Birthday Celebrations.

Well I'm offically 1yrs old today.I started this blog a year ago not really knowing what to expect.
Have I had fun? Hell yes!
Have I met some wonderful new blogging friends. I sure have.

So lets get out the cake.
But first the accountant in me has done some facts and figures and suprised myself into the bargain.

I have 135 (I know it says 133 but blogger can't count) bloggie friends.
I have posted 167 times.
Made a staggering 103 items (giving 77 of them away).
Completed 9 swaps.
I have had a staggering 1368 comments left (and yes I have read every single one of them again last night to come up with the following statistics).


My top 3 blogging buddies to leave comments are


Faye. Stampin fluffnstuff.
Terry. Crafters Delight.
Sherry. Sherry's Simple blog.


I then worked out the average for each and every person since they started commenting and came up with an extra 2 blogging buddies

Bernie. One of a Kind.
Ali. My Crafty Desk.

So to celebrate each of you can choose an item that you would like me to make for you. (Just so long as it isn't quilt size!!!!!) Just send me your suggestion and colour requirements and I will do the rest.

To give you an idea Faye has already asked me to make her 3 (dinner plate size) daisy flowers to go on her snug wall. Does that girl had imagination or what.

'The Docs' Gems!

How is it that every time I go into the local charity shop I always come out with more tat and trash to stash but when 'The Doc' does the same he comes out with in his words 'Gems' A tray just the right size to hold 2 cups/mugs which matches our kitchen work top perfectly for 50p and a coffee perculator for £1.50 After spending ages in the garage cleaning and polishing this is how the perculator looks.
Now I think it just needs that little bit extra. Let me see.


Yes. thats better. A nice French Press cozie.


The yellow matches our kitchen/dinning room walls and the green is The Docs favourite colour. Both these fabrics came from my lovely blogging friend Terry who lives in America. (I won them in a little competition she was running a while back).
Thanks Terry. I said I had a use for them.

I spotted a family friend also had a coffee perculator in her blue kitchen looking all forlorn so I made one for her too. It's a suprise but is going to be her most must have item for 2011. She just dosen't know it yet!!

Butterflies on both. These are going to be my entry for January's A Monthly Make being hosted by Annie (aka The Felt Fairy). Talk about leaving it to the last minute.

And the Ace is on!

Here are my next two ATC playing cards. I decided to keep with the aces for January so next up is the Ace of Diamonds depicted as a stained glass window.
I cut a piece of clear plastic (the sort you get stamps and dies packaged in and normally discard) to the correct size and then with my black glass liner drew the design and then filled in with my glass paints. Quite please with the result as it does look like glass. Once dry I attached to white card.

Below the reverse side showing the material butterfly very carfully glued on and an A made to look like a branding iron mark.

Next up is the Ace of Spades which I have depicted as being an Oak tree with attitude!

The back using distressed ink with fake brown stitching and one of the new stamps that the naughty 'Bernie' inticed me into buying.

A butterfly of course.

The last one to do for January will be the Ace of Clubs which I havn't a clue about at the moment but no doubt Mojo or Flo (as in go with the ) will be on hand to help me.

Workdesk Wednesday 86.

Well whats on my desk today you ask. Nuffin!!! Except Side Kick who I rescued down off the Teddy Bear shelf last week.

Whats it all about then. The answer is two fold. Firstly I have been sorting my stash out into plastic boxes and storing away. Secondly 'Sweet Cheeks' came for a flying visit on Mon/Tue and my craft pod needed to be reverted back into a bedroom.As he is doing a return flying visit this weekend it must remain so. Until then I am living out of boxes! The top small box houses my glass paints that I was just finishing using on a project that I will post up later today. The middles and bottom boxes are work in progress that I took downstairs last night to work from in the lounge.

Normal services will resume again next week.

Work Desk Wednesday again.

Wednesday again and what's on my desk today. Well I thought I would do a spot of painting today.Need to start/finish my next card for the playing card challenge. Going to do the Ace of Diamonds. Only another 50 cards +jokers to produce but I have all yr so not panicking just yet.

