Penny Black Treat

We are very lucky to have Elizabeth Allan from Penny Black, in-store tomorrow (thursday) at Sir Stampalot, Peterborough.
Elizabeth will be running a 2 hour class from 3pm - 5pm using the brand new Penny Black designs.

Projects may vary in class tomorrow.


If you fancy coming along, please phone for details and reserve your place. Places are very limited and on a first come first served basis. Rare opportunity to have Elizabeth in the UK and not to be missed if you can make it.

If you want to keep upto date with Elizabeth's artwork, she contributes heavily to the Penny Black Blog.

Additionally all the new designs have arrived instore and we will be filling our shelves with them tomororw along with displaying the sample boards. Card samples will go online on our gallery but probably not for a couple of weeks. View our gallery.

Ring me on 01733 324 007 for booking class spaces
- janicex

More News from CHA

Whilst at CHA, I make the most of the time there by booking up on classes as well as walking the show floor. I'd booked on so many classes, half the time I didn't know whose class I was taking, our tickets we bought only had a class number and a vague title. So I was in the middle of a class "pressed for success" wondering who my crazy tutor was when it dawned on me that it was the one and only Donna Downey.

Now I've got a couple of her books on scrapbooking and there is one in particular I think is probably the best scrapbooking book I've come across.
It's called "Designing Layouts" (ISBN = 9781933516875),

and features layouts where your photos take center stage by using photos-only sketches to make over 100 reusable page designs.
It really is a very, very good book, makes you realise that all the embellishments (although very nice and pretty) aren't really needed to make a stunning page. You'd have to see the book to see what I mean really. Anyhow, after reading this book (or more to the point, flicking through it as it's not really a book you can read!), I found that I just loved this lady's style.
And so it was such a delight to be booked in on one of her classes. She's such a character, she has so much energy and so outgoing, and really knows how to work the crowd!! I now wish I'd taken my book to get signed - oh well, there's always next year. If ever you get a chance to be on a class or event of Donna's, I seriously suggest any of you scrapbookers out there should take the plunge.

The project we started to create was a fabric scrapbook album using iron-transfers. Not the sort of thing I've ever done before or had even contemplated doing but I enjoyed it as far as I had got.

When I eventually get around to finishing it, I'll let you guys know and show pics - hopefully you're still following this blog in a couple of year's time!! I got as far as ironing on the various transfers to my fabric pages and that was about it, basically we were suppose to take our own distress inkpads to ink up and spritz with water, the edges of the pages. Although my lovely neighbour offered me her inkpads to borrow (we are all such a friendly crowd us crafters), I declined after deciding that I'll colour co-ordinate each page with appropriate ink colours rather than do every page brown. I'm looking forward to finishing it off but probably won't be this side of Christmas :(


Anyhow, onto more exciting new products we saw at CHA...

We've been waiting for this a long time, metallic staz-on colours in silver, gold, copper and platinum

unfortunately they won't be cheap.
They'll come packaged - a little like the white staz-on, ie uninked pad and a reinker bottle:

Tattered Angels are expanding their range. As well as adding more colours to their Glimmer Mist collection (including colours inspired by Heidi Swapp), they have also launched a Chalkboard range, Glimmer Glaze and Glimmer Glam:

all new goodies already ordered and just waiting for it all to arrive.
However, the Heritage travel ledge kit is already in stock:

and provides all the goodies needed to create this wonderful project (a brilliant all-inclusive weekend project):

Check out full details here.


Cosmo Cricket goodies should be arriving any day:

And all the brand new Penny Black designs have been ordered and just waiting to arrive now, you can find all the designs in our "What's New" section where you can pre-order them (currently about page 6!!).

And watch out for a very exciting announcement coming soon, regarding a very special Penny Black person!!! Just finalising details and then I'll be able to spill the beans.

And finally, if you have a free Saturday this weekend, and fancy a crafty day, we still have a few spaces spare for Ann's Popcorn Bear class:

these are piccies from her demo day just to give you a little idea of what you could be up to!!
Give me a ring on 01733 324 007 to find out more.

meanwhile, happy stamping
- janicex

Exciting Stuff - Blog Hop and Challenge

Fancy some fun? This is just a slight diversion from my CHA report, and I expect most of you have already know what I'm about to refer to and possibly already completed the quest. But for those of you that aren't aware, there is a special challenge AND Blog Hop going on as we speak. And for which there is more than one opportunity to win some really cool prizes. "So what do I have to do?" I hear you cry.

Well firstly, don't panic and rush, both the Challenge and Blog Hop will run for two weeks - closing at midnight GMT on 13th February 2010.

As we (Sir Stampalot) have just relocated to new premises (not far, just next door but one) - finally vacated our old building at midday yesterday, the theme of the Challenge is 'Moving'. Create a project (card, LO, box etc) based on the theme 'Moving', whether relating to moving home, a moving sentiment/greeting as the focal point, a project which involves movement (ie a waterfall card, or slider card) or whatever takes your fancy and however you wish to interpret this theme. For the first prize, we've donated a really cool gadget - a 'Hello Kitty' Sizzix Big Shot with extended cutting platform, plus dies including two of the fabulous Sizzix Bigz dies which cut boxes and shaped cards.

There are also 2, yes 2, runner's up prizes for the Challenge.

But that's not all, oh no, there is also a Blog Hop for which there is a prize for every stop of the blog hop - that's an additional 10 prizes as there are a total of 10 very lovely, creative, enthusiastic bloggers who are involved in this exciting event.

You'll need to visit the blog of the ring leader, organiser and total all round angel Brenda. From Brenda, you'll pick up a letter clue, you'll need to leave a comment and then progress and repeat with the next blogger on the list. Each stage is well laid out so you know where you've come from and where you're going, as well as what to do in the event that I've managed to totally confuse you!

All the rules, terms and conditions for both the challenge and blog hop, can be found at each of the 10 stages of the blog hog.

Each of the DT fantastic members involved in this Blog Hop that you'll need to visit, are listed in my sidebar. And every one of them has created projects for your inspiration. Must admit that we are so blown away by all their creations, which are so stunning and special. We feel so blessed to have such lovely ladies producing artwork for and involving Sir Stampalot. I'm lucky enough to have Brenda's masterpiece at the shop. She popped round on Sunday with hubby Eddy - supposedly for a quick 5 minute drop off but ended up staying about 5 hours or more helping to move bits from one unit to the other - what stars! Words can honestly not express how special her inspirational artwork for this challenge is. I have the mini scrapbook in our counter display for safe keeping and to show off to you all on your next visit, I know Brenda has featured it on her blog but you really do have to see it in the flesh, it's so awesome.

This seems to be quite a long post, I actually started last night when we finally got in about 2am from work, sitting up in bed with my hot water bottle and laptop, busily writing up this blog but then promptly feel asleep in the middle of it all. Woke up to find Andy taking my glasses off and tucking me in :)
So finally finishing the post off tonight instead.

It just leaves me to say a huge thank you to all of these blog hopper hosts, and especially Brenda, for all of the time and effort in making this happen. Brenda's had more than her share of issues to deal over the last few weeks but has been happily soldering on with this event and really worked extremely hard in overseeing the whole event, and loving every minute of it.

Good luck one and all.

Next post i'll revert back to more CHA news...

oh, due to the move, BT have managed to cut our new phone lines and I'm still going through the backlog of emails while we were away at CHA so please be patient, all your queries and comments are very important to us and we will respond to all your correspondences.

meanwhile, happy stamping
- janicex