A to Z year : January 15th-28th : the letter B

So here I am blogging the brilliant letter B :)

We’ve had a ton of fun this fortnight, not least because we now have some fellow passengers on the A-Z journey – our pals Michelle and Tracy and family have decided to play along, and they have been coming up with some fantastic suggestions for alphabet-styled activities.

So – what have we got up to?



First of all, we went to our first away ice hockey game of the season –because it was in Basingstoke, home of the Bison, and we couldn’t ignore that opportunity to pick up two Bs in one go. Unfortunately, the Wildcats (our team) got beaten :( But it was a good, close game, and we enjoyed making plenty of noise to support our boys.

We also got to see Bud, who is Basingstoke's mascot. He's very cool (if a little scary looking), and I even got a Bud-cuddle :) Sorry for the horrendous pic, I didn't have my proper camera with me, and the lights were very dim at this point. Just imagine a minotaur on skates....

The next day, we took the boys to the local ten pin alley for a spot of bowling. None of us are exactly experts at this particular sport, but we had a laugh, and Jay even got a couple of strrrrrrikes (such a show off). I came last, rubbish, I can’t even win against children! I like Reece’s bowling action – he kind of cocks his leg up like a dog doing a tinkle :) made me smile every time:

(you'll probably need to click on these multi-pics to see the big version, as they come out teeny on the blog)

We also did a spot of baking on that first weekend. I figured we could use this excuse twice, actually, and bake biscuits for B, then cook chocolate chip cookies for C – any ideas how we can shoehorn it into D? :) They were delicious, anyway ... hmmm ... that begins with D ... getting there!



In the week, Connor had his hair cut, or, to remain in the spirit of the exercise, a buzz cut. The plan was to take him to the barbers, but in the end, his dad got the clippers out and did it himself. Luckily, his dad is called Bryan, so it still fits.

Before and after shots, he looks so much older without his mop:



During our second B weekend, we did our first joint A-Z venture with Michelle, Tracy, Callum and Lauren (you'll be seeing many more of these over the year).

A local shop called Buyology is, sadly as my eldest son worked there and is now out of work, in the process of closing down, and so they are selling off all their stock at ludicrously cheap prices. Michelle managed to pick up these brilliant bubble-swords for only 59 pence each! Bargain :)

So we all went up to the local park for an hour or so before this week’s home hockey game to blow ginormous bubbles. It was cooooold up there, but not too cold to have fun :) I love the way the camera flash bounced off the bubbles:



Then on the Sunday, Connor and I went down to my dad’s in London for a belated Christmas dinner (our third attempt – we were originally supposed to go on Boxing Day, but Connor was in hospital, and then the snow put paid to attempt #2 in early January). My dad got in the spirit (literally!) of B fortnight by burning some brandy on the Christmas pud:

That's all the main activity - but there were a few other random Bs:

I bought some Bavarian Blue Brie cheese to try, because I couldn’t resist that BBB triple whammy :) And I’m glad I did – it was delicious!

Connor got a new basketball (and I was planning to snap some piccies of him shooting hoops, but the weather’s been a bit too wet when we haven’t been busy doing other things).

As you can see from previous blog posts, I've made a few bracelets.

And Connor has also been practicing lots of tricks with his new Brain yo-yo:

Check back in a fortnight to see what we managed to do with the letter C!

While I'm blogging....when I really should be sleeping....

....how do you like my new pebbles? :)

I bought these today in the local bargain shop (where Ethan used to work, sadly now in its last week) for 20p :)

I thought they might be good for photographing jewellery on.

They don't really work with this first one, which is a half Persian 4 in 1 bracelet I made last night for Connor, as the rubber rings make it hold its shape for dear life, which means the bracelet steadfastly refuses to drape attractively over the pebbles....

But they look fab with my, still work in progress, Euro 4 in 1 copper cuff, don't you think? Drapes like a pro :)

Stampers CJ - #4 - "gates"....

I'm actually a bit early with this one as I'm hoping to hand deliver it to me bessie Alison next weekend, but for my purposes it's Stampers CJ time again ..... and this book belongs to T-Ann, whose stamp was this pair of ornate gates:

The brief for this book was not only to make something purty with the supplied stamp, but also on the facing page to explain exactly how the purty thing got made, as T-Ann is a beginner stamper and is hoping to learn lots of new techniques from this book when it lands back home.

I've gone with stamping into melted embossing powder as my "technique", probably teaching granny to suck eggs, as I don't think she is that much of a beginner, but I couldn't think what else to do that would work with the angel wings I've had sitting in a drawer for goodness knows how long, and which I really wanted to use on this page.

So here's my entry:



I won't bore you with how everything was done, for once, as if you're really interested you can read about it on the piccie :) (you might need to click on it to see it bigger first)

Sorry about the glare, I didn't even use a flash, that was just from my light - but this entry is very shiny-sparkly :)



PS yes, I know we've skipped straight from #2 to #4 - I forgot to take a piccie of #3 soz...

