Winter stick pin swap.

I recently entered a stick pin swap over at The Altered Paper. The theme was to make 3 stick pins in winter colours and attach to an embellishment. I chose the colours of dark blue, silver, white and pearl and made a tag to attach the pins to. If Sis (cos I know she reads my blog) looks closely at the beads she might just recognise them from the necklaces she gave me last summer for using up in my crafting stash.

Lots of lace,fringing, ribbon and homemade flowers later this is the finished swap.

Looking for the 'wally shrink' heart button?

Well here it is hiding on the back of the ribbon. Told you I wasn't going to make them all easy for you to spot!!!

This is the lovely set of white, pearl and turquiose blue pins I received back from Donna of

Red Apple Junction adhered to a lovely glittery and snowflake tag. As I'm a sucker for wearing hats these won't be stuck on here for very long!!!!! Thanks so much Donna for being my partner.

Valentine Swap.

I recently entered a Valentine Swap and could hardly believe it when the name of my partner to send to was revealed as being Sherry!!! This was the other idea that I was mulling over for the 4 piece swap so now I was able to do both. I found this exploding box again in my 'Craft Stamper' magazine and had earmarked it for future use. The papers I already had from a digi download that I bought before my UIU pledge.

So lots more gluing and sticking went on but I'm happy to say they stayed stuck together. The shrink plastic 'wally button' was well hidden (no it is not on top of the box). Now what to put inside as my little extra gift? Well chokits of course, the felt not fattening type!!!!!

I was determined that Sherry would not realise that her swap was from me right until the last minute so 'The Doc' wrote the address label, I printed a vague return address label and then even went into the next county (we border two counties) to post the packafge from. Finally under the chocklits was an envelope revealing all.

I had a lot of fun making this too though for a different reason.

Entering into the following challenges:

Stamps R. Us: Anything Goes.

Hooked on Craft: Hearts.

By the Cute and Girly: Love is in the air.

My Swap for Sherry.

These are the 4 items that Sherry sent to me. Design paper, lace, beads and green net flowers. I forgot to take a picture of them before I started and have borowed this piccy from Sherry.

I spent ages thinking what to do with them and had two things in mind but eventually kept coming back to the idea of making a journal from an old book. I had found the idea in my 'Craft Stamper' magazine and had it ear marked to have a go one day. When I went to start cutting the paper I turned it over to mark the lines and found the name of the design. It is called Life's Journey Old Rose. Well that cinched it, a book to record a journey through life it became. The book came from my local charity shop. (I had to break my UIU pledge to buy it but as I needed it in order to use up both Sherry's and my stashes I felt it was justified.)

Gluing the pages together became totally a battle of wills between me and the book! I mean how difficult can it be to stick book pages together. Started off with PVA glue 80%glue/20% water. Ha! All I ended up with was a soggy book. So into the airing cupboard it went for 5 days and came out with the pages peeling apart as I opened it. Der. Ok. Next try glue in a stick push up tube. That worked better and I really thought I had sussed it. Next day nice and dry but still peeling apart. Okey Dokey out came the glossy accents and a good amount was applied around each section of pages (fifteen to one new page. ) Next came my heat gun which promptly cut out cos I was using it too near the page. Resort to the hair dryer. result? Buckled pages!! When your back is up against the wall and as a last resort get the iron out and iron like the clappers for all your worth whilst singing "I will survive"!!!!!!!!!!! Finally with Inka Gold rubbed over the edges they were stuck, after all how diffuicult can it be to stick book pages together!!!

After that it was plain sailing and I really enjoyed myself.

I personalised the front cover with hardboard initials which I painted and then covered with crackle paint. Home made flowers and some of the beads used for the centres.

Inside cover using some of the green net flower and more of the beads + the 1st page.

I painted over the pages with a thin wash of acrylic matt artist paint in off white and used distressed inks around the edges.

Had to slip the shrink plastic' wally heart' button in somewhere! + some of the lace.

Added lace from my own stash and used loads of different stamps on the pages.

'Fluffy' gave me some Luminarte paint pots that she wasn't using and they have quickly beocme the new shrink plastic for me. The effect on the roses/flowers on the pages is really lovely.

A deep lace pocket with ribbon was used on this page and a tag insert made with the green net flowers.

More stamping and flowers.

Another pocket made from a page that I embosed with butterflies and a tag insert.

More of the lace.

And the last pages.

And a close up of the tags.

I had one tiny scrap of the paper left over and one bead which I used to make a card for Sherry that I enclosed in the parcel. See the post under this one to find what Sherry made for me.

I am entering this into the following challenges:

Anything Goes: Altered Projects. (Old Book)

All Sorts: Anything Goes.

Crafty Catz: Favourite Things . ( I used the the 4 swap items from Sherry)

Totally Gorjuss: Lace. (Throughout the book)

Creatalicious: All about Lace. (Anything with lace on)

4 piece swap from Sherry

Sherry and I recently decided to do a swap with one another and I chose the theme which was to send each other 4 items from our stash to be made into something by the other. We were allowed to add other items from our own stash. These are the itmes that I sent to Sherry.

Designer paper by Papermania from the Chatsworth vintage collection.

