Halloween Party 2010



I had a fantastic time last night at our halloween party. We decided to invite fans and friends round to our house for alittle celebration. Our normal routine for halloween is turn all the lights off and watch films upstairs ignoring the knocks on the door from kids wanting to stuff their faces with sweets. This year I wanted something different. Was it because I was in a party mood, wanted to be the   hostess, wanted to socialise with friends and get merry? No, it was because id bought a crapload of halloween and autumn craft stuff and needed to use it up so i could buy more craft stuff. And I wanted a rocking party.  



The Pumpkin



The Guests





My Stampin Up Stash

My order for Stampin Up finally arrived!! Apparently they have backlogs at the moment and also a misspelling of my postcode did not help but it got here in the end. It was well packaged and had an order form with everyones individual names on which made it easier for me to sort out as I was that busy trying to work out what I should buy on the night that I didnt have a clue what goodies the other girls had got. I bagged everyones up straight away and set off with my delivery service as I knew everyone was eager to start playing with them. I felt alittle bit like santa at christmas. I was amazed by how many stamps I had bought as id not realised. Its all product numbers to me and id forgotten what id ordered.

One thing that I was disappointed with one is that the wooden stamps are self assembly. I dont like wooden stamps anyway and use clear stamps normally but the particular sets I liked didnt have the option and only came in wooden. To find that before I could use them I had to spend time and sit down and stick the images to the front and the actual stamp to the back I wasnt pleased with. Im very limited in time so by the time I had put them together and found storage for them in my room I didnt have anytime to play with them. I think that for the price that you pay for them they should be ready to use. Also it has meant that the image on the front that you look at is not inline with the actual stamp behind so is even harder to use than a normal wooden stamp. Also I dont think i attached the stamps straight so I will have 'fun' using them as it will be hard to get them square. I contacted the demonstator and she responded to say that it is so you can trim the image closer if you wish before putting it on the block or so you can mount it on cling mount if you prefer clear stamping. Unfortuately I dont have time to cut aroud each stamp so they have been stuck on as they are and there was no mention of how you would us the stamps with acrylic blocks so they are now firmly attatched to wooden blocks. I will have to see how I go but worry that it will not make the best out of my stamping. Will update you on it later on.

Dog scrapbooking from a catlover

I am very pleased that this week I have been able to scrapbook the pictures of my two dogs that I had when I was younger. Although I am a catlover and dogs seem to hate me, me and my mum gave dog owning a try twice when I was younger. Unfortunatley both weres unsuccessful and we had to give them away to new homes but I enjoyed them while we had them.


Judy was a house destroyer and very quickly turned from the cute floppy eared pup to a pointy eared fox who loved nothing more than chewing on wires and tearing down walls. Assuming bordom was her reason for been destructive, and not that she was evil, we felt she needed someone who was in more to entertain her and gave her a new home.

Our second dog Blue was lovely but we soon found that this border collie cross must of been cross with a great dane or a giant. My most recent post on my scrapbooking gallery shows me and him together. (www.docrafts.com search lexon5)  Amazingly he is only a pup on these pictures. The was very tall and had very long legs with massive paws on the end. Although much loved he was very difficult to walk due to his size and my lack of strength and we felt that we werent able to give him enough excercise for his size. Begrudgingly we had to give him back so I have scrapbooked my photos of him as a lasting memory.
 
I am still ongoing with my cat scrapbooking and hope to get some more pages done in the next few weeks. Keep checking in to see how i go. Check my docrafts gallery for what I have already posted on there too.

Docrafts Focus Group

Weary and jetlagged I arrived at the secret location (well, no one told my satnav where it was) just hours after getting off the plane. I was greeted by Nicci, Becky and Kerry-Jane from the Docrafts team and asked to take a seat. I was joined by I think 10 other local crafters and we started to look at different possible product ranges that Docrafts were considering using in the near future.

They had mock ups so the images were flat but the girls explained to us were shimmer, shine and other elements would be. There was a new fairy range that had mixed reviews. They weren't your typical cutesy ones which is good if you want to broaden your appeal as often when I've done my fairy cards they are only really any good for children. These fairies looked to be in their late teens themselves and had a variety of poses. The colours were nice - blue and purple - but they were darker than you would maybe expect for that theme.

Posh Pets was the next theme which I loved. It was a mixture of regal dogs and cats - proud poodles and posh Persians. They realised that often you are a cat OR dog lover and so had a good mixture and considered selling the stamps individually as for such as myself I would only want the cat stamps to scrapbook with. It was however argued that you craft for other people so you could do a dog lover a birthday card extra. I was very impressed with the quality of the image but found the backing papers colours to be quite pale. Paler than I'd expect for such a regal array of animals.

Again working on the animal theme they had a safari range which was lovely. Although I have a lot of similar products this one stood out. I liked that it wasn't specifically aimed at young children but it wasn't that grown up that it was no longer cute. They had hit that happy medium where you could use it for any age range or gender. I especially liked the backing papers. Many of mine are that busy with pattern that you don't want to put anything over it or that plain that it doesn't colour coordinate enough with it. Again I thought they'd hit the mark with this.

