The Great British Fiskars Craft Off...

Hi folks..wooohoo time doesn't half fly when you're having fun...before I knew it...it was Saturday...the busiest day of the show...the day that I get my favourite lunchtime treat...catching up with special crafty buddies in Wetherspoons...the lovely Andrea and Mary from The Ribbon Girl and my two bestest buds...we're sure we were triplets in another life and separated at birth...individually we can almost pass for sensible...together we're as daft as brushes and mad as a bunch of frogs...my gorgeous mateys...Dawny P and behind the lens...Enfys.

we just had time for a good old natter before I dashed off to get ready for the Great British Fiskars Craft Off at 2pm...a take on the Great British Bake Off where Fiskars invited 4 fabulously talented crafters to create a Showstopper Fabulous Fabulous Christmas Card using the Fiskars Fuse Creativity System. Thank goodness Mr Blogger has come to his senses about uploading photos because you're in for a mega photo fest of fun pics and videos so best make yourselves a cuppa and find a comfy sofa.

When my Fiskars teamie Hina and I were planning this event...we knew we had to find the crafty equivalent of Mr Paul Hollywood...mega lightbulb moment...only one person could pull off the mammoth task of being judge and compere...our mad as a box of frogs matey...the hilariously funny....gorgeous and absolutely adorable...ROB...MDF MAN...currently the 2013 Ready Steady Craft Champion from the GNPE show at Harrogate...so he's more than qualified to know what makes a great card...more than capable of keeping the contestants in line and guaranteed to liven up the proceedings...

and the unsuspecting contestants...who only had 10 mins to play with the Fuse before we threw them in at the deep end...it's sink or swim time girls...

Barbara Gray from Clarity Stamps...showing The Fuse who's boss...

Joanna Sheen the newest member of the "Grandma Club" with that "rather pleased with myself...I think it's worked" look...

Dawny P...having a "have I done this right" moment...

Enfys...looking a little shell shocked...

It was absolute crazy hilarious BEDLAM...as you can tell from the short videos...
Enfys has posted the first one on her blog...click HERE to view

and my first effort at filming a video which had to be abandoned... 

to rescue Dawn from her "what have I done" moment...then Rob went into mega hyper causing chaos mode insisting that the girls had to wear Crafty Health and Safety Equipment to win extra points...I was laughing so much...I couldn't hold the camera steady enough to continue filming.

a face mask for Barbara which she wore on her head but our nit picky judge was having none of it deducting a shed load of points for incorrect use of said equipment...

Joanna gained lots of points for wearing her ear defenders but lost them all again when Rob heard her utter a swear word...oops naughty Joanna...a little harsh I thought...surely you're allowed a couple of "bloodys" when the pressure's on...

Dawny P blew her chances of winning...losing hundreds of points when she refused to wear Rob's smelly old steel toe-capped boots...don't blame you matey...you obviously have standards and a touch of class...

Enfys gained lots of points for wearing her life jacket but I thought she'd blown it when she hugged Rob and spilt coffee down his back...he either didn't notice or was entirely won over by her eyelash fluttering attempts to influence the judge...

either way it worked as Enfys finished top of the leader board...the only one with plus points.

and our crafty girls definitely nailed the "Showstopper Fabulous Fabulous Christmas Card" Challenge...despite a mad judge scrutinising their every move...so glad it wasn't me...apologies in advance...the lighting in the NEC is not ideal and doesn't show how gorgeous the cards were..

Joanna's card...gorgeous sparkly embossed and letterpressed die cut snowflakes decoupaged on a background of glittery vellum decorated with pearls...

Barbara's card...die cutting the snowflake...using the left over as a template to sponge ink through to create a beautiful background Clarity Stamp style finishing off with the letterpressed snowflake and sentiment stamping...

Enfys Card...die cutting the scalloped circle from felt and thick spotty plasma ...letterpressing the snowflake onto spotty paper finishing off with ribbons and a brad.

Dawny P's card...scalloped circle die cut from thick spotty plasma...snowflake die cut from glittery vellum finishing off with a gorgeous red bow...very Dawny P...a charm and diamante decorated snowflakes...

On behalf of Fiskars...a huge thank you to our fabulous crafty superstars for being such good sports...for taking time out on the busiest day of the show...a special special thank you to Rob for being an absolute superstar and making the whole 15 minutes go with a bang. But it wouldn't have been half as much fun without the lovely crafty folks who gave up serious shopping time to join in the mayhem and cheer on our crafty girls.
And a huge thank you to Fiskars for their generous sponsorship...the 4 contestants will soon have Mr Courier Man knocking on their doors with a Fuse Machine and a fabulous package of dies to play with and finally...great big hugs to my teamie Hina for keeping me sane with her excellent co-organiser and helium balloon blowing up skills. I did think momentarily about having a little whiff of helium to do all the announcements in a high pitched Mickey Mouse voice but I didn't know how long the effect would last...didn't fancy being mistaken for Joe Pasquale in drag ordering a drink from the bar in the hotel.

I'll see you all tomorrow over at the Craftwork Cards Blog

Hugs Kath xxx