LTDO Challenge

Now I have done one of these challenges I think I might be hooked! This week the challenge was "...a different shaped tag...".
I have this die called "tipsy heart" that comes in 3 sizes so I cut out the big one and the smallest one and painted them with red acrylic paint. I put a small piece of text on, added the small heart on pop dots along with a red rose sticker from Paperchase! I added a few beads in glossy accents and then some of that gold foil stuff that sticks to glue pen, not sure of it's proper name (and it looks black in the photo)! Finally added an eyelet and some red ribbon and there is my tag...

Imperial War Museum LO

During the summer hols I went to the Imperial War Museum with 2 of my children. There was a Horrible History exhibition there about WW1 and the children are "doing" the war at school this year. The exhibition was quite fun but what really held their interest the most was the section of the museum all about the trenches. There were cases containing letters and artifacts that had been sent back from the front and they spent several hours reading the letters and seeing what the young men went through. I think the fact that their Dad was in the Army made it more personal too.

Just a few hours at the museum seemed to teach them far more about what these heroes did for our life and freedom today, then any number of hours studying at school. A very moving day out and well worth a second visit to see the bits we didn't manage to get to!

Rolling Recipe Challenge Week 2

In week 2 we lost lace (phew) and got buttons to go with stamped image and glitter. I do use glitter lots and lots in "stuff" but somehow it was dead tricky last week to get it to go with lace and today with buttons! I guess it is because lace and buttons shout "vintage" to me and glitter just really doesn't! Despite all that I am quite pleased with this one.....scraps of leftover paper for the stamped flowers with multi-coloured button middles and then I glittered two of the flowers! Not quite sure about the very top flower...think the colour is not right but hey-ho 'tis done now!

Now let me just tell you about a teeny challengette I am doing with 3 friends. We all scrap together and are feeling we need to be stretched a bit so we have decided to swap 4 photos of the snow each, making 16 in total. Then we are each going to do with them whatever we like...hence my "Snow" book cover. I can't wait to see what we all come up with when we are each given the same pics to work with. I think mine might be a hybrid of scrapping and a bit altered-y....

LTDO Challenge

Now those of you that know me I hope you were sitting down when you saw this picture! If you know me a bit, you have probably noticed that I like to use lots of colour in my craft. If you know me lots and have been to my house and seen my bright orange dining room or my cerise pink bedroom, you will know that neutral just doesn't feature in my life! But whilst I was moochibng about the blogs the other day I came across the LTDO Challenge which this week is WHITE!!!!.
Well I was so inspired by what I had seen that I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go myself!
So this is the cover for a mini album of snow pictures that I am doing...(more about that another day cos it's a kind of challenge)

I have put both these pics in so you can see the details a bit better. I made some fabric paper that I covered the mountboard in and then added various chipboard letters, recovered and painted with glitter. The snowflakes are sissix die cut ones cut from various papers and then I just blinged it up a bit!
I quite enjoyed my first adventure into "non-colour"!

A Hangy Thingy!

I can post these now as the recipient (my friend Burnice) has received it now! I started this a little while ago for her birthday on Jan 11th but needed vellum for the wings whilst we were snow-bound. So I put it to one side until I could get out and it has taken me until this week to finish it. Sorry for the delay Hun!
It started life as a ply wood shape that I painted with gesso and then blue acrylic paint. I did it quite thick as I like the different shades it goes and it gives a bit of subtle texture too. Not sure where I found the quote but I printed it out and just coloured it with pastels. Burn is into all things "angel" so I thought it was rather suitable. The image was from t'internet and I stamped the wings on vellum with Brilliance ink.

Before I assembled it I stamped silver stars onto the BG and added some gems to the larger ones....they don't really show up in the pic tho. Then I just put it all together and added some wire and beads to hang it.
Sorry it was so late Burn but I hope you liked it!

