NEC and Saturday candy

We are continuing with out Christmas spirit at Allsorts and this week and my teami Wendy has selected the theme of White Christmas, we have two sponsors this week FlonzCraft and Crimson Cloud. And warning in advance, this is a lengthy one so a coffee might be in order.

I know lots of you were planning going to the Hobbycrafts show at  the NEC this week and I am sure you will have had a great time. I went on Thursday and it was absolutely heaving, probably the busiest I have ever seen it even at a weekend, but there seemed to be far more stands than last year and such a variety as well with lots of new things creeping in such as lovely fabric stands and a noticeable increase in the popularity of beading.

There are always new crafty goodies to temp us but a couple particularly appealed to me, the first was the lovely Kim Costello whose name is so familiar to lots of us, she has very recently launched her own range of Paperbabe stamps....cool name Kim. This set crept home with me as I loved the reindeer and Kim explained to me the set is aimed at both the cute market and those like myself who veer to a more inky approach, it's a really clever set as the reindeer builds up with three different stamps and there are name stamps from Rudolph right through to Dasher and Vixen.

Another stand of interest to me was Craft Dragon, it's something I've seen demoed on C&C many times but the lovely guys there gave to a test run on it and even with my rotten dexterity and current weak hands, I was able to use the machine effortlessly, so it's definitely on my wish list. They told me there is a new machine just round the corner which as well as stamping and hot foiling will cut all the leading brands of die cuts so sounds like it will be a really cool piece of kit.

And I was able to meet up with quite a few sponsors from my various challenges and it was lovely to be able to thank them in person for their support. What I did learn for sure was that a day was most definitely not enough and next year it will be an overnight stay I think.

Now after all that waffle for a little bit about my Allsorts DT piece for the week and I am the first to admit that all white card terrify me, but I've given it my best shot using two Memory Box dies, a Spellbinder frame and embossing folder, the only colour I have added is a little white and silver Pan Pastel for the sky.

Last weeks candy winner is (re-drawn 15th Nov as original winner did not make contact and new winner Sarah mailed), please mail me with your full name and postal addy so I can send your goodies.

And this week I have a 'practical' prize, but an essential we all use every day, a hot glue gun for a lucky winner.

• Add the Saturday Candy logo from my sidebar to your sidebar (not this picture)
• Be a follower of my blog
• A random winner will be selected from all comments left on my blog between now and Friday, so two comments during the week two chances of winning and so on.
• The winner will be announced next Saturday

Have a lovely weekend everyone.