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December 31, 2009

Another year over

In fact, a whole decade.  I was thinking about this last night and, all in all, it's been a pretty lousy 10 years really.  

In 2000 things got bad and then went downhill from there.  Won't bore anyone with all the gory details but a few highlights were losing my grandmother, my father and my mother and getting cancer.

Anyway, here we are at the dawn of a new decade and hopefully the teens will be a darn sight better than the noughties!

I am now 50 (and a half) so when I saw Scrapdolly's new project I thought "that's for me" so I'm joining in the 52 in 10 adventure which you can check out here  

I'm also intrigued by Ali Edward's One Little Word (details here ) so I'm going to give that try too.  It sounds pretty much like an affirmation but with a crafty twist so it should be good for me.  I just need to decide on a word.... better make sure it isn't procrastinate I guess! lol.  I'm thinking along the lines of relax/chill/let go/let it be/peace.  Better make my mind up soon!!

Right, enough of the navel gazing!  Back on the craft front, a first for me for Christmas 2009 was making a card.  I don't make cards, never done one, but DDs wanted me to make one for them.  To get some inspiration I hopped on over to Hels blog because I just love her stuff and I rummaged around in her old postings.  I found this and thought "I have that stamp, I'll give it a go" so I did.  Not as good as Hels, but it'll pass:

I brayered a background with a Twighlight brilliance ink pad then stamped the reindeer on in black archival ink.  I masked him and stamped the snowflakes with embossing ink then embossed in silver.  I gave him a bit of a glitz with some rock candy stickles and matted (badly I know, I am dyscutlic) onto black cardstock then stuck it onto a white glittery card blank.  The reason I did the greeting separately was because I didn't think about it properly and had no room for it on the main bit - either that or it was for artistic reasons, you decide!  Anyway, I stamped the greeting and embossed with holographic embossing powder to make it all sparkly then used some cut & dry foam with the Twighlight pad to match the main background.  There was a bit of a big space at the bottom where the greeting should have gone but, because of the above stated reason, there wasn't enough room for it.  So, I dug out a cute ickle polar bear felt thingy and stuck that on and a bit of tinsely holly stuff went on the reindeer itself because you can never have enough tat or tinsel at Christmas is my motto.

Happy New Year everyone x
 

December 30, 2009

WOYWW

which is, as Mrs Dunnit tells us, actually LWOTYWOYWW.  Without further ado, here it is

My stash haul from Santa sitting there waiting to be organised (it'll have a flipping long wait then!)- who said that?!! Those of you who have been paying attention may notice a distinct lack of BIA. That's because the BIA has been put on the fantabulous contraption shelf alongside the cuttlebug, melt pot, encaustic tool doohickey wotsit and heat gun.
The three tags sticking out above the cuttlebug harlequin die are part of a pressie I made for youngest DD.  She had a christmas list as long as the arm of a very big orangutan (both arms, even) and included on said list were "clothes".  Older DD and I weren't sure what to buy so, inspired by a past issue of Craft Stamper (which reminds me, where is the lazy postie with this months issue?!!) I made a holder out of bits of kitchen roll inner tube (lots of uses for those this Christmas) and then decorated three tags as "vouchers" for a shopping trip for clothes, the company of myself and older DD on said trip, and a lunch while on the trip.  She used the vouchers yesterday and we had lunch at Zizzi's (I love their calamari and their risotto is to die for).  She actually only picked out one item of clothing (a jacket) and ended up with two pairs of boots, two handbags and some perfume instead!
Anyway, here is a pic of the holder for the vouchers for those of you who need to know about such things!

Can't promise I will be posting much of interest next WOYWW, if anything at all, as will be back at work :( but I will do my best though the post might be late evening.

