Thursday, October 30, 2008

Stampavie Challenge #17

This is the sketch for the Stamp with Stampavie Challenge this week, and here is my version. The image stamp is by Rachelle Ann Miller, coloured with Derwent watercolour pencils and fibre tip pens. The text stamp is by Stampendous and the dotty paper is Pink Petticoat.I had some bits left over from another card, so came up with this second version as well, although this one does not use Stampavie stamps.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

So much Blog Candy around...

...that I'm getting to be selective...LOL. Here's some of the best;
Denise is having a Candy Party to celebrate her first Anniversary. She is an SU demonstrator, so lots of lovely stuff!
Elaine has Promarkers to give away! She is an expert at colouring with them...go and have a look at her blog.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

I've been tagged

...by Roz....well I was tagged last week, but have only just got round to doing something about it! Go and pay her a visit. The cards are great and the music is good too.

Here are the rules!

1.Link your tagger and list the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of the post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I'm well known for not following the rules, so I'm not going to tag anyone else, but if you visit and would like to take part, consider yourself tagged!

Here follow a few random/weird facts about me.

1. I'm a runner up in the World's Longest Arm Hair Stakes. A good amount of it is 3½" long. The record is around the 5" mark.
2. My left eye sees colour quite differently from my right.
3. I loathe white chocolate.
4. At my best, I played golf to a handicap of 14.
5. I read sauce bottle labels.
6. I can milk a cow.
7. I am very pedantic.

Stampavie Challenge #16


The company that produces the Rachelle Ann Miller stamps has a challenge blog here. The current challenge is to make a card using blue and brown. I've used brown Lidl cardstock, the background paper is from the Now That's Funky CD, the Lily stamp is painted with Derwent watercolour pencils, and the rest is from my little stash.

Blog Candy Giveaway

To see some great card designs and to have a chance to win some goodies, hop over to Leonies blog. You can win: 20 pieces of design paper, 8 x 1 meter ribbon and some Elzybells stampprints!

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Cute Card Thursday Challenge


The challenge on CCT this week was to use stars on your card. I don't know who produced the stamp, it has neither name nor number, but it came to me from a friend who died recently. I coloured it with Derwent Watercolour pencils. The sentiment stamp is by Hero Arts. I found the little wooden stars with the table decorations in the supermarket yesterday. I tried scanning the card last night, but didn't like the way the shiny gold stars looked, so here is another attempt with my camera and home made light box; much better!
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Thursday, October 23, 2008

Spec-ulation




For some time I have been making needlepoint spectacle cases, sometimes using normal canvas, and sometimes using plastic canvas as a base. They have been quite well received as gifts. As usual, most of them have gone off to their recipients before I have thought to record them for posterity, but there are some that I use myself, in particular, this one with the hollyhocks; just a scrap adapted from a much larger canvas in a Jill Gordon tapestry book that I have. There is a picture of another of her hollyhock designs here. I have attached a neck cord to this one so that I have my magnifying glasses always to hand. (Bossman thinks I should hang my keys around my neck as well!) At the Craft Club on Monday, Sally asked if she could commission me to make one to give to her 96 year old mother, as she was always losing her specs. She also said that she didn't want to pay a lot as she was planning on giving her lots of small presents for Christmas. I asked how much she was willing to pay, and she said between €5 and €10. As it takes between 10 and 15 hours to stitch one side...say a minimum total of 25 hours to stitch two sides, line and overcast with wool, I told her that I am more than willing to put in that effort if I am making a gift for someone, but not to sell it for less than the cost of the materials. At her crestfallen look, I offered to make her mother a less complicated version, after all, the idea was that she should have her specs to hand, not that she should have the needlepoint...so here is the patchwork version with ribbon for the neck, made with some of the scraps sent by Kate in return for some stiff interfacing.

Blog Candy

Kristin has a Rachelle Ann Miller stamp to give away to celebrate 15,000 hits!

Rach has a WOJ stamp and even more to give away.

Eba has some wonderful hand made crochet and Hardanger ornaments to give away. They are made by some very clever ladies for their shop; Heklesjappa.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Two birds with one paint brush

I was asked to make a sympathy card, and so I thought I would use my new flower silhouette stamps. I made a watercolour wash for the background. Later, reading through my Blogroll, I found that DCM's challenge this week was to use paint on a card, so I am entering this.Grey background card and purple paper from a pad from Lidl, stamping layer is watercolour on hammered card, stamps are by Artemio and peel-off borders and text from stash.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Saturday, October 18, 2008

I've been awarded this...


...by Marion. The rules of the award are:

1. The winner can put the logo on their blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of those you’ve nominated.


Here's my seven;
Janet
KR
Eve
Myra
Gwyneth
Charlie
Lynn

Julie Candy Giveaways

Julie is giving away Alphabet Goodies and Perfect Pearls. Why not visit her and don't forget to check out her other Blogs.

Julie's Japes is also giving away SU goodies! She is celebrating her first Blogaversary, and she also runs SU Stampers Clubs if you are looking for more stamps!

I've been playing...

