In the teens…….

Only Eighteen Days to go to HugBinders – gulp its looming fast, so I thought I better get my A in G and get a prize made for the raffle – we have so many gorgeous prizes donated already it was a bit  daunting!

 Really had no idea what to do, so I just went to my secret stash of ‘stuff I will do something with one day’ closed my eyes and grabbed something – the first thing I laid my hands on was this fabby little box…..

Perfect!

Still no idea of what I was going to do with it, I grabbed some paint, rifled through another pile of secret stash of ‘things that can be used on projects involving the ‘stuff I will do something with one day’ stash’
As often happens my hand went towards my most favourite colour from the Eco Green range of paint - Green Patina.
Fancied  a play with some metal, which I haven't done for a while – tragedy I was nearly out of silver aluminium - how did that happen?? I hate running out of stuff! I did have enough to cover the sides of the box – so all was alright with the world.

Then as you can see I filled it with a bit of this and a bit of that and the end result is a bit of Nicks Tat (hey I'm a poet and didn't know it)


Right, off now to do the exciting things in life like get a new tyre for the car!

All Present, Delivered and Correct....

Well maybe not correct, but pressie has been delivered to Katherine T.

Another altered box, which was just a plain pine jewellery box to begin with.

Katherine gave me some model magic so I wanted to have a play with that, and it ended up on her birthday present.

I rolled it very thinly, stamped into it and folded it, tweaked it, painted it.

This sits on a layer of painted and heated Tyvek.

I made a mould of a Gargoyle fridge magnet and used the model magic in that... its a very details and in parts undercut mould, and it came out much better than the ones I have tried to make with oven baked polymer clays.

Inside there is a removable tray. There is a working clock inside one of the compartments, the face of the clock is embossed metal, which i just doodled on. The bottom of the other compartments are filled with UTEE, coloured with Mica powders.

The lower tray has been lined with metal from Tomato Puree tubes... I love the colour of these and usually flatten them in my Wizard, but have left them creased here and covered them with clear UTEE and a few micro beads.

I have just noticed that some of these photos were taken whist the outside was matt black.. I have since sprayed it with a green mica spray.  The sides are metal, wire, beads, embossing powder and some fab felt like stuff that you can heat and it melts... oh I am so sad getting excited about such stuff!

Poor in pocket...

but rich in friends..... had just the best weekend with Mr and Mrs Bessie, some of you may have read about the Bessie's but don't know who they are... well I just had to share this lovely picture of them

that's them, bless their old hearts!

Ally Pally was as good as usual, met up with some friends and spent far too much, esp at LBcrafts and The Artistic Stamper.... yummy paints and yummy stamps and yummy goodies that one just had to have! Can't wait to have a play with them............ and my friend Debs gave me the most awesome thing to alter that she picked up from a car boot sale for me, so I have no excuse to get out my new paints!

Now AP is over, I can post a few things that I made and gave to some special people at AP... two very late birthday presents!

A pressie for Dee62 who had a 'significant' birthday last month

An altered Tuna Tin... grungeboard. For a smaller friend who we tease that she must live under a toadstool, who's birthday was in July!

No prizes for guessing who this is for, not a Birthday pressie, just a pressie for her new purple bedroom!

I was very chuffed with the 'Best Mate' bit, do you recognise it? I managed to take a mould of a 'Love Heart' sweet (which I have to admit I loved as a child and still love them, they are my guilty pleasure!) - anyway I took a mould and then made a polymer clay embellishment from it. Obviously you can't make and sell them, but great fun for personal projects.

Oh well back to real life again now... off to pack tomorrows lunches, check school uniforms, polish shoes etc etc

Finally Finished!!

Bittersweet moment, the AB I have been doing for an online Altered Book Course is finally finished.... well almost just a few tweaks here and there which may or may not happen.

I have really enjoyed the fact that doing a course does focus you and 'makes' you sit down and meet the 'deadlines' I have other projects half finished, which will get done one day but really I do work better to a deadline... usually someones birthday!

Anyway here it is... on the final pages we finished the niches that we cut at the very beginning. Now obviously when I cut the niches I knew what I was going to put in them as they are a very specific size and shape... well that was ages ago and now I have forgotten! But as the book has changed course many times then I;m sure that what ever it was wouldn't look right now anyway. The final page now signifies the end, and the words to Frankie's 'My Way' seem to me to be very apt! The Skeleton inside a Tic Tac box inside the biggest niche was not done by me but was sent to me by the very talented Trudy on the DC forum. Instead of sitting on my kitchen window sill it is now living in my book and will be admired and treasure now for many years, along with a few of my most favourite ATC's sent to me by other people which also reside here.

The Cover is decorated with my two most favourite mediums, polymer clay and metal, and as you can tell from the spine, my book has finally got a name 'Class 101' the name of yahoo group which runs alongside the AB Blog.

I'm a bit sad now it's all over.... now what to do??

Thank you to Elizabeth who ran the course, sure it has been a hard slog for her but it has been a very enjoyable few months for me!

One last thing..... it was said at the beginning of the course not to expect the book to close properly ever again.... well thats definately not going to happen with my book is it !