December 28, 2009

Further adventures of the GHD box

Hope everyone had a fab time over Christmas.  What did Santa bring you?  I got a lovely Troll bead bracelet and some beads for it from my DDs, a pair of earrings, a set of L'Occitane hand lotions in different "flavours", Elemis bath cream and some other beauty products plus..... THE STASH!! 
Some of you may have read my post on UKS here about how my DDs insisted I had asked for a cuttlebug so they bought me one which turned out to be a BIA (woohoo).  I also got a set of Christina Renee stamps (No. 2) which is in just the coolest packaging! Ten Second metal in periwinkle and mocha, a couple of ribbon boxes and some ribbons, Prima flowerage (yay), three canvases (small, medium and large) and two cuttlebug dies. Phew! 
Anyway, George/Georgina was well recieved and now has pride of place on youngest DDs dressing table.  Oldest DD loved THE BOX......
A while back I posted this about a box which once contained GHD hair straighteners that I was working on.  Well I persevered with the gessoing and sanding, then I painted it grey, then painted over that with Viva precious metal paint in pink, then used one of the 7 Gypsies papers from the Happy Daze blog candy on the outside as well as some grungeboard letters covered in pink Ten Second metal and a couple of images from Crafty Individuals and this is the result


The inside was lined with a couple of layers of decopatch papers then I cut up the tube from a kitchen roll to make a couple of holders for cotton wool balls and hair clips and covered those in the same papers and fixed them in. I then gave a spritz with some Mallow Blush cosmic shimmer mist.  I used some pink Prima paper for the folding up bit and some Basic Grey for the inside of the lid which I then added some more Crafty Individuals images to

I then gave it a coat of varnish to secure all the papers and it now sits on her dressing table with all her make-up and bits in it.

Happy New Year! 

December 24, 2009

So here it is....

....MERRY CHRISTMAS!! 

I will be spending a peaceful day tomorrow with my two lovely daughters just enjoying each other's company, which will be perfect :)  Of course there will be turkey and pressies and all the other trimmings and trappings!  Apparently I also have stash hidden in amongst my gifts.... I shall report back on Boxing Day.  

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas x


December 22, 2009

Busy Busy Busy

Been rushing around like crazy, work has been absolutely mad busy and I haven't had a spare second!

I notice lots of people have been posting their Christmas trees looking all beautiful and sparkly.  We used to have a tree at Christmas all covered in lovely baubles and beads and stuff and then this happened.....

Mackenzie loves Christmas and she especially loved the tree...
 
 
Hiding in it

Climbing it
  
 
Fighting it

And just generally destroying it.

She would just go nuts the minute the tree appeared and the baubles and tinsel started being unpacked.  Any part of the tree or unprotected areas of skin of anyone trying to decorate it was fair game.  She would calm down for a while once it was up, but then there would usually be a huge crash in the middle of the night as she reached the top branches and overbalanced the whole thing.

We gave up in the end after the destruction of three trees and the breaking of countless ornaments.  So these days we don't have a tree, except a very small wire doohikey that vaguely resembles a tree (vague enough not to excite the looney cat!).

Mackenzie still likes Christmas, especially trying to fit her fat ole behind into tiny little boxes as they are unwrapped on Christmas morning!
 
  

December 13, 2009

George/Georgina

George is now ready to make his debut as Georgina...
 

Here he... sorry SHE.... is, sporting the necklace she will be wearing on Christmas day when she is presented to DD.  The transformation from George to Georgina was a straightforward procedure.  Just gluing on some decopatch papers really!





Here is a profile shot:




and a glamour shot:

Now she is going into hiding at a secret location until her first official appearance on 25th.  Her people hope the press and public will respect her privacy and allow her this time to gather herself and prepare for her new life.

December 09, 2009

So I thought... why not join the fun

and so I did!. This is what is on my workdesk this Wednesday: 




I'm bogged down in altering a box.  It used to be black with some klimt images in gold on it (yep, a GHD box). So I've had to gesso it, then gesso it some more, with some sanding in between. It's just sitting there being boring right now, so I need to attack it with some paint, ink, papers, bellies, bling (you get the idea!)

For those of you wondering about George, he has been going through a bit of a crisis.  He has explored his sexuality and his gender, and is now mid-tranformation into Georgina.  (S)he will be putting in an appearance soon, once the surgery has healed!

November 29, 2009

Page 4

So the last of the conferences was done and dusted (well almost dusted, lots of follow up stuff to do in work next week) on Tuesday followed by a site visit in some far off region of known space (Yeovil) on Thursday.  I can now get back to what passes for normal for a while!
I had loads of nasty stuff to catch up on like washing and other h****work type things but have managed to get another page of the tag type book done

Not very exciting, just another distress ink background stamped with some Crafty Individuals flourishes.  I had a skeleton leaf which I sprayed with golden fish cosmic shimmer mist and then I loved the image from Crafty Individuals which seemed to fit in with my autumn theme so I mounted that on to some Cosmo Cricket Gretel paper.  At least I got some crafting done!

