Flower Power.

On my recent blogaversary 5 followers got to choose an item to be made by me for them. Monkeys friend Jam is already on his way to Terry in America as Terry asked me to make a monkey for her.

Ali asked for a flower brooch to wear with her grey dress so I made her up a selection which I thought would all go with grey. The blue one with the pearl dangles is made from real Japanese silk material whilst the 3 flowers with pointed petals are called Kanashi blooms and traditionally are what the Japanese Geisha girls make to go in their hair. Ali has received these now so I can show.

Sherry, Fluff and Bernie your gifts will be with you very shortly.

I am entering these as my Monthly Make for April over at The Felt Fairy.

We have the central heating fixed! You have never seen such an amount of pipe work that we now have in the airing cupboard. The offending piece of pipe causing all the bother should have a 1/2" diameter which had been reduced down to a tiny pin prick hole due to a build up of sediments. Silence is Golden (remember that tune Sherry) in our airing cupboard when the hot water is running.

We also have the phone line back up and running after a whole week. When the engineer removed the manhole cover to fix the repair he found the hole filled with water. Thought he might try saying 'I don't go down holes filled with water'!!! We have compensation too. The Doc rang the BT call centre in "India" and complained and the very nice operator gave us a £4 discount. Wow. We are very carefully deciding what to spend our windfall on!!!!!

Have a great weekend. We are spending ours with Sweet Cheeks.

Artful Bag Challenge ATC swap

The Artful bag challenge this month was to make and swap an ATC card that incorporated a bag in the design. This is the ATC card that my partner Electra sent me. Entitled My Favourite Bag.

The gold bag and the wings really do shimmer in the light.

Electra also enclosed this card for me called Flower Girl.

Can you see the cute little butterfly and how pink it is. A fab little extra. Thanks so much Electra.

Below is mine that I sent to Electra. Probably still in transit so if you are reading this Electra then turn away now if you want it to still be a suprise.
The card front and back are covered with pictures of bags stuck on paper mache style. The bag itself is made from pink crepe and the handle is small pink beads. I have added cream lace to the edge to give it the look of a photo frame and added the words 'A Girl Can never have Too many Bags'

I also enclosed the one below which I have simply called 'Reeds' and added a single flower. I used A hero Arts stamp and Tim Holtz green distressed ink.

Tales of Woe and other such Stories.

Hope every one had a Good Easter. Ours has certainly been an eventful one.
Do you have 5 minutes do you love a good yarn? Then pull up a chair , grab a coffee and some chocklit cake and I will begin.
I have a Man on his knees in front of me this very minute! I havn't had that happen since 'The Doc 'proposed to me many moons ago!!! What's he doing, well techincally his not in front of me but kneeling six foot away with his head in the airing cupboard sorting the central heating out. Nothing special you might think in that but we have been waiting since 25th March for a such a person to materialise. Our hot water is up the spout. Not had any for the last month. Do you believe in ghosts? From the sound the boiler was making you'd have thought we had the whole churchyard in the house clanking and dragging their chains around. Every time this happened the boiler cut out so the Doc rang round for a plumber.
First one never showed up and rang to say his Mother was ill and had to go to hospital but even though the Doc left messages requesting a fresh visit, nothing happened.
Second Plumber came out and said the hot water pipe were seized up and tuted and said we needed the floor boards up as the blockage could be anywhere and did we know a chippie cos 'No Sireee' he didn't touch floor boards just pipes!
Slight interlude now whilst the doc rang round for a carpenter to come and give a quote which he did and said he had a plumber he worked with who would fix the pipes cos in the mean time the second plumber said he didn't really want the job anyway.
Third plumber is My Man today and he is not going anywhere till the job is done so the Doc is keeping him supplied with the liquid stuff (tea) to keep him sweet. Hopefully when he refills the tanks from the drain down we will have hot water again.
Last Friday the telephone went dead! More ghostly intervention!! After checking to make sure it wasn't our equipment the Doc logged the fault with the BT. Very prompt service cos they sent a man round on Saturday morning and said "Yep yer line is down and its between the exchange and your house which means there's a broken cable underground somewhere but 'No Sireee' I don't go down holes in the ground!" So fresh fault logged and BT put a divert onto the line to the Docs mobile so at least we can get calls in (though none out).
Now BT pay compensation on a daily rate for all the time your line is down but not a lot of people know that they don't pay compensation over Bank Holidays!! 'No Sireee', so the clock only starts ticking as from today Tuesday. Hows that for service. They are now supposed to be sending an engineer underground on Wednesday. Well at least the internet is still working as that is a seperate line but should I go quiet you will know that the man down the hole has spliced up the wrong cable.
Last Thursday was tinged with sadness for us as FIL would have been 86yrs old. Our son has been in New York for a short break and texted us on Friday to say that he proposed to his long term girlfriend on Grandads birthday in Times Square!! How fitting was that. A visit to 'Tiffanys' followed very shortly afterwards. I think she said Yes!!!
Lastly I've lost track of Monkey. Hasn't been seen since last Wednesday when he said he was going up to London to get his passport organised. If anyone sees him please let me know cos he is only a little chap and not very streetwise.