Shop til you drop

It's coming up to the end of the month, so as usual I have been rushing about like a blue bottomed fly trying to get this month's Disney CJ layout completed....and by the skin of my teeth, here it is!

This month's book was so much fun to work in - I really liked the layout of Maggie's book - here's the front of the CJ - she has bound the journal itself (on the left, horizontal) and the sign in book (on the right, vertical) on the same back cover. So when you open it up you can see each person's sign in tag next to their layout:


Genius! I am soooooo going to be stealing this idea for a future CJ round :)

Maggie's theme is "Shop til you drop...Disney style", which was fun, as it meant I got a chance to document my antenna topper habit :) Yes, I'm a topper shopper, and proud!

Here's my layout plus sign in, in full:



Closer look @ the LHS:


and the RHS:


I gave the Cuttlebug a bit of a workout on this one, as you can see from all the embossing.....nothing else particularly clever going on here, a few of the topper heads have been decoupaged up on foam pads (you can see that clearer in the pic at the top of this post), the wording was either Cricutted (title) or stamped (the rest), and I made a couple of little accordion books for the journalling.

th-th-th-that's all folks.

Another one next month....

A to Z year : January 1st-14th : the letter A

So – what’s this A-Z year thing about?

It’s a stroke of genius, that’s what it is, and the genius in question is the super talented Nicole Maki

She explains the concept far better than I could in her blog posts here and here

But in a nutshell, 52 weeks in a year = 26 fortnights = 26 letters of the alphabet. The idea is to do / experience / try as many things as possible each fortnight starting with the allocated letter.

We’re only on B so far, but it has been a huge amount of fun already, the whole family has got involved in thinking of things to do and try.

I’m going to try and document each letter’s adventures here on my blog ….. so here’s what we did for the letter A:


First of all, we made an A-Z notebook....the boys helped me by punching the diamond shapes, and stamping the letter and date range on each double page spread for me. We are carrying this book around with us everywhere, so when we get an idea of something we’d like to do later in the year, we can jot it down under the correct letter in the book, before we forget. It’s already filling up nicely.

Then we went to see a movie – Alvin & the Chipmunks, the Squeakuel – it was funny – maybe not quite as good as the first one, but the “you spin me right round baby right round” moment in the mixing bowl certainly had me giggling :)








The next challenge was to get Connor to eat apples.....he wasn't keen :) But I did get him to try fresh pressed apple juice (which he has been resisting for years because it has 'bits' in, but has now decided he loves) and Nutrigrain cereal bars with an apple and blackberry filling, which he also really liked. So I count that as a partial success.



And who could resist an Art Attack afternoon? We all love this programme, so we watched an episode and the plan was we would all make something from the show. Neil, the presenter on the show, made these ace little crows out of cones of black card...here's my masterpiece :) (I'm not sure where his wings have got to...he did have some when I first made him)....the boys made some stuff too but they have whisked their creations away out of camera range so you'll just have to trust me on that one.


Our major "A" was a trip out to beautiful Avebury in the snow. Unfortunately Reece wasn't with us for this one as the weather was particularly bad around where his mum lives, and so Jay wasn't able to collect him. The rest of us had a cold but fun time though, exploring the ancient stones and throwing lots of snowballs. And I enjoyed the opportunity to take photos of the stones (and the boys) in the snow.



Other than doing our big shop at ASDA instead of Tesco for a change, I think that's all our As.

Oh hang on - there's one more - during the heavy snow the week before last, I had to work from home for a few days, as Connor's school was closed. So I needed to keep him amused while I got on with my work, and therefore I asked him to paint me some things beginning with A. This astronaut is my favourite of his paintings.





I'll be back in a couple of weeks with the next installment....

More chainmaille....this stuff's addictive :)

May I present, my purple wrist, so far :



I'm kind of enjoying trying out new weaves with nice cheap materials, purple anodised aluminium and rubber on my left wrist, copper on my right. I'm working on a Euro 4 in 1 cuff for the right wrist to go with the Jens Pind Linkage and Byzantine copper bracelets I wear all the time.

My left wrist now has three .... Full Persian 6 in 1 in red and purple AA, Japanese 12 in 2 in black rubber, purple AA and, because I had them handy, sterling silver lil' rings, which kind of defeats the point of cheap experimentation, and Helm in black and purple rubber, and purple AA.

I'm chuffed with how they look together :)

I also cracked Half Persian 4 in 1 today, woohoo! It was a bugger to start off but fine once I got going...this little bit is just a practice but I'll probably do a proper one in copper for the copper wrist soon:

(Propper Copper, that rhymes :) made me giggle :) little things please little minds...)

So that's 7 weaves I can do now, this is FUN! :)

My next project is a little more ambitious - I'm going to make one of THESE for Darby. Once I can find a cheap supplier for the steel rings I need, anyway. Wish me luck :)

a very rare event.....

...all three of my sons in the same photograph!

