Shop's 10th Birthday Demo Day

Hi bloggers, today we want to review our Shop's 10th Birthday Demo Day celebrations and what a fantastic day it was. With the sun shining and back to back blue skies it was the perfect day to be crafting outside!

So let's start by sharing with you what the demonstrators were inspiring our customers with....

Heidi was demonstrating the WRMK Alphabet Punch Board, inspiring everyone with some fantastic ideas to take you beyond just making banners. Heidi made some wonderful cards, albums and signs to show you just how versatile this tool can be. Take a look at a few of her samples below....

Next up is Stamping Caz who was demonstrating the MISTI alongside some Stampendous stamps to show you a range of techniques and tips for using the Most Incredible Stamp Tool Invented. Take a look at some of Caz's wonderful samples below...

Jo Wojcik also joined us on Saturday and was demonstrating the Crealies Create-A-Box dies and brought with her some fabulous samples of how you can think outside the box!! Take a look below...

Charry Wijers was demonstrating the Memory Box Stitched dies using felt, making some wonderful flowers and also Christmas characters....

We were delighted to have Pete Hughes from Sizzix join us on Saturday who was not only demonstrating some of the dies from his new collection but also providing us with inspiration using some of the other designers dies including the Tim Holtz Village Dwelling. Check out his wonderful samples below...

We were lucky enough to be joined by Sue Dix, designer of the Sweet Dixie dies and stamps and she had some great samples to share with us on how we can make the most of these dies.

For those of you who love foiling, Karen was demonstrating the Heidi Swapp Minc machine, showing you some fabulous techniques with the Minc Reactive mediums plus showing you a method for foiling a stamped design using fine embossing powder. Take a look at some of her beautiful samples below.....

Finally we had Suzie Candlin demonstrating the Cricut Explore Air machine with some of the latest Cricut cartridges. Suzie also had a Make & Take table where customers could make a cupcake wrapper and Suzie also included a free cupcake as well!

Alongside all the demonstrations we had a host of other entertainment including a Hook-a-Duck, where you could win yourself some crafting goodies by hooking the correct numbered ducks. You could try your luck at our Tombola to win some more crafting goodies! We also had a Raffle and a Candy Floss station for those with a sweet tooth. For other refreshments we had our usual Crafts U Love Cafe, the perfect spot to sit with a drink and a cake to make your shopping list!

Our card competition was announced at 1pm and once again we had some wonderful card entries. It was a tough job but we had to whittle it down to a Top 10 before our demonstrators picked the 3 winners.

Our Top 10 Shortlist consisted of:

Dee Sewell, Margaret Shelley, Mrs D Huggins, Nicky Haslam, Carol Warton, Bev Read, Zuzi, Lisa Plummer, Sheila Byrne and Maggie Mapes.

3rd Place: Margaret Shelley (Card No. 5) Winner of a £10 Crafts U Love Voucher

2nd Place: Carol Warton (Card No. 7) Winner of a £20 Crafts U Love Voucher

1st Place: Sheila Byrne (Card No. 8) Winner of a £50 Crafts U Love Voucher

Congratulations to all the winners and a big thank you to everyone that entered!

The Raffle, Tombola and Hook-A-Duck were all in aid of St. Catherine's Hospice and with your generosity we managed to raise £327.80, so a big thank you to all of you!

The winners of our Raffle prizes were:

Cricut Explore Air Bundle: Ruth

Sizzix Bundle: Jenny

Sizzix Storage (x2): Teresa

12 x 12 Joy! Crafts Spring Paper Bloc: Maisy Fox

Cricut Bag and Martha Stewart Punch: Sarah

Please note all raffle prize winners have been contacted.

We would finally like to say a big thank you to everyone that came on the day to show your support and appreciate all the lovely comments and kind words you had to say about Crafts U Love. We look forward to seeing you all at another Demo Event soon!

Shop's 10th Birthday Demo Event

Hi bloggers, this year we will be celebrating the Shop's 10th birthday and we are hoping to make it bigger and better than previous years with some great demonstrators, competitions, raffle prizes and you can't forget those all important goodie bags. So make sure you put Saturday 6th August in your diaries now.

Shop's 9th Birthday Demo Event

Hi bloggers, today we want to share with you the fun that was had at Saturday's Shop Birthday Demo Event. The rain dried up and the sun came out shining to make it a glorious day. Thank you to all of you that came out to see us, to watch the demo's and buy those all important crafting goodies. We will break down the day by first looking at all the different demonstrators, sharing a few of their samples and any hints and tips we picked up from the day!

So let's get started.....

Christine Emberson - Global Ambassador for Spellbinders

Christine had lots of great tips and techniques to share with us using a variety of Spellbinders die sets. Christine also brought with her lots of samples that have been made using many different dies which provided great inspiration on how to use them. Also the many different ways we could use one die to get the most value out of it, including how to use ink with your die whilst die cutting. This effect looked stunning and helped create dimension once it had been embossed!

