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/

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!

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??

Another Day.. Another Challenge...

I was invited to join in with the Tuesday Taggers by the talented Clarky J when it first started a few months ago and never quite got round to it, although I do pop by every week to see what they are up to. Well the challenge yesterday set by Avril really caught my eye and stirred my Mojo, so in-between doing a bit of housework, freezer filling and ironing, I kept popping into the craft room and had a play. I finally finished it late last night in semi darkness so I was quite pleased when I woke this morning to find I did quite like the colours!

At the last Ally Pally, I dropped by (as always cos it is the highlight of the show) the LBcrafts stand and watched Lin playing with Metal, Ferro and Terra Paints. Generously she has repeated the technique on her blog, so hop over and take a look. So here is my version of her tag, and entry for the Tuesday Taggers Challenge which was simply a Bird on a Tag.
The Bird (any twitchers out there who can tell me what species it is, I am guessing its not an Owl!) was a die-cut which has been randomly covered with various colours of UTEE and embossing powders.
Not sure if it is a water bird but it is now because I had an odd urge to add a couple of Bull-rushes made from some odd flocky sheets I had (why I bought them I don't know but everything has a use eventually) and wire.  I stamped the words Take Flight into some gold Metal Magic... it hasn't worked terribly well, but it does look better in real life than it does on here

Now the next question is should I take part in the WOYDW - What's On Your Desk Wednesday which I came across via Jennie of The Artistic Stamper fame.... It's not good..... it is rather shameful.... be prepared for a dreadful sight...

... oh, I don't know if I can

....... I can't help it I have tried and I cannot work neatly

..... Deep Breath here goes

Told you it was bad.... full of stuff from my last few projects...

My MIL bought me a Fridge magnet for Christmas which says 'A Tidy House is the Sign of a Wasted Life'

Well rest assured that the rest of my house is clean and tidy (apart from No1 DD's room, but we wont go there, in fact no one dares to go there) but when it comes to my desk... well you can see for yourself!

I think I better go and have a tidy up, don't you?

While I am gone I dare you to join in WOYDW!!

Done it.... I hope it meets approval!

Well I took the plunge and once I got started it was alot of fun. I had no idea where I was going when I started (and I am not actually sure where I finished up!) but I decided to go with the colour scheme of purple and gold so that would go in my newly decorated bedroom.. which is surprisingly enough, purple and gold.....

The frame, which was already highly decorative and needed no addition of embellishments apart from colour, was decorated with Viva paints, Alcohol inks,  Rub 'n' Buff, Metallic Rub Ons, Gold Krylon pen - you name it and it is there! - Oh forgot to mention a few blasts with some pink/purple/gold mica sprays.

The centre piece has one of my favourite PaperArtsy stamps (well all PA stamps are favourites!) which although I love I never quite know what to do with it. But I think it sits quite nicely here stamped on some gold metal and glued on top of some model magic (see post below) which I rolled out, trimmed into a rather organic shape with some decorative scissors and stamped into using a PA squiggly ink tree and a leaf texture mat. The pierced holes around the stamped house are there because I was going to try and stitch it to the clay base, but I quickly realised that it wasn't going to work. It may be because I didn't leave the clay to dry enough, but I didn't want it to dry completely.. so whether you can sew into it is still up for experimentation!

I painted it with Viva Bronze precious metal paint and Viva Bio colour black/gold.. which I have to say I am not at all impressed with, it doesn't to my mind give the illusion of black and gold, but looks OK, just doesn't do what it say on the tin!

Gold Croco Crackle paint behind the lot and voila!

I am happy with it, and it looks lucsious on my bedroom wall, it has just got to pass inspection from Teacher!

Fiddling is in the Blood!

I haven't done anything crafty for it seems like an age, apart from a couple of hours on a Thursday at my woodcarving class which is coming on very slowly!

