Ally Pally and Just Rite Stamps

Yesterday, after a sudden change of mind during last week, I made a very early start (the sun was just rising) and headed up to London for the Big Stamping and Scapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace,  a place of pilgimage for thousands of avid crafters twice a year!! As always I really enjoyed my day, including meeting up with my crafty friend Jo. As it was such a beautiful day, we were able to sit outside in the sunshine with our lunch and catch up, looking at the fantastic view out across London.

There is always so much to see at the show, including some great demonstrations and importantly far too many lovely things to buy! I managed to find a very nice selection of new stamps and other useful and gorgeous additions to my stash.

Just when I thought I had finished I had another look at the Just Rite Stamps on sale from Once Upon a Stamp. These are not my usual style of stamp. These are very unusual stamps in that they have round and oval wooden mounts with a ridged grid onto which central panels, edge rings and separate letters of the alphabet can be mounted to make customised stamps. For anyone who can remember the old fashioned John Bull printing sets of childhood, these are very similar.

I am a keen baker and love to give home-cooked items as gifts. so seeing a set of designs made for presenting home cooked goodies, I couldn't resist the temptation to add it to my stamp collection! I have had a very quick play with these today. I think there is a definite knack to using these stamps and my first efforts had letters flying across the room, but once I had some practice I was able to get going and this is the first set of results, together with the stamp block in the centre. Once the stamp is set up it takes no time at all to make a batch of labels. I stamped the design in Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto cream card and sponged on some sunshine yellow Adirondack dye ink to add depth. I punched holes with my Crop-a-Dile and threaded them with paper string.

I have several cakes to make this week and think these will add a nice little extra touch to these foodie gifts and I am looking forward to playing with them some more very soon.