Will keep you posted on the plumbing and telphone sagas as they progress and of course The Wedding!! Now where did I put my hat pattern.

Workdesk Wednesday 98

Wednesday again and time to show whats on my desk this week. This is it at 3.30am this morning. I had been making flower brooches firstly out in the garden and then in the lounge last night so this has just all been dumped back on my desk for working on some more later.
On the right you can see a cross stitch picture that I had sorted out to show Susan (Little Imperfections) that I had made in the nineties and forgotten about until Susan showed one she had made too on her blog. The little blue book is 29 Embroidery stitches. I'm not saying how long
I have had that but it does say price threepence!

So what is Monkey up to on his desk this week? Well he is busy looking through holiday brochures as someone commented that he might like to travel the world and send postcards back of his travels!!
As he dosen't have much in his peanut account at the moment I suggested that a day trip to Margate was more in order. I also pointed out that he didn't have a passport.
Bad mistake I think.!!!!


If you would like to see more tidy/untidy desks around the World then pop on over to Julia's blog and have a snoop around. You will be suprised at what is going on .


P.s My tea cup and saucer made the top three over at Funky Hands. I'm really chuffed.

Still Life.

My very first canvas. I can't draw for toffee so thought it high time I took myself off to learn how to. I went to Art class last Thursday and we were given a blank canvas and a picture of an apple to copy. This is the result. Not bad. At least it does look like an apple! (I'd show you the authentic water mark on the back but the canvas is still drying out.) Next lesson is a lake against blue skye with the reflection of the water showing at the bottom of the canvas. No pressure there then!! Tate gallery here I come. I'm entering this on 1st Unique Gifts. " Handmade Monday " where you can see lots of other projects being show cased. Pop on over for a real treat. My little teacup and saucer made the top five over at Funky Hand. last week.

Authentic or not!

Remember as with Royal Doulton, Delft,Wedgewood,Denby and Bone China unless the piece is showing the authentic mark of the manufacturer it could be a fake!!!

Time for Tea.

I saw the tutorial for making a paper mache cup on another blog and thought I would have a go. The tutorial didn't have a saucer but heck when has that ever stopped me ( if I can knit a jumper with no pattern oops! slipped up there if Monkey can knit his friend a jumper then a saucer is no probs).

Took myself off into the garden armed with plain white paper napkins ,pva glue(watered down 50/50) and had a sticky gluey session. Card board template for the cup came from here and the inspiration from Sid. The saucer I just cut round and existing one and then wet the cardboard circle and moulded it to the right shape. Several layers of napkin later plus a coat of white paint (I used Jo Sonja's velvet matt finish) and a sheet (or two) of patterned paper (carefuly cutting out the flower shapes) from Funky Hand and we have a tea cup and saucer. Just right for a summers day.