Other goodies on my desk are what 'Bernie ' inticed me into buying from a very nice craft website. In the long box is a non stick craft sheet. I need that so that the Heat'n bond ultra will stop sticking to the ironing board! ! A stack of ATC's, have been cutting out my own so far and a new butterfly die cut . Also an ink blending tool to take me into the 21st century (was using kitchen roll paper crunched up into a ball). Naughty Bernie inticed me onto another site and I just had to order goodies from there too all in the name or art you understand. Will show them next time as I don't have any more room on my desk. I also have something I can't show you cos it's way too big my noo Omnigrid cutting mat. It's 18" x24" so just perfect for on the floor. 'Wipso and Twiglet' are on the naugthy step for showing off their embellisher machines.

I want one of those, I need one of those, I must have one of those. I'm off to go cry into my hankie and have a mini tantrum.

If you want to see what everyone else is up to this week head on over to Julia's blog.

Art Nouveau

Back in October last year I ran a competition the prize being another of my 40yrs old silks(the winner to make her choice from the 4 left) to be made up into an embroidered box. Well Sherry was the outright winer and chose this aquamarine and navy blue silk. She commented that it looked very 'Art Nouveau' so what else could I do but make an art nouveau box.
Out came all my really old books and I finally found a black and white photo of a box originally made in gold work on red leather by Audrey Chorley which I thought fitted in exactly.
Trouble was I had no pattern and no instructions on how to do it but was that going to stop me? Hell no! (In for a penny in for a pound as the saying goes.)
It took me a week to construct the design 3 dimensional from the photo and get the right proportions. Did I mention that the box was made up of five different sections?
An overlapping lid box, 2 side drawers, a hinged lid box and a drop in lid box. Simples!



This is the drop in lid box. Lined in navy felt.
Picture below shows the hinged lid being constructed.


Now we have two sections completed.
The hinged lid and drop in box lid boxes joined together.
Can anybody guess what it is yet?


Below shows the overlapping lided box which is oval in shape.



Lastly the side drawers which were the hardest part to make.
If in doubt resort to corrugated cardboard and a couple of plastic bottle tops. (Yep I really do keep every thing).


And one set of drawers later.


Put it all together and 5 weeks later and what have you got.


An 'Art Nouveau' Fish complete with fins that's what.


Sherry received her box back at the beginning of December (so no butterfly) but due to Christmas and Nasty flu have only just gotten around to sorting out the pictures for it.

Wednesday workdesk no 84

So here we have my workdesk at 5.30am this morning and no I didn't get up early I was just going to bed!!! Yep you read it right.(I'm what you might call a night owl).

The girls and flowers are a tag book I'm making for the Art 'n' Soul swap. This is the front and back of the first tag.(Trying to make a vintage style and quite pleased with how these turned out). I'm totally in love with Distress Ink and used walnut stain here and there to give an aged look. I bought this for £5.20 and have since found it at another web site for £4.69. Can anyone better this please as I want to buy more but not at these prices.?? I need to make four tags in all and each tag must incorporate a buton somewhere on it. The little house is another tag idea I'm playing around with. Look at all those nasty loose ends I now have to thread in. Nop can't just cut em off now can I.

Lots of other things on the go but as they are either prezzies or for secret swaps can't be revealed as yet.

Well I failed all of you last week as I only managed to get round a pathetic 22 desks. Sorreeeee. I will endeavour to do better this week. Hop on over to Julia's Stamping Ground here to see what everyone else is doing on this wet and windy Wednesday.

Winners Come Forward.

The winners of my Blog Tutorial give away have now been randomly picked by 'The Doc'

They are in no particular order.

Shelley Schmidt: My Creative Rumblings

Jenni: Jenni's Crafty Journal

Mariska: Mariska's Creative Journey

Barbara: U-inspire-me

Jan: Scrappy Scatty

If you would like to contact me via the email on my side bar giving me your address and colour preference then your brooch will be winging its way to you as fast as the butterfly can fly!

