Creativeworld - Frankfurt

 I found Dyan Reaveley loitering with intent in the Notions booth. 

We've known Dyan for more than 20 years but only see her about once a year, so lots to catch up on.

 Some of Dyan's journals

 Inside Dyan's diary journal for 2018/2019

These were my carpool friends every morning on the way to the show, Lu from Germany and Jacqueline from Switzerland.  Also in the car were Wolfgang and Daniela.

Wolfgang and Lu were exhibiting at the show and the rest of us were tagging along for the ride.

I'll save the product photos for another day.

Flying off . . .

By the time this is published I will be on my way to the airport.

I am flying off to Creative World in Frankfurt in search of new and wonderful products.

This will be a few very long days (for those of you with Fitbits I could easily be doing 30,000 steps per day).

But the bad news is that MBT have lost my favourite shoes! :(

I love MBTs, they make the world of difference to my back pain (it's complicated but the long and the short of it - my pelvis is tilted which compresses my spine plus I have hypermobility in some joints such as my ankles so the extra support in MBTs is vital to my feet, my posture and keeping my back pain at bay for hours longer than any other pair of shoes I have ever found).

My favourite MBTs were making a strange cracking noise inside the sole so they asked me to send them back so they could investigate but now they can't find them.  It is possible they handed them to DHL and they lost them but I'm still waiting to hear.

Luckily I have 2 other pairs but 1 of these I am still breaking in, obviously it is my favourite and most comfortable pair that have gone missing.

Despite all that, hopefully I will find lots of new products, ideas and techniques

and catch up with friends (of course).

Sneaky Peek No.6

As our big background stamps proved sooooo popular last year we are launching 2 new ones.

Sneaky Peek No. 5

 This is one from the very talented Teri Sherman.

All will be revealed on 1st Feb.

Sneaky Peek No.4 & Vivid Dream

Sneaky peek No.4 is of a negative.  When we have an image we want to make into a rubber stamp we have to first have it made into a negative before we can create the plate, then the mould and then press the rubber.  Today we will find out if this one works.

Vivid Dream - so I had to take a painkiller last night and in my dream I was in London to visit a friend I used to work with, I was walking to her house when I found her sitting on a picnic bench outside a little parade of shops.  Sitting beside her was Graham Norton and opposite was David Walliams plus a male friend.   Graham greeted me like an old friend.
I sat chatting with my friend for a while and then she got up and went and sat in an electric wheelchair and said she needed to go to see her physio.  My friend does not use a wheelchair!

Yay for sleep

Yesterday I spend an hour or two at the hairdressers and had a little purple added to my hair, you can just see it in this photo.  I have found that my hairdressers have the best light for taking selfies, I just have to remember to take it before I leave.

 

Last night I was back on the painkillers but they actually worked, they didn't keep me awake all night, didn't wake me up with a vivid dream.  

I actually had a decent nights sleep (well as good as it gets for me anyway!)

Now I just have a slightly fuzzy head, I assume this is what a hangover feels like except the painkillers make me hungry and very thirsty.

So today Vicky and I will continue to work on new stamp designs,

yesterday Vicky actually said we had too many ideas and didn't know which ones to work on first!

Vicky does most of the artistic work like drawing because I can't draw for toffee.

And I do the technical, computery side of things.

We have the concept for our next TV show on 5th Feb so hopefully today we can finalise the details. We are not very good at working too far in advance, we always seem to run out of time and be up against a deadline.

I hope you have a fabulous Friday and a wonderful weekend.

Sneaky Peek No.3

Is it a bird?  Is it a plane?

All will be revealed on 1st February.

Damn painkillers

This turned into a long one so you might want to get comfortable.

 

I've had these Tramadol painkillers for about 5 weeks now but I don't take them everyday, maybe I should but I don't like putting drugs in my system (my body was only designed for chocolate and not drugs and I've found chocolate always works for a headache - I've never been normal!).

So last night (Tuesday) my shoulder was hurting more than I like so I took a painkiller (I must add that I am also having to take Ibuprofen to keep the inflammation down, but why do I always remember them hours after a meal? as you have to take them with food, so probably not having as many of those as I should either) - as I said I'm very bad at popping pills.

Normally taking Tramadol makes me high for an hour and then drowsy, so helps me sleep.  But I have found the plus side it is must be freeing up my memory because after having Tramadol and then watching Pointless I can answer a lot more of the questions!

But no drowsiness tonight, I'm sitting here at 1.15 in the morning wide awake.

I was scrolling through the photos on my phone when I found the picture about cherishing your Mama that I just posted on Facebook, I came across it a few weeks ago and saved it because I didn't want to share it at that moment.  But tonight felt like the right moment, so I've been thinking about my Mum since I posted it.

