Shopping

I spent yesterday and today visiting with my Dad. It was great to catch up with all my family, I haven't been up to see them since a few weeks before my Scotland trip so it was long overdue. My Dad lives near a huge borders store and a Paperchase, I spent way more than I should have. It's probably a good thing that I don't go to visit more often, lol!

Here are my Borders purchases.

I've seen this magazine talked about on some of the other blogs I read but I've never found anywhere to buy it here so just had to give it a try. I have to say I adore the dress on the front and the article about Lindsay Mason the young designer of this was a lovely read, but aside from that I didn't really find much to tickle my fancy so I was a little disappointed.

Somerset studio I have bought before and have really enjoyed the other issues I've invested in, so far I have had time to have a look through this issue yet but I'm hoping that it will be more of the same.

And my Paperchase purchases....

This first journal has beautiful brown paper pages which I just couldn't resist. If I can bring myself to actually use it I think I will have a go at using it as a mixed media art journal. Once I am caught up on all my swap commitments and have more time to do some things for myself I hope to get back to do some painting and papercraft work.
This second journal had such a pretty cover I couldn't resist and it's filled with lovely slightly glossy blank pages so I'm planning on using this as a sketchbook, my drawing skills are pretty poor and I would like to practise some more. I also bought this pack of cute Kitty tissues from paperchase just because and some cute heart and flower paperclips which I thought could be used for embellishments both in stitch and paperwork. My bargain purchase of the day were a pack of 12 of these cute little bears, I can't figure out of they are perhaps knitted or crocheted, but they were only £1 so I just had to have them.Finally I bought a pack of paint brushes, these are really for kids crafts but there was such a great assortment of types and sizes and some sponge brushes I knew I'd find some use for them and I just loved the colours, even if I don't use them ever I think I will have to find a cute pot to put them in as I think they will look great on my work table just as a decoration.

Fool

Wow I just can't believe how fast this year is flying and how little time I seem to have at the moment for blogging and creating, no sooner do I feel like I am back in the creative swing than several days can fly by without me making a thing.

The weather here has gotten a bit better the last couple of weeks so we have spent more time out and about in the sunshine which I guess is one of the reasons time is flying so much. This weekend just gone we went camping to Swanage and the weekend before that we went into London to watch some of the Tour de France racing (pictures on Mark's blog).

I have still been plugging away at my big catch up though not as fast as I would like and here is a picture of one of the cards I made for an Artsnthemail April Fool swap.

I used a copyright free image I found on the net and painted my fool, then added some rubber stamped words. I thought that looked a little plain so I finished off with lots of french knots in variegated thread.

Collage

I can't believe it the sun is shining here today. We've had so many days of rain and greyness I'd almost forgotten what the sun looked like. The weathermen are telling us not to get too used to it though as they are predicting more rain for Monday, this is supposed to be summer?

I'm not sure I will get much creating done this weekend as I plan to go out and enjoy the fine weather while I can, but in the meantime here are a couple of postcards I finished off this morning for the Artsnthemail Something Beginning with C Swap. C is for Collage.

Collage in Blue # 1

Collage in Blue # 2

Collage in blue # 3

Have a great weekend everyone!

Spring

Well I hope you are all awake out there in blogland, it seems that my picture of Pip in the last post left a few feeling like they needed a nap, lol! Honestly that cat can sleep anywhere I don't know how he does it.

My postcard catch up is continuing apace. Here is my latest offering for the Artsnthemail Spring swap (I'm only a few months behind, sigh!) I decided to create a field full of lots of spring flowers.

I had a blast making these cards (five in all), working with all those tiny scraps of colour was just fun, fun, fun!

Getting Creative again

Finally I seem to have found my creative urge again. Yesterday afternoon I sat down and started making postcards and now it seems like I just can't stop. Here are some cards I made for three birthday girls at FAF.

Sorry the pics aren't great but they were all too lumpy to fit under the scanner. I also have 12 more cards in progress, all at various stages, waiting to be embellished, stitched or have backing added to them so hopefully there will be plenty of made things to share later this week.

Also I just had to share this cute picture of one of my cat's Pip. I have started to pile a whole bunch of things on my desk which need sorting to help me get the spare room straight. pip decided that he would make this pile of stuff his bed. Next to the pile was the cute bunny I bought from Vi a while back and Pip decided it would be the perfect thing for a cuddle.

