Week 13..Unlucky?

Week 13 of the UKStampers Art Journal and this time, in view of the fact we are on the 13th week, we had to consider Superstition. "Are you? Why? Do you have any rituals? Include a charm". Well I wasn't really sure if I was or not so I have thought about this for a few days. And I reckon I am a bit. I don't like 13; I won't have 13 eggs on my rack, I won't eat or give the children 13 grapes/strawberries/cherries, I would re-name a house if it was No 13, I can't stop on 13 of something. So that's one, then I thought that I would never wear green to a wedding. I wear green a lot and it wouldn't bother me if someone else wore it, but I just couldn't. I think my final one is not walking under ladders...I call that common sense! So it looks like I am, but I am not obsessive about these things, I just prefer to avoid them!

A card

This is what I gave you a sneak peek of last week. I am hoping that the recipient has it now as I posted it last Wednesday! I treated myself to the Tim Holtz dress form die as I will use it lots for my sewing friends and I think it will be great for Jess's 18th birthday card too! So, the first use of my newly sorted buttons!

Buttons Galore!

So the task continues. Currently this is the state of play with there now being separate jars for blue, green, purple, pink, white, brown, black, grey, yellow and then a joint red/orange jar and one with metal/wooden/leather buttons in. There is also a jar of buckles and interesting, vintage, distressed (eg rusty!) hooks, suspender fastenings and poppers! I think the whole jar of white ones looks the best; which is your favourite?

And look.....I used three from the white jar! Can't show you any more just yet!

My tidy mind!

So this is the beginning of sorting out my button collection! This is the contents of one large cake tin, an ice cream tub and another small tin that I have collected from Mum, my Grandad (who was a tailor) some I have bought and some from Freecycle. Eliza helped me to sort this lot last night and we continued today with another HUGE tin that are much older. It was too dark to take a pic of them tonight and we still have lots to go, but many are very early vintage ones. I am a bit freaked out by the hairy, thready bits so Eliza is gradually snipping them off for me and adding them to the collection! Now I know I will use them much more as I can find exactly what I want with ease! Anyone know a good project for tons of beige/brown buttons?

This weeks Journal page is "Home... what does it mean to you, use a heart stamp and a picture of a house". Broke out the Distress Inks for this one. I used a brush for the BG and then watered them down to paint the houses. I am not really too bothered about the bricks and mortar of the building we live in as for me, home is wherever we happen to be, all together. Maybe that is a bonus of having a big family!

Asia Inchies

I am still involved in this monthly swap of the continents. This month is Asia. Well that yelled red and gold to me. BG is red and gold Glimmer Mists (more red IRL) stamped and embossed with pirate gold powder. Then I tried out my new gold leaf (from Lidl, very cheap!) just to highlight the edges. Hmmmm fiddly stuff that! Subtle these ones, most unlike me!

More of our life!

I really caught the patchwork bug last year and after the Guides trip to the V&A I was finally brave enough to do a project that had been in the planning for many, many years. Since my children were old enough to wear denim I have saved ALL of the denim they have worn over the years with the idea of making it into a quilt. Last year I did it and if you have been a follower for a while you will have seen that I made two. Well this is the page about making those two "memory" quilts.

The title needed to be a bit special so I used glimmer mist to colour some card that I punched into 1" squares that I then added the letters to. Took HOURS but I love the end result.

Guide Camp last year at an amazing site in Seaford called Sealarks. Really quiet and secluded and we had great weather (it was June). For once there is actually a pic of me too!

And last in this batch is the Scout's Annual Soap Box Derby. Buxted Scouts have won this for the last 4 or 5 years but sadly, this year they were beaten into second place! They did however win the Constructors Award.

More big knitting!

Done another one! This time I was using up some lilac and purples and blues that I had. I bought some more purple in different textures, a magenta and also a fluffy black with raggy bits of yellow, blue and magenta. This is it laid out on the floor so you can't really get the size properly but I am guessing it's about 4x5 foot.

This is a close up of the colours. I think the wools I have used this time are thicker beacause it is less open than the red, white and blue one. Eliza has nabbed it now!