Rolling Recipe Challenge

Over at UK Stampers our new weekly challenge is a "Rolling Recipe" challenge. For Week One we got three ingredients to include on a 8cm x 16cm tag. They were lace, a stamped image and glitter. In Week Two, one will be removed and a new one added for the next tag and so on...

So my lace is vintage, the pansies are stamped and water coloured and they have stickles in the centre! I found this quite tricky as I don't really "do" lace and to get glitter in as well was a toughie.

Bit more scrapbooking!

Another page of what we did last year! This time it shows Jasper and Eliza picking the beans! We grew over 20lbs! This time I managed to get in some patterned paper too.

Scrapbooking.

I am continuing with my scrapbook of 2009 now that I have been out shopping! This DLO is of when we went on Brownie Pack Holiday. I saw the LO in a book where the pics were of someone fishing and I really liked the idea of the photo "hanging" from the string. When I saw these photos I finally had the chance to do it!

I finally used my Big Bite, having had it for ages, to punch through the pic of Eliza on the bungee trampoline so that the string would look like the supporting ropes.

Hmmmm my scrapbook pages seem to be getting plainer and plainer! Where's all the scrummy paper gone?

X Tag

Still on catch up with my tags! 6 more to go after this one which is X marks the spot (quite obviously!) The stamps are all from Tanda, one of the pirate sets. I just added some glossy accents to the wheel and other than that all pretty basic!

Snowy Pics.

I haven't had time to do any craft in the last few days so I thought I would share some snow pics...as it is leaving most of us now! Jasper decided that he wanted to build some snow lanterns on the front garden and put night lights in them. He built the first one and then got bored so Jess took some photos for him! These are the best ones.

This just shows the snow sparkling.

And this was how it looked from the path. Eliza later decided to add a light to the dome on the left but unfortunately hers kept blowing out!

Scrapbooking

In all these days off we have had I have been gradually catching up with my 2009 album. I spent one day ordering the next batch of pics to scrap, from August to Dec and then discovered 2 LOs that I had the paper for but had not done! So I set to and these are them! (or should that be they?) First was a trip to Pevensey Bay which is probably our closest beach. Looks like it was a lovely day but I seem to remember it was very windy! Despite that I think all the children still swam...mad things! I spent a fair bit of time lying on my back trying to get a good pic of a seagull..... Jasper wasn't with us but I was really pleased with these pics of the girls.

I am sure I have showed LOs of Katy with the school Batucada group. They normally have black T-shirts and Katy wears pink DMs with pink gloves so the LOs are usually black and pink! For once the Batucada were invited to perform with a group in Uckfield called Spiritus who wear blue....so I got to do a different coloured LO for a change! After this they also played in the Thames Festival along the South Bank in London.

Snowy Book..boy version!

This is Jasper's Snow Book. Being a boy (I feel I am qualified to make boy/girl comments as they are twins!!!) he wanted a plainer one because it would be finished quicker! So less bling for his and more words.

He also did fewer pages with less views and more action shots! It is the first papercraft project he has actually finished so he too is rather proud of it. They both managed to get into school yesterday and showed them to their class teachers. She was so impressed with them that she is going to put them on display in the entrance hall at school! Eliza's comment..."huh I suppose all the little children will be touching them and messing them up then!"
Another snow day today so more craft I feel!

Eliza's Snow Book.

My children have now had a whole extra week off school and the two youngest, Jasper and Eliza, have not been to school since Dec 18th. They are getting a bit bored now so Eliza decided about 3 days ago, that she would like to make a Snow Book. I gave her a bag of beer mats and a pile of stash and off she went. This is the book that she made, all on her own. All I did was cut the mounts (cos my paper trimmer is new so I won't let ANYONE else use it) and bind it when she had done. She did all the rest on her own including the ribbon and all the embellishing!

