no intention of doing so and I did not. I have no desire to endorse a company who has created an atmosphere where the person in charge of their trade show booth can't grant permission for free advertising on social media without asking corporate first. That's just messed up.

Filofax is one F-word you won't be hearing on my YouTube channel.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Great blog... sounds like you had a great time. Stinks about the F people... they shouldnt be allowed to be at Namta if they are gonna be poop heads like that. Oh well their loss. No wonder ive never heard of them and now i dont want to. I loved that clay stuff, and want some! I seen online you can buy a pound of it for like 24 bucks... a bit expensive but might be worth taking a look at just for the wow factor. Im wanting some of those iridescent sheets that was also displayed there... i checked them out and they are priced nice and inexpensively so I plan on getting some of that to try. I cant wait to see the haul of all the stuff you got... i hope to someday get to go to that, it would be fun... however I doubt I would ever drop 1700 bucks to go to a trade show lol Glad you had fun. yay for canvas corp for bringing you along. They are a good coompany!

Shannon Green said...

CCB is awesome :) Yes some of the products I showed are a little on the pricey side but they are a very good value for what they do. $1700 to get into a trade show is not a good value. LOL Clearly that's their way of preventing anyone not in the industry from attending. It was effective!

I don't think the people in the F-word booth were to blame at all. The Demo Girl was awesome but clearly felt the need to check with a supervisor before making any decisions. I get that, she's the Demo Girl. But supervisor guy in the back of the booth should have had the authority to make a decision like that and the fact that he felt the need to call corporate before doing so reflects badly on corporate, not so much on him. I think "bless their hearts" are in order all the way around.

Anita Houston The Artful Maven said...

Girl...you tell it like it is...I LOVE that about you!!! Great wrap up...I need to get on mine! I appreciate the love...completely appreciate it, AND...it was sheer delight to meet and get to know you...I have a new friend!!!

Linda D. said...

I enjoyed learning of new products and will pick up some hemp for bookbinding (who knew) and that cleaner sounds like the perfect thing! Amazon recently raised the limit to receive free shipping, so now I'm keeping a list of things to meet the limits - and will put this on the list, also. Like you, I found Filofax to be difficult to deal with and they are very expensive, as well. I finally went with Kikki K products, which I love! They have wonderful planners, leather and otherwise, and are very fashionable. Phooey on those F people =)

Unknown said...

Yes ma'am, you are right they are good prices for what they do... im just poor haha. But that place is HUGE and there was a lot of cool stuff there. Hopefully you will get to go next year! I was amazed at how much stull canvas corp puts out... i never knew they were responsible for such cool stuff!

Rita said...

Poo-poo on Filofax to turn down free advertising. Duh!
Reusable molding materials...you really saw a lot of fun things there. My problem is I would have wandered off as soon as the booth was set up and they wouldn't have seen me again until time to tear down--LOL!

Shannon Green said...

Thanks for taking the time to stop by y'all! I've heard back from the Filofax folks so there might be a follow-up later.

Kelly said...

HI Shannon!
Wow, girl, you just have all the fun... even with downers like Filofax. LOL Thanks for stopping by blog last week. Loved seeing you there. Creative Blessings! ~Kelly

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