Tuesday 29 July 2008

Art Unscripted Live with Carol Duvall

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3


This event was filmed whilst we were at CHA Anaheim in January, we had front row seats to see all the fun and mayhem. I was taking lots of photographs and Vicky got dragged in to help Sarah Hodsdon's team off screen (so if you look closely you will see Stamps Addicts UK listed in the credits). Sarah Hodsdon is an amazingly talented person and if you haven't already you should check out her blog Sarah*n*dipitous I love reading her daily musings on life and our industry.

Below is an introduction to the DVD Art Unscripted Retreat. I am hoping to take the DVD home tonight to watch as I haven't seen it yet and it looks like great fun. Hopefully there are lots of bloopers because I love that bit.

Monday 28 July 2008

Did you visit Artstamps Newbury

If you came to the show this weekend, what did you think? Now it is no longer just a rubber stamp show there should be more variety of product but as we were working we didn't get to see many other stands at the show so I don't know if this is the case.

We were hosting make & takes for the first time (this was a trial run for the NEC) and I think it went well, everyone seemed happy with what they made and I believe most people learnt something from all the different techniques used to make the ATCs. Did you make an ATC with us? Did you enjoy the make & take or can you learn more by watching lots of different techniques?

We enjoyed the show, we've not been for the last couple of years and for the first time we were upstairs which did have a nice and airy feel, certainly with more light and more room - apart from on our stand! The only downside was having to use the lifts to get all our gear in and out of the building but there is always something that slows us down - usually me not wanting to rush and knacker myself out before I have to drive us home.

My new SatNav did a great job of getting us there but on the journey home she wanted to take us on a different route that would have involved the M25 and the M1 - no thank you. We persevered straight on the A34 until she caught up with us and then she brought us home the same route that we used on the way there, apart from a minor 10 mile diversion around a closed bridge.

Our next show is Stamperama Stevenage next weekend. Tomorrow we are receiving our first delivery of 'Stamps by Judith' ready for Stevenage, Julie will be demonstrating some of these at the show so please come and see what you can create with them.

I'm off to bed know as I am still exhausted from the weekend. Apologies if you tried calling us today as I left the answer machine on all day, I answered calls when I could but Vicky has this week off so it was only Martin and I working today, ably assisted by young Annabel. I also left work early so we could go food shopping - I returned from Newbury to an empty fridge.
Full service will resume tomorrow.

Friday 25 July 2008

Artstamps Newbury

Hopefully in a few hours the van will be loaded and we will be on our way to Newbury. I say hopefully because you never know what is going to happen, we always hire a van and one time it smelled so bad we had to unload it and exchange it for another van - all the stock would have had this horrible fishy smell and no one would want to come anywhere near us. And obviously all this added a couple of hours onto our preparation time before we could leave. Needless to say the van always get the sniff test now before we put anything in it.

To get us to Newbury we will have the assistance of my new Garmin SatNav, or GPS to the Americans. When we were in the US earlier this year we hired SatNav with the rental car, our first time.

I've had previous experience with someone else's SatNav but not in depth use. Having SatNav in the car was so much easier, and it allowed me to sleep on the journey home from the different theme parks and long days out, I had always previously been the navigator so if I fell asleep Martin would keep waking me to find out which junction or turning to take. Therefore it made the whole vacation more relaxing for me (and I got lots of extra sleep). The funny thing in the US whenever I said to someone - no problem we can find it we've got SatNav - they would like at me strange and say 'whaaaat!', they don't have SatNav only GPS - I always come home from the US a little more Americanised. So sometimes I use words like vacation, trunk or trash - I like the variety it gives my vocabulary, don't you get bored of certain words sometimes? I don't like the word 'rubbish' I much prefer 'trash' but I guess it is because its a word I haven't used as much as rubbish.

We'd been discussing and debating buying a SatNav unit for a while because it did seem like quite a frivolous purchase (I prever SatNav over GPS), we only live 3 miles from work so how often would we use it! But then we added a few extra shows to our schedule like Newbury and Cardiff, I've never been to Cardiff so welcome the navigational assistance. And we bought the version that works in the US so next time we can take our own and not hire one.