Postcrossing albums

I am not sure if I told you about this hobby I have? Postcrossing....basically you send out postcards and then receive them back from all over the world. I have been doing this since June and now have had over 140 cards. I did begin to bind them in books of 20, using my favourite odd pieces of paper for the covers, but after doing these first three I have got a bit behind.

So I spent Sunday and Monday evening catching up and binding the next 80 into these 4 little books!

This is a shot of the assorted postcards in the little albums.

Scrapbooking.

Still trying to catch up with scrapping 2010. I did these LOs at Gilly'se a couple of weekends ago but just needed to finish them off. This hippy style one is about the houseboats in Shoreham....

...and this was Jess's 17th birthday. She opted for cupcakes this year.

This one is about the big Thinking Day celebration Weald Division had at the Brighton Centre for our Centenary year. Eliza got to carry the colour for our unit in the final parade.

And finally another Guide trip, to London and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Art Journal Week 11

I am dead quick off the mark this week! Our task this time; " What scares you? List 5 things, use a scary colour for the BG, stamp with paint". Well magnolia is the colour that scares me most, especially after years of magnolia painted Army Married Quarters! I have printed using white and grey ( 2 other scary colours!), a swirl stamp and a couple of bottle lids. I did have to think a bit about scary things but my 5 are wasps ( it's the pitch of their buzz), the gap in the wardrobe if I don't shut the doors properly (I can't sleep if it's open even a crack, or the blind up a bit either!), people standing close behind me (like in lifts or crowds; stems from a bank raid I was in when a man came up behind me with a gun in my side!!!) licking lolly sticks (urgh, can't even WATCH someone else licking one!) and lastly hair in plugholes (can't bear the way the damp hair sticks to you when you try to get it out). Ewwww what horrid scary things these are!
Right off for therapy now.....

Art Journal Week 10

Ok, so I did finish this a day or two ago, but I wanted to post the other things I had finished first, just so you didn't think I had been slacking! Our brief for this week was, "One Week; list seven things you did last week, use a calendar as BG, provide evidence for at least two of them". So here was my week! I now know why I hate making packed lunches so much;, 66 sandwiches in one week....don't even TELL me how many that is in a year!

Nearly finished.

As well as finishing my knitted throw last week, I also finished the patchwork top of my Jelly Roll quilt. It is a huge 60"x70".

Now I need to do the wadding, backing, quilting and binding. After lengthy discussions with my quilting pro,s Linda and Burnice, I think I am going for a magenta batik for the back and binding and am just going to quilt in the ditches around the squares to start with.

That isn't going to happen for a while though as I need a length of time when I can spread it all out without people walking through on it! Probably have to wait until the Easter Hols but that will give me time to track down the fabric and save up!

How much more extreme?

Look, I haven't been idle.....

I finished the trial throw in red, white and blue with black fluffy wool. It isn't the right colour for this room but it is going here for now!

It is very loose and holey but soooo warm and snuggly. I am not really sure what weight the wools were but I used 8 strands at a time and I am guessing they were mainly DK, although the red was a lumpy cotton and seemed finer.
Well then I found I had lots of purple wool so I went out to pick up a few colours to go with that......




........I got quite a bit actually...........




.......I brought it home in a bin bag! Shhhhh don't tell anyone!

Art Journal Week 9.

This was another fab theme! I don't know where Efemera gets her ideas from but I just love them all. Each week I am waiting to see what will come up next! This one was "Fashion, tell us about your disasters, include some fabric and something from a magazine." I knew I wanted to do a dress up paper doll so that was my starting point and I cut her clothes out of fabric to represent the fashions as I grew up. The one thing I have had for many years and are always bang on trend, are my DM's (sadly not these ACTUAL ones!) so I scoured some VOGUE magazines for a pic of some. I found these which are white ones, customized by the stylist. The BG is another page which was a close up of a lace dress that I gessoed over and then doodled on with felt pens. Just added a bit of journalling and outlines round the pics to clarify.
Wham, Week 9 done!

More Quilt...

I managed to get another hour on my quilt last night. Here are all the squares ready to go. I then assembled them into blocks of four and sewed three together, making a strip 6x2 squares. This is as much as I could get in the photo/on the table! I managed another strip too which I attacged to this one so now my piece is 6x4 squares big. It will end up 6x7 so I have only got a bit more to do before I have to tackle the binding and quilting........