Lovely Day at the Ally Pally Craft Show

Yesterday, I was up early to catch a National Express coach to London.  It's only a 2.5 hr journey to central London from where I live so not too bad.  I was on my way to the Alexandra Palace for the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show.

I had arranged to meet Caroline at Earl's Court station and we were both on time which was amazing as we were coming from completely different places!!!  We then took the tube to Wood Green where we got a courtesy bus to the show.  All nice and straighforward - a bit different from last year when I was trying to find where the bus went from as no instructions given with the ticket!!  I ended up running after a moving bus to see where it was stopping to pick up people for the show!!

This year I only took a backpack with me as I knew I wouldn't be buying enough for a trolley bag and Caroline brought the same as well.  Lucky that we did as when we arrived there was a sign at the door saying 'No Trolleys'!!!  People that took a trolley had to queue for ages to put it in the cloakroom and they were not happy bunnies!  I don't blame them though as this should have been said either on the tickets or on the website.

There were alot of people at the show but not as many as last year.  Still lots of rude women who push and shove like they are after the last loaf of bread on the supermarket shelf.  I can never understand why people do this at a show.  There's plenty of stock on the stalls, it's not rationed!!! 

I found the prices were expensive this year and I can buy most of the things cheaper on the net so I didn't buy much.  It's nice to look though to see what's available and see it being demonstrated.  This was Caroline's first craft show and I think she enjoyed herself there.

We met up with Heidi from The Crafty Goat Girl who was demonstrating on the Little Claire's stand.  She was joined by the owners Gill and Steve.  They have some fabulous stamps.  I bought a set last week at the Bristol craft show and they stamp beautifully.  Pop over to their to their website to see the lovely range of stamps that they have.

Caroline and I were at the show until they closed at 5pm.  We then travelled back to Victoria to connect with our coach/train for the journey home.

I had a lovely day out and it was great to meet Caroline as we have been in contact by email for quite some time.  Hopefully, we will meet up again!

Here's what I bought

Some MDF hearts and some excellent quality thick card which works beautifully with Promarkers (tested it today!!!)

 A vintage stamp (same brand as I bought last week at the Bristol craft show), Papermania Paper Creaser set, 2 ink pads, 2 Japanese stamps

 5 sheets of pop out Decoupage

So as you can see I didn't buy much. Nesties and other cutting dies were very expensive and so were promarkers. 

Did anyone else go to the Ally Pally yesterday???  If so what did you think of it and what did you buy!!!!