November 22, 2009

Advent Tree

A few years ago (I can't remember exactly when, my age is catching up with me, but about three or four I think) I bought an advent tree from M&S for my DDs.  They are 24 and 25 this year but still love their advent calendars.  Anyway, this one from M&S was all very sophisticated in silver and black and was filled with fashion jewellery!  It made up part of their christmas present as it was fairly expensive.

Anyways, ever since I have thought I really should alter it, and finally I have!  So, without further ado, here is the grand unveiling:
Back View:

I gave the whole thing a coat of gesso as the original card had a shiny coating on it then painted it all with Viva Metallic paint in Olive to keep with the tree theme.  I then covered the back and sides with K&Co paper from the Winter Wonderland pad in a deep green (again keeping with the tree theme).  The baubles are from the Seasonal grungeboard pack embossed in gold or painted red and embossed with holographic powder.  I've used a Paper Artsy Egg & Nog stamp and some holly from the Seasonal grungeboard pack and some red gems as a garland.  The bows were from the Craft Barn and then I cut up some Wassail papers for the parcels down the bottom.  The star is a wooden one from the Craft Barn painted red then spritzed with Cosmic Shimmer Golden Fish and edged with a Krylon gold pen.
Front View:
 
 
I just covered the drawers in a selection of K&Co papers from the Winter Wonderland pad, plus a few additional papers from Basic Grey Wassail and Eskimo Kisses.  I wanted this to look like a pile of presents so I made the big bow out of some wired gold ribbon at stuck it on the top with the tails dangling down.

I'm quite pleased with it, except I couldn't find any numbers the right size so I had to write them on by hand :(

Now if only I could get my mucky paws on one of those Tesco Advent Houses! 



 

November 20, 2009

Two awards! *blush*

Just one conference left now next week then I can relax :)  I got back to find I have been given two awards!! 

Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I would like to thank everyone who has made this possible........ lol.

First up Helen gave me this award:

I have to share 5 facts about my self and then pass the award on to 5 other people:
  1. My three children are the centre of my universe
  2. I was in an Irish bagpipe band when I was very young so yes, that means I used to play the bagpipes!
  3. I love long walks in the countryside
  4. I am fascinated by architecture
  5. I love watching the sea crash against the cliffs
I am now passing this on to the following 5 people who inspire and intrigue me: Carmen Leandra Julie Virginia and Viola 

Second award was from Carmen 


Carmen wants to know more about me so I have to answer the following questions with one word answers.... me! one word!! EEEEK!

1. Where is your cell phone? Ummmm....
2. Your hair? A mess
3. Your mother? Pass
4. Your father? Browbeaten
5. Your favorite food? Chocolate
6. Your dream last night? Work
7. Your favorite drink? Fruit Juice
8. Your dream/goal? Fulfilled children
9. What room are you in? Lounge
10. Your hobby? Craft
11. Your fear? Letting people down
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Pass
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. Something that you aren't? Confident
15. Muffins? OK
16. Wish list item? Everything in Leandra & Lin's workrooms
17. Where did you grow up? London
18. Last thing you did? Cooked
19. What are you wearing? PJs
20. Your TV? Off
21. Your Pets? Cat
22. Friends? Funny
23. Your life? Chaotic
24. Your mood? Bemused
25. Missing Someone? Yes
26. Vehicle? Bus
27. Something you’re not wearing? Shoes
28. Your favorite store? M&S
29. Your favorite colour? Red
30. When was the last time you laughed? This Morning
31. Last time you cried? Last Week
32. Your best friend?Al
33. One place that I go to over and over? Work
34. Facebook? Irregularly
35. Favorite place to eat? Anywhere

I'm not good at one word as you can tell!  Now I have to pass this on to five people I want to learn more about: Helen Ruth Hels Lin and Linda E 


Phew!

