Little Boxes on the Hillside - literally :)

Ever had great fun taking part in a swap, and then got to the end of it, looked at all the lovely little pieces of art you have been sent, and then thought "now what do I do with all these??"

I did :)

So I made this.

It doesn't fit anywhere near all of my new houses on it, because as the swap hostess I am lucky enough to have a full set of 55. That is despite it being huge (my foot wasn't in there deliberately but I have left it in for scale). But I have set it up so that the houses are interchangeable (all stuck on with velcro) - so they will all see duty on the hillside at some point.

Before the velcro went on:



It's just a cheapo box canvas coloured with acrylic washes - took no time at all, but I really like how it looks with it's little town in place.

Squeeeee - I just got the BEST pressie!!!!

Thank you Anam!!!!!! :) :) :) :)

New look for my beloved Swindon Wildcats....

.... please don't sue the team, Mr Disney!!!

Separated at birth....

New Swindon logo:


Disney's High School Musical Wildcats logo:


eeek!!!

(I like the red, though....)

(thanks to eagle eyed Tracey who spotted the likeness, clearly a closet HSM watcher! :) )

Picket fences

It's been so long since I blogged anything creative that I've forgotten what I usually write...

ummm... these are for a swap, and I had a ton of fun making them....

The fences are made from wooden coffee stirrers from Maccy D's - they are narrower than lolly sticks, so better suited to the scale of this project.

The first one was Alison's idea (I was staring blankly at the three plain fences I had made and had no idea where to start, so I fired her a text - "pearly gates", she said - "brilliant!" I said :))

So I cut the fence posts down at the sides to resemble gates, collaged away with religious texts and a doyley, sprayed it to death with pearl Glimmer Mist, added a padlock with white wire, a rather dour looking angel with vellum wings, and one of my favourite quotes, and bob's your uncle :) Not really my usual style at all, but I like it.

One down, 2 to go....



The next one is more my usual kind of thing - purples and reds and a Stampotique goth girlie.

The fence for this one was primed with black gesso, and then overpainted with red and violet interference paints, stamped with watermelon pigment ink and then oversprayed with pearl Glimmer Mist (seeing as it was still out from the last one :))

The girl was coloured with watercolour pencils and a waterbrush, and her hair is made from thin black wire.

The angry cat and cobwebs (made from a cool snippet of fabric sent to me last month as a swap host gift by the lovely Audrey Hernandez) finish this one off nicely.

Last one:



Number three was just plain fun to make, although it has a sad story:

My poor little alien has crash landed, and as he sits amongst the rusty wreckage of his ship, all he can do is sit on a battered old farm fence and look folornly at the skies :( I'm sure he'll be rescued soon though.

The fence was stamped with musical notes (for his sad, homesick songs, sob), and then randomly overpainted with red-oxide acrylic paint and antique linen crackle paint. After the paint had cracked I went back over it all with a light coat of aged mahogany distress ink.

My alien pal was coloured with watercolour pencils and perched on top of the fence (I removed one post to make him more comfortable). His ship wreckage is made from a cool bit of rusty metal I found in the street (packrat, me???). And the little sign is just card and string, hung onto the fence with a small brad.

Oh... My... God!!! :) This ain't a town it's a city....

Ever wanted to know what roughly 1,200 little cardboard (mainly) houses look like???

They look like that :) (click on the pic for a better view)

That is (most of - I'm still waiting on 2 or 3 sets) the output from my recent Little Boxes swap.

I have a fairly large living room - approx 24 foot by 12 foot - and that is it completely covered.

I couldn't fit them all into one photo - hence the rather odd looking pic - I took 3 and merged them together in Photoshop (thanks again to Darby for the lend of his PC :))

Insane isn't it??? lol

Darbs and I were up till around 3am this morning sorting them all out into envelopes to be sent to the swapees.

I'd say we were about two thirds of the way done when we gave up.

More envelope stuffing tonight for me tonight then!

It'll all be worth the effort though when people start to receive their swaps :)

Blog holiday

hi peeps

I have come back from Disneyland Paris to find my PC at home has died - and I won't be able to blog from work (not that I'm ever supposed to :) ) because we are crazy busy

So I won't be blogging for a while - but I'm still alive :) and yes we had a fab time at Disney!

