Have Promarkers will Travel.

A while back I ran a blog 1yr anniversary and Bernie was one of my winners and got to choose an item made especially for her as long as it wasn't a quilt!!
This is the spec I received from Bernie. 'Love sea blue, turquoise, sunshine yellow. Anything purse like, passort cover, pencil case(have promarkers, will travel) as would any kind of storage'.
Okey dokey, plenty of scope there then. First things first. Round up whats needed.
Yep! I thinks thats everything so lets get started.


So how about a padded box to keep promarkers in. I used the plastic casing that sets of 5 promarkers come in and cut the tray part out. Next I built up a box to fit 3 trays side by side Added a flap up lid, a bit of embroidery on top and velcro fastenings. Hey Presto 'Have Promarkers will Travel'.


Plenty of room inside. Holds up to 27 promarkers in two rows.

Close up of embroidery on the top with hand applique flowers.

Then a pot for using on your desk.

And last but not least a folding tray that simply folds flat when not needed by undoing the buttons on the sides.

Close up showng the button detail.

I had lots of fun making these and can show now as Bernie has received them in the post.

Entering into the following:

All Sorts: Free & Easy.

Craft your Days Away: Summer time theme.

Divas By Design: Summer.

Butterflies

I made this tag to go with a gift that I have just sent out in the post.

Everything I send out this year has a butterfly theme included in the gift somewhere.

I have used the 'Crafty Individuals' stamp CI 175 stamped with Memento ink onto plain white paper, cut out and then adhered to thick white cartridge paper. Using my colour water pencils I made up a blue colourwash and painted the background to look like sky and then coloured the butterflies wings in deep yellow. Cut and punched to make a tag. The sentiment was done in word and printed off onto yellow paper and the lace and blue crochet cord were from my stash.

Entering into the following challenges.

Aud Sentiments: Use a sentiment to make someone smile.

Flutterby Wednesday: Open.

A Spoonful of Sugar: Create a Tag.

Blog challenge Garden: Butterflies.

Do You Stack Up: Wings:

By the Cute & Girly: Things with Wings.

A.W.O.L.

I havn't felt much like posting this past week even though I had several posts scheduled to go out whilst waiting for my computer to be fixed which I subsequently cancelled.
No my mojo hasn't gone missing and Flo hasn't ebbed and not come back but I have sadly lost my persian Bagpuss.
We got back last Sunday night to find her on the kitchen floor. She had had a massive stroke and though I sat and nursed her for 4 days she sadly didn't make it. I made the decision to have her at home in her familiar surroundings and let her do what she wanted. Wimpy and Wrapper sat with her the whole time and never left her side until the end. Then they wouldn't come in the house for the night and only came back in after breakfast the next morning. Now I'm beset with doubts. If we had not been away, if we had come home sooner would the outcome have been any different? So you pick yourself up and carry on. Then this card arrived from the Vets yesterday and I blubbered all over again. Do they leave footprints on your heart They sure do Large muddy ones!!!!!!!!!!



Computer is now back and 'Wormless' and good to go so normal posts will resume next week.

I'm not a Happy Bunny.

I'm most certainly not a Happy Bunny. Why?
Iv'e got enough worms in my computer to start a wormery!!
Mr IT specialist is coming at 9am tomorrow to take it away and thoroughly debug it by running the hard drive through another computer with a special programe to clean it. 'The Doc' said he would probably bring it back as just an empty casing and tell me he had fixed the bugs ok!!!!
In the mean time I have moved over to the 'Dark Side' and am across the landing in the Doc's control centre on his spanking brand new one until mine is up and running (or dead and buried which ever the case may be).
Flickr is not in my good books. I have just received notification from them that I have hit the limit of my free account namely 200 photos!!!!!! Flickr will only display the most recent 200 items. Anything beyond 200 is hidden until I either delete new items or Upgrade to a pro account at a cost per year of $24.95 .Now as I can't afford that and don't want to delete old stuff because it has comments attached to most of my photos and new photos are needed to be posted each week for an art course I'm part way through, I'm well and truly stuffed.
Thanks Flickr.
I'm going to schedule a few posts now whilst I still have access to my photos. Normal services will be resumed as soon as possible and I will comment on your blogs as much as I can.
Off to get a large drinkies now!