And here are some more pics from today's snowy day, in itself a rare event in Swindon:




































(and yes, our snowman has a Catherine Wheel on his head....didn't yours??? :) )

Finally! my last entry in the Tattoo CJ

Well, this was a day I never thought would come - the day I finally get to update the Tattoo CJ in my works in progress list to 100% - yay!

This CJ round was one of those where everything that could go wrong went wrong - a few members had to drop out due to major life crises, and then a couple of other participants went AWOL for long periods of time, sitting on multiple journals for many months that I, as host, had to somehow retrieve.

This, Ally's CJ, was one of the ones that had disappeared into a black hole. I last heard from the lady who had this CJ plus my own book back in March 2009, saying she was just about to post them on. This never happened, and after that she ignored all my attempts to contact her, by text, email, facebook (she defriended me sharpish when I sent a message!), and registered letter.

I had totally given up on ever seeing them again, and then a couple of months ago - woohoo! a parcel arrived totally out of the blue with both missing books in.

I never did find out what the problem had been for so long - the lady had completed her own entries in both books back in December 2008 - so what was stopping her getting to the post office, I have no idea.

But no hard feelings - there's bound to be an explanation - I'm just glad they finally came back.

The timing, unfortunately, wasn't great for me, as I had just started two other CJ groups (the Take One Stamp one and the Disney one), and these were taking up all my making-stuff time....so I wasn't able to find the opportunity to do my entry in Ally's book until the Christmas break from work....but she assured me that she could wait another month or two :)

But her wait is now over...and I *think* this is the last book to go home in this ill fated circle, so I can now draw a line under this one.....thank god :D

Anyway - enough of the preamble - the theme for Ally's journal was "reactions to your tattoos, good or bad"....a great theme, but I was struggling to think of something I could do differently to the girls who had gone ahead of me.

The truth is, none of my tattoos are visible in day-to-day clothing, and so most people don't even know they are there, hence I don't get much in the way of comments or reactions, I've never had a bad one that I can remember (well, other than from my mum :))....and that seemed to be similar to a few of the other participants, who had already done layouts along the lines of "I don't get any bad reactions because nobody can see them"...

But then my clever lateral thinking boyfriend pointed out that there is more than one kind of 'reaction' - and so I decided to do my page on the nasty allergic reaction that I had to the red ink in my latest tattoo:

(that pic was taken before the inflammation kicked in - I don't have a photo of that, but trust me it was manky, all swollen and purple and itchy as HELL)

Apparently, red is the only colour of ink they can't make entirely hypoallergenic. Trust me to be allergic to it, I have always been allergic to lots of stuff. This one I wasn't expecting though, after all, I have a ton of red ink in my backpiece, and that didn't react at all....must be a different brand or something.

But anyway - back to the page - here's how it all came together:

• the pages are made from "Black Magic" coredinations cardstock, which is black on the outside but has a coloured core, red in this case, so you can sand it back to reveal the colour. It's cool stuff, I haven't used it before but certainly will again.
  
• the "DANGER" tape was simply set up in a word processor, printed onto yellow cardstock, cut into strips, and inked a little to distress
  
• the large skull and crossbones is Tim Holtz grungeboard, he's been painted with Ranger crackle paints, scuffed up a little with inks, and has had his eyes filled in with glossy accents, black microbeads and black glitter:
  (he is stuck onto the page with foam squares so he is popping out of the page)
  
• the stencil letters spelling RED were cut on the Cricut three times each from white card, stuck together to make something closer to chipboard in depth, and then triple embossed using red embossing powder...they came out a bit darker than expected, and didn't really show up too well on the black background, so I backed them with the same yellow card I used to make the DANGER tape:
  
  
• the rest of the title is lemon yellow rub-ons that I found at the back of my rub on drawer and have no recollection of actually buying
  
• the fab little stickers are from Paperchase - love them!
  They are metallic and kind of puffy, and you get tons of them on a sheet for a quid
  
• and those pewter stars are brads....I think that's everything....
  

So that's another CJ over....I really need to get around to blogging everyone else's entries in my own book....and the completed fabric CJ I got back a few months ago....so much to do....so little time!

Splash!

Here is my entry in Sonja's Disney CJ - which has the theme "water".

I decided to go with the daddy of all log flumes - Splash Mountain in the Magic Kingdom, Florida.

I had fun putting this little homage together, we all love this ride.

Here's a close up of the boat coming down the main drop - elevated on foam tabs:







And the super cool lil' film strip:






That film strip is part of the Tim Holtz Ideaology line of products. Other stuff on the layout are a Cricutted title in 'Benjamin Franklin' font, which I have watercoloured a darker blue at the bottom to emulate the ride signage; blue pearl gems (Papermania), and blue acetate embossed in my Cuttlebug to make the "water" at the bottom of the right hand page.

This CJ goes to my pal Michelle next, I hope she enjoys it as much as I did.

a homemade Christmas

It's been an expensive year, especially after having my bag stolen in Florida and having to wire money over to replace everything that was lost (hopefully one day the insurance will pay me at least some of it back....)

