After such a hectic day yesterday I pre-planned a day off to play.....and so far I have finished my machine embroidery picture, adding silk rods, cocoons, wool, leather etc and burning back some areas.
The whole lot was stitched on felt, for stability, and I then used distress stains to colour pale fabric so that the main colour carried over the edges and then I stretched the whole thing over a pre bought canvass.
Off to play a bit more!!
Happy Crafting
Li'l Pidge
Honest guv, I did....I took ages to write down what I needed, split it into inks, stamps, journalling etc......then within 30 mins of entering the Bath and West craft show I realised that most of the stuff I wanted wasn't being sold there.....so I ended up with this haul!!!!
It was blowing a hooley....and the Coven went for the day out, it was fab....crafting goodies, choccies (thanks Becky), biccies (thanks Trace) and lots of laughing and gossip.
Now, as you know I like my journalling and altered art....thankfully ali craft and snazzy's both had a stall which is where a lot of this haul came from......there are VERY few places in the west country that stocks these goodies (big hint if you run, design or work for one......we are screaming out for something down these parts!!) so I was very grateful they were there (though my hubby may not agree!!)
Ali craft had some reduced 7Gypsies and Tim Holtz goodies and Snazzys had the lovely Dylusion stamps.
So, fuelled by choccies and a mug of hot steaming tea we shopped....and shopped a bit more!!
I wore my WOYWW badge but no one approached me......but I wore it with pride nonetheless!
Now, I am organised for a change...I have booked tomorrow as a days leave from work so I can play!! I am going to go to bed excited and wake up REALLY early (well that is the plan....a film and red wine are actually calling as I type this so it may not be as early as I would like!!!! LOL!)
I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and that the rain and wind didnt cause any damage or stop you from having a great weekend.
Happy crafting
li'l pidge xx
Hello fellow WOYWWers (is that an actual word?) so its Wednesday again, I will admit that this is not my desk and its not Wednesday!!!
This was taken last night at my parents house and its the empty chinese takeaway we had last night as my Uncle is over from New Zealand this week!
I haven't taken a photo of my desk this week as there is nothing on it....well, there is the usual scrap box but you have all seen that every week, so here is something different!!!!
Feel free to pop over to Julia's blog here and view desks from all over the world...some are messy, some are freakishly tidy.....but they are all a great view on how crafters work.
I'll keep this short as there are hundreds of desks for people to look at!
Happy Crafting
Li'l Pidge xx
I hope you have had a fabulous weekend, it was a busy one...first me and hubby got up at a ridiculous time on Saturday to catch the bus to town (I didn't even know they ran that early!)...why? Well, yes it was a day off...but it was national record store day!!
A celebration of independent record stores with special releases and live appearances up and down the country (more information can be found here)
we were about 60 odd in the queue (some got there at 3am!!!!) but still managed to get some fab vinyl, we followed this by a vintage fair, we both love 40's and 50's music and style and I managed to bag myself some new headscarfs (you can never have enough of them...at least that's what I told my hubby when he saw I bought another 3!!) and a lovely dress....cant wait for nice weather to wear it.
The day was finished off with a trip to our favourite restaurant for a lovely meal...a grand day out.
Saturday helped me forget all the woes of the past few weeks (you know, we all get them, work sucks, illness, yadda, yadda, yadda...) so I made this page. "When it all gets too much...spread your wings and fly".
I coloured the background with DI using stencils, stamps and bottle lids to mark the page, adding a bit of vintage page and the bottom to stand the figure on. I cut her head off (yikes!!) and put it on an angle to give her a contemplative look.
I love journals and tags as they are a great way to try new techniques and cost very little (and dont take up too much room) so I am off to play a bit more!!
Hope you all had a fab weekend too,
Li'l Pidge x
Only a quick post as I am itching to open this up....look what the postie brought!
I was so lucky, on the recent Creative Chemistry 101 course I was lucky enough to win one of Tim's stamp sets and an acrylic block!! Woo-hoo!
