Saturday, May 10. 2008Demo toasty Some of today's output Phew wot a scorcher! as the Sun would say  Today's demo was in a very busy (and very hot!) garden centre. Sadly, on such a sunny day, most people appeared to be thinking more about their gardens than their crafting. Still, it was a fun day, with quite a few customers I recognised, and it's always a pleasure to demo at that store, as the staff are friendly and the manager is a very passionate crafter. Although no part of the day could have been called busy, there was a reeeeeaaaaally quiet spell at lunchtime - I suspect pubs with gardens were not empty! Happily, today's commute was only 40mins, so it wasn't long before I was in my shorts in the garden with a nice cold beer. Thursday, April 3. 2008Crafting for crafters
Today was the Birthday We Don't Enumerate of the first friend I made on my first day at primary school. In other words, it's just the kind of special person/event combo that drove me to start making cards in the first place, so I should be delerious making her card. However, Wendy is a crafter too and, while I did classically tedious maths/physics/chemistry A levels, she did a more eclectic mix that included art. Not only can she make or paint anything she wants, but the two of us meet regularly to share ideas, so she sees almost all my creations.
 This birthday called for subtlety, and it doesn't get more subtle than chalks! All this has meant that, although I've known about her birthday forever, I've been avoiding making her card, as I struggled for a theme/technique she may not have seen. At 1pm yesterday, 4 hours before Postman Pat would empty the box, I still had no idea what to make. In desperation, I opened all the stamp drawers and stared disconsolately at their contents. What caught my eye was a stamp I'd bought on eBay a couple of years ago but had never used. I combined this with some glimmer chalks and a cool teabag fold shared by fellow designer 'Gill with a G', and I'm pretty pleased with the result. As Wendy was very kind with the card she made me last month, you won't see any numbers on this card! Monday, February 4. 2008Manda loves fimo Fimo fun When you're normally the one explaining techniques and deciding what to make, it can be a real pleasure to go and learn something new, and concentrate just on what you're making. I'm especially glad to have spent this morning doing just that with my friend Dawn, as the lovely Bonnie McGough gave the best class I've ever attended. And I now have no excuse to continue to neglect the Quality Street tin of clay that I've had for ages! Sunday, February 3. 2008Syon Park demo Another great busy demo yesterday - non stop all day, friendly staff and customers, and plenty of cups of tea. The only fly in the ointment was the state of the roads on the way home. When I left the store, I had 45mins in hand before needing to be at a restaurant for a friend's birthday - plenty of time to go to his house, get changed and restraighten my hair! In the end I had to go to the restaurant direct and change in the loos. Sunday, January 27. 2008Iver I guess I must have been in a bit of a brown mood! Yesterday's demo was super busy. People were outside waiting for the store to open, and the goody bags sold out at lunchtime. I couldn't believe it when the manager said she was down to 5 bags - it felt to me as though we'd only just started. If only all demos were like that! Thursday, January 24. 2008Wednesday, November 28. 2007Shopping and playing
I have been doing quite a bit of shopping lately - well, play to your strengths I say! I've been tempted by many special offers, the shop my Dad works at is having a closing down sale, and I've just joined forces with one of my fellow demonstrators to start running Craft Robo parties. It's an exciting time and I'm very behind in my recreational crafting (I've spent all my time reorganising my storage!). I have so many scrapbook pages to do, and my new Imagepac has sat unused for weeks. I'm hoping to use it to make a stamp of Carly, my parents' first doggy, in time for my Mum's birthday in January though.
Apart from the Robo and the Imagepac, I've been really spoiling myself with papers. They are my first love, and I've bought a huge pile of Papermania, DCWV, HOTP, Creative Expressions, K&Co, American Traditional Designs, and Twelveby12. I think the Twelveby12 flower papers are my absolute faves, and I'm sure I'll never be able to cut a couple of them up - a good excuse to buy two of everything I reckon
Wednesday, November 28. 2007Last demo of 2007
Saturday was my last demo of 2007, and it was a biggun - 2007's last demo day at the crafting cathedral known as Colemans warehouse store in Rushden, where I was demoing alongside three other companies. As well as the usual goody bags, the store had over 100 Impress die cutting machines, all with a tenner off the current special offer price. At some points, it was quite frantic, but that's how I prefer it. The most tiring kind of demo is one where there's some big rugby match on (crafters like the big thighs apparently) and you're on your own all day. Mine was the second demo of this demo 'loop' at the store, so I made a few different projects (when I wasn't cutting a million shapes on the Impress!).
Adam and I were heading to Rochdale Saturday evening for a 40th birthday party, and there wasn't really time for me to go home after the demo. This left Adam with the choice of driving back and forth, or sitting in the car with a big pile of books and apples. Rushden is an hour towards Rochdale from home, so he chose the latter, and took these piccies as I tidied up (shame he didn't tell me to fluff my hair up!). There was a third option - to go up with another friend - I'm selfishly glad he stayed with me though, as it would have been a long and grotty journey to do alone.  
Monday, June 25. 2007Monday, June 11. 2007Wellingborough demo
This weekend's demo was at a very friendly store in Wellingborough. The weather was lovely outside, and maybe this was why attendance at the demo was low, but the people who did come stayed for a long time, so hopefully got a lot out of it. The journey home seemed to take forever though. One of the roads on my route was closed and the GPS decided to take me a bonkers way home on some tiny roads, and then through the centre of Bedford. That's the only snag with delegating completely to the GPS - it doesn't know that you can't always do 60mph on a 60 limit road or that Bedford isn't a great place to drive all the way through on a Saturday evening!
  
Monday, June 11. 2007New crafty blog category!
For some reason, I'd never thought of writing about crafty things on here, but a thread about blogging on the Do Crafts "Designer Chat" list made me see the error of my ways, so here it is.
I'll start things off by sharing my most recent crafty purchases - I went shopping last week I have a bit of a thing about papers, and treated myself to 6 sets of the 6x6 Dovecraft Designer papers. The "abstract" prints by Kelly Harwood are my absolute faves. Also in the shopping bag were 2 Papermania Designer paper packs (green and purple) that I'd somehow managed not to buy before, and various stamps and stickers from the shop's clearance table that I couldn't afford not to have. |
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