No matter where i go i always travel with the mentality that there must be a craft shop nearby. So when a trip is looming, out comes the note pad and i have a good old hunt through the yellow pages and Internet search engines. Last weekend we were visiting the in-laws in Inverness, up in the North of Scotland, and i was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Highlands have been graced by a new craft shop. Based in the Howdwen garden centre is a Craft Central concession store which holds an array of crafting goodies that succeeded in tickling my fancy. As with most Craft Central’s the shop is well laid out, spacious and has a good selection of products from rubber stamps, jewellery making supplies, model making, die cutting and much more. However, i wanted to tell you specifically about one special find that i discovered in this store – PDQ pads.
PDQ is an acronym for ‘Pretty Darn Quick’ and that is exactly what this product is all about. The pad itself is spiral bound and is a handy 5.5″ x 3″ size – perfect for 12 x 12 layouts and easy to carry to crops and classes. Each pad contains 20 sheets of patterned journaling papers which can be torn out, scribbled upon and stuck to some paper so that you have a layout completed in a jiffy. I must admit that this is not the way that i work, as sometimes it can take me a week to complete a project as i guess i am a pretty slow crafter nevertheless these PDQ pads will definitely be making their way onto a layout or two in the near future. The variety of styles in each pad is quite diverse, ranging from simple lined papers with elegant borders, to funky sketchy styles. I can’t quite decided on my favourite sheet as there are just so many that seem perfect. One is split into two columns, one side blue, one side pink and the title reads “he said, she said”. This little piece of paper is the perfect journaling prompt for those days when you just can’t seem to get past the crafting mind-block, as i can certainly think of plenty of stories that would be perfect on a layout with this embellishment as a visual aid. Other great designs include those which list the days of the week, dates and months of the year so that you can add the date to your layout in a really cool and artsy way by circling or highlighting the appropriate text. Even more great news is that there are three different design pads to choose from, each with their individual style, which makes these little pads even more versatile.
They are made by a company called Bisous who also have a range of PDQ scrapbook page layouts that would be perfect for newbie crafters who may appreciate a little guidance when putting a layout together as staring at a blank 12 x 12 piece of paper can often be slightly daunting.
All in all, i would definitely recommend that you check out the rest of the Bisous product range by visiting www.bisous.biz and to get a better look at the designs in each PDQ journaling pad here