So I didn't have much cash to buy Christmas presents with....in fact I had pretty much nada.... so I used some Argos and Amazon vouchers I had been hoarding, and tried to make as many presents as possible...

Here are a couple of the things I made, Jay got a hand stencilled t shirt (he likes graffiti hence the three spray cans - Banksy stylee) - and if you look closely you'll see his necklace that I also made - it's a Jens Pind chain in brass, bronze and copper.

Darby's girlfriend Beth loves turtles, so I made her this charm bracelet:



and I made Darby a dinosaur themed gift box and fake "tickets" for a Dinosaur show that he is going to go to next year in London - I'll buy the actual tickets next payday - forgot to take pics of that one, sorry

Last but not least, this one wasn't technically a Christmas pressie, but was delivered just before the big day so kind of counts, a Helm bracelet in rubber and anodised aluminium for my bessie Alison:



Next year hopefully I'll be able to afford to buy real pressies, but it was kind of fun having to be a bit inventive and thrifty this time :)

I'm obscenely proud of this :)

It's bloody hard work joining a full Persian weave into a continuous chain, you know (well I found it bloody hard work lol)

Dead chuffed that it worked out, the bracelet is just big enough to roll on to my wrist easily - so no need for a clasp - but not so big that it hangs loose.

Two more piccies, just because I love it :)





Did I mention I love this bracelet, and I made it all by myself, and I'm very clever? :D

PS the rings are red and purple, not red and blue, but it looks blue in the photos

Stampers CJ - #2 - "the key"....

... where #1 was my own book, and the stamp was "the door"

This is my entry in Di's book for the UKstampers latest "take one stamp" style Circle Journal.

I've done a few of these before so you might be familiar with the format by now - it's one of those collaborations where a stamp is provided, and each participant designs a page using that stamp in any way they wish.

Di's stamp is this ornate key:

I was a tad stuck with this one to start with, as it calls out for a "vintagey" type treatment, and I don't really do vintage.

Jay thought it looked a little like an elephant's head, so I tried for a while to do something with that, with an elephant's head peeking out through the jungle leaves, kind of thing, but I couldn't get it to work.

Then I thought maybe I could use the little man in the middle of the stamp and use him repeatedly to make a crowd scene, looking up at the giant key. Not sure where I was going with that exactly :) And it would have been a nightmare of selective inking and masking to get it to work.

But anyway, I continued along that train of thought, and ended up here:



The backstory is on the back of the page here:



Not sure how well you can see in the pic, but they key statue has been stamped onto metal and embossed from the back to make it 3D. I filled the back in with glue lines so hopefully it will stay puffy.

Other stamps used are a pedestal from, I think, The Stamping Ground, the crowd scene from Viva Las Vegas, the Venice skyline from Green Pepper Press, and a moon, and silhouette of pine trees, unknown.

This CJ goes to my pal Alison next, I wonder what she will do with the key?

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....it's a secret.......

I think perhaps I was a little ill advised to take on two brand new CJs starting within a fortnight of each other....they have taken up every second of my free time for about the last 6 weeks, but never mind, they are both now out on their journeys, and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting them ready for the off.

This time the theme of the circle journal is Disney....a subject dear to my heart after our recent Orlando holiday....I am hosting this one over on UKScrappers.

My book's specific theme is "Disney Secrets" - eg hidden Mickeys, the back stories for the attractions, in jokes and easter eggs in the movies, the little details most people miss, etc.

Here's my intro page...in keeping with the "secrets" theme, I decided to hide away all the information behind flaps and in envelopes, I hope the recipients enjoy delving into the various nooks and crannies:



The book itself is a 7 Gypsies envelope book, so what I am asking each participant to do is decorate their envelope to give a hint at what is inside, and then fill the envelope with whatever they choose that will tell their story - eg a folded scrapbook layout, a large tag, a mini book etc.

Here is my envelope, front and back:





Can you guess the subject of my entry???

No?

How about with a close up of that wallpaper? :



Yup, you've got it....my subject is Secrets of the Haunted Mansion, one of the best rides in the whole of the Disney empire, in my opinion.

The contents of my envelope look like this when first pulled out:



And that unfolds to this:



Some close ups:






I had a lot of fun researching this entry, I found hundreds of legends, secrets and details about the Mansion, but only had room to include a handful.

For example, did you know that when the Doom Buggies descend into the house as you start the ride, they go down precisely 6 feet, signifying the riders' entry into the world of the dead.

Or that the reason the ladies appear to be leading as they dance in the ballroom, is that the imagineer who designed the dancing animatronics, forgot that they would appear reversed once reflected in the mirror used to give them their ghostly appearance.

There was limited room in that envelope, however, so I had to narrow it down (and just as well becuase I could have ended up working on this one for months! I ended up a day or two overdue as it was).



I can't wait to see the book again, in 11 months or so, filled with everyone else's juicy secrets :)

it's Jackanory time

I'm not going to do my usual apology for not having blogged in an age, cos, well, I haven't made anything TO blog....

