Big Catch up

Sorry folks, the last week has seen me laid up with bronchitus-not much fun and it means I have spent most of the time since Friday in bed. Luckily the past few weeks saw me on a massive crafting spree trying to get all my gifts ready for my family in New Zealand (why oh why is the last posting date down under so early!!) and my brother in London and since I havent posted on here for ages there is loads to add (between coughing and blowing my nose-SO attractive).

First up, a big thanks to my secret santa from the CB forum, a parcel was delivered today (how I did not managed to rip the wrapping off then and there)-ooh, I wonder what it is...shame I will have to wait. Also, my latest ATC's from the CB forum. The theme was snowmen, and these two were from Hellybelly and Magentasnowflake.

Also in a moment of what can only be described as total muppetry I decided that the event journal I spent some months making for my mums combined Christmas/Birthday pressie was not good enough and decided to make a new one! What the hell I was thinking I don't know-by the end of the project I was wishing I just bought her the new Enya CD! The idea is that there are 12 double pages, one for each month, and each month has key birthdays/anniversaries detailed with lots of space to keep adding more. On the opposite page is an envelope containg some handmade cards ready for the appropriate event-all ready in one easy folder.

Well, I did say it was a mammoth task!

I also had my first jewelry order for 2 sugar skull necklaces from a friend. I must admit I ruined a whole sheet of shrink plastic-the only problem with a larger pendant is that the plastic does have a tendancy to curl and buckle and is your concentration waivers for a mere second-burns! (and boy does that make the house stink!). Any way, I managed to make 2 and am really pleased with the results-my first jewelry commision!

I think that's enough for a bit-I need to take some more anti-biotics and have a bit of a lie down (I had no idea that bronchitis took it out of you so much-this sucks!).

Happy Crafting

Li'l Pidge

off to the crafts beautiful on line christmas party now...

here.......

Christmas Cards, knitting and marmalade-all with a hangover!

Finally I have made a start on some Christmas cards. It is SO difficult to sit down and concentrate on just one topic-I usually end up flitting between projects, and finishing very little! I am loving both the pink and turquoise with a bit of glitter to add that sparkle and sakura glaze pens to add a little glossy definition for the darker colour on the baubles. I can't believe that we are only about 6 weeks to Christmas-madness, where has the year gone? Now, I'm told its an age thing, but I refute that!

I also made some white on white cards, with an embossed tree dusted with mica powder, and a double sided peel-off greeting with white holographic glitter applied all over.

I also finished my very first knitting project, a green scarf that doubles as a dishcloth! (well, there are a few holes, but then it is my first attempt). I embellished it with a row of green sequins and a large button. I wore it out for the first time yesterday-warm and toasty!

I also managed to make some marmalade with ginger and whiskey-nice! I decided since my dad loves all 3 ingredients I would make him some for his upcoming birthday, and decorated the jam jar with some pretty papers-nice! I cant wait for the tasting....mmmmm hot buttered toast.....

Not bad crafting for a wet and windy Sunday, especially since I am a little fragile after last night's party at Jill's (my friend who runs our weekly crop)-a great night which meant we all got to show our OH where we spend a few hours every week gossiping/crafting.well, the two go hand in hand don't they? Oh, and talking of our weekly crop, look at these gorgeous mini mosaics Tracy brought us all-aren't they cute? I cant wait to make something with them.


Phew, I need a lie down now........

Li'l Pidge

Scrapping, swapping, shrinking and gigging

Its been a busy couple of weeks in the Li'l Pidge nest. First, I have made my first ever skirt (no photo though, I'll take one later and post it), and I have been busy on the scrap book pages. This is a double page spread of Rotorura and Wai-O-Tapu in New Zealand. I stitched zig-zags around the chocolate and blue border panels, mounted lots of fabric flowers with various jewelled brads, added an acetate pocket to hold the leaflets and used Rangers distressed inkpad in Broken China to colour some chip board shapes, added glue and 2 differently coloured glitters to represent the water gushing up.


This week also saw the Oct STC swap from the CB Forum. This months theme was Decoupage. A big thanks to Shelleyhope, Copse (for RAK ATC and organising the swap) and Paulrw (who, would you believe it actually received one of mine-spooky!). Mine are below, including a Halloween sticky notelet to say thanks to Copse for organising this months.

This is something new to me. Inspired by some of the blogs I have been reading I thought I would cut out some flowers and cult up the edges before sticking them onto the card. The large background is actually self adhesive wall border paper from the local DIY store, it matches my free flower stamp from a previous issue of the stamper magazine. I must admit I quite like the effect. I added a little yellow stickles (I love their glitter glues, they are so fine and easy to apply) in the middle of the flowers.

I also received this all the way from Canada, a lovely thankyou card from Freehartz for participating in her Halloween, bloghop. Your welcome, its was a great evening. I hope you enjoyed the actual day itself.