Friday Five - 27th June 2008

The hlog five is up bright and early this morning - I'll come back later and add the other Fiver if it appears:

1.) What objects do you lose easily?
You know what? I think I'm getting better at not losing stuff. I used to lose my keys ALL the time. The classic time being when I looked all over for them for ages, gave up, was just about to resign myself to a long walk home in the rain, popped up the hood of the hoodie I was wearing and they shot across the room - they had been in my hood the whole time lol. How they got in there I have no idea.
And I used to always lose vital craft stuff, but since George helped me get organised a while back I've known where everything is.
I still lose my way a lot - does that count? And my crafting mojo has gone missing this week.

2.) What are your plans for Canada Day/the 4th of July?
Neither are desperately relevant, seeing as I'm English. But on Canada Day I'll be at Disneyland Paris which is kind of cool - and I will use that as an excuse to toast my favourite French Canadians :)

3.) Name your favorite tourist attraction where you are from?
I guess the closest tourist attraction to where I live would be Stonehenge. It's still a magical place even if they don't let you right up close to the stones any more.

4.) During what time of the day (or night) do you function best?
It doesn't work every night, because sometimes I get tired and just slump or go to bed early. But every now on then I get on a real roll quite late at night and everything seems to fall into place creatively and I make some of my favourite pieces at 2 or 3am.

5.) If you could have anyone for your brother or sister, who would you pick?
Todd Bertuzzi of course :) He's a great big brother (despite being younger than me, but since when do little details like that matter??)

Please Mr Gillis pleeeease

I know he won't come cheap but he'd be worth every penny.

The world loves yappy pests

Well I do, anyway

And he plays a mean game of hockey too

Pleeeeeeease :)

Can you imagine Darcy on a line with Kes and Burr - the opponents wouldn't even dare come off the bench - it would be like being mauled to death by chihuahuas :D

Tagged - long post, sorry :)

I've been tagged by my clever Craftster pal Tasket Basket out in sunny California with the Mighty Ducks and the LA Kings ... do check out her blog, in particular the amazing handbag she made from old vinyl LPs:

I'm not usually big on tagging, mainly because I don't like the 'pass it on to 5 people' bit, it's almost got a chain letter vibe to it. So I'm not going to tag anyone, but I will answer the questions, because they look kind of fun :)

What was I doing 10 years ago?

Hmmmm - June 1998. Not a good point on my own personal number line.
On the plus side I had just started a new job that I really loved. On the downside, that job kept me in the country / at home - unlike the previous job which had taken me abroad for 4 days a week.
So that meant I got to see a lot more of my very unpleasant husband. The last two years of the marriage (98/99) were by far the worst, so I can safely say that I probably spent much of June 98 crying and nursing bruises.
Life is so much better now, you wouldn't believe :)

What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?

1) answer all these questions :)
2) as well as the above, do lots of work at work cos I am a good hard working worker
3) give out the invitations for Connor's birthday party that I made and addressed last night
4) finish a necklace that I am making for a magazine that I have had total mojo-freeze with --> publication is to Sarah as headlights are to rabbit
5) if I get time, make Connor's autograph book for Disneyland Paris (we're going on Sunday, whoop!!!)

Snacks I enjoy

Ummmm - all the bad stuff - chocolate, cakes, chocolate cakes :) and cheese, pretty much any type of cheese. Fruit too - that's good, right? I do love fruit :) Especially bananas.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire

Give up work for a start :) I know that seems obvious - but if you had asked me the same question a few years ago I would have been adamant that I would want to continue working regardless. I thought I would die of boredom otherwise.

But then I had 14 months off through redundancy, and to be honest, I haven't really enjoyed work since. Well, I have in spurts. But overall I'd love a chance to retire tomorrow and just chill with my little boy, play with my paints, go out geocaching, and maybe get a dog....and a few more tattoos :)

So, that's what I'd do if I was a billionaire. Lead a nice simple laid back creative life which wouldn't cost too much.

