A Grand day out at Ally Pally

'Twas indeed a great day out. Loved the show, all about papercrafting/stamping which I love. A very sensible ticket price, and free parking for everyone. Not a gigantic hall, but plenty big enough for stands to be well spread out with plenty of room to move about, unlike the NEC, which for all it's size, always feels like a sardine can!

This gives you a sense of the size- and that's an organ right at the far end.
This was taken about lunch time, and was still really busy, so you can see there was plenty of room to move about.

First lot of stamps bought- Visible Image, Lavinia and Card-io.

Some fab flowers from Paper Artsy, and some new Phill Martin releases.

Flipped one over here, you can see they are really big stamps.

Some really cool Woodware stamps, and the Sheena Douglas and Crafters Companion were all reduced.
 The Owl stamp was sold on the strength of a Sample on display, as were the Quirky Birds at the end.









The owl also had what looked like a Clear embossing paste through a stencil over the image, which you can't see in the photo.












Some Honey Doo stamps and an Inkylicious sentiment.
 Was really shocked, whilst talking to Amanda, to hear how much trouble they'd been having from people stealing. And this was about lunchtime, so they'd only been open 3 or 4 hours! So much of a problem, they'd had to ask to have the security cameras pointed at their stand. Shameful behaviour.

Had to laugh about this one- Doug had gone to put the stuff we'd already bought in the car,  whilst I went for a loo break. When he came back he said' I bought a stamp set on my way to the car! It was a really cool Pirate themed one, and was reduced in the sale too'.😇😇

This though had to be the show bargain. A grab bag of unmounted Rubbernecker stamps for £3 .
 I've heard of them, but never seen them anywhere before.

So I had to empty them out to see how many were in the bag. 60 stamps, some image, some sentiment/quotes. I'll have to stamp them out to see what the wordy ones say!

Dies next- Doug spotted the top two, the skull is a Sheena Douglas one.
 The two Sweet Poppy are part of a new range of dies for cutting out stencil images. The one on the left cuts sections from the Mehndi Flower stencil, and the Poinsettia die on the right goes with a new Poinsettia Stencil, which I watched a You Tube Video of Lucy making the other day. In fact, I watched a few, and most of my purchases were because of them, lol.

The Poinsettia stencil, ( I already have the Mehndi Flower), a Grid stencil, a Christmas one and a Magnolia flower, along with a couple of empty pots, for a Marbling Technique Lucy did in a video too.

These were a great find, and the find was due to a lady sat by us all when we met up for a sit down and some lunch. Tiny little blending tools and foams, on the Craft Habitat stand. So much so, Erika, Cindy and I all went and got some!
 The foams are 3/4" wide, or 2cm.
 Just had a look, and you can get them on E-Bay.

 Some gorgeous 3-D embossing folders fell in the basket next!

A few packs of card, some more of the non shed glitter card and a pack of Weave effect black.

This is cardstock, with an amazing 'oil on water' effect.
A bit like those plastic type sheets that were around a few years ago.
 Both items from Pink Frog Crafts.

 

Just a last few odds and ends, some plastic cups for Shaker cards- they'll work well with some Snow Globe stencils and stamps I have.
 A Tidy tray, which I keep meaning to get. One of Lucy's techniques used glass micro beads, and when I've used them before they were a nightmare to collect up afterwards on paper.

Some sparkly gems, those plastic cups I forgot to move, some heat activated Puffy Paint and 3 more Clair inkpads.

Shopping over, now to meeting some of my crafting buddies!

Cindy and Erika doing a Lavinia Stamps make & take, with Amanda Branston, who I met back last year on the Eileen Godwin workshop.

Dolores and her Hubby Alan. WOYWWers know Dolores as
 Cardarian.

  Doug, Erica, me & Cindy having a well earned sit down and lunch.

By an amazing stroke of luck, as her phone wasn't working over here, Sylvie from the Christmas Card Club I'm part of spotted me! Not that I'm easy to miss, 😎😇😊. She'd flown here from Gibralter with a friend, and was going again on Sunday, as they make a weekend of it.