November 14, 2009

Conference season :(

Been away most of the week at a conference, will be away Monday/Tuesday next week for another one and again the same two days the following week!! 
Anyways, after the snowman wall hanging I was in the Christmas mood so I made another wall hanging with Cosmo Cricket lacing cards from my TSV kit and more papers from the K&Co Winter Wonderland pad.


The top lacing card is mainly one of the papers from the pad which is just so gorgeous it didn't really need anything else.  I stamped a Paper Artsy Nut & Meg poinsetta onto grungepaper, coloured them with fired brick distress ink then sprayed with wild currant glimmer mist.  I blinged them up with some fired brick distress stickles and used micro beads for the centres.  I added a bit of christmas red stickles to the centre of the large poinsetta on the paper because you can never have too much sparkle at Christmas!
 


The second panel is covered with another of the papers then I painted some grungeboard snowflakes from the holiday pack with Viva metallic paint in ice blue.  After that I covered them in pearl glitter.  The letters are from a grungeboard alpha pack covered alternately in christmas red stickles and fired brick stickles.






The third panel is covered with yet another paper from the pad.  I then ran the smaller grungeboard reindeer from the holiday pack through the cuttlebug with the script embossing folder then inked it up with fired brick distress ink and sprayed with wild currant glimmer mist.  I then painted one of the holly sprays from the holiday pack with olive viva metallic paint and used christmas red stickles for the berries.

The final panel is again covered in another paper from the pad.  I ran the small grungeboard tree from the holiday pad through the bug again with the script folder and then painted it with olive viva.  The poinsettas are the same as on the first panel and the letters are the same as the second panel.
 I laced them together with a sparkly ribbon and here is the whole thing. (try to ignore the mark on the wall, I didn't notice it until I was cropping the pic on the PC!  Housework is a very occasional thing in my house)
 

November 08, 2009

Thought for the day

I've just been surfing around, catching up on blogs and boards and various points of interest, and I came across this wonderful post on Suze Weinberg's blog 
I love it, and I am particularly impressed by the last paragraph of the post:


With time we gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room it distributes out to the rest of our bodies.
So we aren't heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy. 
Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think,

¨Good grief, look how smart I am...¨
 
This is not just my thought for the day.... it's the thought of the century!
 

November 07, 2009

Sunday Stampers Challenge - Snowmen

So there I was last weekend with a big circle of heavyweight cardboard (my DDs bought a Patisserie Valerie cream cake... yummy! and this was the cleaned up cake board) wondering what to do with it when I saw the Sunday Stampers Challenge on Hels blog here.  I've never done a challenge before but I thought I would give it a try.

I was tempted a while ago by a K&Co Winter Wonderland pad on QVC, and I have the holiday grungeboard pack and a couple of Stampers Anonymous Christmas collections by the beloved T!m so I was good to go.
Here is my effort:
I covered the board in one of the K&Co papers then painted a sort of snowdrifty landscape in titan white acrylic paint which I also used on the snowman grungeboard shape.  Once the paint was dry I stamped the trees from the Reindeer Games set in black and embossed with clear powder and the music and title from the Christmas Sounds set with versamark then embossed with silver.  The lampost is also from the Christmas Sounds set stamped on to grungepaper then cut out and stuck on with glossy accents.  I used a gold metallic pen to colour in the "lamp" part to look like it was lit.  I used some distress inks to colour the snowman parts then stuck him on with a bit of red and gold ribbon for a scarf.  I used an unidentified stamp of an owl with a chrismas hat on some shrink plastic to make a little friend for the snowman then went mad with some snow tex and pearl white glitter to make a snowy texture.  Unfortunately the bobble fell off the owl's hat when I was trying to flatten it after shrinking, but don't tell anyone!

October 31, 2009

Meet George...


..which may be short for Georgina, I haven't quite decided yet.  I found this in Paperterie, the shop near where I work in Kingston that sells all things decopatch.  They sell all sorts of interesting things like this... lions, elephants, boxes, dishes, frames.  All blank and lovely and ready for altering.  Anyway, DD has a thing for giraffes.  Not quite as big a thing as for donkeys, but a thing all the same, so I thought I would pick this little one up and alter it for her.  They come in all sizes and this is one of the smaller ones.  They have one as tall as me (which isn't saying much, I suppose!)






