Cake International - London Excel

Hi Everyone

My post today is about my trip on Saturday to Cake International at the Excel in London.  I went with my sister who is the cakemaker, you can see some of her cakes on her Facebook page - The Sugar Plum Fairy.  We caught the coach up in the morning from Bristol and then took the underground and the Docklands Light Railway to get to the Excel.  Pretty straightforward and easy to get to!

The show was packed and there was a real variety of ages, both male and female.  I was quite surprised at the amount of men there and not all of them were there to just carry their partner's shopping either!!

Some stalls were 3 or 4 people deep and you either had to nudge your way in or come back to that one later!!

There was a good selection of cake making/decorating items available with some nice offers.  We caught a glimpse of Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood and did try later to go and watch their live demo but it was packed and unfortunately the sound quality on the mike was awful and the camera pointed onto them rather than on what they were doing so the TV screens were abit pointless!!  We watched the start of the demo then decided we were wasting our time!!

There were some fantastic cakes and sugar crafting on display there and the cakes that were entered into the competion were excellent.  I've taken lots of photos of the cakes in case you are interested to see them!  If you aren't, then don't scroll down any further haha!!!I tooko the photos with my phone so they are not the best quality but not too bad considering!!

Do you recognise who the one below is???

Well that's the last photo - there were many more cakes but these were the ones that caught my eye!!

Custom Made Stamps

I've not blogged for a few weeks so I thought I would pop on today to tell you about a great place to get some custom made stamps made.

When I was at the NEC the other week, I came across a stand for Aly's Inky Fingers and had a chat with the fella on the stall whose name is Mark, regarding some stamps that I was looking for.  They didn't have any that matched what I wanted but he told me that if I emailed them the artwork they could create a clear cling stamp for me.  This sounded like a fantastic idea, I'd seen people offering personalised stamps before but not come across a company that would make pictures/shapes as well.  The prices quoted were very reasonable as well!

Anyway, once I got home I set about sorting out the stamps that I wanted and then put some images into Word and sent them to Mark with the approx size of stamps that I required.

I have today received the stamps from Mark and I am very pleased with them.  They are just what I wanted at a decent price and are made from good quality polymer so should last a long time.

So, if you are looking for any personalised stamps or stamps of a particular subject that you can provide the artwork for then go along to Aly's Inky Fingers and either use the contact form to get in touch with Mark with your requirements or email him at alysinkyfingers@gmail.com

I will be ordering some more stamps very soon!!!!

Lovely Stamps By Ryn

I recently found out about a lovely stamp designer in Canada called Ryn.  She designs the most beautiful rubber stamps, they are really deeply etched and superb quality.  They come already mounted, ready to stick to an acrylic block.  I ordered a couple of stamps to see for myself as I'd heard such good reports about them and I was not disappointed!!!

I ordered the popular 'Water Droplets' - which looks like this

 

This stamp is sold out at the moment but it is fabulous for backgrounds and for putting droplets on leaves etc.  You can put 3D gloss onto each droplet and they look very realistic. Here's a tag that I made using this stamp along with Distress Inks, 3D gloss and Treasure Gold wax. The sentiment is by Inkylicious who also do fab stamps!!!

The other stamp that I bought was a lace one that I have only tested on paper but not actually used in a project.  It's really pretty, this is what it looks like

 

I thought this would look nice on a Vintage project.

You can see and purchase the above stamps and the rest of the range here and they take approx one week to arrive, give or take a few days.

**Photos used are from Ryn's website and are used to illustrate the stamps only**

NEC Hobbycraft Show and a Tag!!

Well what silly weather we are having for this time of year!!  Yesterday, despite it snowing in the north of England, I caught the coach to Birmingham for the Hobbycrafts Show at the NEC.  After a few blizzard like storms along the way, I arrived in Birmingham on time.   It was snowing and had settled on the floor.  I had to catch a local bus to take me to the NEC and this was very late arriving and then took 25 minutes to get to the NEC - nearly as long as my journey from Bristol to Birmingham!!!  I arrived around midday at the NEC and got straight on with my shopping.  I'd arranged to meet a fellow crafter from one of the Facebook groups I am in so spent the day walking around with her and her little boy.

There were some lovely items available there and I managed to get most of what I had on my list as well as a few extra things!  My favourite new things have to be the Treasure Gold and Copper waxes that I bought they are are fab for rubbing onto virtually anything to give a metallic sheen.  They even work on metal!!  I also got some lovely new stamps from Inkylicious, I love their stamps so much!!!

Here's my little shopping bag full from the NEC

I made this tag today to try the Treasure waxes out and was very pleased with the result and how nicely they finish off an item.  The light wsn't great today and the colours are actually more vivid than they look in the pic.  I think you can just about see the gold and copper metallic bits on the textured parts!

Did anyone else go to the NEC for the Hobbycraft Show this time around??  If you did, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and got to buy and see some lovely things!

Handcrafted Items....

Good morning, just a quick one from me.  I saw this over on Facebook and thought is was something worth thinking about.  Alot of people don't seem to want to pay alot for handcrafted items or think that maybe they should be cheaper than a mass produced item, so this poster hits the nail on the head really!  Most crafters don't get paid anything like the minimum hourly rate and can take hours handmaking an item and I think sometimes people forget this!

Anyway - feel free to copy it and pass it on.

Spring is in the air!

Time certainly flies, can't believe it has been a couple of weeks since I last bogged!!  It seems Spring is starting to make an appearance and I for one cannot wait for some improved weather and some colour in the garden!!

I've been busy making some things for Mother's Day that people have ordered.

The first was a hedgehog bag charm for a nannie for Mother's Day, in the UK Mother's Day is this coming Sunday.  I've always thought it strange though that it's not mother's Day on the same day around the world!

Anyway - here is the hedgehog bag charm

I've also been making more felt hearts which seem to be popular for Mother's Day as well!!

They look nice all ready in my box to pack up and deliver!!

I have also been playing at making some leather flowers.  I got some scraps of coloured leather the other day and cut out some flowers using a Sizzix Framelits.  I have not stuck any of it together yet but this is how it looks so far!

I'm pretty happy with how this is looking so hopefully once I stick it together and add something in the centre of it and a brooch pin on the back, I will still like it!!

Thanks for stopping by!!  Have a great weekend xx