London fog.

The challenge this week over at the Craft Barn is to do a November foggy bare tree look with a touch of pale yellow peeping through. This one nearly had me beat as I don't have any bare tree/branch stamps. Then I remembered that there was a tree sticker left over from Halloween night so we were in business!
The page has been colour washed using Memento 'London fog' ink pad and the hint of yellow is made up of a wash of T.H. distressed ink 'Antique Linen ' and 'Wild Honey' Blanking days are the London fog ink. I did try using black owl cut outs for the days of the week but it looked naff so have kept the page plain and simple apart from the cat sticker. He was the only one to venture out on such a dreary foggy day!!

WOYWW.no 129

Not posted a WOYWW for a while due to ill health. Now on the mend but still sound like a honking swan when I talk.

This picture of my desk is actually taken Tuesday morning but I wanted to include it for a reason.

I recently entered the Button floozies Altered Autumn button tin swap. But sadly my partner did not acknowledge receipt of her tin or send her swap to me. When Laurie the host for the swap found this out she very kindly (unbeknown to me) made and sent at her own cost from USA this super decorated tin and buttons. I love all the buttons that are in the tin but the five I have selected in front are my favourites. Hope you can zoom in on those as I couldn't get in any closer with the camera lens without it going blurry. When Laurie told her friend about it she also wanted to make me a a tin( before knowing that Laurie was going to ) to send to me so Jeanelle thank you so much for your sweet thought and lots of hugs to Laurie for making my day for me.

So whats on my desk today. I'm really behind with getting one project started and finished. The squares have been hanging around for about 2 weeks now though I have sorted them out into the layout I want to use . They all need hemming and there are 48 in total to do. The knitting is in conjunction with the same project. There are 6 finger puppets on the pattern. So far I have managed to make the duck. Very fiddly as there are only 16sts altogther and you knit it in the round. Started on the elephant but have now realised in order to increase for his ears I need to be working with 5 needles in stead of 4 so need to do a quick change over.

The two blue and one white bauble are an experiment. I was going to throw a load of tacky baubles out last year but hung onto them instead . These are some that I have covered with small pieces of kitchen towel and pva glue and dried overnight in the airing cupboard. Iv'e painted two blue and waiting for them to dry out again before I go onto the next step. (To be honest I'm making it up as a go along!!)

Pop on over to Julia's blog for some more desks to have a good nose and poke around. Thats where I'll be later on today. Might even see you there.

Nasty bugs and We are not amused.

As soon as the boys found out I wasn't well they said they needed to look something up on the web and then disappeared off to their room for the rest of the week. They said not to take it personally they were just taking adequate precautions!

They decided the coast was clear this morning and ventured out to have some of their favourite cookies from the biscuit barrel but this is what they found instead!!

Catch me if you can!

A wail went up last week from the Derby area which went soemthing like "Mumeeeeeeee can you make me an Elf please for Sweet Cheeks".( Not just any old elf mind , this had to be a Christmas Shelf Elf.)

Erm yes can you be more specific?

"Well he needs to be small enough to hide behind a cushion say but big enough to sit on a shelf and be seen"

Ok. about 12" then?

"Yes Please"

Where to start with no pattern to work from. I decided that" Tractor Boy" being 24" tall his head would scale down from 8" to 4" so after working the measurements out on grid paper and devising a neck to hold the head in place we were in business. A quick trip into town to 'Fabric Land to look for some red material and I found this soft dressing gown fabric. Perfect.

Nearly finished. He seems to have put a growth spurt on as he now measures 14.5 ". Had to make his legs a bit longer as he was begining to look more like a dwarf than an elf!! Something not quite right with him though. He dosen't look very comfortable sitting up like that.

Thats much better. A waist line and an identity. And thats when the trouble started. Catch me if you can he said and he was off round the house.

Can you see Me!

Under the spot light . Getting warm now.

Getting very warm.

Wee! That was fun.

While the cats away the mice and elf will play.

He is now safely in his new home but watch out Fluff he is full of mischief!!!

Show casing him on

1st Unique Gifts: Handmade Monday

The Felt Fairy: November monthly make.

Crafty Ribbons: Anything but a card.

Dream Valley: Stitching.

Ginger Loft: Use lace,fabric or felt.

One Stitch at a Time: Anything Goes.

Polly Craft Challenge: Christmas Fun.

Here come the Leaves.

Been laid up with a nasty bug all week so need to get this posted asap.
The October calendar challenge over at The Craft Barn this week is to use Autumn shades & leaves. I did myself no favour last week by using leaves for the school calendar for the days so had to come up with another idea. Cue Shrink Plastic. I love this stuff.
I have to own up to not having any T.H. stamps. Bah Humbug!! So the leaf stamp I have used is a freebie from an issue of ' Craft Stamper' magazine which I stamped directly onto the shrink plastic. Cut around and a quick blast from the heat gun and I had 7 mini leaves for the days. I used the same stamp to stamp onto the calendar page using T.H. Distress inks in Fired Brick, Spiced Marmalade and Wild Honey. Also to ink the edges of the page and to fill in on the blanking days.



I used plain white card to stamp the same leaf onto and again cut around. Using the same inks above I stamped onto my craft pad, spritized with water and mixed the leaves into the inky mess covering both sides. When Dried they do look like leaves fallen from a tree. A real twig. string and acorn casings completed the look.
Off now to see what every one else has been up to.

Easy Peasy!

After the last two calendar pages I found this weeks September Calendar page over at The Craft Barn a nice easy one to do. The Theme was 'Back to School' using an old paper colour and red lines.
I made my white sheet of paper look as it it had fallen in a dirty puddle of water in the playground by inking my non stick craft sheet with 'Antique Linen' distress ink and adding water via a paint brush , mixing all around and quickly laying my paper down in it. The leaves were stamped and then cut out and the same technique used as above by mixing 'Wild Honey', ''Spiced Marmalade' and 'Fired Brick' onto my sheet and laying the leaves down to achieve an autumn fallen leaves effect. (September to me was always shuffling through the leaves on the pavements on the way to school).
The days of the month were ruled up using red pencil. I then found this cute boy and girl stamp in my stash and a retro schools theme emerged. Also found in my stash an old school exercise book which has price of 3d old money on the front and the standard 'Useful Information' sheet printed on the back. Unfortunately the book cover is blue which did not photo copy up light enough to use so I re did some of the tables in word and printed out. I can hardly believe that we had to learn all these tables and measurements by heart . Wonder if anyone else of a certain age group remembers them!!!!
Randomly stamped the boy and girl over the days and coloured in using pencils to complete the look.

Whose a Pretty Boy!

Finally finished my latest painting. Only took me a month this time.

Di was the only blogger who correctly guessed (from the title that I said I was going to give it that) it would be a parrot. Well two actually.

Here it is in stages again. 1st the background and the facial features.

Next up a bit of plumage. Don't want to look like bald eagles!

A bit of tree camouflague.

A branch or two to sit on, add some tail feathers and 'Whose a Pretty Boy then'.

I will make the next one mega easy for you. Going to call it To can do it!!!!

And finally here are two pictures that I prepared earlier. Much much earlier when I was 10yrs old and had been given a painting by numbers set as a present. Done in oils and I think the company that sold the kits was called Craft Masters.

Show casing on the following:

1st Unique Gifts.