So today is the trial run for my SatNav, as we've been to Newbury on numerous occasions I am looking forward to seeing what Garmin considers to be the fastest route.

I won't be able to blog over the weekend but I will try and take photos to post next week when I report on the show.

Now I'm running late so have to dash.

Thursday 24 July 2008

Birthday Card


As promised this is the card that Lesley made for my birthday. She has used the Jeans Pants & Pocket and embellished with some shrunken cupcakes hanging on a Tim Holtz chain - yum yum.

Wednesday 23 July 2008

Jeans Pants Artwork


As you can see Lesley has been having great fun with the Jeans Pants and Pocket stamps by JudiKins and some Sassafrass Lass Owls. She even made me a purple version for my birthday card, I will try and post it tomorrow.

The new DeNami/Bella Press papers are now on our website along with the new Stamp of the Month. Fingers Crossed we should have the new stamps arriving next week.

Saturday 19 July 2008

Image Transfer

Have you seen the new webisode on TV Weekly this weekend? Judi decorates a Clear Scraps acrylic album by transferring photographs onto the plastic using Tranz-It and Rinse Away Paper.

I was visiting JudiKins in California whilst on holiday when Judi was working on the project but I didn't get to see the finished article. To be honest I've always been a little sceptical about these acrylic albums, maybe it has something to do with having 2 very inquisitive children in my house. I don't think one would last very long before getting damaged or scratched by my delightful children - and what is the point in an acrylic album if you don't have it on display!

Tranz-It is one of those products that I've always wanted to use but never got round to it so I might have to get me an acrylic album or maybe I could transfer a photo onto an acetate overlay - all I need now is the time to play.

If you have used Tranz-It please post a link here so we can all see.

Wednesday 16 July 2008

Exciting News

It has just been confirmed that we are going to have a 'never before seen in the UK' range of stamps. We will be launching them at Stamperama Stevenage on 10th August where Julie will be demonstrating some of them - I will let you know more about them nearer the time.

At Stamperama we also have Kay Carley demonstrating the new DeNami stamps and Dawn Inskip demonstrating the new Cricut Create and Jukebox machines.

We will also be attending Artstamps Newbury next week, we have a small stand upstairs so if you are going to the show make sure you come up and see us, I believe we will be doing Make & Takes. Don't forget to bring your membership keyfob with you as we can't give the discount without it.

Sunday 13 July 2008

The winner of the Chocolate Challenge is . . . .



Well done 'Cornish Mist', great use of chocolate highlighted with gold, a fabulous combination. The box of DeNami Chocolate stamps are on their way to you.

New challenge coming soon.

Friday 11 July 2008

Kay Carley Artwork


Kay produced this artwork using some of the new JudiKins Stitched stamps, some DeNami and an Artful Stamper stamp.

Monday 7 July 2008

Chocolate Entry


This entry is from Margaret in Bury St Edmunds.

Stamped Judikins Lily stamp in Espresso Adirondack ink pad on to water colour paper and colour with ink and Lyra Acquacolour. Matted with brown and rust card and added a small brown ribbon and copper glitter.

Thursday 3 July 2008

Chocolate Challenge

Saturday 12th July is my birthday - no I'm not going to tell you how old I am. And as we have already had my favourite colour as our first challenge the second challenge is going to be a Birthday Card based on my favourite food - Chocolate.

It doesn't have to contain chocolates just a bit of chocolate colour somewhere, I've noticed that the chocolate and turquoise combination is still quite popular in the shops at the moment, but you can combine the chocolate with any colour you like - Raspberry is another good one, Chocolates with that soft raspberry centre - yum yum.

The prize is this set of DeNami stamps of 4 Chocolates.


Rules as per the column on the left and the deadline is Friday 11th July.

Good Luck

Wednesday 2 July 2008

New DeNami Artwork


All this artwork arrived from DeNami Design this week with the new stamps. I am just waiting on the images so I can upload them to our website.

We now take Paypal on our website. Just go through the checkout process as normal and when you get to the payment page you can choose the Paypal option.

New challenge coming tomorrow.

New DeNami Christmas Artwork