Ally Pally and this month's project

On 10th and 11th of this month, the four of us went to Alexandra Palace for the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show. We decided to make a weekend of it, and stayed overnight in a lovely B&B which Jo found for us. We hardly ever meet up, in fact, Elaine and Lesley had never met. We email each other so often though, that we feel like old friends when we do get together, as if we've known each other for ages.
We all made our way to AP from different parts of the country, and met up throughout the morning on Saturday, which was so exciting. We'd been waiting for such a long time to get together. It was lovely to wander around the demos together, and watch such talented crafters as Linda Brown and Linda Elbourne from LB Crafts, Jennie and Hels from The Artistic Stamper and Bev Rochester at the Hobby House stand. We were able to split up and do some serious shopping too!
We spent Saturday evening chatting and planning our mini Retreat in June, which will be the next time that we see each other. We then turned in ready for another day of soaking up the atmosphere at AP. Because we had chosen to spend two days at the show, Sunday was a good day to linger at the demos, to ask questions and pick up some top tips. The demonstrators are such lovely people, they are so down to earth, and really want you to know how to be able to do what they are doing. I spent ages with Hels Sheridan, and then Linda Elbourne, learning about various new products out there, which will definitely be appearing in my work in the future.
It was a very sad time when we came to say goodbye to each other, but we have our next venture to look forward to, our mini Retreat, and that will come around quickly enough I'm sure. I have already started a circle journal in preparation for the Retreat. You can see what I've done here We will each make a journal for ourselves, and everyone will complete a page in each journal at the Retreat. This will give us a lovely memento of our time there. I only need to produce a double page spread which will act as a kind of mood board, giving the other three girls an idea of what colours I like, my style, and any themes that I might like incorporated into the journal. Personally, I love what the other three do, and whatever they choose to produce for me would make me happy.

We've all been quite busy this month, and so our thoughts are now turning to our project. I know what I am making based on Helen Chilton's basic idea. I don't want to show you too much at this stage, sorry! However, I bought these gorgeous box feet by Tim Holtz at Ally Pally that I am going to use. I had seen them used on a book on someone's blog, and they are fabulous. I love Art Nouveau, and the little swirls on these feet really suggest that style to me. I think that I may be buying more of these! I plan to use lots of ink pads in varying colours, and lots of stamping this month. However, I am not going to show you my stamps, yet. Hopefully, we'll get some more sneaky peeks in soon, thanks for looking, Judith.