My father in law, Bill, stayed with us over Christmas.  Bill is part of a spiritualist church and as well as praying he also does healing.  I'm not a religious person myself as our parents didn't bring us up with any religion but I don't object to anyone else's beliefs or faith - we are all different and believe different things.  I'm of the school of thought that I don't believe or disbelieve in something until I see proof.  I don't believe in ghosts because I haven't seen one (yet) but I don't disbelieve either - I guess I'm sitting on the fence until I have evidence either way.

Anyway, Bill offered me some healing for my shoulder and I gratefully accepted as I am open to try anything once because if you don't try something how will you ever know if it works or if you like it, (put those dirty minds away, I'm talking treatments like acupuncture, etc).

I sat in one of our dining chairs so Bill could walk around me.  I sat with my eyes closed and relaxed so didn't see what he was doing but I once attended an aromatherapy course where we had to massage chakras so I'm guessing it was along those lines as he didn't touch me.

He moved slowly around me and I could feel his hands moving through the air around me and then when he was over my shoulder I could feel heat.

The whole process must have been around 20 minutes and was very relaxing and the best news is that my shoulder felt better for the rest of the day.

Afterwards Bill told me that during the healing my Mum was standing in the room watching, wearing her favourite blue coat.  It was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time, but mainly heartwarming to think that she is watching over me.

I should say the biggest effect that Tramadol has on me is to make me ramble on.  So I will end my ramble now and see if I am able to get any sleep before I have to get the kids up for school.

Vivid Dreams

Good morning, thank you for stopping by to see my blog.  I'll put up another sneaky peek tomorrow.

Today I wanted to talk about dreams, I've been on some strong medication (Tramadol) during the last few weeks (stuff that makes you drowsy) and I've had some amazingly vivid dreams.

Unfortunately after a couple of days I can't remember them but I can still remember parts of the one from 2 nights ago.

I was flying, Superman style.  but I had to fly under the Portcullis before it dropped (the castle gate), whilst chasing after someone, so my timing had to be perfect and took a couple of attempts.

and this was all being filmed for a movie!

Is anyone else affected in this way by painkillers or is it just me?

Although as a child I often dreamt of flying.

Sneaky peek No. 2

Can you guess what she is?

Sneaky Peek No.1

We've been working on new designs for a while now and will be launching them before our next show on HOCHANDA TV on 5th Feb.

More sneaky peeks to follow

Stampington Magazines

Our delivery has been a little delayed due to Christmas post but we now have these 2 magazines in stock.

You can find them online here.

Cardmaking Class January

This is the card we are making in our classes this week.

If you would like to join us we have some spaces - 

Tuesday 8th @ 12.30

Wednesday 9th @ 1pm

Please call to book your space 01234 8558333

The stamps are Lucy's Butterfly large and small and the Scratch Lines background.

With some vellum and some shrink plastic.

Steampunk Hearts

I stamped both sizes of Steampunk Heart onto card that I had coloured with Oxide ink first (possibly Tattered Rose).

I embossed them in black and then coloured the rings with white pen.

For the background I coloured the card with Scattered straw and then stamped the Scratch Lines background in the same colour that I coloured the hearts with.

I used a distresser on the edge of the card before adding the ribbon and layering up.

Steampunk Heart

Small Steampunk Heart

Scratch Lines Background

Steampunk Hearts designed by Teri Sherman.

Did you hear the exciting news . . .

. . . that Leonie Pujol from HOCHANDA TV will be joining the HOCHANDA team when they attend Stamperama Stevenage on 24th February

and Stamperama Harrogate on 2nd March

Vicky and I have known Leonie for probably for more than 15 years and we know that she is a very genuine person that loves to craft, to get messy and is not afraid to experiment with new products and techniques so we are delighted that she will be joining us at these shows.

Leonie will be demonstrating with some of her favourite products but unfortunately will not be able to run Make & Takes or workshops at these events as she wants to meet as many crafters as possible and if she is hidden away teaching then the majority of visitors will not get to see or meet her.

Bubble Backgrounds

I know I've shared one of these cards with you before but I wanted you to see them together so you could really see the difference.

The bubble grunge background on the top card has been inked and stamped with an oxide inkpad.

The background on the bottom was inked with an oxide inkpad but then spritzed before stamping which does it give it a much more watery look.

Bubble Grunge

Goldie the fish

Seahorses

Small Jellyfish

Seaweed is from our stencil Under the Sea.

A little bit of fun

We had several hours between filming last week so we were getting a little restless.

By the time we got back in the studio we were ready for some fun and Yiannis was very happy to indulge us, in fact he definitely encouraged us.

If you missed it . . .

If you missed either or both of our Best of 2018 shows on HOCHANDA last week

you can catch up by watching them via their website

here 

and here

We have different stamps and demos in each show