Sourcing stash in Devon

Well I'm back from a week of sightseeing with my mum down in Plymouth. And during our day trips, a few craft shops were visited and some stash purchased (it would be churlish not to).

The photo shows the stash in all its glory. Didn't realise it was so much!

In Exmouth I went to Japonica in The Parade and was well impressed by the quality of the stash (gorgeous K&Co papers and albums, for example.) There I bought some Woodware red velvet paper, which I thought would be excellent for Christmas cards, a tag punch and a gold acrylic paint dabber.

Plymouth has several craft shops and in CDS/The Range (very large range indeed!) I treated myself to a new lilac scrapbook album, Papermania chipboard Christmas embellishments, shrink plastic, Papermania gold embellishments, parchment paper, card blanks, micro beads, a sea horse rubber stamp, something similar to magic mesh and some silver glitter letters. Finally, in Endsleigh garden centre on the A38 near Ivybridge, I bought two Sakura gelly roll pens and some tiny shells.

When I got home, I found I had a stash delivery from BG Payne - some silver and cream double gatefold aperture cards, a pink Ink It Up pad and pink embossing powder.

Most of the stuff I bought was on my list and intended for various projects. With the seashells and sea horse I can now start my long awaited canvas. It's going to be seaside themed in shades of turquoise and mauve. With the tag punch, magic mesh and some UTEE I bought before the holiday, I can create a gorgeous golden wedding anniversary card I've been visualising. The aperture gatefold cards are for some special birthday cards for next year. The parchment paper is to try dry embossing. I recently used the Fiskars ScrapBoss and embossed the edges of a scrapbook layout. I was quite impressed with the results and have numerous embossing boards that were free with magazines, so I thought I would try it on cards. The various Christmas embellishments will be used making cards and for scrapbook layouts.

Not enough photos shock

I suppose all scrapbookers, at some time, reach the challenge of not having any photos to scrap. There was a thread about it on UKS recently. I didn't think it would happen to me because we're always setting off with the camera in tow, and I have lots of photo albums. Plus I've got some ideas for lay outs like stop the pigeon (see previous post), my withered old hands and my new Birkies.

But I've come to that point where I don't really have any photos to play with. A lot of my old photos are quite poor (I didn't think so at the time, or at least not good enough to scrap.

I've just signed up for Shimelle's new course which needs 10 photos, and I've bought a bit of stash in the last week, so I need to start generating photos fast.

On the stash front, as I mentioned a few days ago, I bought some gorgeous Fancy Pants papers. On a work visit to Swindon I called in at a shop I've seen from afar, in Old Town, and bought a few things - VersaMark (mine seems to have dried up), a couple of Sakura gelly roll pens, the very good Do-Crafts magazine which is only a pound (and already featuring Christmas, which I think is great) and some felt alphabets.

I've bemoaned the fact that there aren't any craft shops near to where I live. Well, turns out I was wrong! I found a branch of The Range which is only a mile away. What an Aladdin's Cave. We went there on Sat to buy a laminator and came out with much more besides (coat hangers, storage boxes, "Get Off My Garden") although John was very mean about letting me browse the stash. I will have to make a return visit very soon - but only when I've got lots of photos to scrap. In the meantime, it's making cards for you, my girl.