Hoping For A Crafty Week!!!

Well....that was a 'blink and you miss it' kind of weekend wasn't it?
It seemed like no sooner had we had our Sunday lunch than it was time for bed and here we are back at Monday.
Up early this morning and I am already on laundry load number three. Unfortunately no line drying today as it's very mizzly outside and it looks like the clouds might be chucking something a bit heavier down on us sometime during the day.

Andy is on an afternoon shift this week so I am feeding him an early lunch. My kitchen currently smells disgusting as I am cooking some spare ribs he bought from the butchers ready marinaded and they stink of Chinese five spice powder which I just cannot abide.
Once I have washed up and seen him off I shall have some time to crack on with some crafting until it's time to make the Cheats Chicken Parmegianna that DD and I are having for our evening meal. Cheats because I am using some battered chicken breast steaks instead of fresh chicken to get them used up out of the freezer.
Talking of cooking......the cooker has finally blown a gasket and we are now limited to the main oven and two rings. DD soldiered on very bravely yesterday and produced a beautiful Sunday lunch but it has got to go.
We are not really at the stage where we can start any kitchen renovations so the range cooker has been put on the back boiler and this will be arriving at The Mansion sometime on Wednesday...........

........and moving swiftly on.....lol.

Remember this from Poundland........

Loved the decoration but just not that Merry X-mas so I took these..........

........and turned it into this.........

I like it much better now.

If you want to alter your own I would advise filling in the lettering with wood filler before you add any paper......and any questions.....just let me know.

There is stuff cut out to make the gifts for the girls so I am going to sit and do some hand sewing this afternoon with something on catch up on the computer. I have not done that for so long so if the dog behaves himself it should be a blissful afternoon.

Hope you have a gorgeous day doing what you want to do.
Sheila-x-

Mirror, Mirror!!!

Today I thought I would share an altered project I did for my living room.
This mirror started off life as a beautiful brown leather covered mirror but over time the leather panels started to lift away from the the base wood. I didn't want to throw it out and buy a new one so I removed the panels and used a pad of Papermania black and white paper and Mod Podge to cover the frame. Once it was dry I applied black chalk to shadow some of the details on the paper and gave it a couple of coats of varnish. I then used some silver gilding wax over the whole frame which I rubbed off immediately so that it left a metallic effect without covering the details on the paper.
All that's left to do now is to find my pot of paint to cover the fixings holding the mirror up.
Tomorrow I will show you the vase I altered to match the rest of the living room.
Tara for now.
Sheila-x-

Got Me Some Inky Fingers....Yay!!!

After a dilatory start to the day today I eventually managed to get upstairs and do some inky stuff.

I found some rather nasty coloured velvet flowers (pink, lemon etc) in my basket the other day and wanted to recolour them. So I used Colour Wash spray inks diluted with a little water and dunked the flowers into the mixture. Spread them all out onto a tray and then sprayed with various Glimmer Mists and some other sprays with mica powders in. They are now drying nicely and look a thousand times better.

There was lots of inky mixture left on the tray so I have used that up by dragging a couple of sheets of card through it to make some nice backgrounds for stamping on.

The top plate of flowers have been done with Cranberry ink with a spritz of Auburn GM and another coppery coloured mist.

The bottom plate of flowers was coloured with Eggplant ink and spritzed with Silver GM and a violet mist.

The colour on the paper is a mixture of the lot.......lol!!!

Well I am on holiday now until a week on Tuesday.......phewwww I am soooo ready for a break.

Next Tuesday the decorating starts. DD will be asleep during the day until Monday lunchtime and then I am off to Asda in the afternoon...........don't I lead the most exciting life ever......lol!!! Most people would spend their holiday at the seaside and here's me going to the supermarket and decorating. Ah well I shan't have to pack or make sure I turn the electric off.........ha ha ha!!!

Right....I'm off for a cuppa with hubby before I go for a nice soak in my Sanctuary.

Have a fab weekend.

