Ooh, I am a tad excited..over on Tim Holtz blog he used a picture of my mess (all the goodies Tim, Mario and Alain supplied at last weeks event, plus a good handful of some vintage pieces I brought with me)....

So, I have finally finished the configurations box. It was great fun choosing items to put in it.

On the right is the champagne cork from my 40th celebrations with a tape round it showing 11 (my actual birthday)

Below, in the glass jar is one of my MOO cards (if you haven't discovered these guys yet, go to moo.com they make some great business cards etc) with a photo of my steam punk micro scope slide necklace that I got Tim to sign.

and now for the announcement we all new would come.......

My name is Li'l Pidge and I am a craft addict!

Oh the shame.......3 trips to the onsite shop and then the lovely Edwina gave me a lift not only home but to LB Crafts in Olney!!

Here are the goodies I bought,

lots of Ten Second Studio items as they are SO hard to get hold of, and rarely at any of the craft shows I go to.

Then some more Tim Holtz stuff, including the ATC die you can see that I won from Tim himself (how lovely is that).

Now for another confession, I won a die, I even bought 2 at the event (!) but I don't own a machine!! My lovely hubby said he'd buy one for my 40th, (did I mention it was my b'day a couple of weeks ago....dragging this out I know) so best I'd better pull my finger out!

Anyway, off to make some tea!

happy crafting

li'l pidge x

Back, happy but knackered!

I cannot believe it's over! After all these months of waiting I am back from my first PaperArtsy session with Tim Holtz! Boy, it went fast...it was like speed crafting!

Tim was gracious as we all queued to have our photo taken with him!

I met some lovely ladies (hello!), went for a Chinese (£4 for a boiled rice!! became my mantra!) and got very inky and had an absolute blast.

Lin and Leandra's class was such fun, playing with metal, paint, inks and sprays (boy did it go everywhere!) and this is what I made:


I love the Ten Second Studio metal working tools as they are so easy and natural to use and the grunge paper hinges were so easy to colour with bronze goop (is that the technical term!?!)

A quick break (and maybe just a little shopping in the on site craft shop) then it was on to the Tim Holtz class. After such a great morning there was much anticipation.

When we took our seats...look what greeted us!

A configuration box, papers, feet and a zipper bag filled to the brim with goodies!

Tim showed us the configuration box he made, so we had plenty of inspiration

When we went to tea break (one of the ladies had her leap year birthday celebrations at the event and brought homemade cupcakes for the entire group, how lovely was that) we returned to find a fabric sack on each of our places, filled with bits and bobs, some vintage, some Tim's products (and I added a few of mine I brought from home)

I have nowhere near finished it yet, I included a 40 from grunge painted black (to celebrate my birthday (again!) in the middle is one of my MOO cards I got Tim to sign then placed it inside one of the glass bottles....I just need to finish it now.

The next morning, instead of heading back on the train, I met a fellow crafter (hello Edwina) who came from Barry and gave me a lift home (how nice is that), even nicer, it was via LB Crafts in Olney (can you overdose on craft?)

So now it looks like a bombs hit the house as all my goodies are all over the place...I'll take a photo to share all my goodies.

If you ever get the chance to go to a PaperArtsy event, I recommend it, its fast (NO chance to get bored), you learn new techniques and get to meet some great new people.

And a big hello and welcome to my new follower, Kaz, who I met at the event, HELLO (grin)

Happy Crafting

Li'l Pidge x

Not a WOYWW but Paper Artsy and Tim Holtz

So, yet again no WOYWW, but I have SUCH a good excuse as I am off in a mo to the PaperArtsy event with Tim Holtz! I have been so looking forward to this, after a year of more medical tests and injections than I ever thought possible and 5 months trying to do 2 full time jobs (hard enough as it is....add to that days of feeling so low and sick that I don't even craft!!) finally its here!



So, over the next couple of days I am hoping I will meet lots of new like minded people, what a great opportunity to swap ideas, techniques and hopefully contacts.



Someone came up with the great idea of presenting Tim with a collection of inchies to celebrate his time here. Well, that sounded like a great idea....


Then I realised, I had no idea what it was!!! So, off for a bit of surfing....and found out its a 1" by 1" piece of art..


So here is mine (this is what was on my desk until 10 minutes ago when I packed it!.

Its on vintage music paper, with a martha stewart punch of a branch punched out of thin metal and coloured with alcohol inks, the nest is made with raw wool and needle felted and the bird cut out of grunge paper. I added some vintage text and some rock candy distressing.....voila!

Anyway, expect LOTS of photos when I get back.

Happy Crafting

Li'l Pidge

WOYWW

For this weeks WOYWW, it's more of a case of WNOYWW (what's NOT on your work desk Wednesday). The gift on my desk last week is a bit more progressed, and I wouldn't want to give away what it is in case the recipient reads this blog!

So, this week its what is ABOVE my work desk....

This beautiful letter M (whilst everyone knows me as Kyla, my parents christened me Michaela) is a present from my mum. Its on a canvas and is made from lace, ribbons, feathers, sequins, beads and not to mention a scrabble tile (one of my favourite embellishments). My mum bought it when we popped out for lunch at a local farm and craft shop-it now has pride of place above my desk-perfect for inspiration, even if I didn't make it!!

Hope you don't mind me not showing you my desk this week, I'm off to have a peek around some other crafters desks.

