PENNY BLACK CHALLENGE WEEK 74 AND ONE HUGE CATCH UP

Hi Everyone

Phew what a wonderful and mad weekend!!!

Will tell you all the news once I have shared my Penny Black challenge card for this week.

The theme is to make a card that fits in with the lyrics or title of a song.

Here is my card - I have chosen the song title "Strawberry Fields Forever".

This used:

Image: Penny Black 1670K "Sugar Sweet Dreams" (from the NEC at the weekend)
Backing Papers: My Minds Eye "Wild Asparagus"
Sentiment: Pink Petticoat
ProMarkers
Woodware Hydrangea Punch
Gems and Ribbon from the stash box

So that is one of my creations for today - others I cannot share just yet.

Now for a good old catch up. What a fantastic time I had at the NEC.

I was super lucky this year and went twice. The first time I went with my lovely Sis on Friday and the second time on Sunday with my bestest blog buddy Brenda. I had a fantastic time with both - thank you ladies!! I am just so lucky to have a fantastic Sis and a fantastic mate. It was great to spend time with both - talking and laughing for England!!

The two days were just so very different (apart from both being expensive LOL!!). It was like I looked at one type of thing with my Sis and a completely different kind of thing with Brenda.

It was also very interesting to compare the two days. Friday there was just so much stock on all the stands but by Sunday a lot of it had gone. There were so many things I wanted to show Brenda but they had all gone!! Can you believe that The Paper Mill stand had sold out of all their card by Sunday!!

What surprised me most was that this was Brenda's very first craft exhibition. Oh - I do hope she wants to go again. We were both sad when our day had ended and we had to say goodbye - we have been looking forward to for ages. Our better halves and my youngest son spent their time in the Music Live exhibition. They have all played or play in bands so it wasn't as if we cast them aside just anywhere. They had just as good a day as us. (We did give them a choice - they could have gone to the "cake decorating" exhibition).

So after my crafting extravaganza with Brenda I have completely new stash. I now have a little draw that I have labelled my "Get Down and Dirty" draw. This contains a lovely range of Glimmer Mists and Tim Holtz distressed ink pads ready for me to play with when life calms down a little. (No pressure but I know Brenda is just waiting to see what I produce with them - thank goodness she has done a tutorial on her blog that I can crib from!!). I already owned a couple of distressed ink pads and I just wish you could all have seen Brenda's face when I told her what I had been doing with them. LOL!!! (Too ashamed to share with the whole blogging world).

I have lots of new things to play with - but I never saw anywhere a stand that was selling "Bags of free time". Perhaps they too had sold out and gone home Thursday evening!! Shame.

I have lots of other things I want to share but this is turning into a very long post so I will save some for tomorrow.

I also need to go and do some commenting as I haven't done any of this since Saturday evening. It is my challenge over at Allsorts this week and it has gone mad!! So many lovely entries and I need to go and check them all out. At this rate I may hold the Allsorts record for the highest number of entries!!

Catch you all again tomorrow

Love Jules xx