But in the last month I've made two whole things! whoot! A card and a book for a circle journal. In fact I made 3, as I made another card also, but forgot to take a piccie of it.

And I have another book to make over the next couple of weeks too so hopefully I'll be blogging again very soon.

I REALLY hope that this means a return to me regularly creating 'stuff', partly because I love it and I've sorely missed it, but also because I feel really bad that there are things I am waaaay overdue to make for people that I just haven't been able to get around to yet. I promise, if I owe you something, you WILL get it eventually, and if I had forced myself to make it when my mojo was dead, it wouldn't have been any good anyway, better to wait until the creative juices are flowing. Don't you think? Doesn't stop me feeling really guilty though.

But anyway, before I beat myself up too much, here's the card, for my good buddy Tracy for her 21st-again birthday last week:

She called it "special", I'm not sure if that was a compliment :) But I liked it, and surely that's all that matters lol

The background of the card was alcohol inked (2 shades of Tria purple along with Ranger's denim, black soot and silver mixative) - the railings at the bottom were stamped and black embossed and then highlighted with a silver pen - and the moon lady was stamped with Versafine then mounted on a circle of chipboard, edged with silver paint and covered with a few layers of clear UTEE. The purple stars are Papermania gems.

As for my circle journal book (front cover up top there ^), this is another one of those stamping CJs I love to do, and I signed up for this one on a bit of a whim and a hope that it might nudge me back into making things. I've enjoyed putting the book together so much, that maybe the plan might just work.

The way that these journals work is that you choose a stamp, and send the book with the stamp around a group of fellow participants (11 of us in this case, all from the UKStampers forum), and each person uses the stamp provided in their own style to make a page for your book.

The challenge with these is to choose a stamp that is fairly versatile so that all the ways to use it don't get used up by person 4, leaving the rest of the group scratching their heads.

So the stamp I've chosen is an open door....so it's almost Jackanory, it's just it's an arched door not an arched window....and I've asked each person taking part to show me what they think is behind the door. It could be anything, anyone or anywhere, so hopefully I've left no excuse for people to say they can't think of an idea :)

The stamp is actually part of a set, with the door closed and open, so I've used the closed version on the book cover, and also supplied both stamps with the journal so the others can also use the closed version in their design if they like.

To make the background for the cover....

which you can see clearer in this piccie of the back of the book, especially if you click on it to see it up close:

....I used Golden crackle paste, which is kind of like polyfilla, nice and thick textured, but it cracks as it dries to give a lovely worn building look.

It was painted with 2 shades of brown paint and a bit of antique gold glimmer mist to emphasise all the nooks and crannies, and then finished off along the bottom with little pebbles made from airdry clay and painted with acrylics, and plants punched out of green card.

The front cover was further decorated with the stamped and watercoloured door, chipboard letters that had been coloured with a dark brown sharpie and then topped with copper Stickles, and a little door handle.

Inside the book I made pockets inside each cover for the stamps, and an intro page at the front, and sign in pages and an address label at the back:







The door knobs on the little sign in doors are "gunmetal pearls" from Papermania - I found these buried in the bottom of one of my drawers and was chuffed to find they fitted perfectly, and the numbers were stamped onto small punched squares of black shrink plastic, and then shrunk with a heat gun.

And after all that of course I had to do my own entry....I had all sorts of ideas for this one, from a fully underwater scene with mermaids and allsorts, to a fantastical alien planetscape, because I love doing outer spacey stuff.

In the end, following input from my creative director/boyfriend, I kind of ended up doing a combination of the two - a kind of unearthly place where Haida orcas swim right up to the sea wall. My little tribute to the beautiful city of Vancouver and its spectacular views out into the Pacific.

here you go:



The gorgeous big orca on the left was stamped with a hand carved stamp made for me by the wonderful Michelle Ward, based on my backpiece tattoo. I use it all the time, I love it to bits.

The whale was stamped on white card in black ink and embossed, and then I coloured in the white bits with glue and a thin layer of pale green glitter. You can see it a bit on this close up.

The background and also the backing for the waves is watercolour paper painted with various shades of Lumiere paint, and in the case of the pink sky, overstamped with various celestial images in different inks.

The waves are made with torn vellum in different shades of blue, and the wall (other than that part of the wall immediately around the stamped door) was hand drawn and watercoloured.

Over on the right hand side is much of the same, with the addition of a hand painted sun and two more stamped Haida creatures. You can see some of the lovely shimmer in the Lumiere paints on this close up if you click on it for a closer peek.

So that's it - now I'll send the book out into the wide world, and it hope it survives on its journey and comes back to me in 11 months time filled with colour and texture and creativity.

Have fun, book!

Doh! silly me....

....of course it hasn't been 6 weeks.

I just forgot to blog the entry from last month.

Would forget my head if it wasn't screwed on etc etc

So the sparrow was entry 12 of 12

here's 11 of 12

for Lou x

6 weeks since I last made anything??? poor show!

