Scrapbooking and Textile Expo

Well I am so out of touch with reality these days (have a 1 and 3 year old) that these two events nearly slipped passed me.

The scrapbook and paper craft expo and the Textile Art Festival was great. It’s been a while since I attended a local Craft convention so I had lots of new products to check out. It certainly would have been much easier without 2 kids and a pram. The small booths overloaded with stock actually prevented me from even getting in to look at them let alone buy them. The only stuff I bought (there was still a pram full) was from stalls that had stock on the outside table so I could push my pram up.

I actually bought more stuff in the Textile Art festival as Felting has peaked my interest in crafting again, not just writing, working or blogging about craft but actually getting my hands dirty. The only problem is even though I bought fabulous hand dyed wool and silk yarn no one was actually selling “Time” so the chance of me getting any “time” soon to play with my stash is unlikely.

There was lot’s of classes and Make and takes on but I could not participate due to the kids which was very disappointing as I really wanted to jump in and give it a go, especially the felted scarfs.

As usual the Brisbane Convention center provided overpriced crappy food and terrible wheelchair/pram access that resulted in us walking a mile just to access the lift.

Read These Next

Human brains are pretty amazing, allowing us to think, feel, create, communicate, move and more. But humans aren’t the only animals with cool brains, as Crab Museum explains in the book The No-Brainer Brain Explainer (illustrated by Bruno Valasse).

This book, aimed at kids in grades 1-4, is colorful and silly but also educational about how brains actually work, with billions of neurons sending electrical and chemical signals around the body.

“Everything we think, feel and experience comes from an electrical relay race, with neurons passing chemical batons to each other,” the book says. “The constant chatter of billions of brain cells creates your entire world.”

The book compares the brains of mammals to those of crabs (the book is “written” by a crab after all) and notes that crabs have fewer neurons and of course are much smaller, but they have separate parts of their brains that control their eyes and their legs. Crabs are also capable of remembering things, using tools and solving puzzles.

Some animals’ brains allow them to know more about their world in different ways from humans, such as spiders being sensitive to vibrations in their webs and catfish having an amazing sense of taste, with taste sensors all over their bodies.

It notes that 95 percent of brain activity goes toward things we do unconsciously, like breathing, walking and catching a ball flying toward us. It also talks about dreams, memory, how our emotions try to predict the future, where brains came from and fun facts about brains. For example, did you know a sperm whale is believed to have the biggest brain of any creature that’s even lived? Their brains weigh 18 pounds, compared to just 2.5 pounds for humans.

Information on what creatures have the smallest brains, the toughest brains, the most brains and those who actually eat their own brains will delight kids (and maybe gross them out a little bit). They’ll also enjoy learning about the mycelium network of fungi, which is like a brain without a body, and slime molds, which are like a brain without a brain.

It ends talking about why human brains are so special because we’ve found ways to work together, communicate and build communities on a scale bigger than any other animal.

Kids and adults alike will enjoy this colorful, silly and informational book about brains!

About the book: 64 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail price $19.99.

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Have you read?