Sheila-x-

Sizzling Stockport

I had such a fab time in Stockport yesterday. The class went really well and the ladies were just so lovely. I came home completely shattered and have done nothing but sleep since I got back which is why I am a bit late blogging this.

The house where I did the class was in such an amazing spot with the most breathtaking views I have ever seen. And after seeing the view from the kitchen window I know that if I lived there I would spend my life washing up just to be able to look out of the window. On a sunny day it was awesome enough but I would love to see it in the snow.

That was my last engagement for a while. I am ready for a little break to have a play with some new techniques and stuff and to catch up with some urgent jobs in the house and garden.

The cards I have posted for you today are half of the article published in Craft Stamper magazine. A gift set using the TandaStamps Retro Women 1 set. I think these stamps are such fun for making girly cards. The set consists of a gift bag made from a manilla envelope, a card made to look like a hosiery shade chart and an altered coaster to pop into the gift bag.

I am about to do another set like like this as a workshop for the shop.

I'll post the other half of the article tomorrow as it is completely different and I think they look better posted as sets.

I am just putting away all of my kit from yesterday and wondering why it won't all fit back where it came from........getting meself in a right tiswas I am so the big clearout is going to have to be soon methinks to make some room in here.

Just want to say thanks so much to Rachel for the lovely message last night and also to let you know that I thought the work you did yesterday was fab.

She is a newbie at stamping and cardmaking but I tell you what..........she is a natural and has a wonderful colour sense.

Well it's been a bit hot and sticky here today with lots of nasty little black beetles flying around so I am off to soak in a cool bath in a minute and then I am going to laze about in the least amount of clothes I can decently get away with and watch TV all night for a change.

Having said that I will probably be bored after a couple of hours and be back in my room doing something......lol!!!

Bye for now

Sheila-x-

I Found My Lost Inchies

When I joined the Inchie Swap over on UK Stampers I made 5 of the little blighters and then had to put them away for a few days while I moved some new furniture into my workroom and then when I came to start them again.....they had disappeared and I couldn't find them anywhere.
Well guess what..........today I found them on the window ledge behind the very piece of furniture I had moved into the room......honestly I could have said some very bad words if it wasn't for the fact that I am a lady.
So that's them up there. I was doing 'The Five Senses' and this set is sight......can you see the teeny tiny eye peeking out of the door of the Taj Mahal? It nearly killed me cutting that out and the Statue of Liberty nearly ended up as the Venus de Milo.......minus an arm. The things you do in the name of art.
I've spent most of the day pottering about in between sleeping again......the iron tablets haven't kicked in yet so I must have got a bit more run down than I thought. Thanks Bex for the suggestion about iron injections. I am due at the docs soon so will ask about them.
So I've altered some nasty pastel dew drop paper and turned it a nice grungy terracotta and olive, made a few spotty watering cans for some gardening cards and put the finishing touches to a couple of golden wedding cards for delivery to a customer tomorrow. After that I didn't want to start on anything else really as I have to go to work tomorrow......or should I say later today.......and wanted to leave my desk tidy so I decided to have a sort out of my stamps. While I was sorting them out I also decided to count them which in hindsight was not the best idea I ever had due to the shock I got.
I thought that I maybe had around 600 or so stamps but just counting the stamps that are actually in my workroom I found that I have about 2,500 individual stamps and a rough estimate of stamps I have stored away would take the total to around 3,500. Besides these I also have 20 different alphabets. Poor old hubby nearly had to scrape me up off the floor.
I think then it is safe to say that I have a bit of a problem. I wonder if you can get counselling for rubber addiction......lol!!!
It's a good job that the majority of them are unmounted or I'd need an extension on the house to store them in.
Had some upsetting news this evening. One of our lovely elderly neighbours is in hospital after falling and breaking her hip. She and her husband live about five houses away from us so we hadn't heard or seen any ambulances or anything. Hubby found out when he popped up to have a chat this morning. Poor lady.......prayers for her recovery would be much appreciated.
Well I'm for the Land of Nod again if I want to be up for work.
Night night peeps
Sheila-x-

Doing things by the book.

