Loads of stuff!!!!

Yes - it's been a while since I was last on here blogging, but I've been a bit busy. Yes, I've been crafting. But I've also been watching the European Ice Skating Championships - and Britain has won Bronze in the Ice Dance! WOOHOOO!!! About bloomin' time too. Last time we won anything was Torvill & Dean in 1994.....


Anyway, onto the Craft stuff!

Today is Rudolph Day - which means I have to show the cards I've made. And here they are:






We get extra points for cards with Snow on them, and all four of mine have! I've recycled my old Xmas cards, used both dry and heat embossing - cuttlebug folders, I love you....


I've also been in an inchie swap on UK Stampers, as well as an ATC swap there. The theme for the inchies was "Lets Celebrate"...



and the theme for the ATCs was "Metal" - they basically had to have some metal on them somewhere. As I'm in the throws of another ATC swap on Aunty's where the theme is "Thank You for the Music", I kind of rolled with it on this occasion - my fave music tends to be rock and heavy metal, hence the music notes embossed on metal sheet. Which in this case happens to be a Tomato Puree tube opened out (and washed thoroughly, too). Paper was 7gypsies, stamps are Paper Artsy and Studio G.... inks are all Ranger - either Alcohol (on the metal) or Distress.



Anyways - gotta run! More tomorrow..... maybe. I have badminton tomorrow night, so more blogging may have to wait until Tuesday!

It's 2009!

Well - figured I'd better come on here and at least wish everyone a very happy New Year!

Did Santa bring you everything you wanted? Or did you get loads of things you could have lived without? I did quite well myself - more on that another time!

Catch you around.......

Flu and all that....

Oh my. It's been a bit crazy here for the last fortnight! Both DH and I came down with the dreaded lurgy, and are only just feeling normal, aside from a nasty cough that just won't shift!

Despite that, I've managed to get pretty much all my cards and presents out on time, and have taken part in an Ornament swap on Aunty's Forum

I made this for Pauline.....



....using a basic beaded net pattern by Jill Oxton, to which I added my own design of drops.

In return I got this from Lynne...



which I just love and have got on my Christmas tree.


I so enjoyed doing the purple one, I decided to make another one for my friend Debs. It would all have been ok if she'd used purple and silver on her tree this year! But no, she opted for gold and green, so I couldn't use the purple baubles I still had from before. I had to wait until we were fit enough to get the decorations down from the loft, so I could furtle around in the boxes to find a gold bauble with the "right" sort of top (has to have straight sides round the loop, not slanted - sigh!). Luckily we did have a spare one, so I then proceeded to make this.....



I hope she likes it! It took a little bit longer than I'd hoped for, partly because it's bigger than the lilac one! Count the rows of beads - there's 3 rows on the purple, and 5 on the gold.... LOL

Right - I'm off - my ironing board awaits and I have bedlinen to get in the machine ready for the impending arrival of my Mother..... TTFN!

The Big Reveal

Now that the lucky recipient has confirmed receipt of her prize, I can reveal what I actually made for the UK Art Raffle .

The theme was circles, and I kept thinking about what I wanted to do, but kept.... going round in circles.... oh ROFL....

That was until I paid a visit to my local poundstretcher, and there in their shop they had a wooden ornament. Really naff, I should say (though apologies to anyone who loves them). Just a slab of wood painted black with a couple of swipes of gold.



My darling hubby drilled the holes I needed in the wood. I then coated it with grey paint that I'd mixed roughly myself, so it didn't give an even coat - I needed a marbled effect, which I got ever so subtly.

Once that had dried I used some dark grey ink to stamp the images.

First of all I used the Judikins Artifacts Cube - the "stone" side. I used some very dilute white paint (and occasionally, a sakura pen!) to highlight the seams created - almost giving the effect of marbling.

Once dry, I repeated this with the Celtic Knot stamps (all from The Stampsmith (gotta love that sea horse!)) and the Mayan (?) stamps. I'm not sure if the Mayan stamps ARE Mayan - all I know is they're an ancient culture, and I got the stamps off ebay years ago. There's no maker's mark either - so if anyone can identify them, I'd be much obliged!!! I have to say, it's the first time I've used them too, and I'm very impressed (oh, pun) with them.

