Oh What Fun We Had!!!!!

I am still feeling all warm and smiley after a fab day out with my friend Deb yesterday.  We had a wonderful time with Tim Holtz at his last workshop and I have to say considering that it was his 4th in two days he was fresh as a daisy.  But I digress let me start at the beginning.

It took us a little while to find the venue and after following Mrs Sat Nav for a £4 quarter of a mile stretch of the M6 toll road we finally arrived safely at the Windmill Village Hotel.  We had given ourselves plenty of time to relax and have some lunch and I am really glad we did as meeting so many lovely like minded crafters was definitely one of the things that made the day so fabulous.  I might not remember all the names of everyone I met for which I apologise.  I think I was in giddy mode the entire day.  Poor Deb had to travel with me driving too ;-)  We immediately got chatting to some lovely crafters as we arrived - I have forgotten names here for which I do apologise - I am hoping they pop by and say hi so I can rectify that.  We were all so excited it set the tone for the day.

I know from my blog that the crafting community are a caring sharing bunch but to have it confirmed so spectacularly by every one we met was truly heartwarming.  After lunch and lots of chatting where I met fellow bloggers Annie, Rita and Alison for real and I bumped into the lovely Suzanne (I hope I remembered your name  right Suzanne) in the queue for coffees who had travelled all the way from Sweden to meet the lovely Tim we finally queued up for our first peek into our crafting room for the next 4 hours.

Here is the view from where Deb and I sat.  The room was lovely and spacious though it did get very warm - all that feverish inking causes friction and you know that friction causes heat!!!!  mmmmmmm I suppose it could have been all the fun we had chatting whilst we created too!!!

Here is my lovely stash just waiting to be played with.  I do love to see my own card class kits all set up ready for action but I can only marvel at the effort that must go into kitting out for Tim's workshop - A big thank you to Mario and his team - I will treasure my little wish bone charm dangling from the cutest little safety pin!!!

This is one of the pockets of my brand new pinny that I did not get any ink on whatsoever!!!  I may use some Distress Paint on it later to customise it as Tim taught us that Distress Paints are colour fast on fabric!!!!  Another reason to add more colours to my growing collection ;-)

We did a spot of shopping (it would be rude not to!!!).  and then it was time to begin.  I am pretty sure most of us stifled a slight frenzied scream as the class began ha ha!!

I know, I know it is a bit far away.  I didn't like to zoom in on my iphone as I know it goes a bit blurry if I am not careful.  I was already a fan of Tim's work and all the lovely products he tempts us with and it was a treat to see his enthusiasm and creativity in the real world.  Even at the end of a two day 4 workshop event he had time and a smile for everyone (more of that later!!)  Back to the class.  We had great fun creating a tag book and I have to say my latest must collect them all fad is Tim's new layering stencils - I got to take my first one home and had fun playing with lots of different ones whilst inking up my tags.  I know they are going to be so popular.  They are scaled down designs so they are perfect for creating layers on tags or cards - well on anything really.............and did I mention they are Tag shaped???? SOLD ;-)

I think I have to take a break there as I need to get the final coat on the woodwork so watch this space and in the words of Arnie.....'I'll be back!!!'

Be sure to pop back again soon!!! x