Well the ladies at the class this morning were suitably shocked at my very pink card and we had a very enjoyable morning....it must have been good as one Belle ended up legless......ha ha ha ha ha......or very nearly anyway. We did manage to locate the missing limb and re-attach it.

Two very gorgeous deliveries today....one containing my two new Cricut cartridges...Alphalicious and Going Places. They both look fab and according to a notice on the side of the boxes, each is capable of producing 5940 variations......phew....best get making then eh?

The other delivery had us swooning and slobbering all over the place........the patterned Bazzill has arrived.....OMG it is sooooooo gorgeous you could eat it. We just had two of the patterns in every colour so we got the spotty one for funky cardmaking and a more elegant one that looks like fabric. The black and white one looks very shabby chic.....I just gotta have some.

We have absolutely nowhere to put it on the paper stands and I (very kindly I thought) offered to bring it home and look after it.......nice try but no go on that one....lol!!!

Had to have a bit of a clear up in the workroom before starting anything tonight as I couldn't even find the desk let alone work on it and by the time I had done didn't feel in the least like making cards so decided to do an altered notebook instead. I want to make a load for the local shop to sell at Christmas and for the couple of fairs I do so I thought I might try and do a few a week and build my stock up that way.

It was lovely to do something different and here it is

I decided to do a mans book for someone who is maybe into DIY and found some fab paper in my stash by HOTP which had wood effects and hinges on it. I used that to cover the book and then used various Paper Artsy images to overstamp the paper. I cut an extra hinge and glued that on and then applied the letters which were also from a sheet by HOTP.
The red gaffer tape is by 7 Gypsies and after attaching a piece of that I grunged the whole front with a Timber Brown Stazon ink pad.
The metal saw embellishment is by Crafty Bitz and this has been glued on using Glossy Accents which I use for just about everything. It seems to be very well stuck but I am going to make myself a similar book to test whether or not it will stay put before letting them go public as it were.
I really loved doing it. It made a nice change from doing a card.
I forgot to mention in last nights posting that the Belle stamp is from Creative Expressions.
Thanks for stopping by.
Sheila-x-

Peaceful day..............bliss!!!

Well that is DS gone for the week........and I thought he was only going for the weekend..........good communication son!!!

What with the breakfast he ate this morning though and the amount of baggage he took with him you could be forgiven for thinking that he was off to conquer the wilderness.

So DH got him off to the station then I shoo'ed DH off to work for the afternoon and had a couple of peaceful hours until DD got up to sort herself out for her night shift. Got us both fed and watered and then had another couple of peaceful hours after she'd gone so locked the door and went off for a nice Badedas bath..........that was over four hours ago and I am still waiting for things to happen as used to be promised in the ads. Mind you if the thing that happens means you have Knitting Pattern Man hanging around outside your patio window looking decidedly furtive......I think I will pass.................Anyone remember those ads?

The wind is starting to do my head in.....BIG TIME. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just the wind but outside my workroom there is a leanto which used to be my woodworking shelter. It has a corrugated plastic roof which rattles and bangs in the wind and sounds horrendous. It will be coming down later in the year when we have found space for all the things that are in there but until then I am being driven slowly insane.

Been doing more planning than actual producing today so all I have to share with you is a coaster I altered last night. Couldn't scan it in then as the varnish was still wet. Only very simple but I thought the paper went so well with the image. I am slowly getting into altered things but I do prefer doing cards I must admit as I doubt there would be much of an outlet here for the work I would produce.

Tomorrow is 'housewifey day' my least favourite day of the week but this week I am getting out of it as I have a rather exciting new project I am working on to deadline so DD has offered to attack the laundry on Monday as she starts her rest week then. DH has offered to do almost everything else so after nipping out in the morning to get some urgent supplies I shall be spending the day in my workroom.......yay!!!

Well hopefully that little lot has cured your insomnia.

Night night.........sleep tight!!!