Which means I would have tons of spare cash to be generous with, and would therefore sudddenly have lots of friends and a contented conscience :D

Places I have lived

Nowhere particularly exciting

Born on the Essex / East London border
Went to Uni in Coventry and stayed there for 14 years (no - it didn't take me that long to graduate :P )
Relocated to Swindon in lovely Wiltshire around 8 years ago - just yards from the famous magic roundabout :)

Jobs I have had

My first ever job was a Saturday position at the Filofax factory in East London. It was my job to heat seal all the calendars, maps and other little optional inserts that people can buy for their filofaxes, into little plastic baggies. It was the 80s, and Filofaxes were THE yuppie accessory, so we were worked off our feet!! It paid well though - £2.75 an hour - which was much better than the average Saturday job wage at the time.

In my year out before Uni I was lucky enough to secure a place on IBM's fought over pre-grad training programme, which taught me tremendous amounts about computing from PCs through UNIX up to mainframes, and also lots about business in general - they taught us presentation skills, how to write a clear report, etc etc. It was an invaluable experience, and I made many great friends there amongst the other trainees. It was also during my time at IBM that I was seconded out to work with the Sport Aid organisation - I wrote and maintained the database that kept track of all the thousands of fun runs and mini marathons organised around the world for Bob Geldof's sporty sequel to Live Aid. And I got a personal letter of thanks from Sir Bob for my troubles :)

I did Maths and Statistics at University, and ever since graduation have worked in a similar field, just getting more senior along the way. My field is database marketing, and basically this involves using statistical techniques to spot trends in huge collections of transactional data. This helps companies target their marketing efforts and new product development more accurately - in theory reducing the amount of junk mail arriving on your doorstep, and ensuring that if you are approached it is with an offer that's actually relevant to you. That's the plan anyway :)

I have mainly worked as a consultant, both freelance and via agencies - and my work has taken me all over the world - from South Africa to Ireland to Singapore and to the USA. I also had an 8 year stint heading up the customer database team at WH Smith, which was fun at the start but became less so as the company started to lose money and lay off all of my team, including me eventually.

People I want to know more about

My boyfriend, I'd love to know every little detail of the first 45 years of his life before he hooked up with me :) Nosey, aren't I? :)

My ancestors....I know very little about the family who came before me, even my grandparents, only one of whom I ever met and that was when I was 4, so I can't remember her.

Mike Gillis - the new canucks GM - I really don't trust the man, but I can't quite put my finger on why....

and the classic deep hippy answer - me. I'm 41 and I still don't really understand the way my brain works or what I actually want out of life.


Phew - that was a tag and a half!

I kind of like "interviewing myself" like this though, which is why I do the Friday Fives every week - not because I think it's of the slightest interest to anyone else - but I guess it's my equivalent to scrapbooking - something to keep a record of who I am and how I think right now. I back up this blog regularly, and, assuming it survives somehow to the next generation or the one after that, it will give my children and grandchildren a much better understanding of me than I have ever had in relation to my own forbears.

Plus, when I'm old and have forgotten everything, it might help to jog a few of my own neurons into recollection :)

Tattooed Heroes...my entry in the altered book

My book is now ready to post off, I've really enjoyed working in it - I hope the other girls do too. It might be the first time some of them have had an Altered Book to play with - but hopefully they will have fun with it. My first time was in a CJ round too - and that inspired me to make one of my favourite CJ entries ever - so hopefully this one will inspire a bit of experimentation too, at least it will give people something a little different to work on.

Here's the intro page for my book:

I used Hambly rub ons for the scrolls (and a Creative Imaginations one up in the top left). The word "celebrate" was cut on my Cricut using SCAL software (which can cut any true Type font). The rest of the title was stamped.

My main entry is pictured at the top of this post.

All the photos are from Modblog (don't click through if you're squeamish!), and are printed onto transparency - because I wanted some of the text from the old book to show through in places, and because I love the intensity of colour you get from a transparency.

Here are some close ups:


The super cool Leopard Girl. Her frame is made from funky foam, heated, stamped, and then painted once it had cooled down and set in shape. The black tribal motif below her was cut from a dingbat font using SCAL/Cricut, and then coloured with black pigment ink and clear embossed.

The white tribal motifs you can just see to the right of her were stencilled with white pigment ink through the waste cardstock left over from cutting the motifs.