This year saw us celebrating the next day, which is the Mexican Day of the dead festival. My OH had a gig with 4 acts, 3 of which were 1950's garage and a one was a one man band who played drums, guitar, harmonica and tamborine all whilst singing! It was a great night out, and to celebrate (I wore my new skirt!) I made a sugar skull inspired necklace from shrink plastic. Coloured it with sakura pens, pencils and markers and sealed the lot with diamond glaze. I added a few rings and beads then threaded it all on a cording.

I also had a go at making a ring. A black cat on an orange background. I must admit I am trying SO many new crafts at the moment (I am blaming the Crafts Beautiful forum as I keep seeing new things to try!). The house is starting to fill up, so I think I need to turn my attention to making Christmas presents instead. Speaking of which....best get a wriggle on...

Happy Crafting

Li'l Pidge

Veggie, Glass and Crafting, phew what a day

Evening all, well we got an hour extra today as the clocks went back an hour, and a good thing too as I fitted in SO much yesterday I could have done with the extra hour 24 hours earlier!

Saturday morning saw us get our latest delivery from Riverford Organic, a veg and fruit box delivered each week, yum-such a range of food that we are having to think on our feet a bit and cook meals we wouldn't normally cook (but that is great as we are rediscovering some old and forgotten favourites). Its a great box isnt it?

Then, my parents call round and we all went for a day out near Cirencester. A lady opens her gardnes each year to host an outdoor sculpture exhibition. This year it was glass as the subject. It was a cold, wet day but there was some great pieces, including the glass balloons on her lawn and glass flower seed heads-so clever.

Afterwards, would you believe it, just 5 minutes drive up the road was The Stamp Bugs weekend open event! I had never been to their shop before (the owner was the previous Editor of the Stamper magazine) but it is crammed full of goodies and a make and take and had 10% off all stock and lots of stamps 50% off and some only £1!! Well, I think you can guess what happened next..........

Yep, overdraft came into play again!!!!! The lovely large veggie stamps were only £2 each and the smaller ones £1, so a bargain! I cant wait to have a play (though it has taken over an hour to mount all the unmounted stamps!). My mum bought me the Stamper book, its got some great ideas that I will be experimenting with over the next few weeks-what this space for the results!.

Hope you all had a great weekend and happy crafting

Li'l Pidge

Halloween Blog Hop

Well, tonight UK time of 7pm-10pm the Crafts Beautiful forum are doing a Halloween blog hop party! We are posting our spooky makes and then 'hop' around the blogs, so I thought I would be organised and get my makes on here in good time. Thanks 'freehartz' for organising. Her blog is http://btaylor.typepad.com/ if you fancy having a look at her amazing blog (I am totally loving her orange and vintage makes recently posted).

These are some skull and crossbone fairy cake cases we found recently on a trip to Totnes, my OH even made coconut macaroon's to fill them and get into the party 'spirit'

This is a hair accessory I have altered. The skull is made from fimo and has been sewn into the centre of the hair band, I must admit I have already worn this out a few times.



I love these handcut bats that I covered in black glitter before attaching to the card. The monkey is a lovely piccie I found online (sorry, but I cannot remember where from, but what a talented artist)

This card is made with some 'shakey' eyes that my dad gave me, I thought they looked pretty cool just attached to the black textured card.

and these are a few of my sticky notelets I have been making for charity and RAK's......looking foreward to seeing all the other makes.

Happy Halloween blog hop

Li'l Pidge

Clear blue skies, a wedding and a diamond

Well, what a weekend. Glorious weather, unbroken sunshine with only a gentle warm breeze, perfect for my brother-in-law's wedding. Scott married Lucy in the glorious city of Bath, surrounded by family and friends and they both looked amazing. It was a wonderful day, and this is the card I made for them. I took MANY photo's but I have decided not to post them on here yet until they have seen them ('tis only fair).

This did mean I had very little time this weekend for crafing, and when I have, it has been to make things for the CB Halloween blogparty on the 17th (I am hoping to be able to put a link on here later). But I did have time to carve a diamond stamp and make this retro inspired card with it

Anyway, since my OH is off at bandpractise tonight I am going to take advantage and do a bit of crafting...

Happy Crafting

Li'l Pidge

Oooh 'shrooms, a skull and bit more besides

Look but don't touch! We found these 'shrooms whilst out walking last week. The 2nd one is fly agaric-definitely not an eater, not sure about the 1st one, so only took photo's and left them well alone, they look pretty though.

Well, back onto crafting. This is my latest ATC swap over on the CB Forum. The title was 'games'. These two were from Jintz (left) and Clara Cluck (right) and a RAK-thanks ladies they are wonderful and will be stuck up on my craftroom wall as inspiration.

This is my first altered MDF coaster. I applied a coat of white gesso, then a golden brown acrylic. I then stamped in stayzon black with a paperartsy fern stamp and used an antiqued Hot off the press flower plated, which I tore and distressed. I then coloured areas with Tim Holtz distressed pads in Mahogany and Tea dye, using a makeup sponge to blend.