Beads on a wire, pink flower and this vintage butterfly found in FIL's house when we did the clear out last year. So what did Sherry make me from all this?

Well for starters she made this absolutely gorgeous art doll collage and used the butterfly on its chain as the hanging tag. The paper was used for the background and the flower was disected to make the wonderful hats. Now Sherry and I have never met so couldn't possibly know that the style and design is so so me. From the high heels (never less than 4") to the long skirts to those oh so me hats. I love hats.! This only used up 3 of the itmes so Sherry set about using the last item to make this cute little wooden hanging.

The glass beads became the necklace. Priceless!!! Hanging from the drawer knob on my chest of drawers as we speak. Sherry even sent me back the beads that she didn't use and so as not to be beaten I finished them up on a tag that I made for Tag Tuesday. shown below.

Thanks Sherry. I love what you have made for me and really had fun using the items that you sent to me. Will post shortly what I made in return.

Madi Gras.

I made this Triptych ATC for the Art 'n' Soul swap on the flickr group. Partners have all been asigned and Deb knows this will be on its way to her shortly. The challenge was to alter a head and after much procrasternating I came up with the idea of using a carnival mask to change the head that is inside the card.

Entering this into the following challenge.

Rainbow Lady's: Mardi Gras.

I just know someone is bound to ask what is inside so here is a peak.

Iris - Folding.

Another on my list to achieve this year is Iris - Folding so a quick raid on the snippets folder produced these papers.

I found some basic instructions in a crafts-beautiful magazine and decided to have a go at doing a poppy.

Going to enter into Di's Crafty snippets #8 (cos I missed the deadline for #7)

And also the following:

Do you Stack Up (DYSU): Layers.

Delightful Challenges: Use your scraps.

Fab 'n' Funky: Try something new.

WOYWW Wk 141

It's 3am and this is whats on my desk. I'm still up cos The ATC card on the right is waiting for the glitter glue to dry so that I can put the mask on and take a photo and post onto the flckr group that its the last day for uploading to. While I'm waitng I found this old knitting pattern dated April 20th 1959. Sis and I each made one of the little Tessie bear with the frilly skirt. She stood about 3" tall. The bears have long gone but the pattern has survived!!!
To the left you can just see my next project. Nearly DIL has asked if I can make the ring cushion for her. The picture is what she would like me to make as near as. So far I have found beads in the right colour to match the bridesmaids dresses and now need to run up a few different heart shapes in plain cotton so NDIL can choose the shape and size.
Lastly you can just see a pin cushion sitting on top of my sewing machine. This was a swap I received. Mine is still enroute to USA.


If your wondering why I'm showing you my desk at this unearthly hour then why not pop on over to Julia's blog where all will be revealed.
Ok the glue is dry!!!!!!!

WOYWW Monkey business

There appear to be 2 trunks on the boys desk but what are they doing there? Well after Bert left to go and live with Fluff up North the boys got a bit lonely and decided to surf the net for another Monkey to adopt! They found Sam looking for a home and as he said he would be no trouble and was very quiet the boys extended an open invittion to come asap. Well trunks have arrived but Sam appears to have been held up by the snow last week and is still digging a way out!

"Erm Norm you don't think theres a dead body in there do you?"

"Nargh. Must be bananas Monkey"

"Do you reckon maybe his Uncle works for Fyffes then?!!!!!

Tea Bag Anyone!

One of the other things on my list to achieve this year is to learn tea bag folding so that is what I have been teaching myself to do this week. This fold is the called the square fold simply because its a square of paper that you fold this way and that to make another smaller square. The hardest bit I found was to cut 8 squares identical not only in size but with the exact pattern on each one.

I raided my snippets folder and found this pretty floral paper that had a small repeat pattern on it. I used #2 size Xcut square parenthis nestie die to then trim the sqaures before I folded them into shape. I used #5 size to cut the mauve card and green cardstock 5"x 4.75" for the base card.

I created the sentiment using the #2 nestie die and of course no guesses for where the shrinkie button is.(It does have all sparkle on it but photo doesn't show it up.) I also made one for a friends birthday in Purple and Lime Green but forgot to take a photo before I sent it off in the post.

Entering into Di's Crafty Snippets Challenge #6 and also the following:

Papertake Weekly: Anything Goes + add a heart.

New Home.

I needed a New Home card for Fluff & Co and had an idea in my head of one to make so out came my snippets folders and a quick rummge around found these bits and bobs. 2 lolly pop sticks still on my desk from last weeks card. A bit of shrink plastic for you know what , pile of assorted papers (everyone writes on their snippets right?!!) and a collection of plastic collar stiffners (remember those?). Found a huge bag of them when we cleared FIL's house and they sort of found their way into my stash.

A lot of cutting, gluing, sticking and sniffing (nealy as good as having a glass of wine) later this is what I made. Just knew those collar stiffners would come in handy. No clues as to where the "wally heart" is this time!

Entering into Di's snipets playground wk5 and might even have a go on the swings before leaving.

Also entering in the following:

Crafting when we Can: Something not intended for crafting. ( I used collar stiffeners).

Cupcake Cafts: Recycle. (I recycled lolly pop sticks and collar stiffeners).

Crafty creations: Home sweet Home.

The Poodles Parlour: Anything goes.