Coming to a town near you!

If you have been following us on the blog recently, you will have figured out that Autumn is Craft show season here in the UK, and of all the months in the year, October has the most events on offer for your enjoyment here in the UK. 

If you popped by our stand this is what your would have seen at Harrogate.

Heading to a show is a great chance to go and suss out some new ideas and to get ahead on your 'to-do' list before the silly season of chrimbo is well and truly upon us. You can see many retailers in the one place, we all usually have quite different products to sell, so there is always a big variety to see. Demonstrators are plentiful, and are happy to be quizzed on products, techniques and so you can see for yourself how to use new products.

We have noticed wood is very popular at the moment, which makes sense, particularly if you are handy with a paint brush and a bottle of Fresco Finish, or try some crackle for a great wintery effect. Wood can be painted, papered, stencilled, or why not rust it? We have been adding puff paint to it then embossing the bumps with gold EP, we have also been rubbing treasure gold directly onto the wood, or making it look like metal with Liquid Leaf. Plenty of gift ideas on our bookcase stacked with new stuff, or cool stocking-filler goodies.

So we've been everywhere man (you need to sing that bit)...Harrogate last weekend was a lovely town to visit, we ate well, slept well, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves meeting new exhibitors and customers alike.

The treasure gold and Liquid Leaf is flying off the stand at shows. Its a real 'Oooohhhhh' product. We have even more colours arrived in today, and you can order online now, so get it while we have it!

Jo Firth-Young's Christmas stamps are causing a real buzz. People can immediately see what they would do with them. I loved stamping the minis onto fabric JM02 left, JM01 right and painting soft touches of colour. Only takes a minute, so a really nice way to do loads of cards.

Here are a few samples of what she's has been doing with them:

A fabulous wreath using stars from JOFY08 She randomly painted Smoothy card with Fresco acrylic paints (beach hut and guacamole), then stamped the stars on the BG, and jazzed them up with buttons, bling and a bit of sparkle.

Here is JM02 (a mini) coloured with Distress Markers.

I love how Jo uses brown Kraft card so effectively. She stamped the bunting onto scrapbook paper, then cut out and laid over the JOFY07 image stamped in black directly onto the brown card.

 And more kraft-cards using other  minis, JM01, JM02, JM03 in a similar manner

The wreath stamp on JOFY04 is a stunner, and such a fun stamp to play about with. Glitter pens are deffo allowed on this little number! Or what about liquid leaf or treasure gold??

Here is the same stamp, but with stamped stars layered up from the wreath scraps of painted card!

And lastly, we love this big stamp from JOFY05 Jo designed it so that you can pick out words of your preference to highlight and make up your own greeting. How clever is she!Either mask off words, or bleach back with ...yes...bleach.

 So the show we are doing this weekend is the Big Stamping and Scrapbooking Show (East Midlands). It will be held at the Kettering Conference Centre. Kettering is not far from where the A14 joins the M1/ M6 motorways, so quite easy to find! The train station is not a long walk either, so what are you waiting for? Book your tickets online and come and see us.

New in this week, I have added even more colours of Liquid Leaf and Treasure Gold to the stash on the stand (drooling), and we have new papier mache items in, perfect for Christmas altering ideas. I also have some amazing canvases. They are ridiculously cheap £2-£6 and are the extra chunky ones, square or oblong and you will love them too I am sure! Plus we have texture paste and puff paint that I am very excited about using through stencils with Liquid Leaf on top....

And lastly, went to a pub for lunch with Mr PaperArtsy on Monday, and this was on the wall. LOL

We'll catch up with you next week, in the meantime, I have a load of rubber to get trimming...and orders to send out...

Take care

Leandra