Christine also shared with me a quick tip for cleaning your embossing pads to get all those tiny frays of paper off. Simply get hold of some low quality parcel tape (e.g. Poundland) and cover your mat with several strips of tape. Put the mat through your die cutting machine and then peel off the tape to reveal a clean embossing pad! Check out the clean line below after the tape had been peeled away!

Kim Dellow - Crafter/Designer/Blogger

Kim brought with her lots of inspiration for using the Tim Holtz new distress colours which were a fab arrangement for this time of year with lots of bright colours. I watched Kim demonstrate as she created the butterfly card (bottom left) using a circle stencil to keep the colours contained, Kim merged the different colours together and then dripped some water droplets on top to make the distress ink react with the water. Kim also had some fun ideas creating cards with the Project Life card kits, making card making simple and fun for everyone!

Paula Pascual - Freelance Designer

Paula's table was full of bright colours and flowers, providing lots of inspiration for using the new Craft Asylum die sets from Sizzix. Paula had many different varieties of projects from cards to scrapbook layouts to 3D flowers and more! Check out the beautiful 3D flower (bottom right) Paula made using a combination of the Sizzix Bigz floral dies. Once again Paula provided some great tips on creating simple and effective cards that can save you time and money!

Nick from Chameleon Pens

We were lucky enough to have Nick, a representative from Chameleon pens to join us on Saturday to show us how to use these pens. Simply by placing the nib of the pen in the blending chamber you can create a multitude of colours from one pen. The longer you place the nib in the chamber the lighter the colour and then as you begin to use the pen you will see how the colour changes creating great blending techniques and shading. These pens really show you how you can do more with less!

Stamping Caz

Caz went back to her stamping roots on Saturday demonstrating the new stamp and die sets from Hero Arts alongside the Hero Arts Ombre ink pads. Caz created some stunning effects, specifically one called 'Bokeh' to place lighter shades on her backgrounds in a circular shape which can add some artistic flair to your creations! As you may notice in the top left picture Caz also had a quick chance to play with the Tim Holtz Bird Crazy stamp set which we will be getting back in stock the week commencing 10th August.

Sue M

Sue provided us with some great inspiration for using the Lindy's Stamp Gang embossing powders, turning a plain die cut into a wonderful card embellishment. As usual Sue kept to her vintage theme, using vintage images to decorate her cards as well as the new Prima Garden Fable 6x4 paper pad. Sue also showed us that you are not just limited to embossing on paper and card, why not apply the embossing powders to glass? Which is exactly what Sue did with an old jam jar (bottom right).

Alex Kamann

Christmas has come early at Alex's demo as Alex showed us different ways to use the new Memory Box and Poppystamp release. Alex demoed how to create a shaker card using the new Circle frame dies from Memory Box and I have to say I'm convinced that I'll be incorporating this design of card in my Christmas card making this year! Alex also showed us how to use the dies to simply just emboss the design onto a card rather than die cutting the shape, again providing more value out of your die.

Charry Wijers

If you're looking to create some different shaped cards then Charry's table was definitely the place to be as Charry demonstrated the new Create-A-Card die sets from Crealies. If you've purchased a Crealies die or seen the image of them on our website you'll know what I mean when I say the shape of the die looks too simple to create such an intricate design of card but when you see them in action you can see all the engineering behind it. Charry also shared her tips for looking at the online instructions on Crealies website which provide templates and also the size of the cardstock you need before die cutting your card.

Jo Wojcik

Jo demonstrated the new Tonic Studios Indulgence Shutter die sets and was again a great demo for anyone looking to create something a bit different in their card making. As Jo demoed how to create these cards you could see how much value you were getting included in the die set. These die sets provide you with the die to create the shape of your card and then all the extra dies that cut the papers to fit it, speeding up your card making time.

Karen Maccoy

If you love using flowers in your cards and projects you would have loved Karen's demo using the Susan Tierney Susan's Garden collection from Elizabeth Craft Design. Karen made some beautiful card samples, adding incredible detail to her flowers and all of them started off as plain white cardstock. The magic of the Tim Holtz distress colours transformed them into stunning poppies, hydrangeas and holyhocks.

So as you can see there was lots for everyone to be inspired by. But we can't forget the other events of the day including the Charity Auction, Raffle and Lucky Dip which were all in aid of St. Catherine's Hospice and raised an amazing £406 so thank you very much everyone that bid, bought raffle tickets and took part in the lucky dip.

We also revealed the winners of our Birthday Card Competition and we think it was definitely a difficult job for our demonstrators to choose the top 3 cards but here they are:

1st Place: Lisa Plummer

Winner of a £50 Crafts U Love Gift Voucher

2nd Place: 

Winner of a £20 Crafts U Love Gift Voucher

3rd Place: Sam Alpine

Winner of a £10 Crafts U Love Gift Voucher

Congratulations to our winners who will be receiving their gift vouchers in the post soon!

Also thank you to everyone who sent in your wonderful birthday cards, we appreciate the time and effort you put into making these cards and we are truly touched by all the entrants we received.

All in all the Shop Birthday Demo Event was a fantastic day and once again we want to thank everyone who came and those that have been supporting us for these past 9 years at the shop and also from the very beginning!

THANK YOU!