Your colour choices are.

Red.

Pink

Orange

Purple

Blue

as shown in above photo.

Thankyou for all taking part.

Aces High.

My very 1st foray into ATC cards!

I have joined in the 'I'm playing cards are you' challenge being hosted by Rachel over at Katzelbows. The idea is to make 52 altered playing cards and include jokers if you want. You can use any suit that takes your fancy just make sure you have 4 suits and 13 cards to each suit. I make that 1 card a week for the rest of the year.!! I decided to stick with the playing card theme. Here is my take on the Ace of hearts. I have kept to the standard ATC size of 2.1/2" x 3.1/2" for this one but may well change around as I get more comfortable and bolder.
Made from white card stock, with walnut stain Distress ink around the edges to match the beautiful mother of pearl heart adornment and edged in red thread. So where's the butterfly I hear you ask that I promised on all my projects for 2011?

Well here it is on the back. Simples!!!!

To Receive and To Give

This all came in the post for me on Friday from the lovely Jo of JoZarty.

I won these goodies in her recent blog candy giveaway. I love the wooden bangle and am wearing it as I type. Lots of pink loveliness and a super Japanese lady (details haven't shown up very clearly in photo) stamp. As soon as 'Her Fluffness' shows me how to mount onto a wooden block I will be stamping away. Thankyou so much Jo. I adore pink and make a lot of bags from Japanese material so you couldn't have put a nicer package together for me.



There is still time to win one of the badges I am giving away to go with my Netbook Cover(made for Fluffy) Tutorial that has been featured this week on Vintage Dragonfly. Pop over and have a look. Just be a follower of my blog and leave a coment here about the tutorial and I will be randomly choosing 5 names to receive a badge each. These would look fab either on a coat, hat or a bag.
Draw takes place midnight Sunday 9th Jan.

Busy Busy Workdesk Wednesday

This is the state of my desk this morning! The postman delivered not 1 but 4 parcels for me an hour ago. So shove everything to one side floor included(now looks like the very epicentre of a tornado) and lets see what I have got.

Under the lamp is the remains from making some felt brooches for my giveaway on previous post. On top of sewing machine the material has arrived for the quilt swap 'Take Flight'.

Owl material is for a project for a very good blogging friend. The heart material is for the Valentines Heart swap. Crafting goodies for my tag book and 52 pack of cards challenges and the buttons are for finnishing off something for The Doc.

The sculpt Dry? I just added that in to get the free postage.!!!

Now completely blown my January budget so I'm on bread and jam now for the rest of the month. Will be visiting your blogs shortly to see what you are up to.

Netbook Cover Tutorial

Welcome if you have arrived here via my Tutorial that is being featured on Vintage Dragonfly. I hope you found the pictures for making the cover easy to follow. If you are already here then please check out JoAnne's blog for the detailed instructions.



Leave a comment on this post and be/become a follower and I will randomly draw 5 names to receive one of these handmade brooches from me.They are all different in design and colour. This is a selection of them. Draw will close on Sunday 9th at 23.59 (GMT). Hope you will choose to take part and thankyou for stopping by.

Blingtastic 2011!

Happy New Year One and All. I'm starting 2011 off with this Evening Bag that I have made for the January Artful Bag challenge being hosted by Anna of Frosted Petunias. This months challenge is to make a bag or purse using only paper (any paper medium that you like) and then to embelish it.


I am much more at home using fabric and felts so this was quite a hard one to do. I wanted the bag to have the look of lace and have soft folds in it and rather than just embelish with paper roses I wanted it to look like I had raided the jewel box. After trying several different folded papers I finally hit upon using sheets of kitchen towel. It's soft (has a pattern to it) and by carefully pulling each sheet apart gave me the texuture of lace that I wanted whilst still seeing the bag underneath (yellow card stock). So lots of glitter and bling later one Evening Bag. I love butterflies and for this year have decided that any project I make will have a butterfly incorporated into it somewhere!