Happy Crafting

Li'l Pidge

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines day. My lovely hubby made me a 1980's inspired mix tape (but on a flash drive) with songs such as 1-2 crush on you by The Clash and Milkman of Human Kindness by Billy Bragg...such a lovely hubby!

So, I decided to start using up some stuff that I 'found' when I cleaned up the craft room (how did all that stuff fit in there?).

This card is made using some Ten Second studio metal sheet which I embossed by hand (the old fashioned way-until I get the Vagabond Machine that is!! Hubby promised it as my 40th pressie when its finally in the UK!!) and coloured with alcohol inks, mounted on gold textured card, finishing with a large flower embellishment.

My biggest news is that, last weekend the Coven threw me a 40th Party (at the wonderful Jill's flat) It was a great night, lots of food, drink, laughter and some balloon sculpture (don't ask!!),so a big thank you to you all (and to my best friends who had to travel back to the 'sticks' on public transport after many cans of cider!!).

This was followed by my hubby whisking me away to a posh hotel in Devon where I had my first (and hopefully not my last) hot stone massage! It was wonderful, very relaxing and amazing on my poor old joints!

This was followed by a lovely bouquet of flowers he had arranged to be delivered to the hotel room (good man...after more than 20 years I think he is doing well!)

I got some lovely presents, crafting money from the coven and money from family (ready for my Paper Artsy event with Tim Holtz where the plastic is going to be well and truly flexed!!), lots from hubby, cup cake goodies, threads and a wonderful handbag from my parents.....but, I think the best one has to go to my lovely brother (who is about to leave the UK again, but this time for 18 months to volunteer for the GVI projects in South America teaching children in deprived areas as well as generally helping out digging water tanks etc).....my favourite drink, an entire mixed case of red wine.....

Thanks bro....and Happy Birthday (my brothers birthday is today.....ah, a valentines love child!!).

Well, I'd best go as I need to unpack and put away my goodies....where has my 3 days off gone?

Happy Crafting

Li'l Pidge x

A special WOYWW

So, what's so special about this weeks WOYWW?

Well, it's my last one in my 30's!!! By next WOYWW I will be 40!!

So, I will be officially old enough to know better!!!

So, back to my WOYWW picture...today was not a good day at work so for a change I decided rather than working until 7pm I wold leave early, lock myself in the craft room and get messy!

I can't say what it is as its a pressie for a dear friend, but once it's finished and they have it I will of course share!

Happy WOYWW and please pop over to the blog for a look around the other desks.

thanks and happy crafting

Li'l Pidge x

So, Whats on My Workdesk Wednesday

NOTHING!

That's because I have finally finished tidying my craft room (always a sign of my head not being in a good place-especially if you know my views about a tidy craft room!).


For me, this is VERY tidy. I have my small scrap box on the right of the desk where all my useable offcuts go ready to be crafted into something new and fabulous!

These are my lovely new drawers (the black ones with the labels still on)holding all my stamps and paper

and my amazingly tidy bookcase!

Now, I need a day to get inky and mess it up again!!

If you haven't already, please pop over to WOYWW blog and check out all the other crafters spaces....enjoy

Li'l pidge

The things I do when I can't sleep!

So, Saturday saw another coven outing (our weekly crafting get together where the men reckon we are witches and gossip rather than craft...I must admit sometimes there is more gossip than craft, but its a great night away from reality so who cares!) to the Exeter craft fair.

A great day out, not much buying (I'm saving myself for later in February when I go to the Paper Artsy Tim Holtz event!!-yes you read that right, Tim Holtz-yeah! A whole day dedicated to getting inky and grunging I cant wait) though I did by a handbag! Only I could buy a bag at a craft fair-but the good thing with handbags is that they always fit!!

So, after a lovely day out with the girls I ended up waking on Sunday at 01:30, wide awake, what a mare! And why did I wake? First of all cos I was disappointed that the craft fair had very little in the way of storage, I mean I can't be the only one who'd like storage for 12x12 papers in a DRAWER rather than a box where you cant dump a ton of junk on top of it and STILL get to the papers (if you work for a storage designer, please call me....there are things that NEED to be designed for crafters rather than the quite frankly rubbish storage that seems to be swamping the crafting outlets-I mean WHY do they do such big embellishment boxes? You could store THOUSANDS of ruddy sequins in one of those little boxes and HUNDREDS of buttons, I know I have a lot of stuff, but purlease give me a break and make some boxes designed for hoarding crafters (not sure there is another type of crafter!). So, I decided to tidy the craft room....(when the sun finally decided to grace us with its presence)

and so I started to pull everything out...

and then it spread to the bedroom....then I decided to drive to Tesco's to buy their A4 4 drawer units (£14, with a 3 for 2 offer, 12 drawers for £28 not bad) so that I could organise stuff.....

It felt like the stuff was expanding to fill the house....and then I remembered I had been asked to make a 21st card for a lady at work so I decided to stop cleaning and crack on with the card.

I stamped the image, colouring with pro markers and adding some shimmer with a sakura pen. I then stamped and distressed around the edge of the image, mirroring the stamped border around a red card base, finishing with a peel-off number 21 and a red and black ribbon that I singed slightly on the edges with the heat gun.

So, no more crafting until I finish the craft room (nearly done but Big Fat Gypsy Weddings is on so I think I'll call it a day until tomorrow!).

Red wine and TV-now there is an antidote to a crappy day at work and a craft room that looks like a jumble sale!!

Happy crafting

Li'l Pidge x