Tuesday 31 March 2009

Harrogate Show Harrys Birthday and New Nesties are arriving this week

Hi all and what a week it has been for us here at Once Upon A Stamp.
The Papercraft Extravaganza over the weekend at Harrogate showground was just amazing and poor Gordon couldnt even get onto his wizard and demonstrate at times for the amount of people on our stand buying up our products it was wonderful.

The picture below gives you some idea of just how busy we were and we would just like to thank all our customers old and new for their support and custom you are all brilliant.


I was busy at the shop too but had to close at 2.30 on Saturday afternoon to rush more stock up to Gordon in Harrogate and the show was still buzzing when i arrived and it was lovely when people said how much they missed me not being there, thanks for that it made my day.

Can i say a big thank you to Pauline and Clare who helped Gordon at the show, we are both so lucky to have you both working with us and love ya loads.

Monday was a very fun day for us as it was little Harrys first birthday and did he get a big fuss made of him all day. Heres a Pic of Harry and i after a fabby day of walks,chewies presents and lots of kisses. I dont know who was the most worn out.


Now onto the interesting stuff and im glad to be able to tell everyone who has pre-ordered their new nestabilitie dies that they will arrive either tomorrow or Thursday so watch this space.

Thanks everyone for being so patient and just think this time next week you will have been playing and creating with them and looking forward to what will be coming next.

As you know all of your orders for these cuties will be sent out to you on the day they arrive so get ready for a fun time and enjoy them.

Its Gordons birthday on Thursday so i had better go and get a card made up for him while i have some time to do it.

Smiles.

Robert

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Look What Arived Today

This is a pic to whet the appetites of our shop and papercraft show customers.

They are the new paper pads embellishments and scrapbooks from K and Co and they are Beautifully rich and the papers are double sided.

We dont put things like this on our website shop as we dont like posting paper items out because theres always a chance of damage.


Jean, Di and myself will be playing with these all day in the shop tomorrow so i will put some samples up and show you what we came up with.

The items range from around £2.99 up to £16.99 and when you see them in real life i am sure you will fall in love with EVERYTHING just like us.

Saturday 21 March 2009

Fantastic Freindly Plastic Class Day

What a great day we all had at the two workshops i held at our shop today.
Everyone was a little apprehensive at what they would acheive but in two and a half hours they had all learnt the basic skills of using friendly plastic.

Once they had learnt how to time and test their peices and the correct pressure to comb and roll there was no stopping them.

We used cookie cutters,rubber stamps a cropodile and Crystal clear deep image embossing crystals to create some stunning peices and we all had fun while doing it too.

Here are a couple of photo's of the fun we had in this class.

Here we are all absorbed in our friendly plastic crafting.



Me showing the girls another technique.

Once they got the hang of it there was no stopping them

And sometimes the excitement was just too much


And of course there was also time for tea coffee and biscuits yummy.

Below are some of the peices the girls made today.


It really was a fabulous day and thank you all so much for coming and showing so much enthusiasm.

I know you all really enjoyed it as you have all booked for the part two class at the end of next month,and i promise you another great class and i cant wait to see what you create .

Love and smiles.

Robert







New Nestabilities Latest Update for Pre Order Dies

We are advised by Spellbinders to let you know that these items will now be with us within the next ten days.
I know these dies have taken a lot longer than expected but can we thank all our customers for their patience.
For everyone who have pre ordered these dies this is to let you know that they will be posted out to you on the day they arrive as usual and i will announce it on the blog.
I am so excited and cant wait to get my hands on them myself.
Once again thanks for your patience.
Regards
Robert Gordon and Harry

Friday 20 March 2009

CATCH UP Glasgow, NEC and shop happening.and a card from Fiona

Well hello everyone and so sorry for not blogging for a while but we are so busy at the moment and i am really tired when i get home as its very rare we do get home before 9.00 pm most nights after processing orders and answering questions etc, But we love it.
Here is a photo of what the weather was like at the Hobby and Craft show in Glasgow, but the people didnt let it put them off coming and it was a good four days of crafting heaven.
Anyway Glasgow show was a great success for us and a great big thank you to all our loyal and new customers up there for making it the best show in Glasgow we have had.
Gordon was able to see all his family too while he was up there and said his Mom spoiled him rotten ahhhhhh.
Below is a photo of Gordons Nephew demonstrating the Wizard.He is brilliant with friendly plastic and loves paper crafts. I think i had better watch it or i may lose my job.

Below is a picture of the Waverley paddle steamer.This has a special place in Gordons heart as he used to travel on it up and down the coast with his family when he was a wee young laddy.He always has a new tale to tell me whenever we pass by it.

While Gordon was in Scotland, Harry and i were at the shop looking after our customers and processing internet orders. A big thank you to Di and Jean for coming in and helping me you are stars. Heres a pic of us that one of the customers took. I feel like a rose between two thorns haha.