...with one of the Rachelle Ann Miller stamps. Last night I couldn't resist having a go, so I had a trial with the card and the stamp pad that happened to be out on my desk. The card was a coated card and took the image well, but when I tried to colour with pencils, they just skidded off the surface. Next I tried with watercolour. Well not watercolour as such, but felt tip markers scribbled onto the lid of the ice cream tub that they live in, and picked up with a brush. This was better, but the surface made it hard to control the paint, and the effect was rather blobby.Today I have stamped with the sepia pad again, but this time on to matte hammered card, and painted with paintbox watercolours. This is much less blobby. I think the colour of the hair is better in the first one, butI haven't figured out the best way to do the bows in her hair. Do I colour them, or leave them as strings?
This one was stamped with a black pad. I think I may need a new one! I have also found that the stamp is ever so slightly hollow in the centre. When I ink it, the centre doesn't get inked, and I have to dab at it with the corner of the pad. When I print with it, I have to have my card on a very spongy surface, and the lines are coming out thicker than they should be because of the extra pressure. Of course it could be my inexperience with stamping, and I may get better with practice. I filled in the missing lines with a propelling pencil.
Finally for today, here is a simple card I put together. I intended to sew around the edge, but half way along the first side, the thread shredded, and so I continued with an empty needle and drew in the stitches with a gel pen. The swirls are Inkadinkado, the dotty paper is a scrap of Pink Petticoat, and the flower was taken from a flower arrangement in the guest bathroom!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Goodies....

No, not Blog Candy, but Totty Treats! After 16 solid hours of sewing last week, I decided that I should spend some of the dosh on completely-non-essentials for a change. There are lots of Tildas around at the moment in the Cardbloggasphere, but I decided to go for something a little more whimsical. Having seen Rachelle Ann Millar illustrations used as Blog Headings, and finding that stamps were available, I searched for a local supplier. By following a trail to the Stampavie site and then to the one and only Spanish stockist, http://www.creactividades.es/tienda/catalog/ I found not only Lily and Milo stamps, but also Inkadinkado doodle stamps, some silhouette flower stamps, and some See-d's leaf stamps. I found lots of other stamps as well, but resisted the temptation. I thought the prices were reasonable as the doodle stamps were €9.99 and I have seen the same ones on UK websites at £12.99, so they were just a little over half price. The Lily stamps were €7.45 (£5.80) no different from the UK, but the postage was much less. Creatividades gives you two postage rates to choose from; the actual postage based on the weight of the package, and a price based on the value. The more you spend the less you pay; Spend more than €75 and no p&p to pay. My postage was a reasonable €6.15, seeing as it was sent registered post, and they even emailed me with a link to the Correos website and a tracking number. I ordered on Tuesday afternoon, the package was mailed the same day, was shown in transit yesterday, and when I checked this morning, was still in transit. I checked again at 4.30, just in case, and it had arrived, so I took my newly serviced car for a test drive, and just happened to pass the post office....

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Another Dotee...

This time staying closer to the original concept.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Here she is...

My first attempt at a Dottee Doll, except that as usual, I can't stick to the instructions and she is a different shape and has a different face altogether from Dot's original design! I want to make Winter dolls, so I cut out three bodies, each slightly different in shape, from a piece of very soft white needlecord that had once been a shirt. I ironed a piece of bond-a-web to the back of the face area and marked the face oval and cut it out. I made three faces yesterday, two on Vilene and one on a scrap of cotton. This is Vilene, and the features are drawn with coloured pencil and permanent pen. The pencil colour has disappeared into the fabric overnight, so I think I shall have to add a little more colour with a fabric pen. I had intended to put some red fabric behind the Vilene to give it a more fleshy tint, but only remembered after I had stuffed and sewn up her bottom, so she is very much an Ice Maiden. Her head has been decorated in the prescribed manner with beads, sequins and embroidery, and the embroidery continues around her body to add a little interest. I found it an enjoyable little project that only took a couple of hours while catching up on my downloaded podcasts from the Beeb. If you would like to have a go, there are instruction videos galore on Youtube to help you.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Patchwork Book Cover

A while ago, I was lucky enough to receive a softie full of scraps from Paula, and I used some of them this afternoon, in a random sort of way, to make a book cover.
For the base I used a synthetic type of felt, sold here in rolls for use as dusters and cleaning cloths, but sturdy enough to use for stiffening postcards and as a base for foundation piecing. I laid my hard backed notebook open on the felt, marked two long sides and one short side, then holding the marked end in place, closed the book, flipped over the felt and marked it at the other short end. This gave me the extra width needed to allow for the wire ring binding. I then marked a working line half an inch outside this rectangle. This allows for a little take up when you sew on the fabric, and leaves a little overlap when finished that helps to protect the pages.

The next step was to cut two equal inner pieces, the same height as the book cover and an inch or so narrower than one cover, and to put these to one side. Then I started on the fun bit; covering the base in a random foundation piecing sort of way. The four triangles cried out to be corners, so I marked roughly where they would be, then filled the space in between. As usual, my camera has its own take on colours, because those blue looking patches on the left are green, and so are the blue ones in the picture below...
Having filled the whole of the area, I turned it over, back side up, and machined close to the edge. I then trimmed all the edges back to this line, and checked it for size against the book. I pinned my cover pocket pieces to each end and machined again over my line, double checked for size on the book, then did a close zig-zag all around the edge, enclosing all the raw edges and making the pockets for the book boards. I am quite happy with it as it is, but if I make another one, I shall probably cover the inside with a piece of material so that the stitching is not visible, and maybe attach some ties and somewhere to slot a pen or pencil.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Colouring lace

I was undecided about the lace square on the CQ heart, and I have now coloured a piece of lace to compare the two. The colours are a little more saturated in real life, as the harsh light of the scanner does it no favours. For anyone interested in how I do this, I use fabric felt tips and a child's blitzer, a simple squeezy bulb device that forces a stream of air past the tip of the pen and deposits a spray of colour on the surface beneath. By wetting the lace first, you force the colours to blend as they spread out. The results are fairly random, as it is difficult to control the amount of ink that is sprayed, or where it falls. I only have a few colours, so it is guesswork at this stage. You will see the odd spot of yellow at the end of the petals where I have attempted to make a different shade of green.
Here it is in place on the heart. I still haven't made my mind up, so I shall leave it hanging where I see it every time I come to the computer, and after a while I hope it will speak to me.
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