We also met up with Helen,( Stamping by H), but forgot to get a picture. Lots of pics from the day over on Helens blog.

Time to go home! Can you tell from my face I was done? This was about 4.30, and we'd been there since 10.30 ish. My feet were killing me, as were Dougs.

Finally, two pics from the night before. We'd driven down Friday afternoon, and stayed at the Travelodge in Wood Green. Across the road we found a great place to eat, beautiful food, and cocktails!  What more could I ask for? Food was so nice, we had breakfast there Saturday morning too.
The pic on the right is of their tiled floor, how amazing is that? My first thought was 'I think I've got an embossing folder like that'😏.

WOYWW #440

Hello folks, and here we are at another Wednesday, over at The Stamping Ground, Julia is attempting to keep us all organised. I actually blogged a couple of times over the last week, Dies from Aliexpress Here, and the NEC Hobbycrafts Show, Here.
 Be warned, if you like dies, the Aliexpress one may cause you to visit, & spend money! But they are ridiculously cheap, as you'll see.
 So, back to the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC.
 Here's a long shot- yes, some stash was bought. I blame the stallholders, they just have so many fab inspiration pieces on show, and far too many goodies.









 Talking of inspiration, I bought some pots of gilding wax, due to these samples.
 I also bought 3 embossing folders(!) but they were 3 for 2, and it gave me great ideas to use with my existing ones too. There are some more gorgeous examples in my post.
These came from Pink Frog Crafts, as did another purchase, some glitter card. Now, for those who like glitter, but not the shedding, this glitter card is totally non shed, and super smooth. And you can do this with it:Yes, colour it with markers and even stamp on it. Cool, huh?
 He gave me a small sample to play with when I got home, to try it out before committing to a bigger piece, and I coloured mine with Promarkers,(right) and even Distress Oxides- Lucky Clover, another buy on Saturday. And it still has a glitter look to it.

 I bought a couple of dies- couldn't resist the Polar Bear & cub, and a lovely Snowflake Border.
 Heather Marshall   made a comment on how to store dies on the Aliexpress post, so I thought I'd quickly share my method here.

   
Mine are all stored in an A4 Really Useful Box, with homemade dividers, labelled with the contents of that section.The 3 Bigz dies at the front just keep them upright. I used chipboard type card- the sort on the backs of notepads etc.
 I buy A4 magnetic sheets off Amazon or E-Bay- whoever has them cheapest, and cut them down to fit the Large Avery Elle pockets.
 How many dies to a pocket depends entirely on die size. Some have half a dozen, some only one.



I did start out putting them on A5 magnetic sheets stored in A5 binders, but those quickly got heavy and unwieldy.
 I'm liking this system, it's easy to flick through and find what I want, and I don't have dies dropping off sheets in folders! The box stays on the table I use for die cutting, so I don't have to lift it either.
 Right, I think I'm done, just finish off with this- you can tell how much better I feel, my endpost funny is back!

NEC Hobbycrafts Show, November 2017

As I said to Doug, I don't know if the show really was better this year, or if it was simply that I walked around it without struggling at all just made it seem that way. He thinks it was not really any different to the last time we went, so it must have been my not struggling meant I enjoyed it more. As usual, my main complaint is the way the stalls are mixed in together- I get irritated by walking half an aisle, past crafts/ Hobby Associations that I have no interest in. But that's just me, lol. My second complaint is of course the prices! £12 to park your car is disgraceful.
So, first off, an overview of all my purchases after I unpacked my bag onto my desk.
 We'll start of with the shiny stuff, shall we?

Some glitter, a few new colours and a couple, the gold & silver, that I use a lot. Some ultra fine in the bottle, some bead mixes, and lots of acrylic stones, which I liked the look of for flower centres and such.

Those bead mixes- Again I use this sort of thing for flower centres, and I thought a couple of them will work well with Poinsettias.