Don't know about you but I think it is rather brill for a solo work from a girl of 11! Jasper did one too and I will try to unearth it from his bedroom to show you tomorrow!
Needless to say I have done diddley squat of my own as I have been supporting them and making sure they didn't pinch my best embellies! Not only that but my Mum decided to get in on the act and I spent the day teaching her how to papercraft too with her own snowy book!

Well the buses seem to be running for eldest to get in tomorrow for her Biology AS, No 2 daughter is off AGAIN tomorrow and we await with bated breath the fate of Jasper and Eliza! I am sure I will have to go in tomorrow tho as the rest of the staff have been in today clearing snow I think. Mind you I am beginning to run out of steam craftwise.......!

Final pages of Journal!!

So we are nearing the end and 6th Jan was for a final thought about the whole season. On the 5th we had a stupendous snowfall....again and I think that the snow has been the big story this Christmas. The children have never known snow before Christmas or quite so much of it. I chose to show what we did on 6th...we built Derek!

No prompt for this day but as you can see the book would end with a blank page! Last year I just left it blank 'cos I had no other ideas. This year I had this lovely story about how we gave the guinea pigs the sprout trimmings, thinking they would find them a tasty treat. When we came out on Boxing Day morning they had picked out all the other things and left the sprouts!! A suitable final story of our Christmas this year as the love'em/hate 'em debate always rages round our house!

Finally, the cover (although I have since added a tiny green bell to the book ring). Thank you all for your lovely comments about my journal. I have loved doing it and I am sure I will embark on a third one next year! Why not join me? The link is at the top of my blog!

Journal

Jan 3rd was for recording the best bits about Christmas this year. I stuck with my brown theme and did some yellow embellishment to move on from the gold I had used on the Christmas pages.

Jan 4th was a place to write down all the things that you need to remember for next Christmas! I focused on what had made Christmas easier and run more smoothly.

Jan 5th was about taking down the decorations. I chose to photograph the bare tree and the bare space where the tree had been! The little row of lights are one of the first bits of embellishment I bought and I have never found the right place to use them in three years! But there they were in my stash, just waiting for that right moment.......isn't that what stash is for?

As I mentioned, I am in a knitting phase ATM and here is the latest monster corsage! I think it is about 6" and is knitted with 3 strands of DK as one. Jess has requisitioned this and is wearing it in the pic...she says it keeps her left breast lovely and warm!!!!!

Right off to finish these snowy books with the others. I feel I deserve a rest now as I yomped about 3 miles this morning to the supermarket and back with the girls. We carried 44kg of shopping back between us!!!!

Knitted Corsage

To be brutally honest I fancy a change from papercrafting at the mo! So I rummaged about on the net for free knitting patterns. At the end of my sofa I have a bag of odds and ends of wool waiting to be used so I found some red and last night I knitted this up! The middle bobble is also knitted but the girls MADE me put beads on it and then they kept saying "put more on, put MORE on!" But actually I am glad 'cos I like them....I just got a bit bored sewing them on!
Now I am doing a different one in purple and black and I have found some Tea Cosy patterns too.......

Journal Days 31, Jan 1,2

We finally arrive at New Years Eve, 31st. Challenge for today was to use sparkle so I uses a Sissix sparkle die and some stickers around some photoes of the evening. We had a quiet one, playing games.

New Year, New Start and on Jan 1st we thought about our New Year Resolutions. i found a rather nice quote and worked from there really. Our crafting challenge was to introduce a new colour, maybe a shade, for the New Year so I moved into browns which I had already used but more as an accent.

2nd Jan was to think about the innocence of Christmas. Hmmmm not much of that in this house so we went for my fave snow pic taken just before Christmas and enlarged it to fill the whole page, just for a change! Now this was the LO I had to finish in the dark cos the fuses all tripped! Well I did have a head torch but I couldn't quite see if the gold stickers matched the gold writing so just went with it!

Still snowy here and I have been knitting so later on I will post pics. Have to do it later as the children are fighting over the computer so they can all do homework set to keep them busy!!