Manchester Craft Weekend

12th to 14th September .....

..... long awaited and over all too soon - :o((

It's a long drive from the South Coast to Manchester (in the region of 550 miles round trip) so we - Greta & me - decided to make more of a weekend of it and go craft shopping before we arrived at the hotel. Decided to add another 60-ish miles to the journey and visit Cardcraft Plus factory outlet in Preston. A mention in passing to Jak, resulted in us meeting her, Jean, Susan (Daisycat on imag-e-nation forum) and Joy in the Outlet car park, lunching and shopping!! Cardcraft are not necessarily the cheapest of places but - they have some very different decoupage papers that are well worth purchasing - lol! They were also doing a really good deal on sheets of the Coredinations so a fair bit of that was purchased between us. Poor staff got a bit confused with us all descending at once and we had a bit of a giggle when they tried charging me just over £3000 for my purchases .......... "Don't worry" says she. "I won't" says I, "'cos you ain't getting it - lol!" Poor girl had forgotten to hit 'enter' after £2.99 and added £4.99 immediately so £2,994.99 was added to bill. Still, it all came out in wash!

On to the first evening of the main event and, after a bit of a rest (perhaps not as much as I would have liked having been up since 05:30am and driving for around 5 hours) we all met for dinner booked at a local hostelry. There's always one isn't there and it seems it's always the same one with our meets. Poor Jackie - lol! We'd barely sat down when she knocked a whole glass of wine over herself trying to help somebody with cutlery! She ended up going commando and wearing someone else's top. Could be an improvement on a feather I guess hehehehe! ............. Sorry J but 'twere funny - lol! A reasonable meal and brilliant company resulted in a great evening. Camera stayed in bag for this evening - forgot I had it with me :o((

CRAFT DAY itself! We split into 2 groups for classes with John Townley (Acetate cards) and Paddy from Paddy's Stamping Place (Stampbord). John's was as entertaining as ever and, surprisingly, he remembered some of us from last year and also some who weren't attending this year - lol!! We made several cards using acetate in different ways and left us embellishments to finish them with. Some were finished in class but I left mine blank to finish at home - which I've still to do. Some really good ideas were gleaned from this class and can see them being used in the future. Not a class heavy in technique but for entertainment value and ideas it's hard to beat - lol!

A break for lunch and a bit of socialising and then Paddy's class. Very intense and this one was heavy in technique. I'm not a stamper - well, a very novice one - and never used stampbord so was intrigued. Not sure I will do much with it in future but who knows. Some good, some bad but none-the-less very enjoyable but, those of us on this class started to flag sometime before the end of it. Think the previous day was catching up. It certainly was with me - lol!! (piccie isn't me - hehe!) I finished the projects I chose on this class, with mixed results ......

Dinner in hotel restaurant (deeeeee-licious!) followed by a great evening of chat and tea with our birthday girl Kath. Back & shoulders were severely aching after the day of craft so comfort was the key here .... and not just for me - lol!!

Sunday morning, breakfast and check out time. Some went straight home while others went to Paddy's shop as she opened specially for those that wanted to visit. Greta, me, Jak, Jean, Susan and Joy went home via - Warrington and the QVC Outlet (as did a few others we bumped into there) - LOL! I'd never been before but Greta had. We knew the chances of a bargain were slim, especially as we'd heard that there were a lot of craft items there on Friday but Saturday had intervened - lol!! Anyway, we were pleasantly surprised as there was a fair bit of craft bits. Not much to my taste but I did pick up a couple of packs - one thanks to Greta! Purchases made and, after a pleasant lunch together (well, tea/coffee and muffins), we went our seperate ways. Greta & me still had a good 4 hours drive ahead (with break) and I had a further hour after dropping her home. At the end of more than 600 miles of driving over the weekend I arrived home around 7pm, exhausted, drained, but thoroughly chilled from a really good weekend with like-minded people. I'm still trying to recover but it was totally worth it!

Thanks ladies and particularly Anne Marie ........................... and keep an eye open for a slideshow of photo's taken over the weekend!!

Thanks for dropping by .....