A Tim Holtz View

I know many of our web customers never get a chance to see what the shops looks like so I wanted to show you peep of our new Tim Holtz section which Ebony who works for me here in the shop put together! We will making more space soon to add the Tim Holtz papers (arriving early next week) and the Tim Holtz dies arriving in April.

Cathy x

I heart Claudine (and other stories from Birmingham)

So we got from Birmingham just fine and we had a great time. We arrived into the NEC Sunday afternoon and did a quick scoot around. We just happened to be walking by one of the stands and Tim Holtz was there demoing away. We were a little star struck and watched Tim work away. After doing another quick scoot we climbed into the taxi, dropped our bags in the hotel and went for a Nandos. It was a very girly night and after feeling very chilled with a nice bottle of white with dinner we hit the cinema to See Valentines Day which was just a perfect girly movie. We had a very funny happening when I was getting the tickets for Valentines Day the guy gave us 3D glasses. Felicia and I were like "Wow all films must be 3D these days even romcoms" but we realised as the usher showed us in to Avatar 3D with our tickets that the chap misheard my Irish accent and thought we wanted to see Avator not Valentines Day. How funny would we have looked if we had sat through Valentines Day with our 3D glasses on!

The next morning started off with a swim (not the nicest, the 4* hotel was manky and there was literally stuff growing on the walls). So Felicia swam with her head above the water as she didnt want to get her hair wet and I swam with my head above the water as I did not want to swallow anything that may have been floating in the water. We must have looked a sight.

We had a crazy day of buying for the shop and as well as some of the goodies you know we are getting in such as Tim Holtz new range and 7 Gypsies we bought LOTS of suprises not only for our papercrafters but for everyone! We are so excited I am going to be attacking the delivery men as they walk in over the next few weeks to see what they have brought me.

The highlight of the whole trip for me was Claudine Hellmuth. I first heard of Claudine when I lived in the UK and I was doing a lot of art journalling and training in creativity. She is a mixed media collage artist. I was not expecting to see Claudine at the show and was ecstatic when I got to meet her and and see a few of her demos. Claudine is one of the nicest people I have met in the industry and I kept thinking how gorgeous she would look on the top of my Christmas tree (is that weird...) as she is the cutest pretties thing you have ever seen. Claudine is very talented and is right up my streets in the use of mixed media in her projects. Of course I have ordered in her full range of acrylics and mediums which should be with us in the next week or two plus lots of other Ranger goodies including the incredible sticky back canvas....

So tonight I am home, exhausted but had a ball! I am also watching Tim here on QVC and wondering how he is still standing after the few weeks schedule he has. So watch out on http://www.craftyalley.com/ for the arrival of the new goodies and keep up to date here with my new projetcs. To put up this week are my TWS swap for Veronica, Scrapzville Swap for Dee and Tag Swap for my group with Louise.

Cathy x

Winner of the Blog Candy goes to.......

So guys how I did this because the competition was run between my two blogs was number the comments from the  ttp://www.craftyalley.blogspot.com/ starting at one and then followed with comments on http://www.thescrappyknitter.blogspot.com/ and used the number generator you see below! So the lucky number is

And the lucky winner is...

Gina who said...
Love your blog, just became a follower and will be telling my friends about you.You can find me over at http://lespaidelagina.blogspot.com/ 2010 3:42 AM

Congrats Gina and if you email me your address I will post off the Tim Holtz goodies to you this week!

Thank you so much to everybody who took part and I will spend this week getting to know all of your blogs. I hope to run some more blog candy soon....

Cathy x

Winner of the Blog Candy goes to.......

So guys how I did this because the competition was run between my two blogs was number the comments from the http://www.craftyalley.blogspot.com/ starting at one and then followed with comments on http://www.thescrappyknitter.blogspot.com/ and used the number generator you see below! So the lucky number is

And the lucky winner is...

Gina who said...

Love your blog, just became a follower and will be telling my friends about you.You can find me over at http://lespaidelagina.blogspot.com/ 2010 3:42 AM

Congrats Gina and if you email me your address I will post off the Tim Holtz goodies to you this week!

Thank you so much to everybody who took part and I will spend this week getting to know all of your blogs. I hope to run some more blog candy soon....

Cathy x

Blog Candy

The Crafty Alley Shop Blog Candy Giveaway



Includes the Tim Holtz and Pizzazzil Papers you see in the picture above which would make a nice addition to any crafters stash!


Hi all, to be in with a chance to win this very cool blog candy all you have to do is the following...


1. Become a follower of this blog or my personal blog (or even better - both!)
2. Leave us a comment on this post
3. Tell your friends and let us know how you told them!
(Maybe a few lines on your blog or facebook page etc.)

I will announce the winner next Sunday evening (7th Feb)!OPen to everybody in Ireland, UK and furter afield!

Oh and if you want to know why we want you to follow us, its becuase in a few weeks we are going to be adding some amazing new products on our brand new website. Plus, we are going to be having regular competitions and giveaways and you will be able to see some of the latest products and techniques right here first! 

Thanks for your support and Good Luck!

*** This is open to followers of the shop blog http://www.craftyalley.blogspot.com/ and also my personal blog http://www.thescrappyknitter.blogspot.com/ ***