From Billericay to Birmingham....

And back again! All in a day's work. Hi Blogland, Hope you are all well Today?Yesterday was our annual trip up the M6 to Birmingham for the Craft and Hobby Show, (other wise known as Stitches)at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham.
Setting off silly O'clock in the morning to avoid the traffic we made good time, until we hit the snow!!!, or more accurately, the snow hit us!Leaving Essex where we just had rain we travelled into Hertfordshire and hit a blizzard!! not only that, but road works too..! Now, I am the first one to admit that my sense of direction is not the best.. To be honest, I travelled to Bristol once and got totally lost.. When I saw a sign saying "Welcome to England" I realised that I had missed Bristol completely and had almost ended up in Wales, at lest the "Welcome to England" sign meant that I was coming back the right way and I eventually found where I needed to be some 3 hours later!! So, with heavy snow and road works needless to say we ended up going up the M11 instead of carrying on on the M25.. oooppps,,! Anyway, a quick turn around at the next junction and we were back on track!! arriving in Birmingham for the start of the show...
The hall that the show was held in was a lot smaller than usual and some of the stands, even for the big international companies were a lot smaller but there was still plenty to see and toys to play with..As they were right at the front, our first point of call was to one of our Dutch suppliers.. I love this company, not just for their product range, but also for who they are as people. Our Rep, Mark is just the best. He just can't do enough for us, even though he was suffering from a soar throat he guided us through all the new goodies on offer.. Introducing us to other reps and the head honchos from his company. It really is shameful that these guys can slip from Dutch, to French to German to English just like that! very impressive.. I myself know very little Dutch, only enough to buy a paper and to excuse my ignorance of not being able to speak the language properly, although on a recent flight (sat still for the whole flight, you'll know why if you have read my last post!! yikes!) to Holland I did learn the Dutch for !Overhead Compartment!.. It's "overhead compartment", I guess there is no translation!! Anyhoo, "Bedankt" (thanks) Mark for showing us around.
So here are some of the things that will be winging their way to Pinnacles very soon??.New Pink Slice Accessories.Including the Hands Free KitMore Tim Holtz Accessories, including some Brand New Distressing Ink Colours.And of course the Gypsy,mine won't be so blingged up as this one though!Who wants a Punch?
For those that were able to come to our Punch demonstration last Saturday will have seen the Martha Stewart Deep Edger Punches, I called them the Big Bad Boys as they are hefty Punches.. Well, you ain't seen nothing yet..Look at this beast.. It's huge...
And just to wet your appetite even more,there are more Punches on their way from EK Success and Martha Stewart!!Can't wait to get my hands on them.. And yes, I will sort out all the sizes for the round the page corners to do the Circle Punches from the Demo on Saturday..All the new Beatrix Potter range from Crafters Companion will be here shortly.
As will be the new Colours from the Cosmic Shimmer Mists.
We were treated to an excellent demonstration from Sheena Douglass, yes that's her off the tele..She was using a range of Eco Friendly Paints and Inks.. There is a story behind the concept of these products and this will be shared with you when the products are launched in the UK on Create and Craft, watch out for this show with Sheena and the Co Founder of this company Julie Andrus, if nothing else it is an inspiring story and they are great products. So we bought the lot and will have a lesson using them later in the year with a great techchnique we are calling "Slap, Crackle & Pop", so look out for this one in the new lesson sheets coming out soon. We all try to do our bit for the environment, including us at Pinnacles! We recycle all of our packaing. Well, there is a recycling centre across the road from us, so it would be wrong not too. And, as you all know, all of our bags have our "Crafters Care" Logo on them, encouraging you to re use them each time you shop..Next stop was Sizzix.. This stand always blows me a way! So much effort must go into setting up their stand for the show, and boy does it show...
New Textured impressions on their way..Fantasic Summer Time diesCupcake anyone?The New Tim Holtz Alterations Range..And introducing the Eclipse.. Now, you know I am a fan of the Cricut, but I suspect the 4 Cricuts we have in the shop are about to gain a new little brother....
So, with aching feet and heads buzzing with inspiration it was time to head back home to Essex, but not before visiting the last few stands we had overlooked.. This however proved more difficult than first thought! Up one aisle, down the next.. "Was it here"? "no there".. See I told you my sense of direction wasn't very good.. The show was actually a lot bigger than we first thought!! Still we had a great day and got home safely in no time at all...Oh, and by the way.. If anyone is looking for the nations grit supply, we found it in a warehouse at the NEC..Not much to go round eh!! Let's hope there's no more snow...
Thanks for checking us out and see you soon.
Pinnacles..