WOYWW 232

Not enough days between Wednesdays- these weeks just fly past. Almost finished all my friends/work colleagues Christmas cards, I just have to stamp the inside sentiment. They're in the post below, by the way. Doing this up on Tuesday night to schedule, so my desk has some of my purchases from the NEC, where I did indeed meet up with Andrea, we had coffee and a chat.  Love meeting WOYWWers, so nice to speak in the flesh to our friends online. Completely forgot I had my camera in my bag, so no pics, sorry! Waffling away here, so pop over to our Head of Desks, Julia, at The Stamping Ground, and come see the desks of the world in all their glory.
 So what did I get?

Mainly stamps, what a surprise! A couple of Indigo Blu ones, a couple of Lavinia stamps, some Inkylicious, but my absolute favourites- a company called Visible Image were there. I've seen them lately in Craft Stamper, and they have some delicious Gothic stamps.




The set on the left in the picture below I fell in love with when I first saw it.
 

You can also see a Poinsettia die in the first picture, I  have the Spellbinders  Layered Poinsettia, which is fine for larger cards, but a bit overwhelming on smaller ones. This one makes a lovely sized small flower, (Nellie Snellen, btw).

This one came from Inkwell stamps, which will be great for simple Wedding cards, and the coolest thing is they also have a 'Mrs & Mrs', and a 'Mr & Mr' stamp for civil weddings.

Indigo Blu- you can see the Ella Bella stamp in the top picture, and this one I bought to use for family/friend cards this year. They had a gorgeous sample on display, which was what sold me on the stamp.

Apart from a few odds & ends- a set of square dies which had 14 squares in it, some tape,a couple of ink pads and a couple of embossing folders on sale,the only other thing I bought was some packs of pre cut & scored cards. I usually cut & score my own, but liked the scalloped shape on these, and cutting square cards from A4 limits the size somewhat, and they were reasonable, the largest, which fold to 6x6, were £4.99 for a pack of 50, with envelopes. And they'll be the perfect size for the bauble stamp.
I have to say that overall, I thought the Hobbycrafts show was not as good as previous years, although that does somewhat depend on your area of crafting. It seemed this year that well over half the show was beading or fabric retailers, this seems to go in cycles, I've noticed. Each year there is a heavy leaning to one particular craft. Last year it seemed every other stall was beads. I also noticed a number of regulars absent - Paper Artsy for one. Also missing were Crafters Companion, who I don't buy from very often, but they usually have a big stand, and some good bargains.And a lot of others had far smaller stalls than they usually do. So do have a lovely Wednesday, I'll be catching up with you later.
 Quick PS-For anyone with bent 'bug plates- a couple of posts down is a method to flatten out your warped Cuttlebug plates- I've done it and it does work.