Saturday, September 17, 2011

QVC, sneeky peeks and vintage dressing.

So 5.30 on Tues morning, I dragged my butt out of bed and set off on the journey to QVC towers. Three trains and a tube later and I was there.


Quick re polish on the old nails, then I met up with the lovely Jayne from the distributors. As you can see we are hard at it...just after we have a cuppa tea, lunch and then oh go on then another cuppa tea.!!!


 This is what you are faced with when filming, if you are lucky!! At the evening show, all but one of the cameras were remote operated.

We where allocated the kitchen area as a studio, which is fabulous for workspace but a bit higgledy piggeldy in surface height.


Almost ready to go.....

I was with the lovely Dale, for the show, and it just seemed to whizz by. We were cut a little short which was a shame, but they have their reasons.

The rest of the day was spent prepping , and making more samples for the evening show. A quick trip to the hotel for a shower and change of outfit and I was all set to go again.

My host for the evening was the lovely Jill Franks, who I have to say is the tiniest woman ever. I think my left thigh was bigger than her waist


We had a very busy show with quite a few sell outs, which was fabulous. Thank you to every one who watched and supported us. Hopefully we will be back with another full hour in November. If you haven't already done so you can go and leave a comment on QVC's craft blog HERE or HERE. All feedback, whether good or bad is really useful, so do feel free.

By the way, thank you for all the comments on my glamorous look. What you couldn't see was my feet, which were sporting my ever favourite trusty Dr Martens.

After getting back to the hotel, checking in with all loved ones and leaving feed back with Ranger, I needed fuel before I completely collapsed, so ordered a burger from room service. Blimey O'Reilly, it was humongous, and the chips were out of this world....

I love room service in a good hotel, if only for the condiments..

I arrived home on the Wednesday teatime just in time to teach my kids class. And to open an envelope left on my desk, containing a lovely handmade card.

A while back I gave the lovely Anne, Staff |Nurse at The Pines nursing home in Harrogate, a load of Blonde Moments papers to use with the residents in their art sessions. The card above was a thank you card for me and was designed and put together, very proudly, by the lovely Mary Barron.

Thank you Mary, it is a beautiful card, and you are so, so welcome. xx

Yesterday I was on a much needed day off, and after hotfooting it over to Leeds to watch the National Construction Industry, Skill build finals....don't ask, but I saw some great craftsmanship, we seemed to find ourselves in the centre of Leeds shopping.!!! Well it would have been rude not to pick up a few things and support local industry, wouldn't it.??? I got some reet purchases which I will share with you tomorrow...think fur, think leopardskin, think vintage...

Thought I would show you what I wore. I haven't had a lot of time lately to resurrect shoe watch or daily outfit, but methinks I must start to make it a priority again.





 I wore

 a Day of the Dead bandana....handmade
red spotty blouse...thrifted
black spotty skirt...thrifted
black vintage cardi...thrifted
black leggings...Matalan
vintage leopard skin pumps...thrifted.

Love it..

Now for some sneaky peeks of the Winter workshops... For a more in depth look of each you can go HERE and click on each picture.


















I am sure you will agree there is something for everyone there..

I will leave you with a journal page I made whilst playing with the Distress stains and Claudines stamps. Hopefully I will be able to show you a step by step of this technique on Monday.




Enjoy xx

Friday, September 16, 2011

News from the studio..

Yayy, I'm back and after a days resting and a days shopping and thrifting, I am feeling muchly rejuvenated.!!!

So I will start with a rundown from our birthday weekend.

Not sure if Kate got the right invite.!!




As usual our delicious cup cakes were made by the gorgeous Teresa and her 2 little elves, Amelia and Claudia. Thankyou girlies, mucho appreciated. xx


Err looks like one has gone already, lol

Look at these edible flowers


And the raspberry truffles...nom nom nom...


Well it must be time, cos the glasses are going on.!!


We held 10 taster workshops over the two days, which were a fabulous success,. Thankyou to everyone who took part, especially those who got up early to brave my 8am classes. I salute you for that, lol.

Heres Kate keeping them all in order.



As you can see everyone was enthralled with my demoing.!!  Err behind you Sue..yes thats right Sue, the other way if you don't mind..!!!


As I was saying, everyone was enthralled with my demoing...!!!