Spirit Doll

I'm feeling on top of the world today. I have to admit that I think since getting back from my vacation and being hit by a virus straight after I've been suffering from a bout of depression (I've been suffering with this horrible life stopper since Mum died). I'm still so far behind with my swap commitments, my house is a mess and work has been stressful all this although not really hugely important in the scheme of things has just felt a bit overwhelming.

Well yesterday Mark and I had a total chill out day. We did something we haven't done since university, stay in bed until mid afternoon, chatting and watching movies. I probably shouldn't admit what a total slob I am but we didn't actually bother getting up until nearly 4pm!I feel like a naught teenager again indulging in some wasted time.

I think the recharge did me good though as I'm feeling totally chilled and in high spirits today. Speaking of spirits I thought I'd share some pictures with you of my doll from the second beaded RR that I have been participating in. She came home to me last week and I adore her. Here is the post which shows what she looked like when she left me. Here she is in all her finished glory.

As you can see some of her sides are totally covered in beads and others are less beaded. I had first thought that I would fill in all the blanks but actually I have come to love her just as she is. I think the different density of beading one each side just makes her even more interesting.

Today I am planning on making some more inroads in clearing out the spare room so that I can finish moving all my craft stuff in and hopefully I will find some time to make a few postcards too I really need to get back into the creative habit to catch up on all that I am behind in.

I'm back

Mark and I had a fab time in Scotland, but I have been away from my blog longer than planned as I managed to pick up a yucky stomach bug when we got back which pretty much had me knocked out for most of last week. I'm just now getting back to normal.

I haven't had the energy to do anything creative but I'm starting to feel the urge again now so I hope to have lots to share again soon.

In the meantime if anyone would like to see some pictures of the places and things that we saw while on holiday check out Mark's blog here. I love the panorama with our cottage in, be sure to click on the picture to get a larger image.

I'm off to check out what has been happening in blogland while I've been away .......

More Mermaids

Well this is going to be my last post for a wee while as I am off on holiday to Scotland for the week. If anyone needs me I'll be here, lol!

Before I go I just have to post the last installment of the mermaid doll round robin. The final doll I had to work on was Barbara's. It was a real challenge due to the scattered beading that had already been done on the body.
I decided to keep it simple and added some fish and flower beads to finish her off. She's on her way back home to Barbara now and I'm sure she will be loved.

I was excited to get my own doll back this week too. I don't know if you can remember but this is what she looked like when she left me.

And here she is now complete with a beautiful bottle in one had and the catch of the day in the other! She also has a great new face which I think gives her a whole different character.

I absolutely love her and am very grateful to the talented ladies who where in the robin with me for creating such a beautiful little mermaid. Well I still have some packing to do so I'd best get on with it as we will be leaving in a few hours. See you in a week!

Oh yes a quick PS. A few people have left comments or emailed asking where I got the sequins I used on Sirena. Here is a link to Cartwrights a great store for sequins!

Another Mermaid

Ok now I am probably starting to bore you with all this beading..... but I shall forge on regardless. As I am behind with everything at the moment I had a total of three lovely mermaids staying with me. Sirena from yesterday is now on the next leg of her journey so it was time to tackle the next beauty belonging to Noel today.
Ok I am going to shock you all now by saying that the orange beading is not mine! This is how she came to me. I just love the way the other ladies have beaded her front so I decided again to tackle something on the back. Before starting on the back though I added a silver bead to each strand of her hair, I think you can just about pick this up in the pictures. My contribution this time was again on the doll's tail. Granted my colour choices this time are not so zingy as for Sirena but I tried to concentrate more on texture than colour this time.
Here is a closeup. I really had trouble picking out my colours so I decided to divide the area up into three and tried to progress the colours across the tail, pink moving into purple then blue. I can't really think how to explain what I mean but I got the effect I wanted anyway, maybe the blues could have done with being a bit darker but she is done now. I used lots of different sizes and shapes of beads, stacked some up and stitched some down tightly to create bunching etc to try and add some texture. I don't think the picture really shows the effect too well.

I have one more doll to work on and then I will have fulfilled all my commitment in both of the beaded doll RR's that I signed up for. The last one is going to be the hardest because the beading that has been done so far is quite scattered so I have no defined area to work but I'm hoping to get her done in the next couple of days. As these robins are drawing to a close I'm getting excited to see what my dolls will look like when they get home!