I have some paper with a black background and bright pink lace images on it which I think I might use as a base for this, hence it may be Georgina.  We shall see.... watch this space.

October 25, 2009

Page 3

Not much crafting time this week :( but I did manage to get another not-a-tag done.  A recent issue of Craft Stamper had a project using Caught In Crystal which I thought looked really effective, so I decided to have a go.  I printed out one of my fave poems onto acetate (Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese 7 (you guys all thought I was going to say 43, didn't you?)). Then I poured on the Klear, dropped in some alcohol inks in caramel, terracotta and raisin and swirled it around, then sprinkled in some gold mica flakes and some microbeads in red and gold - sticking with the autumn colour theme, and finally added on the crumpled tissue paper to soak up the Klear.


This picture taken with flash shows the sparkle but the reflection of the flash on the acetate means you can't see the details too well.











This one taken without the flash shows the details better but you can't really see how sparkly it is!
I had fun with this technique, but don't try it if you don't do "messy" because it is a very messy process.  Also, that Klear stuff sure does pong!  Once it dries it's fine but when you first pour it out it is very stinky.  So only try this at home if you can cope with sticky and smelly!

Edited to add: A couple of people have said they have never heard of Klear. It's a floor polish, which is why nobody sensible has heard of it!

October 19, 2009

2010 Calendar

I decided to make my own calendar for next year so I printed off some calendar pages I found online and decorated the cardboard from the back of an A4 pad.


K & Co papers, flowers, lace, buttons and magic mesh from Bubbly Funk July kit.  Some grungeboard swirls sprayed up with glimmermist and some ice stickles.  I punched holes with a cropadile in the cardboard and the calendar pages then threaded string though buttons and then through the holes to attach the pages.

I think I like it.
 

October 17, 2009

Page 2

Before anyone mentions it, yes, I know it should be fruitfulness but, with all due respect to Keats, I didn't have room for the fulness so it will just have to be the season of fruit, ok!  It's more or less the same thing anyway and he can still be the close bosomed friend of the maturing sun!  By him I mean Arcimboldo's "Autumn" who is the star of this second tag-that-is-not-a-tag

Not much to this one really.  The background is mainly covered up but is some colourwash spray and glimmermist in butterscotch and raisin.  After the image and the lettering was stuck on I shimmered it up a bit with some autumn rose gilding flakes around the edge.  I love playing with the gilding flakes and one day I might even learn how to use them properly!! LOL
Off now to make a 2010 calendar for the fridge! 

October 15, 2009

Magic Boxes

Well here they are all finished, filled and tied up ready for Christmas!  How very organised of me.... scaaaary!


They are both slightly different for reasons of artistic merit and such like (actually because I didn't have enough of the same papers LOL)



I used my Cosmo Cricket TSV kit papers (another idea stolen from Ruth!) as these are sort of Christmassy colours and because the remains of the kit have been hanging around for ages waiting for me to find a use for them.  The lettering is from the same kit, the ribbons are from my huge box of anonymous ribbon and the flowers are, wait for it.... NOT prima *gasp*They are cannibalised from a couple of hair clips because they were nice and glittery and were sitting still for too long in my line of vision.  A few adhesive gems to bling it up a bit and voila!

October 14, 2009

Shhhhh....it's a secret!

I'm in the middle of making some Magic Boxes (see Ruth's blog post here ) to put some small gifts in for my DDs.  They saw me making the box part but I want them to be suprised on Chrismas morning when they open the outer part and find the little boxes inside, so I'm not posting any pics!  Besides, mine won't be anywhere near as beautiful as Ruth's so look at hers instead!


In the meantime, I am under strict instructions not to buy any stash because I gave DDs a wish list and they tell me they have bought some stuff from it... only some though.... so I need to know what they haven't got!!!!!

Anyway, I should be finished with the boxes tonight, hopefully, so then I can get back to my tags that aren't tags!

October 12, 2009

Page 1 (of 12, apparently!)