....and this could be the last thing for a while as this CJ is now officially over :(

I've so enjoyed the 12 mini quilty things I've made for this fabric round robin, and would love to do more of the same, but the truth is they are so time consuming that it just doesn't leave me time to do anything else.

So I've decided to revert to paper for my next couple of circle journals - one arty farty one with the girls from UKStampers, and a more scrapbooky Disney CJ over at UKS. Both start in November, so watch this space in a few months.

But today, for the last time, it's all about the fabric.

This is my contribution to Irboo's CJ, I do hope she likes it.



The swallow was hand appliqued, and then the whole thing was quilted with low loft batting.

I don't know what else to say about it really :) I'm out of practice with writing blog entries lol



Oh yes - I added some metal letters to spell "fly", forgot that bit :)

see you again in November or December

it's that time of year again....

...to make thank you cards for Connor's teachers

I hope they liked 'em :)

Buried Treasure - originally posted August 2007

Seth over at the Altered Page has had, as is his wont, a genius idea:

Let's get everyone to re-post one of their favourite blog entries, so that we can flit from blog to blog and wallow in all the amazingly creative wondrousness that we might just have missed the first time around.

So here's my contribution.....

This altered book spread was first posted on my blog in August 2007, and it's not even on here any more (well, until today :)), as I pruned my blog a while ago and removed everything prior to 2008.

So I'm glad of this opportunity to re-showcase this Day of the Dead piece, as I had so much fun making it :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have always liked the look of altered books, but have never quite gotten around to trying one.

So I was chuffed to bits when the latest CJ turned up in the Take One Stamp circle, and it was exactly that - a fab old hardback book, with a really nice, versatile shrine stamp from Lost Coast. So nice in fact that I already own it myself.

This CJ belongs to my pal Julie, and I know she used to be a bit of a goth girlie, so I thought I could crack out my skeletons and skulls and have some real fun with a Day of the Dead spread. And that's exactly what I did. And fun, indeed, it was.

I started off with the Misfits stamp I made ages ago on the Imagepac, for my son - as I thought he'd look pretty cool inside the shrine. I stamped him in Starlite Black and then "coloured in" all the white bits with liquid pearls.

I cut a niche for him in a block of pages, and also cut an arch shaped niche above, to showcase the lovely design at the start of the next chapter. Why did they stop putting these in books? They looked great.

The bit I cut out of the top niche seemed too nice to waste, so I glued that at the bottom of the page, upside down.



Next I gave the whole thing a coat of gesso - with my fingers - I like getting messy :) and a swiping over with yellow and orange distress inks.

I wanted to mask the lettering for the title, but none of my Heidi Swapp mask alphas were "spooky" looking enough, so I cut some letters with my Cricut and ran them through a repo cartridge on the Xyron to make masks. The first letters I cut were way too small and in the wrong font, because I am spatially challenged and incapable of operating simple machinery - but they didn't go to waste because I used them on my sign in tag :)

I stuck the masked letters down, covered up my skull with a bit of tin foil to make sure he didn't get splashed, and then washed over the whole spread with watered down paint in crimson and violet.

Once the paint was dry I lifted the masks - with difficulty - that repositionable Xyron isn't as repositionable as you'd think :) - and the lettering looked like this <------------

I especially like the way the purple paint pooled around the letters in "Dia" to make a defined outline. A happy accident :)

I added various stamped images - some direct to the pages such as the ravens, the crosses beneath the shrine, and the "de los" - and some Third Coast dancing skeletons on yellow tissue paper adhered with mod podge, and bones stamped on ivory card. Then embellished with a stamped fabric trim and a jewel above the shrine and rays of dimensional paint below.

The shrine itself I stamped in royal purple Stazon onto glossy card that I had alcohol inked in yellow, orange and gold (Pinata inks and Ranger mixative), and I cut off the cupids at the top as they didn't really suit my theme.

I really wanted some authentic Mexican milagros to finish the piece off, but I couldn't find any to buy in this country (ebay let me down, horror of horrors), and didn't have time to wait for them to get here from the US. So I made my own freehand with embossing tin. I made two burning hearts and an eye, and I'm really pleased with how they turned out. Must admit I had to make about 9 to get three usable ones, but I got there in the end :) I aged them a bit with a light swipe of brown acrylic paint, and adhered them with foam pads behind the raised parts which will hopefully stop them getting too squashed.

All in all a REALLY enjoyable project. It has certainly whetted my appetite for altered books, I can't wait to work in another, or even start my own.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You'll be glad to hear, I have since started my own :)

Shroooooms

My 10th entry in the fabric round robin...only 2 more to go - sob - have really enjoyed it

This particular person's CJ (not really a "J" as it's not really a book) has evolved a nature theme on its travels, so I wanted to stay on topic...and mushrooms were the first subject that came to mind.

I used some fabric from a pair of kiddies trousers I got in the Matalan clearance store, and the same reverse applique technique that I used before on the jellyfish entry.

