Oh Surprise Surprise.......

Another project using another stamp from ' The Octopode Factory ' , This time is a Birthday card for my lovely M.I.L - its like getting blood out of a stone finding out what she would like for her birthday and the usual reply is 'Nothing.. honestly nothing' (in truth she would be quite happy if she did receive nothing but  a hug and a kiss from her Grandkids!) - but she did actually say this time that she would appreciate some cash because there is an expensive handbag she has coveting for ages, so this card (which is actually made from Mountboard) doubles a a gift card as well. 

Happy Birthday Mary - you really are the best Mum/MIL/Grandma/Friend - we love you !

The other thing that makes this a momentous day in our household is the arrival of Marzie. We picked her up early this morning - not much gets 'Kevin the Teenager' out of bed at the weekends but she didnt need much persuasion this morning! We are totally smitten with her!

I'm worn out now..... gonna have a nap 

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!

Well it certainly took some hammering!

As the main focus of the penultimate Altered Element DT Project, Lynne sent me an Eco Green Crafts Board Book to play with. A simple project I thought, but this has undergone several changes and has withstood the battering very well!

First of all I painted it with my favourite Eco paints and sponged on some Brusho mists, Lynne also sent and stamped it with the Artemio stamps I received as part of a pack a month or two ago. It looked ok I thought, but then I went away on holiday but when I returned and found a few minutes in between washing sleeping bags I realised I didn't like it at all.

As it had had a coating of acrylic paint it would readily take some alcohol inks, they went on very well and the result was pleasing but it didn't please me enough, so I used some alcohol to remove them.

This did no harm at all to the book, just harmed my mojo a bit as I was at a bit of a loss as what to do with it, so left it for another couple of days.

Now this is an interesting subject, I wonder what your views are? The finished article is to be a small token present for a special friend of mine, just to say thank you and that I luvs her. Now here's the question, when you make something for someone do you think you should make it to suit their taste and style or do you make something in your own style but is straight from your heart? This is so far removed from what this person would choose to have in their house but I am hoping they will love the fact that it is part of their friend Nicks. I'll tell you when they have received it.. but they will say they love it anyway so that's no test is it!!?? tell you what I will pay a surprise visit and check which drawer they have shoved it in LOL

Anyway back to the plot, as you can see it has now been painted, inked and sprayed for a 3rd time. It has been blasted with a heat gun on several occasion's and suffered no ill effects at all. That just goes to prove recycled stuff can be of the highest quality!

I painted the book with shades of gourde, orange and sunflower eco paints and then blended some Barn Door distress ink around the edges.

I edged it with some torn double sided tape which I gilded with Crafty Notions Gilding flakes I also gilded the edges of the pages inside.

Regulars to my blog will know I love my chooks (and the recipient is a bit fond of my girls as well - damm too much info I bet she will guess now) so I just had to buy this paperartsy stamp and use as the main focus of the cover, I love the way her legs dangle off the end and her wing goes the edge, I don't 'do' straight edges very well! Her body is made from some metal I embossed and her legs are made using Lin and Leandra's clever tape sandwich technique, but in this case its a more of a triple decker sandwich as it has metal on both sides. The same gold metal was used to cover the top and flap of the book, but has been coloured slightly with acrylic paint and sprayed with cosmic shimmer. I have bought some really cute chicken stamps from T.A.E and will use these inside

Lynne also sent three shades of the new Brusho Mist Spray's  these are a joy to use and I used them to colour some watercolour paper which will act as the backing papers fo the pages inside (which i cant show you until the recipient has received it!)
I also sprayed these onto a small piece of card onto which I did a touch of journaling and put behind a microscope slide.


I think thats about it apart from a few other bits and pieces I added from my stash including the cutest chicken button I received in the post today from my fellow fowl lover Kathy -thanks Kathy - very oppurtune, you are a brave person if you read this far..... sorry bit of an epic post!

Remember to treasure your friends because

and

Now off to tidy up, if you saw the state of my desk you would faint with horror!