I've never made tags, but I have got Sir T!m's Christmas tags, all 2 years worth, printed off and saved, along with his technique tags!!
Anyway,  I bought a Maya Road Mailbox to alter oooh, must be about 18 months ago now, and it came with a postage stamp shaped chipboard book.  There are 6 of the chipboard shapes which gives me 12 sides to decorate in total.  Here is the first one:

Background is a combination of scattered straw, spiced marmalade and aged mahogany distress inks with a Sir T!m flourish mask for interest.  Teapot and cup stamps are Prima and the text is Paperartsy.  Added Prima flowerage, of course!  I've decided the theme will be autumn colours but other than that, who knows.  Of course, even that is subject to change but then, life would be pretty boring if we all knew what we were doing all the time.  Me, I have no idea what I am doing most of the time so life is somewhat exciting!!
So, what does this have to do with tags?  Well, nothing really, except it's sort of tag size (largeish tags) and it's a sort of similar principle and.... well, I don't know, ok!

October 10, 2009

What a week!!

I've had a crazy week at work.  Insanely busy!  Anyway, it's the weekend now and I have managed to get some crafting done.. YAY!!!  I've altered a tissue box holder for my other DD who has a brown colour scheme in her bedroom:


I took two pics, one with and one without flash (the one on the right is without flash) as it is very sparkly so some of the detail is lost with the flash on.  The background gave me a bit of trouble.  The expresso paint dabber was too dark and the hazlenut was too light.  So I mixed some expresso with titanium white acrylic, but that was a bit flat, so I threw in some quinacridone crimson to warm it up a bit.  Once I had painted that all over I still wasn't happy so I gave the whole thing a generous spritz of Golden Fish cosmic shimmer mist which sparkled it up nicely!
Next I got to play with some of my new stamps from my Ally Pally haul all stamped with versamark and then embossed with gold for the border and each end:

The border stamp is from Circa Designs and the crown is a Paper Artsy mini.









The chandelliers are Prima stamps and the butterflies are a haberdashery find.
The stamps on the front are Crafty Individuals.  I inked the stamps up with black and then used the second impression to get a lighter effect.  Then I went over some areas with metallic gel pens to colour the birds, leaves and the cage.  The flower and the word are rub ons and bling it ons and the top has more bling and, of course, prima flowerage. The large flower has some stickles to sparkle it a bit because I thought maybe I didn't have quite enough bling in there!!



October 03, 2009

I'm ba-ack

Southampton was busy and I was exhausted by the time I got home last night.  Anyway, I have been playing hard today and have managed to finish the canvas for DD.
Archie is making his debut appearance down the left hand side near the bottom. Doesn't he look cute all cut out in pink metal?  More pink metal in the bottom left hand corner embossed with my new Big Daddy mould, background all sorts of things... glimmer mists, paynes gray golden acrylic glazed to within an inch of it's life, crafty individuals background papers, tattered rose distress ink, pearl pigments and some silver adirondack paint dabber applied through a stencilThe top left is blackberry ferro dabbed over with pink viva and there are also some pink micro beads stuck in it here and there.  I finally managed to make a paper rose (yay me!!!) and surrounded it with some lace in the middle.  The tickets in the top right corner are made with some pink mulberry paper and a Craft Stamper free stamp and there is a grungeboard key up there sprayed with pink glimmer mistI then chucked pink bling and glitter at it until I felt it was done. Oh and, of course, Prima flowerage in the form of a vine.

Suppose I had better go and unpack and put a wash on now.... booooring!

September 30, 2009

The best laid plans...

and all that. Mine have hit a snag... well two really.  I got bored and I got distracted. LOL.

All the stamps are in their nice new CD cases (well almost all, I ran out of cases for the last 2 sets and by the time I got some more the boredom had set in).  I haven't done the labelling or the key yet either.

I have started on a 12 x 12 canvas for one of my DD's though.  I've got a few layers of background done and I'm embossing some metal ready to stick on once I have a bit more texture on the background.

Then there is another snag..... work :( Got to go travel to Southampton tomorrow for a conference on Friday so I have to leave all my toys behind *boo hoo*.  Better go and pack I suppose.....

September 28, 2009

Normal service will resume shortly

....whatever that means (normal that is!).  I have decided to re-organise my collection of stamps.  When I say re-organise there's not really much "re" about it, to be honest.  More a case of actually organising them!  I bought quite a few at Ally Pally on Saturday (have been mounting the ones that needed it on to EZmount - filthy job!) and now need some clever way to store them.  Up to now my meagre collection has been stuffed into punched pockets in an A5 lever arch file but that was getting a bit messy.  

