Blogtoberfest 2014 Day 17 - My Month in Numbers (September)

Time for my monthly round up in numbers and shock, horror I am posting pretty early for me!!!!  No flying in on the last day of the month like I usually do!!

Compared to other months September was pretty peaceful and boy did we need it after a very busy July and August.

I did my 1st fundraiser of the year - a coffee morning at the private sheltered housing complex where my parents live.  We did a raffle, I had made cards, jewellery and post in note pads to sell, my Mum had made lots of knitted goodies and we also had a bric-a-brac/second hand book stall.  It was a busy 2 hours and we raised £217.03 for a local charity that I volunteer with - Children with Cancer Fund

 I had a belated birthday meal out with friends and family - 10 of us enjoyed a meal at a local restaurant.

 I spent 3 days at the end of the month glued to the Ryder Cup - Europe won 16 1/2 to the USA's 11 1/2 (much happiness at Parkhurst Towers that night!!)

Craftwise I did 5 layouts, made 14 Christmas cards and 29 other cards to restock my for sale box.

And my countdowns to the 2 Marillion conventions I will be attending next year, well it is only 152 days to Port Zelande and 174 days to Wolverhampton BUT we get to see them before this year is out on their Christmas tour so only 50 days till we see them in Leamington Spa .

 If you want to join in with Month in Numbers then take a look at Julie Kirk's blog where she explains what to do.

Blogtoberfest 2014 Day 16 - Throwback Thursday

Some cards I made last year and I haven't blogged yet.  This one I made for our neighbour to give to her daughter for her birthday.

 The little dog is a digi stamp from DigiStamp Boutique and the papers are lovely textured ones by First Edition (Boho Chic).

And this card was for my sister's wedding anniversary last year.  One of my favourite Penny Black Christmas stamps.  Her anniversary is just before Christmas so I often use cute Christmas stamps for her cards.

Blogtoberfest 2014 Day 15 - WOYWW or WOAWW #280

It is Wednesday therefore it must be time to join in with Julia's What's on your Workdesk Wednesday - well I have been away for a week and haven't done any crafting at home but I did invade my friend Lisa's husbands desk whilst I was away.  So technically I should call this week What's on Alun's Workdesk Wednesday!!!!!

Lisa has recently done a mixed media class decorating book covers, so she took me step by step through the class so that I could make the covers for my Journal Your Christmas album.

First job was to paint the covers with gesso and add torn up pieces of paper

 Then I covered that with Mod Podge and added some texture paste snowflakes

 Then metal embellishments were added

 And another layer of Mod Podge before adding fabric and chipboard die cut snowflakes.  Then the whole lot was covered with Gesso.  Then I started adding colour with mists and distress stains

The colour was built up in layers

And the final colour layer was to add gilding wax and then buff this off

Thank you Alun for letting me make a right mess on your desk!!  And thank you Lisa for taking the time to show me how to do it and providing me with so much of your craft supplies xx

Blogtoberfest 2014 Day 14 - a craft away day

Last week we were staying in the south west so I got a chance to pop over Bristol way to see my lovely friend Lisa and spend the day crafting with her.  She has recently done a fab mixed media class - take a look at her blog to see the beautiful book covers she has done.  She had asked me to bring a hardbacked book with me to decorate and I decided to completely remove the spine so that the front and back cover could be the covers for the art journal that I am planning on doing for Journal Your Christmas this year.

So after a day of gesso-ing, mod podging and mist spraying I ended up with this pair of covers.

Now as many of you know I am not really a messy crafts girl but I did really enjoy this, it was very therapeutic seeing it all finally come together.  So watch this space, I may just be purchasing some Gesso and Mod Podge to have a go at doing this sort of thing again!!

Tomorrow I will show more photographs showing all the stages when I share my WOYWW post.

Blogtoberfest 2014 Day 13 - Me on a Monday

Joining in with Sian's Me on a Monday and giving her a wave from a wet and windy East Sussex.

Our weekend was one of travelling home after a few days in the South West and as sure as night follows day that led to the rest of the weekend being full of unpacking, laundry sorting, washing and tumble drying.  On the cheery side I did have some bags of craft shopping to unpack.  I can't grumble as the weekend before had been spent enjoying the launch of Pendragon's new album Men Who Climb Mountains

So Monday finds me with a big order from Mr Tesco to unpack (we haven't done any food shopping for nearly 3 weeks) so thank goodness this little lot has turned up - we might have had to resort to eating the neighbours!!!!

Pop along to see Sian and give her a wave from your part of the world!!

Blogtoberfest 2014 Day 12 - DigiStamp Boutique Christmas Word Art

When I have so many Christmas cards to make for my own needs plus ones to sell for my fundraising, I am always looking for ways to speed up the cardmaking process.  So sometimes I use digital stamps for making quick and easy cards and often turn to DigiStamp Boutique.  That is where I got these lovely Christmas Word Art digi images.

I printed them onto smooth white cardstock and as they are already coloured in, they just needed highlighting with glossy accents and glitter glue.

 

All that was left to do was mat them onto coloured cardstock and add some punched snowflakes.

Blogtoberfest 2014 Day 11 - 52 cards challenge

I have fallen by the wayside with the 52 cards challenge, I am hoping that I might soon have time to just jump back in and not worry about catching up with all the weeks that I have missed.  But I do have some cards that I haven't shared yet from the challenge.

Week 16 was Focus on Gold and I made this Christmas card using a Penny Black background die and a Lili of the Valley stamp.

I coloured the image with Promarkers and the sentiment is a download by Pink Petticoat.

Week 18's challenge was to take inspiration from this picture -

My inspiration was the blue patterned wallpaper which I found similar paper in my scraps box to use as a background and the little pig on top of the dresser.  I used Penny Black's 'Party Animals' stamp.

I cut the pigs out and mounted them onto an embossed background, the sentiments are Penny Black and Hero Arts.

I then added some gold sequins for a bit of sparkle.