Allly Pally and the BSBSS

Yesterday Kelly and I took ourselves off for a mother and daughter day at the Big Scrapbooking and Stamping Show at Alexandra Palace. I got to travel up on the high speed train which was fast and comfortable (and I wish they would update the rest of the rolling stock to this standard) as well as reasonably priced. I did have to park in a rather dodgy looking place in Faversham (but more on that later), as the road to the all new, all singing (and looking little different from the old) steps and subwalk to the station has now become 2 hour parking zone. A ploy I am sure to make you pay the extortionate prices in the station car park.

Anyway one starbuck latte on St Panc's station later, I had met with Kelly and we were on our way. Unlike all the other times we have been (and there have been many) it was a beautiful warm sunny day, we had our picnick and our money. We were looking forward to spending a little cash on some goodies and seeing lots of demos, so we could come home raring to go on our summer photos.

We were pleased to see they were stopping trollies from entering the hall, everyone had to leave them in the cloakroom. It was amazing the difference this made to walking round and getting in/out of the stands. Why they hadnt thought of this before I dont know, but for once there was little pushing and shoving, and most people moved aside quickly if you asked politely to be let through.

We overheard Barbara Grey of Clarity Stamps say she was demonstrating in the downstairs hall in half an hour. Now last time out both Kelly and I had bought one of the new speedball brayers, but had both had rubbish results with them, but we were both determined to get it right so were desperate for tips from the talented brayer lady herself. We rushed downstairs, and having sat through half a very boring template presentation by the create and craft lady (I'm sure she was fantastic but it wasnt our cup of tea and we hadnt really a clue what she was doing) we managed to grab two front row seats!

Barbara was brilliant. I highly recommend going to one of her demos if you can. I would love to do one of her workshops. As well as being ubber talented, she is a joy to listen to, and she gave us loads of ideas and tips, not just on how to use the brayer. And on returning home, I find I have more or less got the brayering sussed!!

I have to say that the rest of the show was somewhat of a dissapointment. There was stand after stand of Tim Holtz stuff. Although I bought 3 distress ink pads, and Kelly bought a distress stain, I really am fed up with the grunge look and after something a bit more uplifting and brighter. Not only that it seems that yesterday I was having senior moment after senior moment as I managed to grab a distress colour that I already had. An extremelly hard thing to do since I only own 6 colours!! Still it wasnt just me as Kelly picked out a shimmer stray colour we also owned (despite us only having 6 colours of those between us). My lovely friend Kate of Pickleberry Papercrafts has kindly offered to swap it for me though so not such a great disaster afterall.

Just after three we called it a day and left to come home. Again it was the high speed train (only marred by a group of young lads who, although well behaved, were rather noisy in their chatter, spoiling my concentration on my ebook. I was a tad worried about my car, but as I walked towards the corner of the road I had parked it in, I could see it was still there and looked sound enough on that side. It was only when I was close enough to draw round to the other side of it that I got a bit of a shock, as a large chicken, yes I did write chicken, was stood by the driver's door looking up at me. What's more she had two mates standing behind looking over her shoulder and making menacing chicken noises!!!!

It turned out that the three of them were escapees from the house across the road, and the owners had just that moment discovered them to be awol. All three were quickly rounded up and it was safe for me to drive home and play with my meagre haul. I bought:-

6 for £5 mister spray bottles
2 cosmic shimmer's (kelly bought 2 as well and we swapped our colours, filling the mister spray bottles
3 distress ink pads for £11 (bargin)
1 12x12 plastic storage box, these were 3 for £6 but Kez had the other two. We bought them to carry home the
£3 worth of Fancy Pants paper (double sided) at 20p a sheet
Lavinia stamps - 3 dancing fairies and the two sizes of hanging ivy.
10 reels of shiny thread for £10 which we are going to split

New/further attempts at using the brayer.