It was Demo Day...

...at Pinnacle Crafts on Saturday.

As usual, Hilary & I met for breakfast first of all and after a yummy sausage sandwich with lashings of brown sauce and a latte for me...

...and toast & marmalade with cappuccino for Hilary - we toddled off to join the already growing queue at Pinnacles.
Andy had prepared lots of fabulous samples and there were lots of ideas and inspiration...

...for getting stuck into those Christmas projects. It is September after all and as all crafters will know, whether we want to acknowledge the fact or not, Christmas isn't that far away if you are wanting to get projects prepared & completed in time. Andy had a lovely time playing demonstrating with alcohol inks - which seemed to be the most popular technique of the day.

Andy had also prepared a few side-stepper cards as samples and he showed folk a quick and easy way of preparing your own base card. He has said that the measurements and a step by step will be available on his blog. However, I'm sure he won't mind me sharing some of the basic instructions.

A standard sheet of A4 card stock is usually 11.5ins x 8.25ins - for ease of measuring Andy trims this down to 11 x 8.25 (28cm x 21cm).

With the CS in front of you in 'portrait', score lightly down the middle (top to bottom) at 10.5cm (Andy used the cm side of a Hougie board). Flip the card round to 'landscape' (the score line will be running left to right now) and using the score line as a finishing point, score down from the top of the card to the line at 3cm, 6cm, 10cm and 21cm - these will form your steps. Before taking the card off your scoreboard, go back to the 14cm point and score all the way from top to bottom.

Now place your card in front of you in 'portrait' once again and using a craft knife and ruler, cut carefully along the light score mark that you made to begin with but only between the 3cm & 21cm score lines. Then gently fold along the various score lines to create mountain & valley folds - one side stepper card. Andy has photos on his blog and also has measurements in metric or imperial.

Time jus flew by and before we knew it we were well into the afternoon so Hillary & I went off for some lunch...

...I tend to be a bit of a creature of habit and had my usual Jacket potato with chilli & salad - Hilary went for tuna in her 'jacket'.

A bit of retail therapy and then back to watch the remainder of Andy's demo.

It was a great way to spend a day, especially as the weather wasn't that wonderful - thank you Andy for another super session of tips, ideas and inspiration.................................................