Hot foils- I really got into this with Stencil paste & a Laminator, and of course glues. Got a nice selection of colours here, especially that coppery one in the middle.

Glitter card, and the really great thing about this stuff is that it's totally non shed, and absolutely super smooth.
I got a couple of packs of the silver, because this sample on Pink Frog Crafts stand, totally sold me.

All the different colours it comes in? No, all the colours you can achieve with Markers!
 Yes, it's so smooth, you can colour the silver with your markers, and as you can see in the bottom right sample, you can even stamp on it.


He gave me a sample to try out the colouring on before I committed to using it on a big piece. On the right, Promarkers, on the left, I've inked it with a Distress Oxide Lucky Clover, also a purchase yesterday.

3 pads of assorted glitter paper, which at a £1 a pad, was great value.

I admit to going a bit mad at the WOW! embossing powder stall, all lovely glitery powders, apart from one which is a Puffy Powder. Some of them were reduced, as the colours are being discontinued. But you get the little storage case with each 6 pots, so I'm going to sort out these, and ones I already have into cases by colour.

 The last of the shiny stuff is this gilding wax.








I got sold on this, by some samples of embossing folders, again at Pink Frog Crafts.

Just take a look at these, aren't they stunning?

 


The Embossing folders were buy 2 get one free, so obviously I bought three folders as well! I got the floral one, the Flourish Edges, and a Christmassy frame. It's also given me ideas to use some of my other folders.

So we move on to the basic stuff- DST,A couple of pots of Collall glue,the Oxides pad, some really fine glue nozzles,A Perfect Medium refill that was reduced, and a couple of odd Pixie Powders, also reduced. Oh, and a pot of Translucent Stencil Paste.

The paste was from a visit to the lovely Lucy Ellis, of Sweet Poppy stencils, where I also bought 3 stencils, and as I'd bought 3, got the NOEL one free.I think it's being discontinued.

Two Indigo Blu stamps, also reduced.

Next was a visit to Inkylicious, and I was really pleased to see the two Buddha stamps. I've been looking for a really nice Buddha stamp for ages, the nicest one I had seen was an old PSX design, which sells for stupid money, when they ever appear for sale. Two cuddling kittens, and I thought the cat with butterfly holds many possibilities- he could be ginger & white, grey and white, maybe even a tortoiseshell.

And just look at those bats! How could I not?

Honey Doo and their gorgeous florals- although they do make others besides-and I was particularly taken by the sentiment one, bottom right. Bee Yourself, Bee Happy etc. The small stamp was a freebie for buying 5 packs.

Now I do have a few stamps from this company, Circa Design,but I rarely pay them much attention at the show. This time, I wanted some verse stamps, not just to stamp inside the card, but also to be able to make a feature of on the front.

On to Lavinia stamps, and I wanted the Sacred Tree we used at the workshop a few weeks ago, and the hares are a smaller version of the ones already available. The squiggly vine one is a new one to the line, as is the fairy.

I should have put this one further up, but forgot! The kit is from Inkylicious, and contains all you need to make the project.

Stamp, card, Inkpad, Stickles & a White Gel pen, along with the bauble outline stencil.


 I also have a couple of Bauble die sets, of different shapes to the kit, so I can cut out some of my own stencils and make some more.

Last item is from Cardio, and this pack has four sets in it. 3 definitely Christmas ones, (Bells, snowflakes & fir branches) but the fourth could be used all year round.


So thats my lot, and will be my last Craft show attendance until Happy Stampers next year.It's a chance to meet up with fellow crafters, and chat to the people who own the companies. It's a great show if you've never been.  Dedicated to papercrafts, all the stalls are to do with the card making/canvases/mixed media/journaling side of crafting, so you don't feel half the show is not your thing. Also, the parking is free- they have a small car park, but there is plenty of on street parking, and it doesn't cost you £12 like the NEC! Also, and this is another big plus, the tickets are £2.50. You have to buy them beforehand, as you cannot purchase on the door on the day.