Flippin' 'Eck H

This month's challenge at Sarah's Cards is a sketch.

I thought this sketch would be ideal to tell the story of how H (lead singer of Marillion) climbed up into our balcony at Wolves Civic on the last night of the convention - my friend Phil had taken some brilliant pictures from below.  I used six photographs instead of the four shown in the sketch as it told the story better.

This clip from YouTube shows what happened -

Supplies -

Paper - Bazill cardstock, 3 bugs in a rug 'Dawson', Echo Park 'Little Boy' and Bella Boulevard 'Mr Boy'
Crafters Workshop - star mask
Distress Ink - Broken China
AC Sunrise Thickers
Self adhesive star gems - Poundland

Thank you Sarah's Cards for a lovely sketch

Anita's April Class - Enjoy the Little Things

A beautiful class as always this month courtesy of the lovely Anita aka The Inky Blossom.

It doesn't look like Anita has blogged her layout so I can't show you what the original looked like but this is my layout based on the class.

I used one of the photographs taken on our Christmas cruise - this was taken on Christmas Day just after the Captain's cocktail party.  The papers are from Kaisercraft and it doesn't really show in the photograph but the ring of roses is very heavily glittered with Diamond Stickles.   The gemstones and pearls are from Triple07.

Thank you Anita for another beautiful class xx

Getting a headstart!!

It is never too early to start thinking about the two fundraisers that I will be organising in the autumn for Children with Cancer Fund (Polegate).  My Mum is already busy knitting soft toys for me to stitch up and stuff, so I have started restocking my jewellery for sale box. 

Here are some of the memory wire bracelets that I have made -

Beautiful Barley Sugar (side view)

Beautiful Barley Sugar (top view)

Strawberries & Cream (side view)

Strawberries & Cream (top view)

Mint Choc Chip (side view)

Mint Choc Chip (top view)

Sweet Candy (side view)

Sweet Candy (top view)

I have used a mixture of glass beads, Czech glass beads and seed beads to make them all.

Marillion chocolates

Ooops I ran out of scheduled blog posts and only just noticed - bad me!!

Over the last couple of years I have made many friends on Facebook through some of the Marillion groups and I was very excited that this year I was going to meet some of them either in the Netherlands at the Port Zelande convention or in Wolverhampton at the UK convention. (As many of you know the PZ convention didn't happen for us in the end due to the dratted 'flu).  I wanted to make a small gift for some of my friends as a little memento of the weekend and just as a small token to say thanks for their friendship.  It needed to be something quite small that I could easily make lots of and also something a bit fun.  I then remembered these chocolate gifts that Helen from the Fiddle Fart blog makes and set about making some Marillion themed ones. 

I used some of the weekend artwork and artwork from the two albums that would be played over the weekend - Radiation and Brave.

I used a Stampin' Up scalloped circle punch and a CM circle punch to make the sandwiches for the Elizabeth Shaw chocolates.

Port Zelande chocolates showing the reverse -

Wolverhampton chocolates showing the reverse -

I used a SU ticket stamp and punch for my label.

I think everyone liked them - I wonder how many will actually eat their mints - if you are reading the best by date is August 2013!!  I just wish I could have made them for so many more people, so apologies if you didn't get one.

Making hats for Fine Bear Ted!

Sometimes as a crafter you get to do some very different stuff.  One of Marillion's fans is a little bear called Fine Bear Ted! and he always goes to the PZ convention and other gigs.  Earlier this year in the countdown to the convention he decided he was going to wear a different hat each day in the 50 days run up to the convention starting and he put out an appeal on Facebook for people to make him hats as he didn't actually own 50.

The first hat I made for him was a very festive green and red Elf hat - I found out his head measurements and selected one of my many bears who shared his measurements to be my model.  This is Alec named after Alec Stewart the cricketer (most of my bears are named after cricketers!!) modelling the hat which I made from felt and hand stitched

 And a close up of the hat

And Fine Bear Ted wearing the hat -

Later on during the challenge Fine Bear Ted! put out an appeal for someone to make him a jester's hat and I agreed to do it but then after a while it dawned on me that perhaps he wanted a hat like Marillion's jester that use to appear on the artwork for their earlier albums rather than just an ordinary jester's hat.  I was right - yes please he would love a Marillion jester's hat - when I downloaded some photographs of the jester I wondered if I had overstretched myself in volunteering to make this!!

