Be may not be over the hill...

But he has a damn good view!

The 14th of May is the father in law's 50th birthday and the younger of my two sister in laws has ordered a card for him. He likes steampunk and vintage stuff so it was pretty easy to knock something suitable up.

Shopping list:

Spellbinders Grand Nestabilities Labels 1 (2nd and 3rd largest sizes)
Papermania Chronology Decoupage
Papermania 3mm gold brads
One other larger brad (I used a gold tone from a My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline set)
Tim Holtz idea-ology Paper Stash Kraft Resist dictionary page
Teresa Collins Fabrications Linen: Green Diamond (#FAB142)
Centura Pearl Ivory (or you could use gold mirri)
Papermania Chronology Designer Die-Cuts
Papermania Urban Stamps: Chronology Curiosity
American Crafts Thickers - Black Vinyl
Tim Holtz Distress Ink - Vintage Photo
8x8 inch ivory card blank (papermania again!)

Firstly I cut a 7 3/4 inch square mat of the Kraft paper and cut the long strip of leftovers to just under 8 inches long. Then I took the stamp and after vaguely applying ink I vaguely tiled it (I stamped on a wobbly surface really roughly) on both pieces.

It's all quite simply thrown together to be honest, I used a darning needle and blue tack to punch the small holes for the brads and just played around with the layout a little bit and did it all on a bit of a whim as we got a nearly £3000 gas and electric bill through today...

I used 2mm foam pads and pinflair photo glue for adhesives.

Jump-er to it

After managing a reasonable amount of work on this project last night I feel I have regained my momentum. I'm also feeling intent on blogging every day about current projects even if it is just a status report rather than a unique item or tutorial.

Today has been a bit difficult as I've been a bit inattentive due to codine and my daughter pretending to be a kangaroo. Toddlers make life tricky, now I understand why most of the crafters I admire are older than myself with slightly older children. It's hard to fit craft around being a housewife and mother (I label myself as that as I am a wife who keeps house, though Matt does pull his weight most of the time bless him) especially when you're mother to a busy little girl who is intent on being an übermensch.


Anyway, my plans for this week are:
1. Wait on parcels. There are /I think/ five due to arrive this week.

2. Make Chris's birthday card from Natty, tutorial will be done for this. (I appreciate men's cards can be tricky)

3. Finish this jumper and hopefully start mine.

4. Do some textile work. (Either small pieces for cards or small gift items)

5. Make some mens' cards.

6. Some cross-stitch.


Anyway back on topic to Sophie's pullover. I'm about 20 something rows off of finishing the back, I have a mystery though... Somehow I have an odd number of stitches when I should have an even number... Hmm... I'll sort it easily enough but it's just mysterious. I'm hoping to have this done by the time we start playing D&D (Dungeons and Dragons, yes I am a genuine nerd and it's 3.5e in case anyone is wondering) tonight, if not by when we start by when we finish. Though I really don't want to be dealing with the pain in the butt that is picking up stitches with a houseful of people... Won't bore you with pictures of a half finished jummy in every post so here is a picture of my daughter instead.

Actually knitting today!

After a bit of a wooly hiatus I've picked up the needles again to work on a summer pullover for my friend Sophie.

I'm also planning on doing one of these for myself after this one is completed but in a much more vibrant colour scheme.

I'm so far 4cm off of starting armhole shaping on the back but generally this piece has gone quite quickly and if I hadn't gotten wrapped up in my paper-crafting I could have easily finished this in a fortnight of dabbling. I'm hoping to get the back finished before Monday when I will, hopefully, actually be doing a card tutorial! I'm making a card to order for my sister in law to give to her dad for his 50th and my deadline for having it posted to her is Tuesday so I'm hoping the rest of my Spellbinders arrive before I start on it so I can do the best I can. (I need to do a blog about my Martha Stewart stamp designer too soon, will probably be when I sit down to do my business cards)

Anyway yes, jumper.

Simple stocking stitch design with lace details around the hem and cuffs worked in a DK weight cotton blend for a lightweight finished garment.

Recommended yarn: Sirdar Summer Stripes (60% cotton 40% acrylic)
Yarn used: Sirdar Crofter DK (60% acrylic 25% cotton 15% wool)

When we went shopping for the wool Hobbycraft Hull didn't have any colours of Summer Stripes so we both chose alternatives. Luckily for me both our alternative choices came in larger balls so we still got 15 balls between us for the two items (in a 3 for 2 offer, bargain!) and I'm going to have a decent amount of leftovers to play with! (Which is lucky!)

So long story short. I'm knitting a jumper for my friend. Have a picture of the finished item on the pattern with my W.I.P.


Crafty hugs!

