Clarity launch in Coventry

For past year or so, I have been visiting a wonderful craft shop in Coventry, run by a lovely husband and wife team, Jeff & Wendy called Daisy's Jewels & Crafts

The above picture was taken when they moved into a larger unit  - if you visit now, there is not much floor space as it filled to bursting with lots of lovely crafting goodies!

So, the 1st of March saw me launch a very small collection of Clarity stamps & stencils. 

Wendy & Jeff must have felt that it was safe for them to up sticks and attend a craft show in Malvern whilst leaving me in the capable hands of the lovely Rachael - it was tempting to run amok in the shop and move everything around whilst they were away, but fortunately, the ladies started arriving for the workshop!

It was so hard to choose what stamps and stencils to go with, as I have so many favourites! But I decided to go with a few of the classic Clarity stamps - these are the workshop cards:

and here are the ladies having fun

Here are some samples I made of the other stamps that were available on the day:

Then after a short break it was time to play and show the ladies some of the new stencils and stamps but before I show you what I got up to I had the two most adorable visitors who came to watch

Oh and I also got to meet the lovely Mandy Branston one of the Clarity Design Team members!

Here are the samples

So another fun filled day was over, the car was packed and it was time to head over to Peterborough ready for my TV show on Sunday........

Happy Crafting

Paul x

Fabulous Fellas!

Now we all now how difficult it is to make cards for men! Even I struggle!!!!! So when I saw what the team at Katie Sue Designs came up with next, I was totally blown away. 

Over the past few years Katie Sue Designs have teamed up with a wonderful artist called Sandra Wright of The House of Zandra and put together some "Fabulous" products. It started off with Fabulous Shoes and consisted of a jam packed papercraft CD and several sets of clear stamps. Then due to such high demand, it was followed up with Fabulous Fashion, again consisting of another papercraft CD, but his time a double CD and more stamps. Customers then started asking for Christmas designs so the team at Katy Sue Designs took it all on board and produced a small range of stamps, Fabulous Festive Fashion, Fabulous Festive Footwear and Fabulous Festive Greetings, but that was not enough for all the "Fabulous" crafters, they wanted a CD with all the Fabulous Festive designs, so what do the team at Katy Sue Designs do? Yep, you guessed it, they produced another papercraft CD, but not just any CD but the Fabulous Giftware triple, yes triple CD - wowser! 

Now I need to explain a bit more about the "Fabulous" range of papercraft CD's as a lot of thought has gone into designing and producing them. It is not just a CD full of random art work, it is sooooooo much more! Fabulous Fashion has 20 different designs of shoes, numbered 1through to 20 (makes sense!) each design has toppers, decoupage, backing papers, digi images etc. So when Fabulous Fashion came out, the same sequence of design sets were created - 1 through to 20. So this means that if you like the design set No.5 on the Fabulous Shoes CD, the you swap over to the Fabulous Fashion CD or the Fabulous Giftware CD and go to design set No.5 on each of them, the designs are all the same. This means that you can make a complete set of cards, gifts, boxes, notelets all in the same design from the 3 different CD's!

So, getting back to the latest release - Fabulous Fellas. The CD is full of the fantastic artwork from Sandra and includes shapes cards, boxes, quick cards, toppers, digi images, toppers and decoupage and backing papers - the backing papers will blow you away. In addition to the CD are 2 sets of stamps:

Here is a snapshot:

When it came to make samples, it was so hard to choose what to go with first! This is what I came up with:

This is a scheduled blog post and as I sit here typing it out, the lovely Noreen McKie launched these on Create & Craft this morning, and guess what - they flew out the door!

If you missed out on getting them from Create & Craft, check out the Katy Sue Designs website HERE to purchase them.

So what does tomorrows blog have in store? Well I will tell you all about a fantastic craft shop in Coventry called Daisy's Jewels & Crafts and the launch of Clarity Stamps & Stencils

Happy Crafting

Paul x

Busy, busy, busy!

Well I have no idea where the last week went, well I do actually, work, craft, prep, work, craft, prep!

So during the week, I had TV samples to make for the monthly Clarity TV show on Create & Craft, samples from the Fabulous Fellas CD Rom and Stamps for Katy Sue Designs for Noreen's TV shows, samples and workshop cards for the launch of Clarity at Daisy's Jewels Crafts in Coventry, and prep for my own TV show on Create & Craft on the Sunday - so a quiet week really!

First priority was Clarity - it is always exciting when I get home from work to find a Clarity Box waiting for me with the next batch of stamps and stencils.

As some of you know, whenever I get my box of products, I take a black ink pad, a stash of A4 copy paper and just stamp them out randomly to see what happens, here are some pics of bits of playing and then how they turn out.

I like to try and do something different with them and I love, love, love, love pattern building!

Well that is all for tonight - come back tomorrow to see some samples I made from the Fabulous Fellas CD Rom and Stamps from Katy Sue Designs

Happy Crafting

Paul x

Lots of Crafty Madness!!!!!!!!!! - Part 3!

So after a busy weekend in Rushden and then Birmingham, it was back to the day job on Monday!

The following weekend I was back at my local craft shop in Tunbridge Wells, Pantiles Crafts, Books & Games launching some of the fabulous Clarity Stencils.

