Finished the bags...

.... because the kids went back to school today - hooray!! A bit of peace and quiet, and a clean house does wonders for my creativity LOL!

So here are the 3 bags - one red, one denim, one "heather" - not sure who is going to get which one yet ;)

And here is a little close up of some of the flowers - I got all brave on this bag and did blanket stitch round the edges, the others I did running stitch on. I went rooting through my sequin and bead "collection" for the flower centres.

All I need to do now is find some bits and pieces to go inside the bags - probably a few smellies, a bit of choccy and some snowman soup... that's my next job, a batch of snowman soup LOL.

ttfn x

Bag Lady

Yep, that's my project of the moment, sewing felt flowers onto the felted bags I made way back in May - see here for the original bag :)
I am doing them for Christmas presents, and have started collecting things to go inside the bags - some toiletries, chocolates etc. And some snowman soup - cos I finally found candy canes in Woolworths today LOL

I became a proud owner of a Tilda today - so I am sure that I will get the old Staz on out later... I was thinking of all the other stamps I have, that I bought and only stamped a couple of times, scared off by the colouring in bit. Now I am a bit more practised I might hunt them out and have a colouring in session - will surely give some variety to my Christmas cards...!

ttfn

Monogram madness!

... I went a bit monogram mad yesterday, finishing off altering projects I have been wanting to do for ages. This is a wooden U, which I painted and distressed, then added sepia photos, some blooms and bling, a few wire embellishments and a spot of ribbon! It is now hanging on the kitchen door, where you can see it if you walk into our house. I love a bit of home decor!!





The next 2 monograms are metal letters I got in the bargain bucket at Au Naturelle for 25p each! Luckily they had lots of J's and T's - just what I need LOL. I added a black and white photo, then embellished them with ribbon, buttons, flowers etc - Tom has a thing about orange, and Jemma isn't really a girly girl, but purple is my fave, and it looks great against the silver letters. They now have pride of place in the kids rooms :) I have large chipboard monograms to do for the kids too, but will probably do them for christmas gifts ;)

Finally, here is the LO I have been umming and aahhing over for the past week! One of Mark, for a change, he doesn't really feature in my pages as much as he should do really, something that needs to be addressed...

I used a Scrap Studio kit (formerly ModScraps kits) which was all Scenic Route (drool!) and the colours are perfect for these Tree Adventure photos (yes more photos from Tree Adventures - told you I took a lot LOL) Did a bit of doodling on the arrows and title, used a New Zealand circle stamp I got in Wellington, and Heidi Swapp "adventure" stamp again.

I think now I will go and lie down, 3 days of creativity is quite a lot for me, and I do seem to be lacking energy today, and have a thick head :(

Although I have thought of a finishing touch to put on my Christmas cards....the cogs keep whirring - the brain is still working even if the flesh is weak LOL....



ttfn

BOO!

I had fun yesterday making a halloween doodlebug house! Kept me from biting my nails during the rugby ;)



This is the small house, and I used the Doodlebug Hauntingly Halloween kit to decorate it. The only thing that was a pain, was the adhesive doesn't always stick - so I have had to use other glue to keep it from unsticking.
I have a large house too, and I think that will be done in a christmas stylee!

I am hoping to get a LO finished today, it's been sat half done in my craft "room" all week....

And I am eagerly waiting for some magazines I ordered from PaperArts - the new Simple Scrapbook mag, the Papercrafts Christmas special, and I also ordered the Easy scrapping with 4 x 6 photos by Creating Keepsakes. I have so many 4 x 6 photos it is unreal, and I don't always like to crop them, so it will be nice to get some good ideas for LOs...

ttfn

I finally finished something....

... and I must say that I am very pleased with how its turned out.

The book is a 7 Gypsies naked wire-o album that my lovely teamie Anne sent me, and I decorated the covers using Papertrey Ink stamps - from the Take a Bough set. The alpha stickers are Basic Grey, and the "adventure" stamp is Heidi Swapp. Some organza ribbon finished it off nicely.

For each page, I used a 5.5 x 3.5 inch piece of card to mask off the centre, and then stamped around it to create a border. I used Papertrey Ink stamps again, with the leaves coming from another set, Blooms I think it is called. I did this on every page, which is something I started to regret after page 4 LOL, although I must admit it is very effective, and I love how it looks - so it was worth the effort. More BG stickers, the Heidi Swapp adventure stamp, and a map of New Zealand I got in Kiwi Scraps in Wellington finish off the title page, and I stuck a hot fix crystal on the map to show where we were (approximately ;P)

These are some of the pages, I mixed portrait and landscape photos, hence why some of the pictures look odd.... I did the journalling using Hero Arts tiny type stamps, another time consuming task, but I love the effect. The monograms are cut from Scenic Route paper, using a Scenic Route chipboard alpha as a stencil :)

It is a lovely little book, and the kids have already looked through it loads, which is what it is there for after all. We had a great time at Tree Adventures, and I wanted to create something special to record it. Not my speediest project ever, but I put alot of love into that little book, and that was well worth the time...

ttfn

Still here....

...just! It's the half term holidays here, the kids are off for 2 weeks - arrgghh!! So I am busy keeping them from killing each other!