Sirena

As promised here are a few pictures of the little mermaid doll that I have been working on as part of the beaded doll round robin I signed up for.

This lovely doll form was made by Sharon and she called her Sirena. Here is the work that has been done on her front so far. There are still two more rounds to this robin before the doll will be complete. I decided to leave her front as is and add some detail to the back.

I bet you can't guess which bit I added, lol!

Ok so here is a close up of all the lovely orangeness that I added. I started with some sequins to echo the sequin work that another participant had already added to her front. I than added a mixture of seed and bugle beads to complete her tail. The final touch was to add a couple of fishy friends. I hope Sharon likes my contribution. I think she is going to have a beautiful doll once the final two rounds are complete.

Beading

I am still plodding along trying to catch up with everything that I got behind with while Dad was ill. It seems it only takes a few weeks to get behind but five times as long to try and get back on course and catch up, sigh! I will get there and I can only say a continued thanks for the patience that everyone is showing while I make such slow progress on catching up.

I have been beading like mad these last couple of days trying to get back straight with my doll round robins. I just finished work on Edna's doll which is the last in the spirit doll round robin that I have been in. Edna's theme was earth.
Here is the finished doll. I had three sections on the front to fill to complete the doll. Mine are the bottom two, once section completed with wooden beads and the other stone chip beads which I hope add some earthy textures. The other section I did was the one above the stone chips which I filled with a mixture of seed and glass beads. The doll is now on it's way back to Edna. I hope she likes it and I am looking forward to the safe return of my doll in this RR soon.

I am part way through beading one of the little mermaids that I have with me for the other RR, so hopefully I will have some pictures of that one to share in the next couple of days too.

Folk Festival revisited

The weather was slightly better than yesterday with a few scattered showers rather than a full on downpour all day. So we spent plenty of time hanging out at the folk festival. Here are a few of the pictures I took today.

A colourfully costumed dancer taking a few moments to warm up with come coffee.

Some wonderful waistcoats that reminded me of patchwork.

Some dancers in action.

Mondays is always street fair day. There is a craft tent and a music tent set up all weekend, but each Monday more vendors arrive for a street fair. There was a wonderful array of clothing, food, jewellery and accessories on display. Felted items seemed to be really popular this year. I managed to resist most of the temptations but I did treat myself to a new coin purse made from waste silk with a lovely orange felt flower. The colours are much more vibrant than shows here.

Fun with Inchies

Well as today was a bit of a wash out I have been having fun making inchies for a swap I'm in. I had four sets of nine to take. Here are my effortsAqua

Blue

BurgundyOrange and pink

The colours aren't showing up too great as it's been such an overcast day it was difficult to find decent light to take the pictures in, but you get the idea.

Sex, Lies and Embroidery

Today I had hoped to spend mostly hanging out soaking up the atmosphere of the folk festival but sadly the weather had other ideas. It's been raining all day. We did take a walk into town and there were still a few hardy dancers battling the rain but it just wasn't the same as yesterday.

Instead we spent some time wandering round the shops. I'm not usually an impulse buyer but we were in the book store and for the first time ever I bought a book on a total whim. I didn't even read the blurb on the back to find out what it was all about!

The tag line at the top reads 'A Powerful tale of sex, lies and embroidery' Who could resist, lol! It turns out to be an historical novel about the bishop who commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry. Anyone read it? I guess only time will tell whether it's as exciting as the tag leads you to believe.

New Zine

I just heard that some of my talented artistic cyber-friends are just about to publish a new quarterly on-line zine. Check it out here.

Sue, Terri, Mags , Carol and Lynda create so many fantastic things that I've no doubt this zine will be great so what are you waiting for go subscribe to Fibre and Stitch now!

Chippenham Folk Festival

Spring bank holiday means its time for the folk festival in my home town of Chippenham. There is always plenty going on and a lovely atmosphere in the town. The weather forecast for the weekend isn't great but this morning was bright so we went and sat in the park and watched some of the folk dancers and morris men in action.
The colours and costumes are just great and it's wonderful to hear all of the folk music being played. There are plenty of displays to see from dancing to story telling. I'm really hoping that the weathermen have it wrong and it stays dry for the celebrations. I have more time tomorrow so would really love to go hang out for the whole day taking it all in but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Faces

I can't believe it's been a week since I posted, how time is flying these days! Mark and I had a fabulous weekend camping in sunny Swanage and I'm ready to get sewing again.