PS................
The Altered Element will soon be calling for a new Design Team, if you are interested keep an eye on their blog. I have really enjoyed my time with them, why dont you give it a go?
http://alteredelement.blogspot.com/

WOYWW..... I'm a solderin' and a sewin'

Now then People, you have got to admit that (for me) this looks almost organised... I did have to clear some space to actually get the machine on my desk (and I have to admit, I did have to clear some floor space to get to the desk) but I didn't do the - push it all back method - I put it away!

My textile mentor Katherine made me two beautiful canvases for my Birthday (which she has now blogged) and she also gave me a free stitching foot (is that what you call them?) for my machine, a very opportune gift because I had a piece of Tyvek from last months DT pack,, which I had already, painted and ironed to distort it, and had the idea of trying to stitch around the 'bubbles'  - I can still hear the Dragon of a woman, my Needlework Teacher at school, voice ringing in my ear 'Nicola try it on a piece of scrap fabric first'  well I didn't pay any attention to the woman then, and I am not paying any attention to her now, I just went in head first and stitched straight onto my precious piece of Tyvek, luckily I am really pleased with the result.

Swinging to the right, you will see I have my box of soldering supplies out, that's because I burnt the edges of the Tyvek to roughen them up a bit, I thought it was a much safer bet than using a heat gun on it, and I was right, it worked really well, so I added a couple of extra holes as well. You can also see the Morsbags I have been making and are ready to be sent off on Friday after I have drawn the blog candy draw... take a look at the post a few down and add you name if you would like to be in with a chance of winning one.

Now onto the exciting part...

This months DT pack has arrived.......

lots of scrummy stuff to play with, Watch this space!

Not exactly a Birthday card!

Don't know why but I do have trouble making cards these days, but I sat down on Tuesday to make a card for an interenet friend, and it turned out to be a little gift instead. She has just become a Grandma, and quite rightly, a very proud Grandma, and what Grandma, doesn't like to have a little brag from time to time?

So obviously if I couldn't make a card, I had to make her a Brag Book!

The cover is made from Grungepaper, so should stand up to a fair bit of handling and is painted with a multitude of different paints and inks and sprays, and then stamped with a flower stamp which came as a free gift on this months Craft Stamper mag.
The pages inside are blank, but I am sure she has a photo or two to put in there!

So that explains the mess on my craft desk yesterday and the reason for the diecut letters!

Hen Art??

OK OK so I may be getting a bit obsessed by my Chickens - so much so that I have made a canvas to mark their new found freedom, it didn't quite start out that way though!

Lynn from The Altered Element sent me some Crafty Notion Spraypaques this month along with some Puff Paint, I have already used some of the paint on the Cup/Saucer below, but this time used them along with the Puff paint on this canvas

The Puff Paint is great fun to use, you smear it on - well I do - sure the more refined amongst you may use a spatula or something, but whilst I have fingers I can think of no better tool to use (at least I dont lose them!) - and then dry it with your heatgun and it expands into.... - well a puffy shape - cool eh?

I then sprayed/painted mine with the Spraypaque and cosmic shimmers along with acrylic paint. You can also stitch into it, I haven't tried that yet but intend to on a future project.

Hels Sunday Stamper Challenge this week was 'Wings' and as I haven't played along with Hels for a few weeks I thought it was a good starting point for my project - you see I like Angels (hold that thought) and I am reading 'Who's your Dada' by Linda and Opie O'Brien - which is the book for my personal monthly challenge for June (for future reference hold the thought that I don't like dolls ) but I do like Gargoyles and Angels - so this was supposed to be a Gargoyle Angel.

I had this wooden Gothic Arch - which goes well with Gargoyles -

I didn't have any Grungeboard wings left so I cut my own Angel Wings out freehand

Assembled Head/Arch/Keys for legs (I like that bit LOL) and then wings............... ummmmm the wings looked more Birdie than Angelie.. so The Chicken Theme came about and I made a metal chicken's head, in true Upcycling I used an empty tomato puree tube purely because it is such a lovely colour!