Brilliant Fund Raising Idea!!

Can you tell what it is yet???

My Sister in Law works for the Norfolk Deaf Association, as a charity they rely on getting funding and fundraising, think this is one of their more brilliant ideas....

"P in a Pot"

So it starts as a disposable urine bottle, people take one, decorate it and then fill it with their 'P's'...... what a fab idea! Then they are handed back in October and judged... well the judging is just a bit of fun, but hopefully they will earn a load of cash. so far they have heard of helicopters and reclining pandas!

Here's my effort,

Now for the easy part, filling it with our loose change!

Bottle tops and more on my book! Oh and a question....

Well the British Summer has been and gone, back to socks and woollies and my snug craftroom, the nice thing about the British weather is that when it isn't good you have no guilty feelings about creating, so I have done a couple of things this week (well 2 and a half, but more about the half later!)

The very talented Tish challenged us on the DC forum to alter a bottle top... the beer kind! Mmmmm they were supposed to be charms, but since when have I done exactly as I was told and mine have turned into magnets! The nice thing about magnets on BT's is though that you don't have to glue them on as the magnet sticks to them as well, so it the recipient wants a charm they can remove the magnet and use that on something else. Having said this these magnets are so strong you have to prise them off !!

Oh look........... yet more clay! And a bit of grunge paper!

This week has been a free week on the Altered Book course I am doing, to allow people to catch up although you could do a spread if you wished to. I have done a two page spread using the clay leaves that I put through the pasta machine (post below) and inspired by Ingrid's button edges I have edged the pages as well with some grunge paper which extends further than the rest of the pages (as do the buttons) I really like this look, although it would counteract the effect if you did it on two many pages. A simple idea to edge you pages, but I wouldn't have thought of it so thanks Ingrid for your inspiration!

Not sure if you can see from the picture but I have found a few words on the pages and painted around them, making up my own 'quote' but this involved reading the book... mmmmm it's actually quite interesting, maybe I shouldn't have started altering it !!!

Now... My S.I.L. has come up with a brilliant fundraising idea for the Norfolk Deaf Association for whom she works, but it involves altering something................ can anyone can guess what it is?, I bet noone will ever ever guess.... Will post a piccy when it's complete , probably early next week!

Twice In One Day!!

Well the plan for today was to do a bit of washing... went to laundry basket to find it had magically been filled overnight I was sure it was empty yesterday! - SHOCK........... Kids had tidied their Bedrooms. HORROR..... This resulted in a load more washing!

Plan 2; Do the Ironing. Well that hasn't happened.

Plan 3; Attempt some altered bottletop charms for a challenge I am taking part in. Well I tried, honest I did, I flattened, I removed plastic bits, I made holes, I ran out of inspiration.

OK onto Plan 4; Prepare food for tonight's dinner... forgot to take meat out of freezer last night... that's OK , Lentil Roast prepared instead, that will keep meat hating DD happy.

Plan 5; Continue with the Altered Abacus I started at the beginning of the year.... yeah sommat has gone OK cos it went to plan (well almost) and is now finished. Not bad, I planned on it taking most of the year as I wanted to do it bit by bit as and when I had time and inspiration to do another bit. It's June tomorrow and it's finished and I am happy with it so all is well in Nicks world.

It doesn't really take much to make me happy... take a look at these two beauties! Playing around with a pasta machine, some clay and some leaves. Heidi uses alot of leaves with her silver work and silver clay, so I thought I'd have a play with my polymer clay. Just ran the leaves through the pasta machine along with the clay and then highlighted the clay with some mica pigments. As they are so thin they will go into my altered book as they are only the thickness of a stiff card. One uses a rose leaf from a rose OH brought in from the garden for me, and the other is a lily leaf and some gypsophilia that came in a bouquet recently sent to me from Mrs Bessie.... cool eh??? they look groovy and are a bit of personal memorabilia, well I'm happy LOL!!

Take 6

I am hosting a swap which requires people to use 6 elements on one ATC... called Take 6 and is a kind of ATC recipe...

The ingredients that have to be used are...
1 Background...... no printed papers or images it had to be your own background
2. Metal
3. Clay
4. String
5. Fabric or leather
6. Embossing powder

Mix them all together and see what you get!

I get the impression that this has tested some people and it certainly tested the host (me!!)
Anyway here are my efforts! Hope I have used all the ingredients or else I will be in trouble!

Made from a Milkshake Powder box. Gessoed (is there such a word?) and then painted with Acryic paints. Then randomly stamped with stazon, triple embossed with Debi Moores Metal Magic. Decorated with a UTEE 'Sun' which I made from a mould I took from a plastic sun keyring from a Christmas cracker. The tiles spell 'TIME' and are from an Art Mould alphabet. The metal around the bottom and top right corner is from a tomato puree tube, it is a lovely colour, I washed it in the dishwasher which tarnished it... a very happy accident!
I am a terrible hoarder, but it can come in useful. The Chain is a belt which came on a skirt I had. The 'oblong' on the side is from another belt I picked up from a school jumble sale.. keep your eyes open and view everything you see with altered art in mind....... thats my motto!