The Master Plan: I have a load of empty CD cases, some sticky labels and glossy card.  I intend to put the stamps by collection into the CD cases, label them appropriately along the side (I even have a key planned out... I'm scaring myself!) and put them into a CD rack.  I also intend to stamp the images first onto glossy card and label each card with the same key as the CD cases -this will be my filing key.  It all sounds very efficient, doesn't it? I obviously need to lie down in a dark room for a while!  The Tim Holtz collections are already on laminated punched card so I can file those in a ring binder.  If I get rich I might even buy one of the great T!m's binders, but for now a common one will do!

So, that's the plan.  It may take some time..... on the other hand, I might get bored with it and be back in action sooner than I think.

In the meantime, here is an LO I did some time ago which I think is quite fun.  It was for a poetry themed challenge.  


September 27, 2009

I got an Archie!!

Headed off bright and early to Ally Pally to get there in time to catch me an Archie!  As soon as the doors opened we all poured in and I headed straight to the LB Crafts stand and got one!

Isn't he cool?!  I picked a green one, and at the checkout I met my follower, Helen, who picked a red one.  It was great to meet up with her and put a face to a person I feel I already know.  Leandra took our photo and we are posted on her blog proudly wearing our spoils. I watched the demos for a while but then it was time to get down to some serious shopping.
Next stop was Scrap Shed which was quite close to LB Crafts.  I bumped in to Carmen (whoopido) with her DD and we both remarked on how we normally couldn't get near the Scrap Shed stand.  Later on it was as packed as it normally is, but Karen's idea of having the tills at the back worked well in freeing up the stand a bit for browsing.... so I got the chance to go back and buy more than once, LOL.  Off next to Scrap Revolution for some more essentials and then it was just a general browse and picking up things that weren't necessarily on my list.  I did manage to fill all my wish list except for Copper TSS metal so I was happy. Here's a pic of part of my haul:


You can see some distress inks (there are lots more, got about 8 of those) and some of the flowers, bling lace, stamps etc.  This is just a selection, I got loads more (variety is the spice of life!) as well as some boring basics like EZmount, plain white glossy cardstock, tags, adhesives.  I also picked up a couple of sheets of Graphic45 papers and my main item of the day was a melt pot (so maybe I can finally wax my petit dolls!)


I met up with some of the UKScrappers as arranged by the Lee and I spent lunchtime with Lee, Ali (and her OH Geoff), Fiona and Juliette which was fun.  It was so nice to meet up with people I have been posting with for such a long time and to find they are just as nice (actually nicer) in person.
All in all it was a great day, especially the footie scores (come on you Mighty Reds!)  I still haven't actually seen the goals, but was watching Soccer Saturday in a pub with my bezzie mate as the goals were coming in. I've got Match of the Day on Sky+ and will savour Torres' hat trick along with Babel's brace and the goal from Gerrard as soon as I publish this post.

September 21, 2009

Ally Pally

is nearly here!  Just five days to go and wouldn't you know it, London Underground have decided to close the Victoria Line on Saturday just to make my life difficult.

I should be easy to spot, I look pretty much the same as my avatar pic and I am usually wandering around with my glasses stuck on top of my head!  I'll also be wearing my UKScrappers badge as some UKScrappers will be meeting at the ATC swap point at mid day.  If anyone wants to say hello please do, I love meeting people and I don't get out much, lol.

Anyway, there was a suggestion on the UKS board that we might swap some ATCs so I made a few, just in case:


This is my first real attempt at ATCs so I hope I've got it right!  I inked up the card with distress inks using cut n dry.  The flowers and small butterfly is Crafty Individuals and the larger butterfly is Paper Artsy stamped onto a colourwash ink and glimmermist background, cut out and blinged up with some Stickles.

September 20, 2009

*cough-cough*

and *sniff-sniff*.  Just in case those hints weren't clear enough... I have a cold! Nasty one that makes me feel like my head is stuffed with cotton wool so I am very hard of thinking right now (more so than usual).  Anyway, I think I have got the comments sorted out now.  Thanks to Ruth and Helen for letting me know there was a problem!