For those that have been following my blog, you will have read that the last time I was at my local craft shop, the lovely Barbara Gray popped in (here is the LINK if you missed it) and during her visit, the lovely crafty ladies made some suggestions on stencil designs. Well Barbara being Barbara, took it all on board and within a matter of days there were lots of designs appearing on the Clarity website, so it was great that I could go back the following month with a bundle of new stencils and show the ladies during the course of my demo how to use them and what to do with them:

I think at the moment, the Filigraphy Butterfly is one of my favourites!

So after a morning of playing, it was down to the basement for a workshop!

As you can see from the pictures, all the ladies had lots of messy fun, although I have no idea how Lizzie managed to get so inky!

So after a fun filled day, it was time for home (all of 10 minutes up the road!) after unpacking the car, walking the dog, having something to eat, it was time to chill. Oh, but I need to clean all the stencils and let them dry

I couldn't sit and just watch TV, so I decided to do some knitting. If you look back at the post on my blog about my last visit to my local craft shop (link as at the start of this post) you will have seen me wearing a rather fetching scarf I had knitted, but as a hat! Anyway, it was my cousins birthday and I had just picked up some new patterns of Desire fabric from my local craft shop so I set about knitting her a fancy scarf

It starts off as this

and after a few hours of knitting, ends up like this

Thanks again for stopping by, check back again tomorrow for part 4!

Happy Crafting

Paul x

Lots of Crafty Madness!!!!!!!!!! - Part 2!

So yesterday I told you about my trip to Coleman's. 

After having lots of fun on the workshop, I stayed over in Rushden and then Sunday morning headed over to the NEC for the UK's biggest Craft Trade Show, Craft Hobby + Stitches International. This is the place where all the trade companies showcase new and upcoming products together with all there existing products The show is not open to the general public, it is where all the shops go to network, check out the latest trends and place orders.

Over the Christmas period I decided to make some lifestyle changes, one of which was not to do any of the retail shows. It was a really hard decision for me to make as I love doing them, working with the team at Pinflair and meeting all the lovely crafters, catching up with friends new and old. 

It is the first time in about 8 years where I have not actually worked the show, so it was very strange for me to walk around and actually look at products in more detailed not have to rush back to the stand.

It was great catching up with various exhibitors, Clarity, Pinflair, Katy Sue Designs, Tattered Lace, Tonic, Creative Expressions to name but a few. There are some lovely products on the horizon from all of the above, some of which are already available. Clarity have some amazing new stencils in A5, 7x7, storage folders, stencil brushes, I really don't know how Barbara and the team at Clarity come up with so many different ideas and designs, each new batch just blows me away - check out the Clarity website HERE. Pinflair have some amazing new mediums that will work on so many different surfaces - check out the Pinflair website HERE. The team at Katy Sue Designs keeps going from strength to strength with the various product launches, from the silicone moulds perfect for cake makers and papercrafters as well as the papercraft CD's and coordinating stamps, with the recent launch of the "Fabulous" range for us men called Fabulous Fellas (how cool is the title!) we all know how hard it is to make cards for us men! Well Katy Sue Designs have solved that. There is a CD rom and 2 different sets of stamps - check them out HERE

Well this is a short and sweet blog, but check back tomorrow to see what I got upto when I introduced Clarity Stencils to the ladies at my local craft shop, Pantiles Craft, Games and Bookshop in Tunbridge Wells, but before I go, I will leave you with some samples I made for the Clarity Stencil stand at stitches and some other samples using Clarity Stencils & Stamps

Happy Crafting! 

Paul x

Lots of Crafty Madness!!!!!!

Well the past few weeks have sure lived up to the title of the blog!

Rather than bore you all in one, go, I will do various blog posts over the next few days!

Saturday 15 February
I left home at 6am to head up to one of my favourite craft placecs, Coleman's Craft Warehouse in Rushden, Northampton. If you live locally and have never visited then all I can say is "Why not!!!!!!" The massive warehouse is jam packed of crafting goodies, the staff are so friendly and helpful, the only warning/suggestion I would make is that you should leave your credit card at home as it will go into meltdown!!!!!!

Anyway, back to my trip. My journey to Coleman's normally takes me between 2 and 2.5 hours, so leaving at 6am gave me plenty of time to stop of at McDonalds just down the road from the warehouse and still arrive before 9am. However, what I didn't take into account was the weather! The night before was very windy and very wet, but by the morning the rain had stopped but the wind continued and as a result, the QE2 Bridge (aka the Dartford Crossing) was closed, which at that time of the morning was not really an issue, although it was busier than normal. My journey continued, around the M25, onto the M11 and then onto the A14 only to find part of it was closed due to road works - great joy! Now my all singing  and all dancing Mr Tomtom had warned me that the A14 was closed, but that was when I was back on the M25, but I thought to myself that by the time I reached that part of my journey, it would be open - wrongggggggggggggg! To cut a long and boring story short, I arrived at Coleman's just after 9 with no McDonalds :-(

So what was the purpose of my visit to Coleman's? Well I was doing 2 workshops using some products from Pinflair - Background Artist design sheets, Gentle Blends, Buff It and Glitter Paste with a little bit of stamping and a little bit of die cutting thrown in for good measure!

Here are some pics from the day:

Well I think that is enough for one post, check back soon to see the next installment

Paul x