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.

It's been a while.

Well as expected spending a fortnight visiting my dad and the in-laws left me with about 10 minutes to knit the whole time.

I never got around to crocheting the scarf but I found a nice knitted pattern and am working on that instead, needs about an hours work to finish it off. Also I've started work on this chunky hooded sweater in this
http://www.purplelindacrafts.co.uk/james-c-brett-marble-chunky-yarn-mc4-flamingo-5481-p.asp though mine has more cream in it than that ball shows. I'm planning to make embellishments for it with some remnant fabric.

Oh yeah when it comes to crafting my year was made by the in-laws buying me a Singer Traditional sewing machine, it's got the exact same settings as my dad's one but without the concrete so I can actually lift it!

Anyway, I do plan to pick up the 30 day challenge where I left off, but I can cheat as one of my current projects is a squares blanket made of "Sirdar Snuggly Snowflake Chunky" because I have about 20 half balls from when my mum was teaching me to knit in 2002/03. So a lot of days will just be squares lol.

Another day.

After knitting like a demon yesterday all I need to do is assemble today's post piece, though I'll do it later as right now I really can't be bothered.

I've also got tomorrow's and Friday's things under way.

I'm doing the second amigurumi alien for tomorrow and re-doing the giant baby bandanna for Friday. Then for over the weekend a strawberry hat, a crocheted scarf and a few more pairs of baby socks :)

Next week I'm going to work on a pair of fingerless gloves in sock yarn for two of my days.

30 Days of Knit.

After taking a day out I think I'm back on track, got tomorrows post piece pretty much done, and Wednesdays is underway too. Unfortunately I'm having to use DK to make French knots instead of using safety eyes because I couldn't get a hold of any small enough :(

Anyway back to the crocheting.

I definitely knit off more than I can chew.

Okay now I've decided that when it comes to doing something different every day it'll be hard to find enough little quick things. So I probably won't be posting every day.

I worked this out after starting a pair of toddler slipper boot things... so I'm going to probably take tomorrow off to get back on top of things. I'll do this by getting another thing finished before doing the other one of these boots as one alone took me from about 3pm yesterday until about 10 minutes ago.

I'm going to try my best to pick up the pace but when I'm out and about so much I can't help falling behind a little.

Eyes bigger than needles.

I need to re-establish my limits before embarking on large difficult pieces.

Today's challenge piece was going to be a moss stitch hat for my daughter, but I spent a lot of yesterday out and about because the weather was nice, windy but still nice. And the bloody thing is taking ages because the yarn keeps slipping off the needles. Hopefully I can get back to it later and get it done for tomorrow. That reminds me I need to find some ribbon for it...

Though I do have a saving grace, when I went to the local wool shop to look at patterns I was talking with the owner about how I have a hard time knitting flowers, so she gave me this really nice pattern for a knitted rose, so I'm going to throw one of those together and fit it on a broach mounting.

At least I have something complete for today :P