Not got much done this week, being poorly sick and all, but I did get a second canvas finished off from the Wilko pack:

This one is in browns and rusty/terracotta colours to match my youngest DDs bedroom.  There are some BG Ambrosia papers in there, a few Cosmo Cricket die cuts, prima flowers and bling and another of my bargain butterflies.  I've also discovered a cute little shop in the centre of Kingston (where I work) which has Decopatch stuff in it.  Never heard of this before, but the papers are really useful, a tissue paper texture which is semi translucent for the first layer then gets deeper colour if you layer it up.  I used a brown and gold crackle effect for the edge of this canvas and it works really well.  I notice that a lot of stationery stores are starting to stock this stuff, and for alterers they have some great items to alter (I particularly love the giraffe).  I found this online store that has details of Decopatch for anyone who is interested.

I also made a find in a charity shop and bought these beauties for £1.25 each!

Aren't they fab?  The possibilities are endless.... which makes it difficult to decide what to do with them!!! Help!!
Well, that's all for now, apart from a big cheer for the away win yesterday.  Torres was on fire! Carragher and Skirtl not so much but hey, everyone is entitled to an off day now and again... as long as they don't make a habit of it.

September 16, 2009

Red Tide Rising!

And we're off and running!  Not exactly a vintage Liverpool performance, but The Mighty Reds have won and, importantly, kept a clean sheet at home so.... no away goal advantage for Debrecen when we face them on their own turf (and beat them of course!)

September 14, 2009

Being 50

This is the last scrapbook layout I did.  The pic is of me in Barcelona where my two DD's took me as a birthday treat.  We wandered into a square and found this balcony decorated to look like a 50th birthday cake!



The papers are Basic Grey Boxer and Ambrosia.
So, what's it like being 50? So far so good!  I haven't got to worry about the menopause as I got that over with when I had treatment for cervical cancer three years ago and I'm in complete remission now and am pretty much recovered from the treatment so I'm feeling better healthwise than I have for a few years.  All in all life is pretty good at 50! 

September 13, 2009

Canvassing

I picked up a pack of 4 small blank canvases in Wilkinsons a couple of weeks ago.  Blank canvases seem to be available everywhere now, which is great for us crafters who can pick them up at low prices and play around without worrying about the cost! I've now got a stash of all sizes to play with.

This is what I have done with one of the small ones:

 
I had the title text from a jamboree pack of ephemera and I thought it was fun so I started from there and the rest just flowed from it.  The vintage photograph is from an ephemera sheet, the flowers are prima and there is an assortment of tissue papers and bits of lace doilies.  The butterfly I picked up from a little shop in Covent Garden where they were on sale.
BTW I still haven't waxed my Petit Dolls.  I started with the block of wax and the mini iron and wasn't happy with the results so I blotted it off with paper towels.  I'm thinking I will get a melt pot and try putting on the wax with a paint brush then ironing it to flatten it out if I need to.  I know a lot of people find the block and iron gives them more control, but I think I would feel more in control with a brush.  Guess I am just contrary!

September 12, 2009

It's been a while

I've had a bit of a downer on the past couple of weeks..... not the best time to start a blog!!  Anyway, I'm starting to feel a bit more on the up now and I'm back!
Been digging around in my cross stitch stash and came across some of my completed work (yes, I have managed to finish some stuff!). 
First, I would like to share my Tity with you!  Titania (or Tity as she was christened by a friend who was stitching her at the same time) is a Mirabilia design by Nora Corbett.  I love her designs, especially her fairies:
  
Next, a slightly smaller, but still lovely, lady: Shroomhilde from Dimples Designs.  These shrooms are so cute, and this little lovely is stitched with lots of sparkly threads and beads (much like Titania above):
 
Finally, my mandala garden from Chatelaine Designs.  This design was released in parts as a mystery, so we all got a section of the pattern once a month for 12 months and the overall design was revealed gradually.  It is all stitched in silks and speciality threads with lots of swarovski crystals.  It really is a gorgeous design and looks stunning in person:
I have finished more than three projects I should tell you, these were just the ones I came across when sorting out earlier.
I also have lots of half finished stuff I must get back to!  Maybe I'll post some pics of those on here too and that might shame me into getting on with them.