Well it's taken me a little longer than intended (lack of time as usual) but here's a review of our recent weekend at the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace. It was a busy weekend but we did lots of good stuff, bought some great stuff and had a lovely Chinese meal as well.
Saturday started with an early start and a train ride to Charing Cross. I soon met Shazzer and we made our way (complete with big heavy bags) to Ally Pally, stopping en route for a much needed cuppa and bacon roll (nope my diet was definitely NOT in effect this weekend). Pausing only to drop off our bags at the cloakroom we headed into the main hall for some shopping or browsing in my case as I was definitely not shopping. We stopped for a quick drink in the attached pub (the smallest white wine & soda in the world, ½ pt of lager and 2 bottles of water cost £8!) and then it was soon time for us to head off to our first workshops. Shazzer had picked the sakura pens class, Twinkle Twinkle during which they decorated a card. I did the Vintage Elegance class which was a collage stamping class during which I also made the rather nice card above, although disappointingly there was nothing given away, which I thought was a little harsh considering the price of the workshops. The shop running the workshop did sell very nice stamps and they were a decent price, but there wasn’t even a discount for having taken part in the class. Back to the main hall for some more browsing, trying to find inspiration (and a fireworks stamp) for Shazzer’s November ATC swap. Several ideas later and the ATCs had changed (as they are wont to do). I then broke my no buying rule when I spotted this magnificent stamp that ‘I just had to have’. Obviously I was immediately attracted by the fleur de lis background pattern, although the whole stamp is just gorgeous. However, I was feeling slightly virtuous because it was about the only thing I bought that day.
Next was the water colouring workshop with Gina from Sir Stampalot. This class was interesting but also disappointing. Yet again there was nothing given away apart from the actual card that was made. It was during this workshop that I realised that my attention span (assuming I am actually busy) is about 30 minutes. In this class it was about 5 minutes. This stemmed from two problems. Firstly, instead of having 1 set of paints etc. between 2 they made it 1 between 3. This meant that at some point there was always someone not doing anything as it was impossible for all 3 people to reach and use the paints at the same time. It also left the person in the middle worrying that the water was going to end up all over their work every time the tub moved backwards and forwards. On top of this the class was so large that not everyone could see the demonstration properly. Now water colouring has never been one of my strong suits and having to keep stopping and waiting for the other person to finish before I could have a go quickly began to affect my work. Boredom makes me slapdash and being slapdash means I make mistakes. Once I make mistakes I then get annoyed because of the mistakes and lose all interest in what I’m doing. So here’s my imperfect card with the water stains round the fairy lights that shouldn’t be there. However, I was really pleased with how well the lambs turned out! I should also mention here that to recreate that card would have cost a heck of a lot of money – there were 5 stamps involved which would have cost well over £25 alone. Then there was the cost of the Marvy La Plume’s (if I didn’t already have them). Although there was a slight discount given if you bought the stamps I didn’t feel that was much recompense for the price of the class.
Back to the shopping hall for one finally sweep, where we tracked down some rather snazzy glue and embossing pens before we finally made our way across Alexandra Park to Muswell Hill where we were spending the night. I have to admit I thought that Muswill Hill sounded like a dodgy area, a bit run down and possibly dangerous. It is of course actually the home of many famous people and far from being run down is a select area full of shops like space nk and all those bijou little boutiques. The hotel was serviceable, although extremely warm as the heating seemed to be on permanently and Shazzer and I soon found our room (which was of course right at the top!) After a cup of tea, a bottle of bubbly and much stroking of stash we made our way out to find food. Stopping en-route in Sainsbury’s where we bought more wine (which we didn’t drink in the end honestly) I bought a wig (don't ask) and Shazzer bought some olives, we eventually decided on Yien Chinese Restaurant (mainly cos it was the first place we hit and we were starving). It was a very nice place and we had a lovely set meal with lots of wine, although disappointingly we weren’t given our starters on a bridge (it was one of those places that has the themed plates) although we did get the carrot carved into the shape of a bird.
After a night spent with very little sleep due to the noise out on the road (we were on a major junction – and NO Shazzer I did not sing Oasis’ Wonderwall in my sleep, that was definitely your dream) we made our way back to Ally Pally for the second day of fun (not so much shopping as we had workshops all day). We headed straight for the glitter stall where I could have spent a fortune. Instead I spent a fiver and got a lot of lovely dark glitters – black, midnight blue, deep red as well as some more wintery colours which may be destined for Christmas cards if I ever get round to making them.
Soon it was off to our first workshop of the day ‘Festive Fun’ which was card making with a stencil. The stencil we had was for a gift box and we’d soon both made a very impressive looking Christmas cards with it. And better still, we got to keep the stencil (which would have cost £4.99). Unfortunately, due to a mix up between shop and organisers the class was only 30 minutes long instead of the hour it should have been, but we felt that it was the best class that we’d had so far. Of course some people are never satisfied and several people complained to the organisers that the class was too short but we decided to compliment them instead. After a quick visit to the shop to get another stencil – a tree shaped one this time (I was sold after seeing the lovely flower fairy birthday card they had made with it) we were back to the workshops.
The next workshop was My Fav Thing by Banana Frog and I personally found this class probably more disappointing than all the rest. We were given a cute little tag book to decorate and were given stamps, felt, shrink plastic and embossing powder to create a Christmas themed book. I wasn’t keen on the snowflake stamps, hated the felt and disliked the effect of the shrink plastic, so my attention wandered badly. I did colour the pages of the book and I did emboss one of the pages. The rest of the stuff I discarded. There were absolutely no freebies with this class, not even a technique sheet and neither were we offered a discount on future purchases. We made our way down to Mei Flower where I bought a few little bits and bobs for some cards. We’d been trying to get there all weekend as it sold lots of unusual little things.
Then we were onto Christmas Pearl Delight with Blonde Moments. I have to say I really enjoyed this class. The idea was to make Christmas tags using papers, embossing and painting with pigments. There was loads to do and it kept my attention for the full hour, actually the painting took me that long. Of course the scrummy new papers helped, and although they didn’t give away anything they did offer a 10% discount which Shazzer and I felt we had to take advantage of. I bought mini pads of the Blonde Moments including the new Christmas ones and some lovely purple pigment which I used in the class.
Finally it was time for the final class of the day and the exhibition, Hitting the Bottle. This was an alcohol inks class producing a collaged canvas. Not really my cup of tea to be honest, and the colours weren’t to my taste, but it was a fun thing to do and once again kept me busy for the whole hour. We were also given the stamp set that we’d used – probably the best freebie of the weekend. So then it was all over and we just had to make our way home. My personal view was that it was a good weekend, although at £10 each some of the workshops should have provided a bit more in the way of freebies. Not sure I would rush to the next one, but if I go again I’ll definitely drive there. Lugging heavy bags around was a chore and the journey home for me was a complete nightmare, and there appeared to be plenty of parking.
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