Also, I seem to have a serious attack of startinganotherprojectbeforeIfinishthefirstone-itis !! My Mum always tried to instill in me the theory of finishing off something before starting something new, but I have always been a flitter, and I like to have lots of different things on the go so I have some variety. I have at least 5 projects on the go right now, so although I have been crafting lots, I have nothing to show for it... The only thing I have finished this week is a CJ entry, which I can't show you anyway!

Jemma did her first scrapbook page yesterday - Mum bought her an album kit for her birthday with a view to her being able to put photos from New Zealand in it, but she never got round to it. And now she has her own camera, she wanted to scrap one of the pictures she took over the summer - of the flowers in our garden. She added some lovely journalling too. So now I need to hide the stash LOL, or at least drip feed her some of my older supplies so she doesn't help herself...

Hope to be back with photos of finished projects soon.....

Cyber cropping...

.... slow time!

There was a weekend of cyber cropping on UKS this past weekend, with 2 more weekends of classes coming up. I don't particularly like the frenzy of usual cyber crops, so it is nice that this one is a bit more sedate and I have picked and chosen which classes I want to do, and that I have had plenty of time to play with the classes.

The above layout was my take on Carolm's "True Love" class, and it uses felt - I loved Carol's original LO, so I knew that I had to do this one. Carol is a very talented gal, and I love her work, and I don't just say that cos she's my team mate ;) The LO is very glittery, I went a bit mad with the Stickles, but the scan hasn't done it justice. I have a couple more of last weekend's classes saved ready to do, and I shall be looking to see what they come up with this weekend too!

Playing with my new toy...

....my new Bind It All !! This is a little mini book/album I have done for friends who got married last weekend - I have left spaces for a few photos. I have seen the lovely Bo Bunny chipboard books, but thought I would have a bash at doing something similar myself, and printed off some large letters in Word, and then handcut them out of chipboard. Covered it all in some weddingy papers, and added some 7 gypsies stickers and a dash of ribbon, and then shoved it into my Bind it all LOL.



Then I decided I had really ought to do something with some of the many photos we took at Disneyland Paris in October 2006! So I made a little book with 6x6 pieces of bazzill, added some strips of disney papers, and 4x6 photos, then made some covers out of acetates, decorated with ribbon, and shoved all that through my bind it all too!!

I have been to a mini crop at my neighbours house this afternoon, thanks Pam, and I have nearly finished a LO and made a start on a book in a box all about New Zealand - I managed to cover the box LOL. When they are done I will share....
Thanks to Erika too for her yummy bananachocchip muffin, and Kara too for putting up with my awful singing to the 80s soundtrack!

ttfn

As promised....

..... more pages from my Dad's album.


These are my favourite pages - I didn't want to share all of them, you might think you are in some kind of nightmare slide show scenario LOL. I used the same pagemap for all the pages, it took some of the brainwork out of it, and allowed me to complete it quite quickly.

I am really peeved he won't get it for the actual day, but I hope he likes it when he does get it :)

But, I did have a good post day myself - I got my Bind-it-all machine, so now I get to make mini books to my hearts content :) Need to hide it from Mark though, as he was quite taken with it! I have a few ideas in the pipeline too :) so watch this space.....

I also went real life shopping today LOL, visiting my LSS and ordering myself a Cuttlebug for Christmas - yay! I have my trusty Sidekick, which has been a solid and faithful servant for many years, but I wanted to get something that could cut slightly bigger... and I want to use those gorgeous Cuttlebug embossing folders!! So I am upgrading, but my lickle sidekick has a new home already - Jemma will have it!

I also found myself a large wooden U which I am going to alter... I fancy a bit of home decor scrapbooking.

Jemma commented yesterday that the "rogues gallery" we have on our stairs is looking a bit shabby now, and could I "do something pretty cos the frames look rubbish..." The only problem is that I did these multi photo frames pre scrapbooking, and used original photos (shock horror) and cut them, and stuck them with DST (aarrgghh) and these frames have been hung in direct sunlight, so the photos are now sun damaged and I can't get them out cos of the DST.....AARRGGHHHHHH!! I am hoping I can save some of the photos, or at least replace some with other photos, and maybe do some canvasses... A lot of thinking to be done on that one somehow.....

And talking of thinking, I still haven't thought of anyone to tag.....

ttfn

Tagged!!

Thanks Paula for the tag.... so here goes....

4 places I have worked
Local newsagents, Thurmaston, Leicester
Gateway Supermarket, Leicester
Dr Gray's Hospital, Elgin
Victoria Filling Station, Forres.

4 places I have lived
Stapleford, Nottingham (where I was born)
Thurmaston, Leicester (where I grew up)
Rosia Court, Gibraltar (Mark was posted there)
Kinloss, Forres (where I live now)

4 places I have been on holiday
New Zealand
Disneyland Paris
Corfu
Dominican Republic

4 favourite foods
chocolate
Chicken Tikka Massala from Asda curry pot LOL
Banoffee Pie
Pineapple cheecake (can you tell I have a sweet tooth LOL)

4 places I would rather be right now
Christchurch, New Zealand
Gibraltar
Stash shopping lol
Findhorn beach

I shall be back later with 4 people to tag, and some pictures of my Dad's 60th album, which is now finished, but due to the Mail strike will not get to him in time for his birthday :(

ttfn