I went, I learned, I looked and got inspired..

.. at Stitches.  The show was smaller than previous ones... but still lots of eye candy:

Couldn't help but stroke and touch these on the Button Company stand:

Look at the lovely colours of felt!  I couldn't help but stroke those - charcoal grey is hard to get and its soooo lovely!  And thats not just rik-rak its HUGE rik-rak - measures about 2.5cm on the band - would make such a cool embellishment - LOVE IT - but it would be hard to choose a colour wouldn't it! lol

Buttons and button display - love this vintage mix! things that make you go mmmmmmmm.

Now for my next pictures we must speak in hushed tones so not to upset my Cuttlebug, who I am very fond of as we know, but look at this:

This is the Big Shot Pro... a brute of a machine! Its a BigShot on steroids! lol. the paper laying to the side is a sheet of 12x12!!!!!! I can almost hear my little Cuttlebug shaking on its little suckered feet! lol

The Sizzix stands are always dressed well with great use of their dies and products and if my camera wasn't playing silly whatsits I'd show you pictures of nice things! So I'll show you Tim Holtz's new line of Sizziz dies and embossing folders and projects made from them instead! loving the birdcage and birdie (reminding me of my Tweets from way back - see here and here)

and while we're speaking Mr Holtz check this out: this is my friend Rachael, Tim and Me at the end of the Ranger-on-the-road workshop on saturday - I'll post a picture of the project we made when I've stuck all the pieces down....

The workshop was good - I've never seen Suze Weinberg and Claudine Hellmuth demo/teach and I really enjoyed it.  It was comfortably fast paced and enjoyable - lots of tasters of techniques - made me want to go and get busy with all the products - but thats the point isn't it! lol

All in all its been a busy and knackering weekend - but well worth it!!