Birthday Stash

Last week it was my birthday, and my hubby took me to Coleman's Craft Warehouse in Rushden, Northants. I spent a very happy couple of birthday hours browsing the shelves and availed myself of lots of crafting bargains. As it was January my craft basket reaped the sales rewards and I picked up some amazing bargains, and found almost all of the items on my wish list. They didn't have any art journals or posca pens, so an additional trip to hobby craft happened on the way home. I've got it in to my head that this year I'll try my hand at art journalling so I wanted to acquire some supplies for that, more on that in another post.

Back to Coleman's, if you live in the area and haven't been then you should visit STAT! I started out buying craft supplies at The Range and Hobbycraft because when I started crafting back in September 2014 they were the only places that sold crafting supplies that I knew of. I've since found lots of lovely craft shops online that I continue to use, but nothing beats seeing and touching the crafting goodies, it gives you a better idea of size, texture and you even see things that you may not have considered using before.

The staff at Coleman's are very friendly and helpful, they provide tea and coffee and biccies, if you remember to ask! Somebody (me) got so excited when she got through the doors that she started shopping immediately and forgot to tell them I'd arrived after emailing to say I'd visit and they said to tell them when I got there and they'd put the kettle on lol! There were so many wonderful things it was like Charlie's Chocolate Factory for the crafter. One a couple of the huge tables they have in the store there were lots of ladies sat crafting, it was almost like a social club atmosphere they chatted and crafted and looked to be having an amazing time.

I 'squeed' with joy when I discovered that lots of the Tim Holtz dies were in the sale, one of them, the Sizzix Bell Jar with Pedestal which I've been coveting for a while now was £7.50 the cheapest I've ever seen it brand new.  I found art journalling stencils in the sale, my favourites are the Bo Bunny 'Cascade' set which look to be silicon of some kind, they adhere to the paper as if you've stuck them down so you can work without the stencil slipping, bliss! I'll be acquiring more of these over the next few months.

There were stamps by companies that I'd never heard of before and I discovered new things to put on my wish list. I also picked up 5 of the Ken Oliver 'Color Burst' bottles of pigment colour, not tried them yet but it'll be interesting to see how they compare to Brusho's and he's just released some gorgeous new colours at CHA 2016 so if these work well I'll be availing myself of some of them :)

I also picked up a couple of the back issues of Craft Stamper magazine, I found it incredibly inspiring and interesting so I took out a subscription, as well as getting a good deal on the shop price I never miss an issue, it gets delivered to my door and the bonus was the bundle of IndigoBlu goodies that you got. Post on that coming soon.

Getting to Coleman's is a bit of a trek from Derby, that said its somewhere I'd be happy to travel to for supplies every couple of months. The one downside is they only have a tiny fraction of the stuff they sell in their online store, so you can't get everything you need from them online, like you can if you go to the warehouse.

The Craft Warehouse isn't open all week it's open Thursdays and Fridays 9am - 4pm, Saturdays 8.30am - 4pm and Sundays 10am - 4pm, there is free parking, and a room for “bored husbands” with sofas, television and newspaper and magazines. Although my hubby just sat at the craft table browsing the internet lol! If you get the chance to go, DO IT! I'll be posting some photos of some of the things I've been making with my birthday stash from Coleman's very soon. It really is an Aladdin's cave of crafty goodness and I can't wait to go back :)