With these I used a paintbrush with dilute white acrylic paint again, to highlight the outside of the image, or the whole thing in the case of the celtic knotwork. I images it kind of came off more like grafitti!!! I still like how it came out, though.

The base wasn't painted, I left it black for contrast, but I also stamped it with the Artifacts Cube using white Stazon.

All edges were then given a rub with Pewter rub-on.

Once all dry, I gave it a coat of gloss acrylic varnish.

The last question was "what to hang from the holes?" right from the word go, I felt it certainly needed something which was why the holes were drilled in the first place. Then it hit me - many MANY years ago, an ex-boyfriend of mine who was heavily into Star Trek bought me a Bajoran ear cuff. Beautiful. But I like wearing pairs and this was a one off. I still had it - not sure what to do with it, but I hadn't worn it in 15 years. It was sat on a shelf in my craft room, crying out for a special project - and hear it was. Perfect. The only bit I didn't use was the actual cuff. The stones in question are Swarovski crystals, and hematite.

My piece was one of 31; lucky Sheila - very well done to you on your win!













One amusing thing though - before I posted it I took it into work, cos they're always interested in what I've been creating. One guy saw it, picked it up and then gasped... "I thought it was metal - I wasn't expecting it to be so light!"....

And I enjoyed doing this so much, I bought two more to do! Well, at £1 each, it's not a bad price, eh?

Inchies, ATCs and a sneaky peak.....

Ooh - I'm enjoying this creative malarkey! Thanks everyone for your very kind comments....

Along with the Little Book of Purple, I sent nine inchies to Sid for the November swap on UK STampers . The theme was Christmas - I guess these are more wintery, but I'd just seen some gorgeous serviettes in Tesco that were this colour combo, and was inspired. They're a more greeny blue in real life... The stamp is by All Night Media.



Then over on the Inchy by Inch blog we've had a Christmas Inchy Swap, where we've had to make 12 inchies. I can't remember where the stamps came from, some cheap and tacky set, but they are quite sweet, and the perfect size. Background is 140lb watercolour paper, with DTP background in Fluid Chalk Ink. Images coloured in with Twinkling H2Os.



Onto ATCs now - again, on UKSTampers there's an ATC swap - the theme being Da Vinci. Without running upstairs, I can't tell you where one of the stamps came from, but the other is by Cherry Pie. The papers are Joanna Sheen. I've distressed them a bit with Dark Brown and Burnt Umber chalk ink.



Last but not least - I'm finishing off a piece of art for the UK Art Raffle. This month's theme is Circles. I don't want to show the whole piece until it's received by the winner of the raffle, so for now, just a couple of sneaky peaks.

Sisterhood of the Blogging Stampers #26

Ok, so I've taken the plunge - I'm joining in. Hopefully my new sisterhood will nudge me and prod me and inspire me....

I've got to say a bit more about myself than is in my profile, apparently, so here goes. It might just be new and entertaining info for some of my longer standing acquaintances.

I'm mid-thirties (don't wanna give too much away now, do I), married, and living in Hampshire, UK.

I was bought my first ever rubber stamp when I was 17 years old, and I can still remember how it felt walking in that shop, a complete rarity at the time. They were still demonstrating heat embossing with a toaster, then! I still have that stamp, and it still gets used. And I still love it. Now I have an embarrassing quantity of stamps and I need to use them more and be more creative with what I do.

So there you have it.

Greetings, Sisters!

I've been tagged!

How cool is this? My first ever tag! Sorry it took me a couple of days to notice...LOL


Well, Stitchinwitch over at Stitchinwitch's Rat Cage has tagged me to list 7 weird things about me. Ok, I know I'm a bit weird, but am I THAT weird? Let's see....

1) I have double jointed elbows. Not completely, but enough that when I lean on a table with my hands, and my arms are straight, they're not, they bend inwards. And I can rotate my arms on a 180 degree axis in a way that makes people go "eeeewww".

2) I used to like eating plain chocolate digestives with salt and vinegar crisps.

3) I'm a medieval re-enactor. Not weird to some, but weird to a lot of others!

4) I spent the last winter solstice watching the sun come up at Stonehenge - and hope to do the same thing this year.