This ripped page flap (actually about 5 pages stuck together for sturdiness) was painted black and then oversprayed with red glimmer mist. (The central section where the transparency was going to go was left plain though - with just a bit of white gesso toning down the underlying text a little). Once the transparency was stuck down and outlined with purple metallic pen, I stencilled tribal designs over the top using "watermelon" pigment ink from the new Ranger pigment range (those inks are da bomb!!!! AMAZING coverage over pretty much any surface)



Journalling on the back of the page flap - handwritten with certain words stamped for emphasis - pretty self explanatory. Again over a stencilled design (this time using "snow cap" ink)


I just LOVE the white ink tribal design on this guy's forehead - stunning work. Hard to see in the photo but this chap is set into a niche cut through the pages of the book. I dry brushed some deep purple paint around the outside of the niche to provide a subtle frame. And set some tiny microbeads into the corners.


This guy looks super cool - but that's one look I definitely won't be copying, don't think it would go down too well in the office :) He is set into pearly coloured paint with some red glimmer mist sprayed into the mix. The border of the page has been cut into a zig zag, and then stuck down onto some more pages underneath, just to give a bit of interest/texture to the edge of the page.


And finally a close up of the X as you can't see it all that clearly in the main picture. This was also cut with SCAL - 5 times - and then all the pieces were stuck together to make the letter nice and thick like chipboard. The top X was coloured with watermelon ink and then overpainted with black soot crackle paint. So when it cracked you could see the red beneath. The rest of the "Xtreme!" title was stamped.

I think that's everything. Now I just need to wait 9 months for the book to come home again - it's like waiting for a baby :)

some more late Friday Fivers....

the Friday Fiver:

1. Last party you went to?
Probably my other half's leaving do from work a month or two ago. Unless you count our regular Friday night Heroes & Doctor Who partay :) (Geeks R Us!)

2. Do you pee in the shower?
Ewwwww - no! do you????!!!!

3. Have you ever fired a gun?
Yup - on a range in Florida. It was fun :) Those real ones have a teensy bit more of a kick than my little BB pistol!

4. Where do you call home?
Good question, and I'm not sure I have a definitive answer. Swindon doesn't feel like home to me, although I'm happy to live here for the time being - but neither does anywhere else any more.

5. What's your favorite board game?
I pretty much hate them all :) Trivial Pursuit is probably the least tedious game that I can think of off the top of my head.

the hlog Five:

1.) Do you like little kids? How about 40 hours a week?
Love them in small doses - or even big doses if they are my own little kids :) I wouldn't really fancy working with a bunch of the little terrors, though, no.

2.) Do you plan on watching the NHL draft beyond the first round?
I didn't *watch* any of it, but I've followed it with interest. Welcome to the team Cody :) (and I'm glad I paid attention past the first round, because our 2nd round pick has the coolest name ever - Jann Suave - sounds like a smooth operator, eh? :D)

3.) How do you feel about tattoos?
LOL. I'm quite keen :)

4.) What team do you loathe the most in any sport?
I don't think I loathe anyone. I'm not overly keen on Manchester United, only because there was a time in the 90s you just couldn't get away from them. Over-hype is never good.

5.) Does golf really count as a sport?
I personally find it dull as dishwater, but yes, it's a legitimate sport IMO.

Very late Friday Five

the main Friday Fiver didn't show up this week, but here is the hlog one:

1.) Who do you think most deserved an NHL award?

Much as I'd love to say that Kes deserved to win the Selke, realistically that wasn't going to happen, not this year. He placed 11th, which is not bad, and I honestly believe he could be top 5 next year, if not top 3. It depends how Gillis and AV choose to use him, I guess.

I would have liked to see Bobby in line for the Vezina - but his fade out at the end of the season put paid to that.

So if I had to choose a winner, for the most exciting / valuable player in the NHL in 2007/8 - it would have to be Alex Ovechkin. So I'm glad that the hockey writers agreed and gave him the Hart - well deserved.

Do you not think he's looking more like Richard Kiel every day???

2.) Do you believe that Brett Lebda really dropped the Cup off of Cheli's bar?