I only have one of Tim's sets (the butterfly ones), so was thrilled to win this, thanks ever so much....off to play!
Happy Crafting
Li'l pidge x
Here we are again, its hump day so it must be What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday time!
My creative mess (yep, that's my excuse, its creative, and I am sticking with it!!) has stamps and dies thrown all over the desk....for those eagle eyed amongst you I don't have 2 multi medium pots on the desk! The one at the back is filled with water to wash my brushes out...see I can think ahead and look after my stash.....it just doesn't look it in the photo!
I am going to keep this post short, as Julia on WOYWW says, there are a lot of desks to get around (not that I have EVER managed all of them, there are literally hundreds!!).
If you would like to pop over to Julia's blog to have a nose around desks all over the globe, there is a link here
Happy Crafting (and desk hopping)
Li'l Pidge x
Now, this isn't my usual style, but in an effort to continue using up (UIU) products I have and reduce those that I buy (and boy do I have a LOT of stash!!) I have decided to use my vellum and angelina fibres.
This tag is made by colouring with distress inks, adding a paperartsy stamp and some vellum punched foliage behind the flower. The bee is die cut from vellum also and coloured using markers. The wings are made from ironing some fibres to make a sheet then die cutting these also.
To finish I splatted some butterscotch dye across the tag and distressed the edges to add depth.
I would like to enter this into the Stamp Man Vellum challenge which can be found here
Happy crafting
Li'l Pidge
Happy Saturday, I hope you all have a lovely weekend planned (those of you not working that is)
One of the downsides of longer hair is that I often wake up like this!!! Yep, many a morning I awake, my hubby's face usually tells me we have had a visit from the hair gorilla during the night!!
The background is coloured with distress stains, the hare (geddit?!?!) is an octopode stamp I coloured with watercolour pencils, the circles are from my dylusions stamp set and the gorilla hair I drew myself and added the white designs with a ranger white pen.
Now, off to get the hair straighteners out!!
Happy Crafting
Li'l Pidge x
Some of you may remember the mini book that was on my desk a couple WOYWW's ago. Well I have now finished it.
I cut the mount board with my ATC sizzix die, used medium gel to adhere some scrap paper to the covers then painted on some crackle paint.
Once it had dried, I coloured the covers with DI flicking some water to help move the ink then used my crop o dile to punch holes and added some metal corners.
I used my new Tim Holtz techniques that I learnt on the Creative Chemistry 101 course, without this course I would never have thought to stamp with distress stains!
I coloured the keyplate with alcohol inks to grunge it up a bit
Then tied it all with some raffia
Voila, a lovely wee book of inspiration that I will keep in my handbag for those days when I need to remind myself that I can create art, no matter what I think!
I am going to enter this into the Simon Says Stamp and Show for the Tim's techniques the deets can be found here .
Happy Crafting
Li'l Pidge
x
Here we are again, the familiar call of 'Wednesday? Already?'
So, on my desk this week is my 2 part moulding putty and some moulds. The one on the bottom left is a bought one, it makes a nice deep oval, the round metal pendant on the silver scales lid (to keep it flat) is from Ali Craft, the blue ones are the new mould I have made from a key plate (not sure if this will work as its quite detailed) and a long thin pendant from the side of the black domino in the picture. The 3 black ones at the front are actually silicon moulds from poundland!! They work a treat!
To try out my new moulds I have mixed up some resin and tomorrow (or maybe later tonight as I am a bit impatient!!) will be able to see if the moulds work OK.
So, if you would like a snoop around desks, please pop over to the lovely Julia's blog (link over on the right), they are a friendly bunch (though there are some freakishly clean desks...and one or two that are SO overflowing with creativity that you cannot even see the floor!!).
Happy Crafting
Li'l Pidge x
So, are you all having a lovely Bank Holiday? (well those of you here in the UK that is). Its wet and gales have been forecast for later so that means I can squirrel myself away in the craft room, gawp at some lovely blogs, update mine and craft amongst the snotty tissues and bouts of sneezing....gotta love spring colds!