Positive but deflated

My first craft fair did not go as well as I had hoped, but still better than expected. After paying £10 for the pitch I in the end made £15. The students did not seem very receptive but there were many positive noises made by visitors and staff and I have booked myself in for the next one On the 20th of May and I will have business cards Which will hopefully lead to more sales.

Next time I am hoping to have more sewn and stitched items and make more profit.

This week I got a new leatherette office chair for using with my sewing machine which is very comfortable but unfortunately the cottons I'm using need lighter needles which I cannot get until tomorrow, so I cannot have a manic sewing session until then.

Ever since I learned how to truly appreciate a sewing machine I have had a great deal of affection and a great affinity with free motion stitching and appliqué. I could quite happily spend 6 or 7 hours straight at the sewing machine just doodling away; I'm hoping to use self designed textiles in cards and small gifts. And eventually home-wares. Something gives me the impression that oven gloves will sell well during freshers fair... I hope that I can actually get a stall during freshers week because I know that many girls will be wishing to brighten up their rooms in halls. The only cards I will be working on for next months stall will be male birthday and graduation ones. And possibly some fathers' day ones. But my main aim is to have more gift items.

I will make a full post about the fair when I can get on a computer so I can upload photographs from my camera. It may not have gone as well as planned but I'm remaining positive and hope to have more success in the future.

Long story short,next month: business cards, more gifts, more positive attitude.

So far, so good!

So i have my first ever craft fair in 6 days time! I figured I'd catalogue the cards I'm selling so I have some kind of record of what does well and what doesn't.

Photo 1: my 50p/£1 birthday cards (two still needing stamping finished)

Just realised that the Christmas tree is in the background... Don't judge me...

Photo 2: £2/3 birthday cards (the far left two are the £3 ones)

Photo 3: £4 cards (these will have boxes to sit in)



I'm really struggling to think what to write as my brain is just all full of card ideas.... I also have a whole bunch more cards to sort and photograph, hopefully I'll be able to borrow my hubby's iPad to take to the fair to photograph my stall. I'm also hoping to have an hour or so to spare on Sunday night to photograph some individual cards and do my own crappy version of a tutorial.

This must honestly be the least wordy that I've felt in a few days but I really do just want to just dive head first into my work... And I'm slightly distracted by my little girl reading Monkey Puzzle to herself, can't tell if genius or just really good memory...


I'm hoping to make some better/ more frequent posts while I'm working my behind off.

To do list: more cards, lots of cards for blokes, little boxes for ready made cross stitched gifts, more gift/home-ware items... I'm not going to be sleeping much...

A starter for 82.

Okay so last night I charged myself, in a spellbinder deprivation induced rage, to make Nana's birthday card. (Nana is actually my fiancés Nana, I ran out of grandparents in 2010)

I'd had an idea set in my mind since I put in a recent order for my first batch of Spellbinders dies (a selection of the Imperial Gold dies and Medallion 7) but since they failed to arrive in time I had to improvise with my meagre Sizzix collection.

To begin with I sat down for the first time with my brand new pro markers (skin tones set 1&2 and pastel tones one and fished out my Contemporary Christmas 2011 set and took a deep breath. I grabbed my black pigment ink, my acrylic block and my Somebunny to Love stamps and got to work. I know that I'm not the best stamper so I knew I'd make a pigs ear of it.

Taking two doubled up sheets of copy paper (I knew the ink would bleed through so I used a second sheet to catch and mess) I stamped the adorable little bunny a few times on each sheet and started colouring. I thought back over the past 18 months that I have been crafting to all the pro marker demonstrations and just had a play. (If you want to do a better job look up Joanna Sheen's tutorials on YouTube)

An hour and a bit later I settled on the coloured image I was going to use and I raided my stash for some bits to build a card. I selected a printed hessian effect to tie in with the neutrals, a pale sort of almost purple colour glitter card to tie in with the pastels and a rainbow mirror board, just because. I threw in some pastel purple grosgrain ribbon, some pearl cabochons and a tiny amount of glitter to tie it together. I also used a rose and lace print 12x12 paper for the base mat and insert.

After a nightmare cutting the insert with a blunt craft knife (I need new blades for my trimmer) I assembled the card. When I die cut all of the pieces I cut a piece from the wrong side of the hessian to get a white piece to mount the coloured image on because I'd only used copier paper.
I cut two of the smaller tag, using one on the inside too and I stamped and heat embossed both sentiments in black. I also used my Ivory pro marker to run around the edge of the shaped mats.

I might have lost my train of thought half way through as my Spellbinders just arrived. I'm going to be busy today!

Crafty hugs to everyone!

Soon...

I'm hoping to finally start posting again and posting crafty things as I've been redonkulously busy and... Well... Forgetful... I'm receiving my first bundle of spellbinders dies today and despite already owning dies of other brands these will take my papercraft to the next level.

To be continued.