A riot of colour at the London Graphic Centre

I've been busy lately and have been to some great blogging events. Recently I was invited to the London Graphic Centre in Covent Garden for a "Wrap Battle" - but don't worry it was wrapping presents, rather than anything musical. It was held in the store at Covent Garden and I was like a kid in a sweet shop.  

It was exactly the kind of place - and may well have been the very same place - that I used to spend my Saturday afternoons in as a teenager.  It was dangerous then, but even more dangerous now armed with a credit card.  I know that I'll be going back to the London Graphic Centre to buy some materials, but I just have to work out what first.  

As soon as I arrived I was drawn towards the Caran D'Ache display, these were the pencils I coveted most in years gone by, and their attraction was still as strong today. It seemed that everywhere I looked was swathed in colour, and I naturally felt at home.

Christmas Fair - Saturday 10 December

This Saturday the London Graphic Centre are hosting their Christmas Fair in their flagship store and as well as the usual supplies, this year's highlights include:

• Personalising your Leuchhturm notebooks with free embossing on A5 notebooks
• Build your own pop-up keyring workshop hosted by Frietag
• The POSCA wall doodling - this is great fun, it's a glass wall and you get to doodle all over it, my contribution is at the bottom of this post!
• A gift wrap station with MT Masking, who have a glorious array of washi tape to try
• A calligraphy demo, where you could get some great gift tags

And if that isn't enough, for all purchases over £25 there'll be a goody bag. I expect it'll be busy, and if you go let me know how you get on.

And if you're looking for a different Christmas tree, then here's one for you. 

It's great fun isn't it?

And still everywhere I looked as I wandered around the store was colour. Maybe this is where my love of colour comes from, who knows. It's the type of place that I'd be in my element doing a trolley dash in, now could you imagine that...

It was these Lego markers that came closest to breaking my resolve on the evening. I've not seen anything like them before and even I was tempted, I wouldn't count myself as an active Lego fan, but these, well I'd make an exception...

And while I enjoyed the walk around the store, reminiscing about my teenage years, the real reason I was there was to wrap a present. And the present I wrapped was for week 3 of the London Graphic Centre's Christmas Wrap battle and that's now available to win on the London Graphic Centre's blog. Do pop over and enter, it'd be great to see someone I know win!

This week's blogger-wrapped prize giveaway is from Stephanie of Life at 139a. 🎄🎁 Enter and WIN here https://t.co/TO8VedOKF3 🎄🎁

— London Graphics (@LondonGraphics) December 6, 2016

And remember that POSCA doodling I mentioned above, what do you think of my tree?

* This is a collaborative post with the London Graphic Centre, all views are as usual my own and with thanks for a great evening

My new rainbow board

Just before we put the finishing touches to our porch Teacher Boards got in touch and offered me the opportunity to review one of thier new range of Rainbow Boards. The two events are related, because if you remember the "spare" pigeon shelf that we didn't use in the porch after all, was destined for my soon-to-be craft room. Well, I got to thinking that a pin board in that room would be just the thing, so I was keen to see what this range could offer.

I chose the smallest size of 0.9m x 0.6m, but there's six sizes available with the largest at 2.4m x 1.2m being huge and would probably cover the whole wall in my study-cum-craft-room!  With the size sorted, all that was left was to choose a colour - there's nineteen to choose from - and decide whether to have a frame or not. 

In the end I choose not to have a frame and after receiving some samples choose light blue over teal and turquoise. When it arrived I knew I'd chosen well as it was a similar shade to the wallpaper we have used throughout the house as our base colour palette.

I was surprised though to find  there were no holes. But that was easily sorted and it meant that I could choose where they would go, so they were easy to add. Marking the four holes one inch from each edge I delegated the actual hole drilling to MOH, who let's be fair relished the chance to use some power tools.

MARKING THE HOLES

DRILLING THE HOLES

FIXINGS SUPPLIED

Above you can see the fixings that were supplied. Because we (yes, the Royal we again) were drilling into a plasterboard wall MOH made substitutions that were appropriate - I left him to it. What I did think were very clever though was the white screw covers which, I think give a professional finish and mean I don't have to look at the screw heads. Clever hey?   

HANGING THE BOARD

So with my new rainbow notice board on the wall, there was only one thing left to do - decorate it. 

I've added the sample charts that Teacher Boards sent so you can see the range of colours available against the Light Blue that I choose.

I've also pinned

• a yellow party popper I had hanging around,

• a heart left over from my Valentines craft,

• a cerise and white polka dot tray I've made

• a brass and (fake) pearl name pin,

• my first paper cut out testing my new die machine

• a spring garden picture

• a yellow fancily decorated egg hanging on ribbon

• a small bag containing some perspex stamps

• one of the bows I made a while back

• plus some paper flowers I keep meaning to use, but I'm not sure how yet.

I'm really pleased with my board. It arrived promptly, was good value (this board costs £36.19) and it was easy to put up despite my initial concern about the lack of holes!  I think it looks good, and I'm looking forward to using it to provide inspiration for my current and future craft projects and to brighten that corner of the room.

The study's transformation to my craft room just took another step closer!

This is a collaborative post with Teacher Boards who provided me with this board for the purposes of this review, all opinions are my own.

What does colour mean to you?

When Calibre Office Furniture got in touch and invited me to write a post about my favourite colour I thought I'd got it sorted.

I mean, anyone who's seen my instagram feed lately - or who knew me as I grew up - won't be surprised to learn my first choice of colour was yellow.

But then I thought about it some more and remembered when MOH and I got engaged several of my friends said they just knew I'd have a pink ring - I have a pink sapphire in my engagement ring - which shocked me, as I didn't even really know that's what I wanted until I saw it. But they were adamant and said pink was obvious as it was a colour I wore a lot. Looking in my wardrobe at the time - and now - they were right, but I knew that I didn't wear as much pink as some, so that was perhaps my benchmark.

And then I thought about green, it's a colour I'm often drawn to and (along with pink) it's a colour I wear a fair bit of.  And red, we do have a lot of it in our house, despite persuading MOH we shouldn't have red dining chairs (which btw I still don't have an ETA for - not so happy about that).

So what is my favourite colour.

I've decided that I am simply a fan of colour. I wear colour everyday. If I wear an all black outfit then well I feel, well I just don't feel myself.  I guess I'm just used to me in colour.

And looking back this week I outdid myself on colour one evening; I needed to drop my bike down to the bike shop to get my brakes checked before our Easter cycling break.  For this I wore red trousers, matched with pink and cerise striped socks, the orange vest I'd worn during the day with a purple and lime green running top over it; to top that - and to keep warm - I chose a white sweatshirt, because it was getting dark and I wanted to be seen!  When I realised quite how many colours I'd combined - mostly through circumstance it must be said - it was the white top that I thought might have been OTT!

But if you pushed me to choose one colour, right now I'll stick with yellow.

Have you considered how colour affects us, and how important it is to us - scroll down, and take a look:

This is a collaborative post but all opinions are my own.