Although that was the fun part the main part was them trying to find out if they, and particularly the Creativity magazine was doing the best it could for its readers. We discussed price, packaging, content, regularity, features, availability. Does it need to be exclusive to craft stores or should you be able to nip to the supermarket and get it with your local shop? Is there too much 'other craft' and should it stick to just paper crafting? Should they provide 'sister' publications? Are free papers something that the market wants?

We also touched a little on the website. It became clear that this is a hot topic especially with the launch of the Creativity Club and the restyling of the website. Unfortunately time did not account for this and they stated that they would do future focus groups based on the website. I think that this is definitely needed and think that it would be nice if they could ask the same people back to discuss this issue so that they can get a full overview of what readers want.

I had a fantastic night, learnt a lot and made some new friends. I would love to be involved in something like that again as you do feel closer to the product and a lot of the Docrafts aim is to get a loyal network. If anyone is ever asked to be a part of this process I would definitely take up the opportunity to have your say.

Holiday Troubles

I wont deny that I had a fantastic holiday and loved spending time with my family but there were afew hitches along the way.

Firstly there was a mix up with the travel agents. They didnt book the hotel I asked for so we were an hour and half outside of downtown Toronto which meant that we got only 4.5 hours in the city. We literally had time to go up the CN Tower and grab some lunch then back on the shuttle to the airport. I would of liked time to look at the shops, buy some souveniours etc but no such luck. At least we got the main attraction done and the views were great. We could even see the Blue Jays playing in the stadium below us.

We then spent a fantastic week getting to know my family that I had gone to stay with. I had only met them once briefly many years ago so this was time for us to get to know what we like, where we work and how things worked over there in Canada. We went to a hockey game, the races, shopping, Point Pelee national park and Fort Malden. The weather was similar to home most days but I was warmer on others.

The second part of our adventure was heading over to Florida. This is were my case got destroyed by the baggage people. We were charged $25 at Detroit to transfer our bags to a final destination at Orlando however they some how broken the wheel and the lock on the way. I dont understand how they broke the third clasp of a four as the lock goes securly through it. Luckily Steve could jimmy away of getting it home safely but i've put a claim in. Not sure if and when i'll get a response back for that and what the response might be.

I had spent months trying to get the right contact lenses for the trip - specifically for this trip. I have astigmatism in both eyes so it was tricky. I thought we'd sorted it out before we went but when I went to put them in I found I had two prescriptions for my right eye. No use for my left eye. I therefore struggled round the theme parks with one eye and i'd purposely bouht them so i didnt have to worry about my glasses flying off half way round a ride so that was a strange and disorientating exprience too.

Like I said all in all it was a good trip with nothing that we couldnt work around but as we all know there is never such a thing as a holiday running smoothly.

Stampin Up Demo

Well we had a great time last night with Stampin Up demonstrator Monica Gale.

She brought Dasher, the beautiful reindeer that i had falled in love with when i saw a card made with it at the Great Northern Papercraft Extravaganza at Harrogate. She showed us how to us it to make a beautiful christmas card using the masking technic. Then we were shown how to use heat and stick and finally we had a make and take. This is a picture of our creations.

Everyone who came were at different levels of crafting but there was something for everyone and the newbie was the one getting into the make and take more than anyone else - go Stacey. I love how the night was taylored to the colours and designs that i had told Monica that i liked. It made it more personal and we showed our appreciation by placing a nice big order. Thanks eveyone for a great night.

Postsecret Of The Week

I think that this is a fantastic idea and I secretly hope that it is my bestfriend who sent this in.

I think I will add this to my 'to do' list of great crafting ideas that I have seen. Idea number 8,246 i think.

Back Home and Jetlagged

Just come back from the most amazing holiday. Spend a wonderful week with my family in Canada where we spent time getting to know each other as I had only ever met them once before. They took us to a hockey game, the races, shopping - love the dollar stores and to beautiful places of interest like Amherstburg and Point Pelee. Check out my flickr account for the best of my Canada photos.

The second week we flew to Florida to the theme parks and NO we did not do Disney. We went to Seaworld, Busch Gardens, Universal Studies and Universal Islands of adventure. We also visited the Kennedy Space Centre. It was fantastic and the weather was wonderful although I was worried before we went as it is hurricane season. Will let you know when I get those pictures on Flickr but I've used most of my space allowance on there for this month just with a weeks worth of Canada so it might be next month before they're all up.


The jetlag is horrendous and I've been incapacitated for the last 6 days. Today is the first day that i feel relatively alive but it has slowed me down that much i havent got all the jobs i wanted to get done done. I only have this week left then I'm back to work and I certainly don't have a months worth of stuff done while I've been off. Partly due to jetlag but also the first few days of the holiday was packing and seeing family.


Well best dash I am hosting my first Stampin Up demonstration party today and Monica Gale, who's doing the demo, will be here any minute. Will let you know how it goes.