NEC Report!

Well, we're back from the NEC and slowly getting back ontop of the orders and emails. Sorry to everyone who's had to wait for their goodies to arrive.

The NEC was interesting to say the least. It's always great to met the customers and put a face to a name. It was a treat to met Dawn - All Pink Girl (thanks for the chocs Dawn, very yummy), and it was wonderful to see so many of our shop customers come by to see us and support us - big thanks to Tricia and Joan who brought along home-made fairy cakes - wow are we spoilt! And also to Mandy for helping out on the Stand on a busy first day.

Our girls demo'ing at the show did the most spectualar job ever. Thanks to Gina, Chris and Louise, I'll show some of their work over the next couple of updates.

Chris demo'ed the Thursday and Friday at the show and attracted the crowds with her wonderful techniques and tips, including the peanut flower!!

Chris inked up some plain white textured flowers from Hero Arts with versamagic ink, dipped the flower in clear embossing powder and then embossed. Then embellished with a shrink plastic centre piece.

The card itself has a main focal point of a Hero Arts angel and the mistletoe Tilda patterned paper sets it all off a real treat.

Then there's this little guy:

He's from the Sarah Kay range of clear stamps and is just the most cutest guy ever. Love the way Chris has used Bazzill Cardstock and Imaginisce patterned papers and fanned them out behind the image - brilliant idea Chris.

This card by Chris is again using some wonderful ideas. There's the punched baseline using Martha Stewart Snowflake edge punch, zigzag die cut at the base of the patterned paper center piece. Texture added by using string to dangle the little podgy birdie, liquid pearls used for the mistletoe and silicone to give it shape on the card.

Thanks Chris, look forward to seeing you demo again at our instore demo day on 5th Dec - everyone welcome.
Check out more of Chris' creations at Always About Colour.

Lastly but by no means least, a HUGE thank you to my folks for being there at the NEC to help us, and for always being on call to help out. We miss you greatly when you're not here - come back soon!!!


Next installment - artwork from Louise.....

Banners & Ceremonies

As I'm so bad at keeping this blog up to date on a regular basis, sorry about that. I've got so many events and things to tell you about. So let's get started.

The Banner!
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I'd promised last time that I'd give you guys an update on the banner that crafty Lou and Chris had painstakingly created for our Sir Stampalot's Christmas Launch weekend held over the August bank holiday weekend.
Here's a picture of the banners in it's new home:

slightly closer:

and here's some detail shots of some of the pendants:

Lou has been using all sorts on this pendant from cuttlebug embossing folders to nestabilites, versacolour cubes, stardust pens and stamped images.

Lou's used Woodware chipboard shapes to get the photo corner, the brilliant puff white embossing powder to give the snow effect, where would Lou be without a little cream shrink plastic (now back in stock) for the Tilda tag, and the Art Impressions grove of trees design.

This one is my favourite, Lou's used one of the latest designs from the Cling Collection from Hero arts, to create a wish list for Christmas and then shrunk it down on the cream shrink plastic, along with one of the journalling tickets from Tim Holtz. What a neat idea.

The backing papers on most of the pendants are the latest collection from My Mind's Eye. Here Lou's shrunk (surprise surprise!!), Tilda with hood along with the lamppost, moon and robin to create a little scene and of course some puff white embossing powder to finish off the look of snow at their feet.

Chris used little winter Japanese girl from hero and given her some bling with self adhesive gems and shaped the character by using silicone gel to adhere her to the pendant.

Chris loves those "inchies" by Inkadinkadoo and she's used the stamp design from the winter set very creatively with winter jelly embossing folder and decorative squares embossing folder, and some freehand doodling with the inkessentials pen. The inchie stands proud of the pendant by using a inch chipboard square shape from Bazzill, which fits perfectly.

Here's another inchie design from Chris along with ribbons, bling, background stamping, snowflake stamped designs and one of the squares cuttlebug embossing folder as used from the previous set.


All these pendants are now on our online gallery (currently page 1 but that'll change as we put more and more online), Although the pictures are on the gallery, I've still to go back in and detail each one of the pendants, so that will take a little longer.

If you want see more of Chris' fabulous artwork, her blog is 'always about colour'

and crafty Lou has finally taken the plunge and has started her own blog and you can keep up to date with her artwork here, "Crafty Lou's Small World"


Thanks to you both for all your hard work at preparing the banner and to your helpers Fleur and Jo.


SDU event
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Over the last 7 months, we at Sir Stampalot have been running a course for scrapbooking called SDU or "Scrapbooking Design & You". And all the girls completed the course recently, so yesterday we held a little graduation ceremony for them all.

