Alexandra Palace - behind the table!

Hello and welcome to Magpieheaven. Sunday April 12th was not the first time I had been to Alexandra Palace - known affectionately as Ally Pally. I think I've been about three or four times now to meet up with friends who love to craft and to take a look at all the latest stamps, paints and crafty goodies available for us to play with. Usually the first port of  call for most of us is the PaperArtsy stand! It has been a love of the quirky stamps and fabulous paints that brought us together. This time, though, Leandra and Mark, founders of PaperArtsy were off to Version Scrap in Paris: Leandra wouldn't be able to make the show herself, so she asked some of us who contribute to the PA blog to have a 'go' at demo-ing the products - we were to be behind that PA desk rather than gazing admiringly on! Nina Greco of Crafting Time in Shepreth allowed us to use her stand to demonstrate the magic of Fresco Paints and PaperArtsy stamps and the wonderful Darcy Wilkinson and Emma Godfrey ran fun 'Make and Takes' using the stamps and paints too.

On Saturday, Alison Hall, Jo Myhill and Gabrielle were in the spotlight! Then the following day it was the turn of Deborah Wainwright, Alison Bomber and myself! It was just magical to hear the 'Oohs' and 'Ahhs' as visitors to the show admired the beautiful colour palette on offer: you can see the lovely selection just in front of me in the tray here! It was a real privilege to work beside an accomplished crafter like Alison Bomber who was so relaxed and who experimented Crackle, Grunge Paste and stained glass effects with such panache and enthusiasm it was as if the visitors had just popped into her craft room to see her at work. As you can imagine, I didn't have much time to take photos - it might be interesting to have some taken from behind the desk, actually! But Petra Berendson took this photo of me in action!

Some friends and visitors took photos of the tags I was creating during the show and I was able to hand out one or two and to give a couple to Nina to display in her shop. The rest I took home to add finishing touches to. The tags are made using Lin Brown's Eclectica stencils and Lin Brown birds and Lynne Perrella ladies. There's also some sequin waste used there.

It's so much fun mixing faces and bodies from the different stamp sets and seeing what you come up with! You can even create your own little hats by cutting up a stamped image like this!

I had some faces and bodies left over so I tried an experiment when I was home: could I introduce a bird on the wing? Her heart is made from cutting a heart shape out of the tail of another bird! The possibilities with these stamps are endless! Could this bird-lady and her tiny companion be having a singing competition?

There was even one of those 'happy accidents' - the stencil ripped some of the tag when I removed it, creating a distressed look, which Nina thought was intentional! Thank You so much to all those friends who stopped by to take a look and to support me on my first try at demo-ing: Lucy Edmondson, Petra Berendson, Lin Shields and  Kirsten Sheridan. Thank You so much for making this such a happy day!