Take That scrapbook pages- Shine

Winter trees alcohol ink technique card

This is another card i've made using my new alcohol inks. On this one, i've used the inks for 3 different techniques. I started by creating the background for the stamping by using 4 different shades of blue alcohol ink and putting a few drops of each into a shallow bowl of water. I then laid my card into the water and let it sit for a few seconds. I carefully took the card out of the water and left it to dry and that gave me the shades of blue wintery background. While that was drying, I used the same colours of alcohol inks, with blending solution added, to colour the white snowflake peel-offs and also the white organza ribbon. When my background was dry I used Kanban christmas stamps for the trees and deer images, simply stamping with a black memento ink pad. I matted the topper on plain silver foil card and added the snowflakes before attaching the topper so that some of the snowflakes were partially hidden. The ribbon was simply knotted and then the ends cut into a point by folding the ribbon in half and then cutting at an angle. It took a while but I love it's simplicity.

My first alcohol ink card

This is the first card I made having received my alcohol inks from the papercrafts.tv website.

I started by using a beautiful Kanban snowflake stamp (from a previous qvc t.s.v.), inking with a dazzle versamark ink and then clear silver pearl embossing powder over the top. I then used a mix of blue shades of the alcohol inks and the blending solution to create the distressed style pale blue background. The gorjuss girls decoupage (hobbycraft sale- january 2011) matched perfectly and I then used my black promarker to make the peel-off message black rather than silver. When I placed the message on the card it wasn't quite central so I used the star peel-off to make it look a little more even. I am going to need to put an insert inside the card as the alcohol inks have bled through the front of the card quite a lot. Next time I'll probably do it on seperate card and mount it to my blank to avoid this.

www.papercraftstv.com

A couple of weeks ago I was watching the regular Tuesday afternoon crafting slot on QVC looking forward to what they were calling 'Steam Punk' and imagining something really fab! I was a bit disappointed with the QVC offerings but they did start with the Tim Holtz/Ranger alcohol inks which I've been wanting for ages.

As I was already online, I thought I'd do a quick internet price comparison and that's when I came across Papercrafts.tv and I'm really glad that I did!!! It took me a while to compare the prices because they sold all of the inks individually which is obviously really good if you just want to buy a few. I ended up selecting all of the inks available on QVC plus a colour called 'purple twilight' which I couldn't resist. Even with p+p it worked out cheaper than the QVC price so I ended up adding the blending solution and some felt applicators to my order. As it was my first order I also found a 10% discount code and ended up with free p+p too! All in all, I ended up paying less than  would have done at QVC but getting more.

I'm not great at waiting for deliveries to arrive and they always seem to take forever where I live, especially if it's coming by Royal Mail, but having ordered on the Tuesday, they were delivered on the Friday of the same week and by Friday afternoon I'd already used them all! They kept me updated all the way through the delivery process letting me know by e-mail when my parcel had been packed and then when it shipped which was great for my impatience. They were well packed when they arrived and everything was as I'd ordered.

The delivery note also points out that they offer discounts on your next purchase if you review your purchase or upload photos of what you've done with it, which I think is a really nice touch. It's obviously a new website as some of the product categories don't have anything in them yet but DEFINITELY WORTH A LOOK!!!

North West England- Morecambe

The 'Little Shop Of Hobbies' http://www.littleshopofhobbies.co.uk/ is to be found just off the main promenade of Morecambe, close to the statue of Eric Morcambe. The shop was large and as the name suggests, caters for a wide range of different hobbies selling wools, cross stitch materials, model making kits & paints as well as card making items. The shop was busy which would normally be a good sign but the card making supplies were limited. Not really worth a special journey but I suppose worth a look if you're in Morecambe anyway.

There was a very nice pub not far from the shop on the other side of the road that did very good meals at reasonable prices. It was very busy with both tourists and locals but was definitely worth a short wait for a table.

North West England- Southport

The 2 shops I visited in Southport were situated on Lord Street which was a really nice area with lots of little cafes, coffee shops & restaurants with outdoor seating as well as other larger chain and smaller independent stores. In particular, there was a very nice small corner stand selling a wide range of fabulous looking ice creams e.g. snickers, bounty, liquorice, cherry & raspberry ripple (amongst others)!

Anyway, back to the craft shops...

'Crafts A Plenty' www.craftsaplenty.co.uk was situated in the Wayfarers Arcade which was full of unusual and individual stores selling a wide range of products. the craft shop itself was not huge and mainly stocked the Papermania range but did include the most recent product launches. they also stocked a small selection of items such as ink pads and glitter glues. It was a pretty standard shop to be honest.

'Southport Craft Centre' was also quite a small shop but it seemed to stock a wide range of products again. the Papermania range again featured heavily but they also had Tim Holtz distress inks, Smirk 'goodie bags' and also jewellery making beads, findings etc. As with 'Crafts A Plenty', there was nothing that got me excited and yet again I left with nothing!!!

North West England- Inspirations, Preston

o.k., having been many times to the Kanban outlet in Yorkshire, I have always hoped that Hunkydory would do something similar. Having checked their website (many times!) it seems that they do not but 'Inspirations' is advertised as their 'flagship' store. On the way back from Blackpool, we decided to pop in and have a look.

The place was pretty easy to find being just off the main A6 road although which way to get into the car park was a bit complicated. It certainly looked impressive from the outside being situated in a large warehouse style building.

On walking in, I was pleased to see that the interior was really neatly layed out and it was a bright, neutrally decorated shop. A few small sofas were there for the men folk to sit on and tea & coffee making facilities were at the back of the store if they were in for a long wait!

The stock was certainly comprehensive. As expected, there were many Hunkydory products in the store but also Cricut, Flowersoft, Tim Holtz/Ranger, Dreamweaver stencils & pastes, peel off stickers, Papermania, Polka Doodles cd-roms, wide range of 12x12 papers as well as basics like card, envelopes & cello bags. For those people who don't only make cards/scrapbook, there was also wool & jewellery making stuff. There was also a section of 'gifts'- ready made things as well as cards, wrapping paper etc.

The only negative I had about the place was the prices. I'm always on the look out for a bargain and want to pay the least I can for what I want (then I can buy something else!). Most of the things that they had, I had seen, or bought, cheaper elsewhere. We ended up leaving having not bought anything!!!

Maybe I've just got too much stuff already???

North West England

I recently spent some time up in Lancashire around the Southport area and (of course) took the time to visit a few craft shops while I was there!

I visited 'Inspirations' which is an out of town superstore at Capitol Centre in Preston, 'Crafts A Plenty' and 'Southport Craft Centre' both on Lord Street in Southport and also 'Little Shop of Hobbies' on Pedder Street in Morcambe.

Comprehensive reviews to follow...