Have you been following the very talent Kate Crane 366 challenge? She is uber talented and makes the most amazing journals. I had never journalled before until I came across her work, I was so taken with it I bought both her DVD's!!
Well, in an effort to show how easy it is to craft a little every day she has the 366 challenge, you have a small journal entry for each day.
This is my completed March page
And my recently started April page. I thought I would keep it sunny and bright to represent the start of spring!!
I learnt from earlier months not to add too much embellishment at the start, I used oil pastels etc and found I couldn't write anything over them! So now I keep the pages reasonably clean and once I have filled in all the days I will add oil pastels etc-hopefully it will work this way round. That's the great thing with craft, you are always learning.
So, if your sat on the sofa stuffing your face full of chocolate (or even still in bed....well its a day off for some so why not?!) pop over and check out Kate's page, she has some amazing pages.
Also a bit hello to my new follower, mjbaker, thanks for joining me.
I hope you all have a lovely Easter and happy crafting
Li'l Pidge x
Check me out, more than one blog a week...! I have finally cleared a small amount of space in the craft room which allows me to have my netbook up with me, which makes things a bit easier (but means my hubby see's even less of me now!...not sure if that is a good or bad thing!!)
I thought it was time to start entering some challenges again, over at the stampman page they are playing craft bingo. They have a bingo card with various craft items and you choose a line and make something using all the items.
So here is mine, I have chosen the line with Green, Flowers and Swirls to make this tag.
I have coloured the tag with with green acrylic, added some TH tape along the right hand side, applied gesso through some waste packaging (with holes in) stamping swirls and flowers when dry. I added a stamped ticket which I coloured with DI and finished with a flower brad and some green ribbon.
There are some great makes over at the Stampman challenge so feel free to pop over and be inspired.
Happy crafting
Li'l Pidge
Wednesday again, so that means its time for a legal snoop around desks all over the world courtesy of Julia's blog here.
So, after doing Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry 101 course my desk has since looked like a bomb has hit it!! On there today is a little book I am making. Now this is not something I have tried before, but Coven member, Becky, went to Scrapstore and bought me a lovely white case to alter and LOTS of mountboard, so I cut some with my sizzix ATC die, punched holes with my crop o dile (you can just see its orange case peeking out below the desk) and am in the process of making some pages.
I thought I would make a little inspiration book to slip into my handbag.
There are now hundreds of desks to look, so pop over to Julia's blog for a good old snoop!
Happy crafting
Li'l Pidge x
Its blooming freezing (glad I am not in Scotland they have blizzards!) this time last week it was 20 degrees warmer.......what's that all about? So, heating has gone back on and I am SO pleased I was lazy and didn't pack my winter clothes away last week as I seem to be wearing most of them at the moment!!
Anyhoo, I did realise that I haven't shared with you the card I made for my nephew's Christening
The background paper is TH which I distressed, adding some torn and distressed music paper, an inked piece of grungboard flourish and printed a photo onto fabric using freezer paper.
It is not as difficult as I thought:
- cut your fabric and freezer paper to size
- iron the freezer paper, waxy side up, onto the fabric
- run it through your printer.
- To ensure the ink sets I then iron the fabric with a piece of brown paper over the top to heat set
Simples.....I then added some freehand sitiching around to finish it off.
This is a tag I made using a technique from the 101 Creative Chemistry. I covered the tag in distress stains, over stamped with archival ink then splattered water over to distress slightly.
I stamped the bird, colouring with DI, adding a small amount of glossy accents for the eye, cut it out and mounted the bird on the tag. I then added small amounts of gold foil around the edges.
I have a stinking cold and chest infection at the moment, so I am off to try a glass of chilli beer my hubby bought me (meant to help my throat!!) - it has a WHOLE chilli in the bottle......I may regret this.....but you have to try new things right?
Happy Crafting
Li'l Pidge x
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