Week 143 - Allsorts Challenge Free and Easy and Trade show pictures

Hello Everyone,

Well this week has been a great improvement on the last one.  Kate is back driving and the weather has drastically improved.  Mark and I also spent 3 days at Stitches Trade show at the NEC.  Take a look at some of the photographs at the end of the blog to have a peek at some great new stuff!

This week's challenge on Allsorts Challenge is the last week of Free and Easy.  I cant believe how many entries there has been over the last few weeks so much amazing inspiration.  Here is my offering for this week

The picture isnt amazing but hopefully you can see that it is a really comical decoupage of the very cute House Mouse group getting on with their New Years resolution.  It is a really fun design and would make anyone laugh when making it up.  The backing paper is from House Mouse backing papers CD rom and it really finishes the stamped and decoupage designs off a treat. 

I hope that you like the card and dont forget to pop over to the Allsorts Blog to have a look at the other DT members designs. 

Now for the pictures that we took at Stitches.  We went to Birmingham on the Friday to be ready to attend a Rangers workshop held by the amazingly talented Tim Holtz and his team.  We made a

fabulous wall hanging (forgot to take a photograph of it but will sort this out tomorrow and post!)We got a chance to use all the Ranger products including the very latest which is the Distress Pens.  Wow these are something to report home about.  These pens are filled with the exact same colour as the corresponding distress ink.  They blend so well and the colours are so true.  Look out for these in the shops they will be arriving towards the middle of March.

The show opened on Sunday and it was very busy, we decided to look around and then decide on what we wanted to buy.  The demonstrations were excellent on the stands from all the faces that we love.

These designs are from the lovely Clare Rowland from Molly Bloom. This is some of the new collection and as you can see they have a Circus theme. Clare is an amazing crafter and we were lucky enough to arrange a demonstration at the shop too.

This picture is the lovely Steve from Little Claire they have also released a new range of stamps and the character is called Flossie.  We have been lucky to have these delivered already - they are really lovely images that will work perfectly with your pro-markers.  Look out for these.

This is a picture of some of Hels Sheridan's work.  It is stunning 3 dimensional work made using Wendy Vecchi stamps and Art Parts. All Hels work is fantastic.  If you like to have a go at something like this these are the products to try them with and with all the Ranger products used with them you finish off with an amazing project.  Hels is also demonstrating for us at the shop - date to be arranged.

This is an example of some of the new designs from Indigo Blu.  We have had these in the shop for a few weeks and have been extremely popular.  They also received the award for best stamp rage at the awards evening.  Well deserved too!

This is another sample from Indigo Blu showing the guilding flakes being used with the new flitter glue too.

We caught up with Sheena and had a demo of her new Paint Fushion range including the fushion transfers.  She was a lovely as ever and so proud of her new range.  Have a go if you get the opportunity.

Check these out they are simply amazing.

This photograph was taken at the awards ceremony which is held every year on the Sunday evening.  Joanna was awarded the Best card Designer and we were all over the moon for her.  (We also enjoyed the cupcakes too!!)

We came home on the Monday evening weighed down with  catalogues and information.  Also very excited about the product that we have ordered and will be in the shop very soon.  Keep an eye out for all these.

I am demonstrating House Mouse stamps and decoupage and Spellbinders at Inspirations in Preston (Ann-Marie from Hunkydory's home!) It is the shops 2nd birthday and they are holding demonstrations all week in one form or another go onto their website for more details.

I hope you are still with me - sorry tonights blog was lengthy but I wanted to tell you so much!

Thank you, as ever, for popping in and I hope that you are all lucky with the Allsorts Challenge.

Bye for now

Jo xxx