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 

Been Neglecting the journal

Started with all good intentions of adding to my journal often (in fact that was one of my self imposed rules on the first page of my book) but got caught up with life and other projects, but then the January edition of The Craft Stamper arrived and although I have only has a quick flick through, the Calendar Journal project by Kate Crane (who first inspired me to start journalling) caught my eye. So I had a quick play yesterday and came up with this page, got more ideas for the rest of the year , but I was in the mood and only had time for a quick play. 

Now even I can manage to write a sentence or two - can't I?? Its not a matter of time, its a matter of discipline!

Anyone else suddenly in panic mode with the realisation Christmas isn't very far away??

I'm late I'm late for a very important date.....

I started this project ages awhile ago, and then life took over and I never managed to get it finished in time for its original purpose of entering it into the Craft Stamper Competition, but whilst attempting a tidy up in the craft room today I decided to finish it off so thought I would share it with you anyway. Hey whilst writing this I have realised the background is green, so I can enter it into Hels' Sunday Stamper Challenge, so all is not lost!

As you can see it is an altered book. I love to see books that are a bit worse for wear because they have been read, and re-read and well loved. I don't think this readers digest book had actually ever been read, but it now looks like it has!

I cut a hole in the pages to accommodate a 'house clock' and each chipboard tile has been coloured with distress inks, stamped and then triple embossed with clear UTEE. Its a busy book, with well thumbed pages, and I like to think as the title suggests it has been read 'Time and Time Again'

The cover is a bit rough and ready - I didn't want it to be perfect as it was supposed to be well handled and maybe even shoved in a bag everyday to be read on the train to work or as in my OH's case, shoved done the side of the loo - I never understand the attraction of reading on the toilet, think its a man thing!  - The cover is made from Grungepaper - grungepaper/board doesn't really care for heat embossing, but in this project that was perfect because it curled the edges somewhat - It does however like being stamped on - take a look at this gorgeous stamps I bought from The Artistic Stamper - great aren't they!! I didn't know quite what I would use them for when I bought them, but knew I had to have them .... hey presto they are just perfect for this project! They are quite detailed and I was really impressed how well they stamped onto GP.

Perhaps I better start on an entry for the CS now for 2011, then I may get it done in time!!

Oh just noticed my clock is a bit wonky in the photo - that will be because I havent fixed it in properly yet, it will be straight once i find my magnetic strip to keep it in place but easily removable for battery changes etc, so please pretend you didnt notice that LOL

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/

Nearly Ally Pally so its WOYWW and WOYSAIYD

WOYSAIYD??? that's -whats on your shelves and in your drawers??? Its Ally Pally this weekend and some of you will know that I have been going twice a year for several years and get terribly over-excited every-time, mostly cos I get to spend the weekend with two of my favourite people Mr & Mrs Bessie... Now I am determined not to overspend this time (namely cos I cant LOL) so I am being very organised and writing down what colours I have in various inks, paints and sprays etc etc, so I spent a spare few minutes altering a notebook to write it all down in......

Well it should have been just a few minutes but I soon found out why those cute little alphabet stamps from The Range were so cheap. (99p)... it is because you have to stick all the corresponding tiny letters on the little bits of dowel.. and try to line them up.. what a palaver, but... but... but.... every cloud has a silver lining..........................

Look at the left-over rubber....I was about to throw it away when I realised it would make a fab stamp in its own right!

and it did!

so all I have got to do know is have a little sort through my meager supplies and write it all down!!

(PS.... think you may just notice that I didn't quite line the 't' up properly - just as well I never try to line letters up in a straight line and go for the higgledy piggledy look LOL)

hop over to Julia's blog and have a look at other peoples workdesks, its a revalation!

Two Out of Three Aint Bad

but can I make it 3/3.... or can I kill 3 birds with one stone??

1. My Dads 80th Birthday 'card'
 2. Hels Sunday Stamper challenge is Men ..... and this is for a Man and she can only be hugely impressed that I actually did some stamping on this one.
3. Tuesday Taggers challenge this week was to get Messy.... and messy I got in true Sir Tim Style

So pretty please can this cover all three??

Here is the cover, metal work of course and I am so loving my new metal alphabet punches that I used for the wording on the cover.

I would love to lay claim for the paper used on the back cover, but it is some luscious handmade paper I bought from my recent trip to The Craft Barn. I must love my Dad to use such precious stash

Here is the Star Card/book opened out, it's very trick to photograph, but basically its bound together with I think its called Japanese Stab Stitch ?? I may be wrong

so that's the Men bit and my Dads Birthday taken care of

now for the Tuesday Taggers messy bit

Think I have managed that bit as well don't you??