OK OK so my thought processes do take a few twist and turns along the way but that's OK, projects may not turn out as I initially imagined them, but that means they don't turn out 'wrong' !

So that's my project for this weekend!

Hope it made you smile just a little bit, my chooks make me smile and I hope they are enjoying their new found freedom, but whilst we are on the subject just take a look at the picture below and see the conditions they were living in, I hope it makes people think twice before buying eggs from Battery Hens!

Arsenic and Old Lace?

Or should that be Beeswax and Old Lace?? I suppose quite rightly that Joseph Kesselring didn't think Beeswax had the same ring or poisonous qualities as Arsenic, but for me and Hels Sunday Stamper Challenge the Beeswax worked quite nicely.

I had some unexpected free time this afternoon, so decided to have a go at Hels 'Lace' challenge.

She must have know that I picked up 2 metres of lace for 20p at the mini-scrap box yesterday, just hours before she posted the challenge - I am not a lacy girl so it must have been fate!

Whilst tidying Sparky's craftroom last time I visited I found these rather cute 4"x4" deep sided canvas's and she kindly gave me a couple. Since I will be staying with her in 4 sleeps time I thought I better use one or else she will moan 'haven't you use those watsits yet'

I also wanted to have another play with the Eco paints, and then that obviously (!) led me onto deciding to try out some beeswax I bought a while ago and the because I was listening to 'Les Mis' on my Ipod I remembered I had this lovely stamp which is of course iconic of LM and fits beautifully on the canvas. So I painted and then stencilled through sequin waste (note to self - put Jennies stencil waste rubber stamps on my Ally Pally shopping list!) Then I brushed on layers of beeswax and stamped the girl onto tissue paper and 'glued' it onto the canvas with more beeswax. Then 'I dreamed a dream' started playing. It was then a 'happy accident' occurred... I got some shrink plastic down from the shelf so that I could make a 'tag' (dream a dream) -- now my shelves are rather full - some may say overfull - and down came a bit of an avalanche, I was showered with clay moulds but more importantly floating down was the gold transfer foil I bought yesterday for 40p a metre - would it work on hot wax?? yes it bloomin does and it looks fab!

I am a serious wax novice and I was trying to get it smooth but soon realised that I liked the 'bumpy' effect on this project as it looks more dreamy. Finally I mounted it on a couple of cotton reels I had knocking about, so it can stand up rather than being hung on a wall.

All in all I am really happy with this quick bank holiday afternoon project.


*** Update... I searched youtube last night for more info on Beeswax and watched one done by the Queen of Wax Suze Weinburg, and guess what she used foils on her wax....
and there I was thinking I had made an useful discovery LOL ****

Journal Time and Random Thoughts

Tidied the craft room yesterday, always a bad move, because when everything is neat and tidy I don't know what to do or where to start. But I decided to mess it all up again with Claudine's paints and do a page for my journal. I have been following Kate Crane's 3 part Tutorial in Craft Stamper and have also just taken delivery of a book called 'Journal Spilling' It's an interesting challenge, to try and realise and remember that no one has to see, let alone like or approve of what you are doing. With this is mind I gave myself a set of 'rules', Georgina obviously took what I was trying to do on board, because she was doodling (or as they call these days, doing 'Random Stuff' and she came up with the words above. Shame she wasn't a few mins earlier as I would have added her words to my 'rules' - but hey she got her own page!

So here are my Rules and I will try to follow them. The facing page is the back of the beeswax experiment, which was a piece of a jigsaw. - click on the picture if you would like to read the rules

Oh .... and you know what I was saying about cards, and not making them. Well I had to make an exception for Mr Bessie on Valentines Day didn't I - but ssshhh don't tell him cos its a complete secret and neither he or Mrs Bessie have a clue it was from me........ you can tell my DH though, cos I gave him exactly what he gave me - zilch, its a mutual agreement. I love him everyday!

ROMANTIC UPDATE!!

I take it all back about my DH and Valentines day...

I have just been brought tea and toast