Workdesk Wednesday 110

We have just come back from doing a watercolour art class and of course monkey insisted on having all the correct items so would I please make him a blue beret that all the great artists wear so that he would really feel the part. He also wanted one of those white frock coats but I said that was taking it a' Smock too far'!

As you can see he got stuck straight in and decided on a still life to begin with.

Why not pop over to Julias blog to see other artists desks, youll enjoy yourself no end.

From Start to Finish.

My third oil painting. 'Church on The Beach' I thought it would be good to take photos of it as I went along.
This is actually stage 2 as my computer deleted the first set of pictures I had taken.


Stage 3.
The church and buildings are now completed and so far have taken 4 arts lesson to do.


Stage 4.
Finally finished last Thursday. There are supposed to be two people walking towards the church but I told my art teacher that my painting was done before they arrived!!!!!!! Chicken or what!


I'm really quite pleased with the end result. Have started the next one already which is 'Flying Ducks'. Watch this space!!
Speaking of ducks, I seem to have taken to this painting malarky like a duck to water (ouch) so much so that I'm off to do a one day painting with water colours class. Cistern chapel here I come.

Picture within a Picture.

The challenge over at Get Funky this month is to follow the sketch. Now this caused a bit of consternation for me as I was determined not to produce a card!! Having looked at the sketch details for a while I realised I could turn it into the following:

A 'Picture within a Picture' with all the elements of the sketch included. I refuse to be beaten.



I have used papers from the Get Funky 'Shabby Saturday Flowers' collection for the background, flowers and decorative strips. I mixed paint to match the yellow and used it on the picture frame and mini canvas both from my stash.

The image is a free download from Home and Heart sized to fit within the canvas to make a second picture frame. Brads and flower edging were also from my stash. Background paper behind the image is from the Get Funky 'Paper Blossom' collection.

A close up showing the punched decorative edging on the two strips made to look like lace.

And finally a close up of the flowers using a Hero Arts stamp (stamped on the reverse side of the paper and then cut out) showing the edges done with a brown water colour pencil, spritzed with water , dried with a heat gun and glossy accents added.

Entering into the following challenges.


Get Funky: Follow the Sketch.


Simon Says Stamp: Show a Flourish.


Charisma Cardz: All about Flowers.


Divas By Design: Diecuts & Punches.



Crafty Catz: A Vintage look.


Creative Belli: Custom Made Bellies.

Box to Handbag in Next to No Time.

Remember the empty tea bag box that PG monkey got so upset about being on his desk the other day ? Well I decided to take it out into the garden to photograph and Wimpy just had come out from behind the washing machine and get into the act. I needed to change this box from being just a box into a bag for the Artful June Bag challenge. Now the result is totally, totally not what I started out to make but it sort of evolved along the way and anyway it follows my Japanese theme (thats my story and I'm sticking to it).

So here it is. I had picked out the red cord for the handle and decided to paint the box red to match so out came some old poster paints and I painted the town red so to speak. Several coats later and a delve into my material box came up with this japanese cotton fabric qtr that I had purchased from ebay and an idea began to form. I punched holes in the sides for the cord handle and covered the front, back and top in the material and the humming bird is an Embossing stencil called 'Summer Bloom' by Papermania stenciled onto white card. The flowers are a Hero Arts stamp set called '3 Dotted Flowers' which I stamped out onto white paper and coloured using water colour pencils and then layered the different sizes up to make blooms using brads for the centres. Liberally spritzed with water and scrunched up and then unfolded and left to dry. My thanks to Neil for the tutorial on his blog.

Close up of the back showing the print. I have no idea what it says or it it is glued the right way up!

Close up showing the humming bird (done in black water colour pencil) and the flowers. I'm really please how they have turned out.

I'm going to enter this into the following challenges.

Tuly Scrumptious: Things with Wings.

Ruby's Rainbow: Flowers.

Craft Your Passion: Seeing Red. (use red on your project).

Paper Play Challenges: Anything but a card.

Hooked on Craft: Show us your Flowers.

Tuesday Taggers: alter it week. All boxed up.

and last but not least

Frosted Petunias: Artful Bag challenge.