It wouldn't be the most outrageous thing that's ever happened to the Cup, by a long chalk! So yeah, why not?

3.) Do you have a dishwasher?

Sore point :) Yes, I have one, but it's dead. I can't afford a new one at the moment so I have been washing up by hand for a few months. It's a pain but not the end of the world....

4.) How many pairs of shoes do you own?

Proper shoe shoes? Not many. Two, I think. But I have about 20 pairs of trainers and 8 or 9 pairs of boots too.

5.) What is your favorite art form?

Mixed media stuff - plus photography, and tattoos.

I promise to attempt to silence my inner goth soon....

But this CJ is called "Black" - what's a girl to do????

The stamp we were to use for this one was a Fleur de Lys. This is one of my very favourite symbols, so I was happy to dive into making this entry.

I coupled the FDL with a grungy stripy barcode-style stamp (a £4 bargain from the Paper Mill) to make railings for my goth girl (Stampotique) and her mysterious estate.

The hill was made from some old sheet music for a hymn. The title of the page is the name of the hymn, cut straight from the music. The house and tree on the top of the hill is a Third Coast stamp. The black splotty spots are a very wet Ranger paint dabber through holey paper.

I was originally going to title this one "Welcome to the House of Fun"....but I prefer the hymn name.... it changes the whole mood from sinister/playful/ironic to melancholy. Soooooooooo emo :)

Die Branson Die!!!

I don't mean it really, I quite like Richard Branson. But his employees leave something to be desired. I've had no internet access at home now since first thing Saturday morning, and they won't be able to fix it until Wednesday.

Classic snippet from approx 4 hours of phone calls.

VM: "Sorry madam, we cannot re-activate your internet access as the modem you are using does not appear to be one of ours"

Me: "but...but...but... your engineer gave it to me, and it has a huge sticker on it that says "PROPERTY OF VIRGIN MEDIA"

VM: "Oh, there must be some other reason then"

Yes, yes there must be. any chance one of you could figure out what it is??????

Grrrrr.

But I can't keep you good people in suspense any longer re the contents of THE BOX - so I have brought a CD of piccies into work to show you....

Apologies if this blog post ends up being a little rushed/messy, but am busy at work so I can't spend too much time prettying it up...

Anyway - pic at top is how the parcel first looked when I opened it. Like christmas :) And it smelt lovely too.


the great paper many of the gifts were wrapped in - it says "girl can ROCK" :)


the gift bag says I rock, so who am I to argue?? :D


I wonder what's in this interesting looking scroll...?

OK OK enough teasers - onto the pressies!

In no particular order (other than I am saving the bestest till last), here are all my WONDERFUL goodies:


Tattoo themed scissors!!!


a HIM CD :) :) :) (my other half seemed particularly pleased with this and looked ready to spirit it away, but I managed to keep hold of it)


the contents of the mysterious scroll....a Chili Peppers stencil! (as modelled on the outside of the box)


and matching mask :)


POP ROCKS!!!! (my teenagers almost expired with pleasure when I shared these out :))


Custom guitar picks! (or plectrums to us Limeys)


treble clef paper clips - these are so cool


a fab felt chandelier embellishment....


...and matching notecards (these are particularly timely as I had bought some just like these in Canada in March but have nearly used them all up :))


a hand carved Chilis stamp

and....

this last one made me cry....

here's the box, the tag should have been a dead give away:


but I really wasn't expecting this:


a hand carved stamp of my ORCA!!!!

it is PERFECT, no way could I have made one that brilliant - not even on my imagepac.

I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it I LOVE it

this is genuinely one of the best gifts I have ever received

THANK YOU MICHELLE!!!!

I really really really want to share the contents of the box with you

I really do!

But my internet connection has been playing up since yesterday and I can't upload any pictures to Blogger without it falling over

aarrggghhhh!!!

As soon as I can, I will, promise

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

Look look look what the postman just gave me

Look!!!!!

My prize! My prize!

I haven't even opened it yet - I am in love with the box :)



My very own spray painted Michelle Ward original!

And do you see what I see on the back????



A chilis star :)

<3

Going to open it in a bit, will blog again to tell you what's inside :)

Just after I have admired the box some more.....