PS sorry for neglecting the blog...I only really post here when I've made something, and life has been way too busy lately for making stuff, I'm afraid.

I made a proper quilt!!! whoooot!!!

ok, maybe at 6 inches square it's not really much use, unless you're a dormouse and sleep in a very tiny bed, but it's a proper quilt all the same.

The top is foundation pieced to a traditional Amish pattern (although the batik fabrics aren't very Amish at all), and it has been quilted in (or at least close to!) the ditch.

The binding's a little unorthodox though, it's hockey tape lol. Does the job!

This is, like most things I've blogged recently, for the fabric round robin.

I was going to leave it as just the mini quilt, as I liked it as it stood, but decided to add a little embellishment. Hence the copper star bead and bugle beaded "rays".



This one's for Mandy over in Northern Ireland, hope she likes it!

Dedicated to ladies with complicated love lives everywhere...

This is my latest entry for the fabric round robin I'm a part of. Am enjoying this project so much, I'll be sad when it's over. 8 down, 4 to go.

I wanted to use needle felting on this one, so needed a fairly bold/simple focal motif. I settled on a heart and a triangle. No reason! :)

I didn't have a big enough piece of wool felt to use as the background, so sliced up two smaller pieces and sewed them back together in a stripey pattern.

Next the heart was felted on using merino roving, a border was cross stitched around it, and then I embroidered the three points of the triangle.

The background looked a little empty at this point, so I added some purple seed stitches to liven it up a bit.

A bit of red bias binding to finish, and it was all done.

A close up of all the textures, this one is very strokable:



Roll on the next one!

Time for my annual scrapbook page

I've averaged 1 layout a year since 2006, so I'm hardly the world's most prolific scrapbooker :D

But I do enjoy it when I give it a go.

Check back here Summer 2010 for my next one :)

This is for fellow Wildcats fans Michelle and Tracy, who know how to rock the Sherlock Holmes look...

The hat and magnifying glass are paper pieced, and the top bit of the magnifying glass lifts up to reveal more journalling.

The fingerprints are mine, and I made the mistake of using permanent black ink, so I turned up at the local crown court this morning for my first day of jury service looking like I had just had my dabs taken down the local nick! I didn't really think that one through...

Had fun with this. Thanks to Michelle for giving me the push to play with paper again.

Watch the skies!

This is another terminally late entry from me for the fabric round robin I'm currently enjoying very much, if slightly behind the published schedule.

For this one we were given the finished backgrounds - a floral fabric. I don't really do flowers, so I wasn't sure where to go with my entry, until I decided that the foliage on my piece looked a little exotic....maybe even alien....

And thus Wilbur the extra-terrestrial was born.

Wilbur was embroidered on the way to an ice hockey game in Peterborough, much to the bemusement of my friend who was driving the car.

He didn't bring us much luck, unfortunately, we lost. Boo.

I hope Annie, his new owner/abductee, likes him anyway.

Buy gorgeous stamps = help my long lost cousin

Admit it, you want these stamps!

Even if you don't, please please buy them, details here:

http://michelleward.typepad.com/michelleward/2009/03/hot-topic-new-rubber-special-benefit.html

because $10 from each sale is going directly to my very good friend and cuz (in spirit) Paula in Illinois, who recently lost her house and all its contents to fire :(

Dream assignment for gamer geek Kes :)

Ouch!!!

Kesler dropped to the ice to block Jere Lehtinen's second-period shot, missed the puck but not the Star's skate, which clipped the back of his head as Lehtinen jumped over Kesler.

He appeared dazed, but was able to skate off the ice.

"I got lucky," Kesler said. "It could have been way worse. Obviously, I was pretty worried walking into the locker room but they were able to fix it up so I could go back out. "

With the shallow, four-inch laceration closed, Kesler returned to the game and in the third period cut hard around defenceman Darryl Sydor and fired under Turco to make it 4-1 at 2:26.

That's my boy, head cut open by a skate blade, what does he do? Come straight back out and score :)

I am almost getting bored with saying "I told you so" now, but I TOLD YOU SO! Kesler for the C.

Dank Sedin bled all over the ice from a high stick to the chops and scored shortly afterwards too, maybe next time we hit a slump AV should randomly punch a couple of the guys to wake them up? Seems to work!

Final result Van 5 Dal 2 - whoot!

That makes up for Saturday :)

my Canucks are 14-3-1 since the start of February

get innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's go jellyfishing!

(I think I've been watching too much Spongebob)

I made this last night while waiting for the Canucks game to start, it's 2 weeks overdue, eeek! Sorry Irboo!

This is for the fabric round robin I am currently involved in (and am enjoying very much). We were each given a square of dark blue fabric to work with, with a request to leave the edges unfinished as the recipient isn't yet sure whether she is going to quilt them into a wallhanging or bind them into a book.

Other than that, anything goes.

I had been wanting to try reverse applique for a while, and I have some lovely "under the sea" style batik fabric, which kind of went with the blue backing fabric, so that's what I went with.