But armed with greaseproof paper I tentatively made a pattern and then did a mock up in scrap fabric, it sort of worked so then I got on with cutting out my felt.  I made the hat in two stages - I made the base of the hat with it's spines - basing the pattern on some children's dinosaur hats that I had found and then I made the ear pieces separately and attached them.  I don't think I made too bad a job of it in the end - here is Alec being my model again -

And here is Fine Bear Ted! looking really lovely in this hat -

 

Sadly he hasn't got to wear the hat at a Marillion gig yet - the plan was for me to hand deliver the hat to him at the PZ convention but sadly we didn't make it due to getting the 'flu so I had to post it.  Hopefully it won't be too long before Fine Bear Ted! can wear it to a gig!!

Shock!! Horror!! Cards made without using Penny Black Stamps!!

Week 6 of the 52 cards challenge was to show some love to some old stash or neglected purchases.  I had a good look at my stamp collection and found some stamps that I have not been used for many years.

Firstly I found some mermaid stamps that were a QVC purchase eons ago - they were a set of 6 and apart from making a couple of cards when I first got them, they had been put to the bottom of a drawer and not used since.

I coloured them with Promarkers and added lots of waterfall and crystal stickles to them before mounting on shimmer paper and cardstock.  The sentiment is by Personal Impressions and the oval punches are Stampin' Up.  (Sorry Sandra I have no idea what colour promarkers I used for these cards).

I used two different stamps for my Christmas cards for this challenge - both of them haven't had an airing for at least 4 years maybe longer.

This stamp came from Lakeland and I used it loads when I initially bought it as I had few xmas stamps, but now I have a 'largish collection' it has been relegated to the bottom of the drawer.

They were coloured with a Red, Holly, Ice grey 2 & 4 and Almond promarker - the backgrounds were embossed with a cuttlebug folder and the papers are Craft Creations.  The sentiments are Personal Impressions and Penny Black punched out with Stampin' Up punches.

I also found this clear snowman tag stamp that came from Stamps Away - again it had not been used for over 4 years.

The backing papers are Craft Creations and the bakers twine is from Sarah's Cards, the frosty words background is a Cuttlebug embossing folder.

It was good to rescue some stamps that haven't been used for quite some time, I must try and do that more often .  I also need to use some new stash I have quite a few new dies and stamps that have just been shoved in a drawer and not used yet.

Lee and The Boys

This was our sketch to use last month for the Sketchy Scrappers group on UKS - it was chosen for us by the lovely Lisa

And this is my take on the sketch - I am still working my way through the photographs from last year's trip to Meadow Barn - everyone had their photo's taken with Rodger and Vern, so here is Lee.

I used a Sarah's Cards kit which contained Prairie Hill by Pink Paislee, the title is a mixture of corrugated alphas by Pebbles and smaller stickers by Prima.  The Pinwheels were cut using a SU sizzlet die and the borders are a SU border punch.

Smile, Laugh, Love

I am slowly catching up with my scrapbooking, I missed last month's class at Cardinal Colours with Anita MacDonald aka The Inky Blossom.  This is her lovely layout -

And this is my version -

The papers are Kaisercraft and I used a photograph from our recent cruise to The Canaries.

Some close ups of the peeking elements -

Thank you Anita for a lovely class xxx

Uplifting birthday

Week 5 of the 52 card challenge was to use this sketch

 I flipped the sketch so that it was landscape and used one of my oldest Penny Black stamps - Uplifting Occasion.

 

The pretty paper is a magazine freebie and the punched border is a Fiskars punch.  The sentiment is Personal Impressions and the button was a Die-namics die with bakers twine threaded through it.  I coloured the image with Promarkers and used glossy accents on the pegs to make them lovely and shiny.  