Following on from my 'use only scraps' self challenge here is a postcard I made for a faces themed challenge. I was still in orange and blue mode when I made this at the end of last week. I'm ashamed to admit that the challenge was back in January but we had one last minute swapper who I agree to exchange with. I received her beautiful card and when I checked back through my records I came to realise that I hadn't made one in return. Here is my effort, better late than never I hope!
Hope to have a lot more to share later in the week I seem to have a tonne of things half finished at the moment!

Self challenge and Orange and Blue

Well as I've already mentioned, just a few time, I'm way behind with my swap commitments at the moment and have a tonne of postcards to make. I was sitting looking at the long list with despair the other day wondering just where I'm going to find the energy to catch up again. I seem to have been doing nothing else but catching up this last couple of years and no sooner do I get back on track than something else cropped up.

Anyhow I decided I needed to set myself a little challenge to get through all this postcard making. Since starting with postcards and ATC's I've been saving every tiny little off cut of fabric going, and have now amassed quite a collection so I'm challenging myself to use only these scraps for the next few weeks while I work doggedly on catching up. We'll see how well I get on :)

Ok so the first set I've been working on are for a Blue and Orange themed swap. Using only some scraps from my box here's what I came up with.

Study in Orange and Blue #1

Study in Orange and Blue #2

Orange and Blue Abstract

It certainly was fun piecing together all these little strips and squares. I'm looking forward to seeing how my self challenge progresses with the next few swaps. I think it will be interesting to see if I can make the sets different enough or if I will always end up using similar basic principles for putting the cards together due to the nature of the pieces of fabric that I am restricting myself to.

Frustration

I have a day off work today and thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take some pics of the beadwork that I have been doing this last week. But arrrgghhh my camera is out of charge and I can't find the plug to charge it. I've looked everywhere I just don't understand, it's only ever in one place and now it seems to have disappeared, it will drive me nuts until I find it.

Instead I will share a picture of a little cross stitch I did a few years back as this I can fit under the scanner :) I have been having a really good sort out trying to turn our spare bedroom into my craft haven and have been coming across many forgotten treasures. I'm thinking about adding a funky fabric border to this little guy to make a mini wall hanging for the new room.
I'm so excited that DH has agreed to let me take over the room, but I have had to make a few compromises, I wanted to paint the room white, but it's not long been decorated so DH doesn't see the point in doing it again. I also wanted to get some extra plug sockets in the room but I think this will be a long time coming so I'll have to make do with some extension plugs for now. I don't think the room is going to be done anytime soon as I have so much stuff to sort out but it will be great to have my own space when I eventually get finished.

Beading

Yesterday I got busy beading. As you know all of my family drama has meant that I have slipped behind with my swap commitments. I am now seriously holding up the beaded doll RRs that I'm in so I thought it was about time I did something about it.

I sat and beaded my part of two dolls yesterday, yes it was a mamouth effort and I have a stiff back today to prove how long I sat in the same position, lol! Sadly I didn't manage to get any pictures of the work I've done before we lost the light and images with the flash just don't work on these dolls as there are too many sparkly bits.

As I don't like to post too often without pictures I thought I'd share some closeups of the faces of the dolls that I have with me at the moment. I took these pics before I started working on the dolls myself.
As you can see I've a lovely variety of dolls vacationing with me at the moment. I have really enjoyed being part of these round robins but I think it will be a while before I join another. My beading skills are just poor compared to the other ladies who have been working in these robins so it's just highlighted that I need a lot more practised at this before I dare to do anything like it again.

Circles

Something finished at last. I don't know if it's just me but since I got back my creative streak this last week it seems to be taking me twice as long to finish anything than it did before. Maybe it's just my imagination, maybe I'm just putting extra pressure on myself because I have a long list of postcard swaps to catch up on, or maybe I've just been picking designs that take longer to stitch out who knows. Anyway I'm sure I'll get there in the end.

Sticking with the bright colour theme that I've had this week here is one of the cards I made for the circles swap over on BQLPC.
I had 7 of these to make. It took a while to cut out all the circles but what a great way to use some of those tiny scraps that I've been saving. I used to be a fabric hoarder before keeping off cuts 4 inches or bigger, what I used to think was the smallest useable size, lol! Since I found postcards even the tiniest quarter inch offcut gets saved!