Close up showing the inside of cup and the large flower motif in centre of saucer.

I am entering this into the following challenges.

Get Funky: Zing into spring.

Top Tip Tuesday: Spring has Sprung.

Papertake Weekly: Truly dimensional.

All Sorts: Anything but square.

3d Mini Quilt.

The Mini quilt swap that I have just completed was to make it in 3d. This is what I made my partner Wendi. As Wendi has now received it I can show you . I wanted to do something different by using stamping onto material and then doing quilting around the stamp design. I chose the 'Crafty Indivuals' stamp CI - 234 and just kept restamping elements of the stamp onto the background to build up the picture I wanted. Then added in a painted circle for the sun using distressed ink.

I then started to build the picture up by applying to another piece of the backing fabric and quilting the bird cage, stuffing with cotton wool to achieve the 3d effect. Beads were added to the bottom of the cage and felt leaves attached randomly to the trees.

I then attached to wadding material and added the back piece of the quilt and added the binding around the edge.

Here you can see a close up of the top of the quilt showing the little buttons attached to the branches.

And a close up of the bottom showing the shrink plastic bluebird I made (I drew a bird onto shrink plastic cut out and coloured in using water colour pencils.Made a hole using my crop 'o' dile to attach with and then shrunk to 7 x's smaller with a heat gun.) Yellow buttons finished it off.

Here it is completed. Wendi said her home was mostly decorated blue , yellow and wood tones

so hope I got it right. Nearly forgot!!

Here is the back showing the quilted and beaded butterfly

I am entering this into the following.

1st Unique Gifts: HandmadeMondays. Creative Belli: Sewing Seamstress. Secret Crafter: Our Feathered Friends.

And The Winner Is..........

The name drawn from the pot by 'The Doc' is...........

Susan .

So if you would like to get in touch with me via the email on my side bar and let me have your address then this bag will be on its way to you in Australia.

March Bag challenge.' Embellish It'

The March Bag challenge over at Frosted Petunia's was to take an extisting bag and to 'Embellish It'. Not having a suitable bag to use I popped into my local charity shop and picked up 3 bags which I thought would be ideal to change. I then let my followers decide which bag they wanted me to change the most. The cream bag below came out as the winner. So what to do with it. Firstly, I discarded the gold threaded strip of material on the bag flap and replaced with a piece of pale pink velvet and attached the leather buckle back on. Then I added a piece of 20yr old lace over the top and made a flower using a different 20yr old vinatage lace ,17 yr old ivory satin and some beads.

Add a bit more bling.........

And this is the result.

As previously mentioned I said that once completed I would offer the bag up as a giveaway so if you would like the chance to own this bag then just be a follower and leave a comment on this post (saying you would like the bag)and I will pick a winners name out of the hat next Sunday April 10th 23.00 hrs (GMT).

Linking this to Handmade Monday.

Workdesk Wednesday 96

Whats on my workdesk this week? A trip down memory lane and a spot of nostalgia. I finally brought down the last of my sewing bits and bobs from the loft namely my sewing box which when I opened it still had patterns in it. These are just some of them.

The pattern in the middle is my Wedding Dress. If you do a close up it is view 2. Still inside the envelope was a piece of the actual crepe material I made it in showing on the selvedge that it was Swiss made. The two patterns on the left are of beach robes that I made for us both back in 1970!!

A delve into the depths of the airing cupboard produced the following :

Mine View B.

and 'The Docs' view 3.

So what is monkey up to this week?

He said he was having a tea party and inviting some friends over and would I take some photos of the occasion. How could I refuse!!!!

Hi, this is my big brother 'Side Kick'. He normally lives in Mrs A's car and sits between the driving and passenger seats and holds The Doc's sunvisor cap for him.

and this is my new friend Jam ( Just A Monkey).

He is going off to USA shortly to meet his new family.

(Hope you like him Terry. Your very own Valery Anne loveable.)

If you would like to have a browse around more desks then pop on over to Julia's blog where you can find over 100 other crafters all busy at work.