I then tried my new decoart Wooden distress paint to try and crackle glaze-BIG MISTAKE. It reacted badly with the varnish and went all lumpy, instead of peeling it sort of went like a lumpy and spotty teenagers face, not nice so I have had to spend time stripping it back and sanding it down again. Oh well, its all a learning process, hopefully I can make it look like this again and NOT fiddle anymore!!

These are 3 more cards I have made, the butterfly with mica powders brushed over an image from a roller stamp coated with a clear ink, matted on silver and purple with a small metal hanging butterfly brad.
The bodice is with black velvet and red flock, and the secret garden card has an altered domino on it! I bought a pack of travel domino's from a pound shop and on the back (so that the spots don't show) applied alcohol inks and stamped the dandelion image in stayzon and edged with a gold marker. I must admit I really like the effect, and so cheap an item to alter.

On a totally different theme, the Mexican day of the dead festival is approaching, so I decided to make a shrink plastic skull to hang from a necklace or bag charm.

And finally, with my brother-in-laws wedding around the corner I realised I had no earrings suitable for the day, so I made some from friendly plastic and some glass beads I reclaimed from a charity shop bracelet. Hurrah, the colour is almost an exact match to my dress-happy days...

Off now to do yet another hot salt mouth rinse as my tooth is STILL giving my pain, the destist did a 360 deg. scan yesterday as the x-ray didn't show anything up, I am hoping it will all be ok, I am sure time will tell, its just that after nearly 6 weeks of this I am getting tired of the aching and worry....thank goodness I have crafting (and red wine!).

Happy crafting

Li'l Pidge

Knit one, pearl one...

Oops, forgot to mention that at the Craft Fare I found a stand that was willing to teach people to knit for free. Well, I am one for a challenge, and after many years of both my mother and grandmother unsuccessfully trying to teach this left handed clumsy fool to knit I thought I would give it another go! After about 30 mins I had managed to cast on, knit, pearl and do some ribbing and cast off! They very kindly gave me the big ball of green wool and some stumpy learner needles that I was using, complete with some instructions on how to make a scarf from the ball of wool-so that is what I am doing, making a scarf, though it is looking more like a green dishcloth. I started with 40 stitches and have somehow ended up with 45! Well, I am learning, but when I am finished I will post a photo of my make (but no laughing-or at least, not where I can hear it!!).

This reminded me of my recent trip to the Bristol Organic Festival where we saw the worlds biggest knitting! Just look at the size of it!

Inspired by the craft fare I spent all day today in my tidy craft room, with my new sewing machine! Now, for those that know me well, this will come of a bit of a surprise. Actually, that's an understatement-I have been known as the "sewing machine killer"! I borrowed my mothers, broke it, then my mother-in-law's, broke that also! But, the £25 bargain in Tesco's proved too much for me....I thought this would be perfect for crafting, adding a bit of stitching to my cards and scrap layouts...instead I decided its first make will be an apron (a bit more complicated than a couple of inches up and down on a card!). As all crafters will know, any clothes you wear when crafting tend to get covered in glitter, glue, flocking and embossing powders-nude crafting is not an option, my craft room is at pavement level! So, I bought some black material with red skull and crossbones over it and "ran up" an apron. I am SO proud, my needlework is pants, but this actually looks OK, and the finish isn't too shabby either, what d'you reckon?

Now I have protection(!) I thought I'd better crack on, its my bother-in-laws wedding next week, and I have so much to do. I managed to alter my headpiece, adding some green sequins to match me dress and my satin bag looked a bit boring, so I painted an earring with green glass paint and used this to embellish the bag.

I also managed to make their wedding pressie wrapping and card, but I'll post that later.

Off to watch Harry Potter on TV with a large glass of white wine (just to ring the changes!).


ooh, shame on me, almost forgot, Happy Anniversary to my wonderful hubby (yesterday), we had a lovely day and a fantastic meal at La Barrique in Bristol. Thanks hun, I love you x (especially after you bought me all this craft stash!)

Happy Crafting

Li'l Pidge

Just a quickie

Finally back home after a weeks holiday. We were hoping for a cheap last minute trip to somewhere warm and sunny, previously we managed Majorca for £150 each and the greek islands for £220 each-but thanks to the collapse of XL and the rubbish weather there was nothing for less than £400 each (unless you fancy a drinking binge in Palma!)!

So, we headed on down to my folks place in Devon, and we had a lovely week, cycling, swimming in the sea (see, how brave we are!) and, oh, I didnt realise, there was a Hobbycraft and Stictches fare being held just down the road! It was well organised, as there was a free bus back into the city for bored husbands to find a pub and watch the footie-apart from mine, who found himself a record fare!

We also had a trip into Totnes, which has one of my favourite craft shops, and my hubby bought me a load of stash for our wedding anniversary today, I'll post a photo later!

Well, I'd best get on over to the CB forum and find out what this months ATC swap is as I have yet to make them! I have SO much crafting catchup to do, and I have still yet to make my brother and sister-in law (to be) card-arrggg, why am I so easily distracted....oooh, a butterfly......where was ~I? Oh, yes, cracking on with things.....

Happy Crafting
Li'l Pidge