Wednesday 27 March 2013

An Evening with Marti Pellow

Since the days of Wet Wet Wet I have been a fan of Marti Pellow - its because I can hear him smile when he sings.  For the last few years my friend and I have been to see him in various musical stage productions.
When I moved up here from London the thing I missed the most was being able to jump on the underground and go anywhere in London, especially to the theatre but not forgetting shopping on Oxford Street and Covent Garden.
4 or 5 years ago I discovered the Milton Keynes Theatre which is a great little modern theatre, I always did prefer the smaller venues in London as it is obviously easier to get a good view of the play or concert, and being vertically challenged means there has always been a greater risk of my view being obstructed, so the smaller the venue the smaller the risk.

Anyway, back to our evening with Marti.  He is currently touring the UK with songs from his new album and this was the only date in MK, Sunday night after our Cardmaking Weekend.
He sat and chatted between songs explaining why he had chosen these particular songs and he had lots of stories to entertain us with.  It was a great evening and very relaxing but boy was I tired when I woke up Monday morning, I did not want to get out of bed.
The only annoyance for me was all the flashing phones and cameras - I was able to take all my photos without flash!



Tuesday 26 March 2013

Cardmaking Weekend Sneaky Peek

We've just finished our first Cardmaking Weekend of 2013 
so I thought I would tease you with a few snippets of some of the cards we made.  
We are repeating this weekend on April 20th-21st and have 3 spaces available.
We have also just released the dates for our Summer and Christmas Weekends.  
The Summer Weekend is on June 29th-30th.
The Christmas Weekends are September 28th-29th and October 19th-20th.






Sunday 24 March 2013

New Hotel & Restaurant Nearby

On Thursday we were given a tour of the brand new Premier Inn (Bedford South) and Brewers Fayre that has just been built near our store.
This is most definitely the best Premier Inn we have ever been in and we have been in a few.  It is far more luxurious than the others and has air conditioning as well as walk in showers with waterfall shower heads (I am so easily pleased!).  The TVs are also bigger and on the walls.

So when we were offered the opportunity to test the Brewers Fayre during staff training it would have been rude to say no.  On Thursday I took my husband and kids for dinner and we had a lovely meal, we were one of the very first customers and were happy to make allowances for the staff as they tried and failed but then tried again and succeeded to make the technology work - they open on Monday.

If you are planning to visit one of our Cardmaking Weekends this would make the ideal stopover point.   If you book far enough in advance the rooms are only £29.

No, I'm not on commission and do not receive any kind of incentive to promote this hotel or restaurant.

Saturday 23 March 2013

Tee off Time

Another one of Sharon's creations, this time using our Golf Caddy and Gary the Golfer.

Thursday 21 March 2013

Exploding Bunny

Well he is not exploding but the box is. 
Sharon made this exploding box using our Bigfoot Bunny as well as a couple of our new background stamps Birthday Text Square Background and our new Stars square background stamp which doesn't seem to have made it onto the website yet - oops!

Wednesday 20 March 2013

Show Dates Added

We have just added the Suffolk PaperCraft Show in Bury St Edmunds on 28th April to our show list plus Summer Crafting in Doncaster on 13th & 14th July (my 40th birthday weekend).  Which means I won't see any of my family on my big birthday but will make up for it the following weekend with my 50s Rock n Roll party - must remember to take photos.

We have our first Cardmaking Weekend of the year this weekend so the store will be open Saturday  10am-4pm and on Sunday 1pm-4pm.
Lesley has done a fabulous job getting all the cards ready in time but I can't show you any as we are repeating the weekend on 20th April (a couple of spaces still available).

We are still looking for questions for our Create & Craft 'Craft Clinic' on stamping.

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Upcoming Exhibitions

It is not long now until GNPE - Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza in Harrogate on 16th & 17th March.

Julie and I will be there, if you would like to pre-order anything to collect at the show please let us know.

For more details about the show please visit their website here.

And for the first time ever we are going to a stamp show in Holland - Art Specially in Zeist on 6th & 7th April.  I don't think I've been to Holland since I was a child so it should be fun.

For more details about the show please visit their website here.

Our next show after that is the Cardiff City Stadium Craft & Hobby Show on 24th & 25th May.

For more details about the show please visit their website here.

And then of course Stamperama on 11th August @ Stevenage Arts & Leisure Centre, Hertfordshire.

Sadly we won't be attending many shows this year due to family commitments so we hope you will be able to make it to one of these shows or why not come along and try one of our cardmaking weekends.

Friday 1 March 2013

New Shop Sign

The new signage went up yesterday just as I was pointing out the building to our friends from SAR (Some Assembly Required) who are over from Seattle to exhibit at the Make It show in Farnborough this weekend.

Of course I forgot to photograph the new signs - it is our regular logo but in pink!  So as you drive up Chantry Road hopefully it will be easy to spot.

We are still planning to open this Saturday although we might not have every box unpacked.