5) Not sure if this counts as weird, but in 2006 I appeared in Panto in France....

6) I called my first car Frodo...

7) I really was one of those sad people who bought Kylie Minogue's "I should be so lucky" on a 7" single, just so I could play it at 33rpm to see if she sounded like Rick Astley. And she did! ROFLMAO.

Ok. I hope they're weird enough. Now I have to tag 7 people too.....

1. Fi on Magickdiva
2. Jo at Siggi Shop
3. Jan at Die Cut Queen - time you blogged, hun!
4. Sandie at The Cockney Crafter
5. Storm at Simply Storm
6. Julie on Scrapping Away
7. Grendel at Scrapbook Widower

Phew - that was hard work!!!!

Now to let them all know I've tagged them.... tee hee

A Little Book of Purple

OK. Finally I have the time to blog about a little adventure I'm going on. Actually, it's probably a BIG adventure. And it's what I've referred to on Aunty's Forum as my "Rosie-ism", in homage to our fabulous artist over there, Rosie

Over on the UK STampers forum, a group of us have got together and are starting a Circle Journal. We've each selected a rubber stamp, and picked a colour. Mine is a stamp by PaperArtsy, from their Dolls 4 plate, and I've chosen purple. It's my favourite colour, and the colour of creativity. And so we're off.



I've done my pages and they're ready to post out on Monday - I just need to do some Inchies too, as the person I'm posting to is the host for the UKST inchy swaps (may as well kill two birds with one stone!).

First things first - here's a picture of the cover. My apologies if the pictures are a little dark - I need to work on the lighting in my "Studio"! The cover actually really gleams!

The backbones of the book, or rather the front and back covers, start out as chipboard. I've not included a pic of the back because it's the same as the front without the wording. I've covered the chipboard with a layer of tissue paper, glued on with PVA and wrinkled attractively, and into which I've liberally sprinkled Beadazzles and Judikins' ROXS. I've then painted over the lot with various shades of purple acrylic paint, including a metallic one. Once that dried, I rubbed over the top with silver ink to highlight the texture, and then created the wording. The letter "A" is just a sticker on some paper, the word "Little" is created from heat embossing on Mirri board, "Book" is stamped on Shrink plastic and shrunk, "of" is letraset on purple mirri board (though you can't read it due to reflection), and the "urple" of purple is dry embossed into metal - a piece of pie case, actually. The big P is a Basic Grey chipboard letter which I did with UTEE, and then Moonglow EP on top. Edged with Gold Twinkling H20s



Next up we have inside the cover, and the intro page. They pretty much speak for themselves, I guess. On the tag you can see, I have stamped the images I used in my pages.



Finally, we have my pages for the CJ. I'm into all sorts of things, so in picking my stamp (which came with a crown!) it was a natural progression to think of Crowns and link it to the colour purple, hence the Crown Chakra pages. It took me ages to think of what to do, but after a long while of contemplation, it finally came to me - and I just "saw" these pages. Not quite as they've turned out, cos I made a couple of booboos, but they're happy accidents... I'm not going to bore you by defining their meaning - I will leave that up to each individual to surmise what they will. Anyway, I've used the same purple paint for the background, and coupled it wit torn purple glittery paper. I've stamped "Field of Sand" across the background in Opalite ink to give the impression of waves, and used a scroll stamp to give the impression of clouds. I'm not sure where the moon came from - the page just needed something, and it happened! LOL









I like it - not sure anyone else will, but that is what art is all about, eh?


Next one coming to me is from Efemera (Gail), and her colour is "Grey". Oh my. I wonder what stamp she's used?

Diamonds are Forever....

or at least, they've for November over on Aunty's Forum Yep, that's the theme for the team challenge. Here's a few of my offerings...

The first is a bookmark made for a bookmark swap - and I've used some Argyle (diamond paper) in one corner. The second pic shows a close up....





This card is made using a switch embossing stencil.



The last one is done using some embossed paper created with a cuttlebug embossing folder... I love the Mr Frosty image - I got the stamp from eBay, so have no idea who the manufacturer is.

Musical Inchy...

Over on the Inchy By Inch blog, Fi has set the challenge of a Music Inchy in honour of her appearance in The Magic Flute in Newbury. So here's mine!