Sunday Stamper, Squares and Journals....

This weeks challenge over on Hels Blog is 'Squares' - I have just bought myself a sewing machine and I have a stock of fabric paper which I made a while ago, one of which has you've guessed it Squares on it....

I was being  a very good girl and tidying my desk before I started another project and I came across this months Craft Stamper, which has a project in it for making a Journal by Kate Crane, so my effort for this weeks challenge has been heavily inspired by this.

As you can see I have managed to get my machine working and have done quite alot of stitching on this the cover to my Journal. I wanted to stitch metal and was pleased to find out it's very easy! Lots of ideas have been whirring round my head with metal and fabric.

The front and back covers will be joined together with LARGE Book Rings, but I couldn't get them in the scanner. I'm hoping for fill it this year with lots of different pages. When I am feeling creative but don't know what to do I can make a page!

Don't take too much notice of the 'Do Not Look Inside' message, I may share a few pages with you as and when I do them.. but maybe not everything!

Thanks Hels for making me think again on a Sunday!

Not a Domino in sight (or Triomino!)

I am known for changing my mind, and I know only this morning I was planning to alter some Triomino pieces for an Altered Game Piece swap... but that was because

a) we weren't allowed to alter domino's - why? cos that's what Trish the Host said, and if you host a swap then you make the rules

b) because I couldn't find the Da Vinci games pieces that I really wanted to use.
but then, I found the Da Vinci bits I really wanted to use

Da Vinci Game pieces? Ever heard of them? Nope didn't think you had! A few years ago during the height of The Dan Brown 'Da Vinci Code' mania, I found a game of the same name in a bargain bucket and purchased it as a stocking filler for D.H.  Well we soon found out why it was it the bargain bucket, it's probably the most boring game in the whole wide gaming world and actually 'bargain' could be stretching a point, unless of course they fall into the hands of someone who rather likes altering things and sees them as (potentially) very cute little 'shrines'

As always I had - not a clue - what I was going to do with them when I managed to grab a bit of me time tonight, but I came across these three lovely - albeit bloomin miserable looking - ladies who fitted beautifully inside the pieces.

I randomly tore a page out of an old book I use for text pages and challenged my self to find some apt text to make a mini collage inside each one. Each one as had a few layers of UTEE which gives the glassy look

All three ladies are I am sure unrecognised Angels, even if they do look like three miserable old buggers, so they all have stamped and embossed wings.

Off to have a think about another challenge - take a look over at Gingersnap Creations - Metallics... yum!

Thanks for stopping by and leaving comments, I really do appreciate it xxx

Frivolous Feet

I fancied having a go at a blog challenge so had a look yesterday at Ink on my Fingers Sunday Stampers.

This week the challenge was entitled 'Tiger Feet' and being a Mud fan in my day I just had to have a go.

Luckily you didn't have to include the Tiger bit just the feet bit.!! Now... I am not over-run with feet stamps, but I did come across these lovely Stockinged Legs that I bought from Dimension Forth ages ago and never quite had a reason to use them. So I am hoping Hels will allow these stockinged feet!??

(If you click on the photo, you will see there are various references to feet)

Now to me Feet means travelling, and if you have had a look at my blog before you may remember 'Auntie Gertie' - I have been thinking about her since I found the stamp which reminded me so much of her and have wondered what her life was really like, she died before we could have a 'proper' adult conversation.

I wonder if that spinster lady who looked after her parents until they died and as far as I can remember hardly ever left her home town, never mind her home county, had a secret desire to (or in fact actually did) wear frivolous /daring underwear and dreamt of taking off and travelling the world.

We will never know, but if she did then this collaged mirror is a tribute to her secret desires.

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

It's Ally Pally time and ......

these boots were made for walking....

or should that be, these boring old white plimsolls were made for altering??

Just a bit of fun, I doubt they will survive too many wearings, but after recent events in our lives it's time for a bit of fun and not taking things too seriously!

Off to stay with my lovely mates Mr and Mrs S... that's always a treat in itself! So it's woodcarving and then a drive down to Kent tomorrowand a girlie day out on Friday and Ally Pally on Saturday, leaving family to fend for themselves, doubt they will even notice I have gone!

Now...... where did I leave my shopping list????