Life is getting busier and busier at the moment, with Christmas looming very quickly (I'm only a little excited!) and all that comes with it when you have children at school, school plays, carol concerts, school shops and a business that peaks when people are doing their present shopping, and a workshop which the group has brought a week forward to next week.. eeekk, better get organised! A good time to start redecorating as well.. and redecorating means sorting stuff out and I came across this photo of my family. It has always been a favourite photo of mine, maybe because it's the only one I have of us all together.

I am the small slightly grumpy but still very cute one on my mums lap.

It was from my mum that I inherited my love of crafting and of trying lots of new things. Here are a few bits and bobs of her work that I have. Embroidery was maybe her first love. Her is a sample of her work that she made as a firescreen for my Nanna - her mother. That is how I remember it, but my Aunt had it framed and left it to me before she died.

She also had a dabble with lace making, this piece is only about the size of a £2 coin but took her an age to do, I think it was the only bit she did !

Metal Embossing.

I used to love it when she got out her pewter.. yep pewter!  I don't think maybe there was aluminium around (or at least readily available) like we tend to use these days. I can't believe that she used to let me play with her off-cuts, I bet I made some treasure with the middle of this mirror frame. I can still remember being captivated by the way the metal could be eased into shapes, and  I still get a kick out of doing it all these years later

And finally... my favourite piece of all,

My Teddy,

as you can see he has always been very much loved

Thank you for letting me share these treasures with you. Last weekend was the 31st Anniversary of when she died, so I didn't have her for long and still miss her all these years later. But she left me with lots of lovely memories and instilled a love of crafting which can never be taken away.

Four Flat Feet

I may have just mentioned that I am staying at Mrs Bessie's ready to go to Ally Pally tomorrow, well we spent a lovely morning shopping in Canterbury and she happened to spy some boring white plimsolls.. much the same as my boring white plimsolls - as were. Hers aren't boring anymore because we have been playing together this afternoon with glimmer mists (now all down my green tee shirt) and fabric paints (the gold of which is now down my navy tee shirt) copper tape and grungeboard... cool aren't they! I like hers better but she won't let me wear them! Just as well really cos my name isn't Sparkles and they are two sizes too big for my delicate little pinkies!

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 !

'Atishoo' Box and Out of my Box

This week on the AB book course I am doing was focussing on using magazine images, Well I have to be honest my heart sunk when I realised this , I just don't get them, no offence to anyone because people use them to great aplomb, but to me it still harks back to me cutting random pics out of my mums Woman's realm and sticking them in my scrapbook. I did consider for a nano-second of missing this weeks lesson, but that is not the point of doing a course AND my book is technique based so it must contain lots of different techniques. Well I tried, honest I did, but I still am not comfortable with it. But here is my page. The face made of many faces was done by using the packing tape transfer method.


The second part of the lesson was using frames, This was more 'me' I covered the page in PVA then placed some tissue over the top, which crinkled. Covered again with PVA, when dry I used alcohol inks (cos the PVA leaves a glossy surface the inks love it) The frame was made with twisted tissue paper. ..... So ok I am not happy with using mags but the leaves were cut out of a book.... mmmmm... bit contradictory of me I feel.....................

I have also had a bit of a play with some wooden blanks that we used at the last YCJ to alter. These will also be available soon to buy on our website http://www.yourcreativejourney.co.uk/ , so keep popping back to check, we have lots of different bits and pieces that will stimulate your creative juices!











I have used metal to cover these but being wooden and very well made almost any media can be used on them! Heidi has a very cool jewellry box on her blog!

Haven'y done any crafting this weekend as I just HAD to have a shopping trip with Mrs Bessie as I need a posh dress and Nicks and posh dresses are not usually seen together! So a trip to sunny kent was in order this weekend. As always I had the best weekend with the Sparkly pair, even though Mr s was forbidden from accompanying us on the shopping trip!
I have been given permission to use this photo cos even though he has his arm around another woman, the ring finger proves he is actually married LOL

Me and Mr Bessie





Mrs Bessie and Me......... all in a tree!