It was a toss up between fish swimming through coral, or a jellyfish and bubbles, but I swiftly discovered I can't draw fish to save my life....so a jellyfish it was to be :D

Close up so you can see where the upper layers of fabric have been cut through to reveal the other patterns underneath (NB both this and the main pic above would really benefit from being clicked on - the Blogger-shrunk pics mess the colours and the details up):



I wanted to wash this to encourage the edges to fray more, but was paranoid in case after all that work, it shrank or ran or something....but hopefully they will scuff up a bit with handling.

Meet the diseased squid

Another one of those things that worked better in my head...

This particular infected marine mollusc is SUPPOSED to be a tree :)

Even placing it on a nice grassy hill and embroidering it a few leaves doesn't detract from its undeniable cephalopod-ness.

Ah well, it was worth a try :D

This is my entry for last month's Art Raffle, which I need to send out this week. It's late. Sorry all. Life got in the way big time.


The background is acrylics, Squidney Crosby there was made from airdry clay and painted with brown and bronze acrylics before being varnished, and the leaves are embroidered straight onto the canvas with variegated floss.

I hope the raffle winner doesn't have an irrational fear of poorly sealife.


In other news. Awwwwwww. Darcy. Awwwwww. Now give that baby back to its mother and come heeeeeeere! :D

You know, I think Mr Kesler is getting a leeeetle jealous at all the attention I'm giving his cutie enforcer pal, because this is what he had to say about the Hordibaby photo:

“Embarrassing,” said Ryan Kesler, who sits next to Hordichuk in the Canuck dressing room. “There should be a fine. For him to actually pose for a picture with his shirt off... You’ve seen his body, He doesn’t have the greatest body. It’s like the ‘before’ picture in the Jenny Craig commercials.”

Now now boys, there's enough of me to go round, you don't have to bicker :D :D :D

Happy Birthday John

No waaaaayyyy!!!!!

Markus!!!

I'm shocked!!

(seriously though, wtg Nas!!! lol)

Oh. Dear. Lord.

Helllooooooooooo Mr Hordichuk!!

I know, I know, I know - those 6 words hardly constitiute serious hockey analysis, and I do try so hard to keep the inner bunny under control.

But sheeesh, I have a pulse!! (and it appears to be going a little faster than usual!)

This is what happens....

....when you give a digital SLR to a 6 year old and say "take a nice pic of mummy's new haircut"

:D

From Alison, to the Charmed ladies (and gent)....

A few months back, a group of you came together to make a gorgeous gift for Alison, who is *still* in hospital - one year today :(

Allie doesn't have all your addresses, so has asked me to pass on this, her thank you note, via my blog

Thanks, everybody, from me too

Happy V-Day everyone

I hope everyone's having a good lurrrrrrve day :)

I've woken in a strop because the curse of Friday 13th cost my Canucks a win in Dallas, but hopefully it will get better as the day goes on, eh?

Here's my card for Ian.....I went for something a little non trad because I'm not really the slushy lovey dovey type, so wanted something a bit different from the usual hearts and flowers. Bah humbug :)

Alison came up with the line "my Valentine makes me smile" (ta bessie! good one) and this is what I came up with



Andy Warhol eat your heart out :D

Am actually quite pleased with this one as it is the first three part stencil I've ever cut, and I really like the look - especially the way everything doesn't quite line up properly so it leaves the odd white bit reminiscent of 1960s litho prints.

I will definitely be cutting more 3-parters.

Here's the original image from google that I based the stencil on:

OWOH - we have a winner!

It's drawing day for One World One Heart 2009, and the winner of my shrine or necklace (winner's choice) was comment # 97 of 228 - SpiritMama!

SpiritMama said...
Your shrines are so wonderful, I would love to win one!
Thanks for entering me in your giveaway!

Waxela (wa-shay-la)
SpiritMama
http://www.spiritmama-art.blogspot.com/

Good luck to the Dancing Queens!

It's my turn again to host the newbie CJ over at UKScrappers, I always enjoy this opportunity to get ten innocent victims hooked on circle journals :)

I am a CJ pusher *insert evil cackle*

This time around the girls have voted to call themselves the Dancing Queens (they were on a bit of an Abba kick at the time...), and so I thought this silhouette of laydeees having a boogie 70s style would be just right for their "good luck, enjoy your first CJ" cards.

Nice easy cards, as I had to make 10 (not sure why I only photographed 9, I deffo made 10), and didn't have much time.... a bit of spin n splash (never get tired of that toy!), some gold card for matting, a couple of gems, a bit of ink stippled around the edge, 'good luck' stamped inside, bish bash bosh, job's a goodun :)

Have fun with the CJ queenies!

nice lady just came round and cut my hair....

I can see again! yay! (my fringe was down to my chin before lol)

I like it, maybe I ought to start getting it cut more than once a year :)

Forgot to take a decent photo ...

... this was just snapped with my phone

A needle felted tree (and somewhat wonky sun) for Alison's birthday card

I hope she likes it