Glad that's over with, are we Kate.?


That will be a mad stampede for the products then...


I did try to get out of their way..


And seem to have remainred unscathed..phew.


Good idea to have planted these as a barrier Bezzie...



Sandy's class had her all of a dither, I think..



Yup think that means we had a good day.

Sunday we were off again bright and early..

The lovely Kaz arrived, but I don't think she has quite got the hang of the celebrity catalogue pose..


That's a bit better,

We threw her in at the deep end and made her teach a class, lol.



Hmm camera shy.?



That's better.

 The gorgeous Bezzie Su kept me supplied in tea and butties, and kept everybodies spirits way up.


The lovely Sandy was an absolute star on the Sunday, as she taught 3 classes in a row. My younger son was rushed to hospital and I had to jump ship to be with him. But she calmly and competently took over my workshops and did me proud.






We had a fantastic time, and I would just like to thank everyone who helped, you did a fabulous job.

Our Ben
The lovely Katie
Bezzie Su
Kate
Sandy
Kaz
Teresa
Jill

Love you all to bits.

And to all of you who came and supported us, thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.

Heres to the next ten years.!!!

I'll be back tomorrow with all my QVC news, and workshop sneak peeks.

Enjoy xx

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

and the winners are!!!!

Hi All,

Thanks for all your support for our 10th birthday weekend. Dyan will be doing a full report when she gets back from QVC HQ! We were very privileged to have so many of you attend our weekend as well as joining in the blog hop, which was absolutely amazing. You all did us proud and thank you very much!

The first prize winner is Bernice Hopper who was picked at random from our birthday button posting competition. You have won a Dylusions stamp set of your choice, so please get in touch and I'll sort the prize out for you.

The second set of prizes is for our blog hop competition. Janet Clarke very kindly organised this for us and it went down a storm with well over 350 entries and some amazing projects. You can still see them all starting - HERE

The winners and answers are -

Stampotique hop winner is Diana/Missusg and the answer was - Twinkie
Dylusions hop winner is Astrid/Assi crafts and the answer was - Tallulah
7gypsies hop winner is Tracey Evans and the answer was - Napoli
Tim Holtz hop winner is Sid Haselden and the answer was - Facets
Ranger hop winner is Jill Rippon and the answer was - Mists

Each winner was selected at random and will win a prize related to the blog hop they won. If you can get in touch with me I will get your prizes to you!

We also ran a raffle over the birthday weekend raising money for the Sadie Rose foundation and Young Carers which all profits including the tea and bun money went to as well. We had a range of great prizes signed by some of the leading names in the industry. If you are a winner get in contact and I'll arrange collection of your prizes!

  • Signed Tim Holtz Burlap Panel (not released until October)! - Lyn Mills - Ticket 406-410
  • Wendy Vecchi new book vol5 and singed tag by Wendy - Julie Ellison - Ticket 871-875
  • Tim Holtz District Market note book (not released until October)! - Tracy Watson - Ticket 361-365
  • Signed Claudine Hellmuth canvas and tag - Jill Skrypack - Ticket 336-340
  • Trio of Tim Holtz new District Market notebooks - Jo Large - Collected
  • Signed Dyan Reaveley Canvas - Jane Roe - Ticket - 551-555
  • Wendy Vecchi book vol2 - Chris Cresswell - Ticket - 926-930
  • Jenni Bowlin signed tag - Kaz Hall - Ticket - 861-865
  • Claudine Hellmuth Dog Canvas and tag - Sara Withill - Ticket - 316-320
  • Kaz Hall signed tag - Sara Withill - Ticket - 296-300
  • Tim Holtz canvas bag - Ann Briggs - Ticket - 516-520
  • Tim Holtz Letter to Santa stamp set - Tracey Watson - Ticket - 356-360
  • Ranger Mini Kit - Sue - Ticket - 321-325
  • Perfect Pearl cafe Kit - Bea Collins - Ticket - 460-470
Many thanks to everyone who entered and took part in all of our competitions. We hope you had a great time joining in. We would also like to thank everyone that donated prizes for our raffle as every penny raised is going to a very worthy cause.

Many thanks

Ben & Dyan

Quote of the Century


"You are an extraordinary woman.


How can you expect anything ordinary to happen to you"


Louisa May Alcott