From left to right, Kim, Clare, Lorna, Kay, Me, Lisa, Manita, Henreietta and Jenny.

Kay had been very resourceful and worked out how we could all make our own Mortar Boards, using just 3 sheets of Bazzill cardstock, a tassel and some thin black ribbon - thanks Kay.

The lovely Lorna made a superb Maderia cake:

(luckily there's some left over to have with a cuppa later this afternoon)

And by a stroke of luck, Manita's son turned up to support Manita and we managed to coerce him into taking the photos (and he knows what he's doing more than my Andy):

Thanks Scott. Previously to that, Brenda (Floral Fantasies) and hubby Eddy had popped in and helped out with setting up the photo area. Additionally, a gentleman was with his wife shopping in our store and helped out tremendously with sorting out our indoor lighting - thank you sir.

And if you are in the Peterborough region and require a photographer, it's worthwhile checking out if Scott's available, here's his website with contact details: www.alexander-scott.com

Here's a shot of some of the girls receiving their certificate:

Lisa (our new scrapbook tutor at Sir Stampalot)

Clare

Manita

Jenny

Lorna

Kay

Henreitta

Kim

Well done to you all.


Phew, that one was a big long wasn't it. I'll try not to keep you waiting so long for the next update. I've still loads to tell and show, so hopefully I'll be back soon.

Next weekend we are exhibiting up at Port Sunlight in The Wirral so hopefully see some of you there.

Happy crafting
- janice

It's not the size that matters!

Long over due, but as promised here's some piccies of artwork Chris has made using the inkadinkadoo Inchies stamp sets - so called as most of the square designs on the set are just a mere inch in size.

And don't forget, if you like what you are seeing here, then go and have a butcher's at Chris' blog - "Always About Colour".

This is one of the projects Chris made for Sir Stampalot. She has already posted this on her blog a little while back but I just had to show you the detail that goes into some of her work.

Using versamagic ink to stamp out the Inchies from the Flower Garden stamp set, this is the front of a wallet that is kept closed with the lovely organza ribbon from Creative Impressions that has a lovely swirly design on it. This wallet opens up and contains matching notelets.

This notelet wallet project makes a wonderful gift idea for a birthday present or as thank you notelets to send someone for all the lovely Christmas presents we'll get this year (have we all been good??)

As part of the embellishments on the front of the wallet, Chris came up with, accidently, the 'peanut' flower look:

this is where she has inked the edges of Prima flowers (again with versamagic ink), and dropped the flower into clear embossing powder (this was the accidental bit if I remember rightly!). So she decided to gently heat set this flower covered in clear embossing powder - the texture of the flower and the colour of the ink assisted in the flower petals looking like peanuts! How cool is that?

The centers of the flowers are nicely embellished with cream shrink plastic circles stamped with designs from the same Inchies stamp set. And also a few separate ones adhered in a neat little row on the wallet front.

This is a brilliant, non-complicated card design that Chris came up with. Again using Inchies from the same set as before in 3 simple coordinating colours as the main focal point of the card (designs from the Flower Garden set).

And finished off with a greeting motif from the Woodware Clear Magic set - Circular Greetings, again using the same colours to match the Inchies.

Thanks Chris, these are brill. Just had a peep at your blog and love the new Sarah Kay card you posted on Saturday 1st - it's gorgeous. Looking forward to seeing the second variation you are working on - no pressure or anything!!

More Inchies to come next time .....

More installments from Louise's Demo Day

Here's one of the Tilda designs from the extremely popular Chasing Butterflies collection. Tilda with Ladybug takes centre stage here with the same embossing folder design as Louise used in the last post, again using an inkpad to emphasize one saying from the backing design.

A small flower brad has been used as in the middle of the greeting motif - "it's your day" by Hero Arts.

Louise has decorated a Woodware Chippie heart shape with co-ordinating patterned paper, distressed the edges, adhered a button and stamped a Magenta swirly stamp design on it. Whew, she doesn't do things by half does she??

And your final Tilda card creation from Louise for now, is this brilliant patchwork card using co-ordinating patterned paper (from Daisy Bucket), another Woodware Chippie shape, this time a lovely flower from the same set as the heart.

There is just so much going on in Louise's artwork but it never seems 'OTT'. Check out the shrink plastic owl on the sign post to the real twig from Louise's back garden for the sign post itself.

And then there's glossy accents used to highlight the flower petals in the flower pot, stitching, inking, distressing - she's just an amazing lady with talent bursting at the seams.

Thanks Louise, we LOVE your work. It's incredible.

And watch out for more of Louise's creations from the demo day using Hero Arts stamp sets .....

.... coming soon, to a blog near you!