Trial and error

Messrs Butterby and Wood (how much do you love those names??) would like to report the appearance of some kind of seismic activity at the foot of one of their letters, oh what to do, what to do??

The resident crafter in all her wisdom decided to remove some of the aforementioned activity, but wait! the letter is attached with Gesso to a piece of fabric ensuring the offending holes will remain for eternity, eek! a sure and certain task for the NPB (Net and Paint Brigade)

Crafter's Tip 2: Don't try to sand a photo AFTER you've sewn it on, unless of course you're aiming for the broken raggedy stitch look which is easily achievable when applying this technique.

A mixed bag

On Friday I recieved a surprise in my mailbox from Viv at http://hensteethart.blogspot.com/ we've done a bit of an 'old paper' exchange and Viv sent some me some 1930's letters and a beautiful brooch she made, thank you Viv! just fab. The letters have such a wonderful feel to them and the names conjure up all sorts of characters in my head.

I've never really done any kind of 'guy' themed work but there's something quite masculine about a couple of the letters and I feel inclined to have a go. I have some men ATC backing papers and a few stamps that I think will fit quite nicely.

I found these flowers on Saturday, of course I could have stamped and antiqued them myself but I couldn't resist the colours!

And get me, talk about tidy! I thought the picture of my lace jar on an earlier post made me look like a complete Mrs Mess and I decided it was time to colour coordinate my wares , funnily enough it really is easier to see what you've got when it's stored like this...lol... Of course the downside was that I had to eat the contents of the jars in order to re-use them (this is not the moment to ask how the fitness DVD and myself are faring..)

Yodell-eo!!!

And the answer is ' a marmot', clear as mud right?? FYI just a wee link to Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmot

CONGRATULATIONS to Melinda of http://melindasfabricfancies.blogspot.com/ your name was first out of the hat and you are the lucky winner of the German scrap.

On this ocassion I've decided to send a small bonus prize to Angelika of http://dragonquilts.blogspot.com/f for her throughly comprehensive answer! (I promise to send you something other than German scrap which I'm sure you have plenty of!)

Please me your addy's offline and I'll get those things in the post.

Thank you to everyone who took part! I always love doing these!

Easter screen take two!

I decided to make another screen for a friend of mine using slightly brighter colours even though I admit to sanding, painting and 'knocking' them back a bit!

I also tried a bit of self restraint with the deco's and I think it worked out well.

I bought another pile of netting today, I love the way it adds texture to the piece

AND I found a red tape for my labelling machine, in lieu of my new alphabet stamps which are still in England as PayPal has done something to my account, I know, I know probably put a stop to it for my own good...

Floral

A couple of weeks agoI posted about a 'floral ' competition being run by http://www.bladerubberstamps-blog.com/2009/03/competition-reminder.html I don't actually have many flower stamps (3) but thought I'd have a go anyway. When I'd finished and re-read the rules I realised my piece doesn't follow any of them ie.the central image should be floral and stamped, which mine is clearly not!

This is a photo of my grandfather Walter, I remember various floral bits of furniture but I'm not sure about the wallpaper. The only thing missing from the picture is a portrait of the Queen which hung on the wall next to the calendar. My grandfather always wore a hat, not exactly this one but something similar.

Needs must!

Is it a ?

My son bought this little fellow with his pocket money on the weekend. At the time I had a vague feeling I should've been pointing him in the direction of something else as with a slight push on the Edelweiss he whistles (to get your attention) then begins to sing, well yodel actually, again and again and again... I rescued the poor thing from under J in the early hours of the morning after being woken by it's frantic yodelling, J was none the wiser!! Last night I said to DH 'what's that animal J bought?' 'it's a ..... isn't it?' 'a what?' 'a.......' blank look, 'what's that in English then?' 'dunno, a ......?' 'is it?' and so on until I finally looked it up in my dictionary and well, was none the wiser. This morning I Googled it and have just had that special 'aha' moment.

So here's the thing, I've decided to clelebrate the start of Spring (it's snowing AGAIN!) by having a giveaway, 5 sheets of assorted German scrap including the bunnies from the screen, and various flowery/ heart shapes. To be in to win leave me a comment by midnight (my time) Friday 27th March, including your guess as to what this animal is by completing the following line, 'this is a..........' it's irrelevant if you guess correctly or not, it's the taking part that matters! (my tribute to mothering Sunday)

In retrospect

Yesterday I finished my Easter screen and well... funny how some things look ok until you photograph them and then you see something quite different before your eyes, I'm calling this my 'busy' piece. I mean how much stuff did I think I could stick on it??

The side pieces are using some new wrapping paper that has the most divine set of colours going through it

I found some old daisy lace and a paper flower, both of which I stamped with antique ink.

The local supermarket has some great Easter ribbons and I also found a very smooth neutral linen tape just perfect for stamping.

This morning the sun shone, it rained, then snowed and now it's cloudy and brightening, what on earth is going on??

Leaning Lens

I've tried several times over the past couple of weeks to capture the 'blues' that inspire me but have discovered when it's clear skies down here it's often hazy in the mountains and vice versa. Better weather is on the way and hopefully I'll get a chance to show you the lake and the mountains in all their glory before I turn grey waiting.

In the meantime I've decided to call this my 'leaning lens' phase as almost every picture I've taken is on an inexplicable slope to the right, apart from one where I was leaning against a tree (exhaustion from climbing large hill) I've no idea why. The leaning path down...

The leaning houses of Lake Zürich with a small hill in the background, the good stuff is shy and bashful and remains hidden for yet another day.

My son, my stapler, my serviettes, why???? do you know how hard it is to get a staple out of a paper napkin, sigh...

Recycling

I managed to soak the label off an old cotton reel (and stick it back together!) to add to the cover

I picked up these doilies a while ago and haven't really known what to do with them, I've tried unsucessfully to add them to various projects then last week I had a bit of a ' lightbulb' moment and cut the pattern out duuuhhh...

Fancy work in progress, accessories to follow, perhaps a nice pair of black embossed heels??

Little book

Finally managed to get the sewing book together, it ended up with a lot more black in it than planned, I found some cool ribbons and beads to decorate it with

Nathalie this page is for you!

Old button packets make great backing scraps

What a girl wants...

Mrs G has her eye of something a little bit fancy...

Speaking of wants there's a fabulous Online Challenge running over at http://www.bladerubberstamps-blog.com/2009/03/competition-reminder.html Create a piece of 'floral' themed work using stamps as the central focus (any will do, they don't have to be from this shop) any format ATC, Tag, card etc, post your pic online by the end of March and be in to win stamps from their own range. The ones below are just some of the postal stamps I've bought from them while in London, they have a great selection and it's a fab Spring competition to enter. It's open world wide and I think we can russle up something, what do you reckon??

Z'utter excitement

Muriel and I had a bit of an Alice and Camilla session today complete with a wee demonstration of the BIA, so totally the right person to show this to!! lots of oooo-ing and aaaahh-ing and will you look at that-ing (no idea why I took the pic of our mess directly into the light, oops)

I managed to get the backing papers stuck down, Muriel bought me a sheet of fabulous wrapping paper on her way over, which I used in the side panels

Time was rather short so Muriel just placed the elements in the general direction, I'll be checking later to see if it's been finished, as for mine, as I said yesterday 'I'm on it...'

And why doesn't she have a Blog??