Gordon had to spend an extra night in Scotland so i got everything ready to restock the van for the NEC hobby craft show. Unfortunately i have no photos of this event as the two ladies who were going to help us couldnt due to illness (get well soon Sandra) and a house sale in France (hope it went ok Pauline) so there was just me and Gordon and we were busy all the time it was fantastic.

This was the first time at a show that i had demonstrated the wizard and i loved it.I demonstrated how to use patterned papers,distress inks and pearl paints with nestabilities to make gorgeous little frames for cards scrapbooks and altered books.

We sold out of all the pearl paints and a lot of the nestibilities but dont worry there are orders for both on the way. On sunday there were big gaps everywhere where we had sold out of goods and we had been back to the shop twice to re-stock.

Thank you to everyone who came and purchased goods from us and we hope you are having fun with your new toys.

This week we have got a sort of jet lag as we are both pretty exhausted but its a great feeling to know that people like what you are doing and love the service we give.

Here is a card from Fiona who is one of our customers and comes into the shop at least once a week. She makes all these cards from scraps and leftovers using her nestabilities (of course).

She has used the curved rectangle die,Labels one and large classic square to make this card.

I just love the way she has hand drawn all the stitches to make it look like a real patchwork quilt.

Thank you Fiona for allowing us to use your work on our blog and this will be going up on our wall of fame tomorrow


Later on today (i have just noticed the time aaaaaaagggggggh) i have my first two workshops running and i am really looking forward to them. They will be the first worksops i have done at the new shop and Gordon and i have been busy tonight setting up the tables and getting it all just right.

I am taking the camera and will put some photos up tomorrow or Sunday.

Right im going to get some sleep now that i have given you all the gossip of the last few weeks.

Smiles Rob Gordon and Harry



Tuesday 10 March 2009

Sneak Preview

I will be with Gordon for the whole four days of the NEC craft show and i am sooooo looking forward to it as i have to stay at the shop for most of the shows these days.

I love the NEC because its in my home town of Birmingham and i also get to meet so many of our customers from around the UK and beyond.

I am not going to be doing my usual things this time however.

I am going to be concentrating on the different mediums you can use with the spellbinder dies, especially using mixed media with them.

Here are a couple of frames i will be showing you how to make using all sorts of inks and substances

Of course i will be bringing along some of the new dies so you can see what to look forward to.

And i will try to answer any questions you have about your dies and wizard machines.

I am so looking forward to meeting you all and showing you what fun you can have with your wizard and dies.

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Nephews Birthday Card.

Heres the card ive made for my Nephew who is football mad.

Ive used the New dies from spellbinders just to give you a sneak at what you can do with themFirst i used the Grand Heirloom Scroll Border for the sides using Black Magic Color Core Cardstock and went over the embossed areas lightly to distress it. I then used the Large Octogons Nestabilities to make a three dimentional frame and used distress inks to give it a weathered look. Decoupaged one of the magnolia lad stamps and coloured with the new pearlescent mica paints and dont they look good.Finished off by using a couple of football theme card toppers and some peel offs. The background paper is from the Basic Grey Boxer 6x6 book.
Everything i have used can be purchased from our shop.
I hope he likes it.

Monday 2 March 2009

Get Published

If your artwork using Grunge Gallery Art Stamps is published in a magazine or book and image credit is given to Once Upon A Stamp, let us know and we'll send you an unmounted quarter sheet of rubber stamps of your choice.

Nestabilities order part one arrived today.

What a brilliant start to the week it was when a huge lorry pulled up and delivered 34 boxes of spellbinders goodies.
The delivery today is of all the older nestabilities including labels one and two, so if you are waiting for these they should be with you within a few days .
The new nestabilities should be here within the next two weeks .
Here is a photo of just one of our workshop tables filled with spellbinder dies
This is a photo of half way through our orders with all of the parcels ready to go to the post office and Harry is guarding them to make sure nobody gets their mits on your dies haha.
And now we are just about to start on the second half of your orders so hopefully we will get them to the post office either tonight or first thing tomorrow morning.
So now you can see that we work really hard to make sure your orders are sent out as quickly as possible and can we say a big thank you to our on-line customers for your support kind words and custom we really appreciate it.

Sunday 1 March 2009

A Fantastic Twinkling H20 Substitute

Now that Twinkling H20s have closed their doors and have stopped trading we needed to find a substitute......and we did it.

I admit when i first saw them at the CHA trade show i turned my nose up because i thought at that price they cant possibly be up to much but how wrong i was.

They are in every way just as sparkly and gorgeous as H20's.

The price is just amazing too.

They work in exactly the same way as twinklers.. Just spritz with water and leave them for a minute so that the mica and watercolour pigments blend together then paint away.

If you use our H20 Solution (which is being renamed to watercolour solution you will be able to use them on glass,glossy card, plastic, acetate and other shiny surfaces,

I have been using them all week in the shop and our customers just loved them and the price too.

For more information go to our shop at http://www.onceuponastamp.co.uk/