Promarker colours used - Cat - almond, pastel yellow, honeycomb, amber and sunkissed pink, Washing - blossom, pale pink and satin & sandstone for the washing line and pegs, Butterflies - yellow and amber.

And this is the Christmas version that I did of the sketch -

I used a Lili of the Valley stamp, Craft Creations patterned paper and a SU sentiment stamp.  The punched snowflakes are a Martha Stewart punch.  Promarkers used - lipstick red, pear green, Hair - pastel yellow, vanilla & march hare, Flesh - almond, sunkissed pink, Teddy - satin, sandstone & sunkissed pink, Wings - pastel blue coated with stardust stickles.

Beauty

Wow I have finally scrapbooked!!!!  I attended my first crop for this year and had a very productive day - 3 completed layouts and another 2 started.

One of the layouts I did was this week's challenge on UKScrappers.  The criteria was to use this sketch -

use paints or inks, use a template, mask or stencil and to include washi tape or ribbon.

This is my take on the sketch -

My lovely niece celebrating her 21st birthday on a cruise.  I think the papers might be Pink Paislee - they were scraps left from a retreat mini book kit.  I used a studio calico mask and painted Mr Huey Boss Lady mist over it.  I punched the hexagons with a Creative Memories hexagon punch.  I don't own any washi tape so I made my own by colouring some micropore light blue with a Promarker and then I overstamped with a darker blue Versafine ink and a Bo Bunny Chevron stamp.

It was lovely to be back cropping again - I find I am much more productive when I am out of the house and away from distractions.

Butterfly stamped apron

After trying my hand at fabric painting on our cruise, I decided to have a go at using fabric inks with my stamps to decorate a plain apron.

I stamped my name using some Martha Stewart alphabet stamps

 

And then stamped lots of butterflies with Kaisercraft stamps and coloured them in with fabric ink pens (Versacraft)

I added a hint of glitter to the butterflies with Tulip fabric paint and then when it was all dry I heat set it with a hot iron.  Sadly I didn't get a photograph of me actually wearing the apron on my craft weekend but it certainly saved me from getting ink all over my clothes - I have a nasty habit of dropping ink pads in my lap LOL!!

My Month in Numbers - March 2013

It is that time of the month again when I join in with Julie Kirk's My Month in Numbers and look back at March.

The month got off to a great start with 3 days away with a load of my crafting buddies from The Twilight Addicts social group on UKS.  10 ladies and 2 guys had a great time, eating, drinking and crafting.

Everyone hard at work -

Lee - my lovely table buddy -

How on earth did I manage to get 30 cards made on such a messy desk LOL!!

We all made our goodbyes on the Monday morning and we headed off home after dropping Lee off at the station.  Mr P hadn't felt very well during the night and had a bit of a cough that morning - on the way home he said he was feeling dreadful and went straight to bed as soon as we got in.  I got stuck into the unpacking and repacking as we were going away again in 3 day's time.  By Wednesday it was obvious that Mr P had a good dose of 'flu so I rearranged our shuttle tickets to the Friday to buy him 1 more day in bed - we could still make the Marillion convention by driving straight to the convention site in the Netherlands on the Friday morning instead of a leisurely drive over on the Thursday.  Oh dear!!!!!  That night I went to bed feeling a little bit unwell and by Thursday morning it was obvious that I had got 'flu too - after a few tears we knew that there was no way we could make the drive of 355 miles, about a 7 hour journey and so we sadly cancelled our places at the convention.

I spent the next 10 days in bed, we drank 9 bottles of Lucozade and got through 3 boxes of Kleenex as we slowly made our recovery.  There is no number for the amount of tears that I shed over missing the convention, I was so looking forward to spending 3 days in a Marillion bubble.

BUT the good news is that there is only 8 more sleeps until we get to go to Wolverhampton for the Marillion UK convention - please keep everything crossed that we stay well enough, we will be gutted if we have to miss this covention too.

It is never too late to join in with My Month in Numbers - Julie explains how to join in on her blog