Happy New Year

Best wishes to each and everyone...

Configuration book box

Started a new configuration box on Sunday. The inspiration came from a shoe found in a stocking. Originally there was foam insude it to hold rings. Well as I do not have many rings started to alter it.

Following after the Yuletide curiosity box , started to also work on a book for the base. Zoom in you'll see the title.

Still this is a work in progress and I am playing with what goes into the smaller niches.

Finishing Off

Spent time this afternoon finishing off the seasonal configuration box. A small shopping trip to Petersfield came up with extra supplies.

So the base is a book decorated to be more festive.

Crafty Day with Lynn

While hubby us back to work, sporting his version if my cold, I am still at home.
Yesterday my good friend Lynn came for lunch and some crafting.

I had been asked before about doing a day school on the configuration boxes with out the costs.... So I already had collected a few gift boxes from Xmas , small trees from a 99p shop plus a few small decorations. Thus we where off. What could we make? What would we need to do different ?

After some laughter, lots of stories and a pit stop for a cream cheese & salmon quiche.... Here is where re reached.

Mine, the more box shaped one needs a stand and a few more bits for the cubby holes. Lynn had a great idea of using a book, so now looking to finish a stand and make the book look like a copy of "A Yuletide Carol "....

The Xmas Flood

We woke this morning to hammering rain. By 10am, the ditch between us and the farmers field reached the top !!!!

Suddenly, we where outside in wet weather gear filling sand bags to stop water entering the house.
The neighbours arrived to help with clearing the ditch out as we all had flood problems.

While the guys where in the field, I was moving sand bags about, creating new channels for the water and generally dealing with the impact.

So now we have just sat down for a bacon butty . Roast dinner will now be later while we keep a check on the weather.

Seasonal Greetings 2012

Merry seasonal greetings to you all. Have a wonderful time.

Goodbye Ball ..

Today we had to take our light Sussex hen Ball to the vets. She had been unwell for a while but Sunday she stopped moving or eating.
Brought her into the house to stop the other hens climbing over her. This did not help.... She slept all turning every now and then.

With nothing to help her, the vet helped her sleep for always.

Blessings for little Ball.

Busy creative week

Two more ornaments finished this week. These are 8 and 9. The Noel is covered in red beads.

 

Introducing Agent Pepper .. The last few mornings she has excaped the hen run. Yesterday she decides I was not moving quick enough came into the kitchen to find out when breakfast was being served !!



Another zentangle from my work note book. Really loving the wave pattern.

Catch Up

Spent today creating two different pickles. First a couple of jars of Piccalli which have NO green veg. These are for my Dad who is can not have green foods as they mess with his medicine. I also pickled most of our chilli crop. The jars look amazing but just need their labels now.

Mean while ; here are no. 6 and 7 ! I am almost done on number 8

I know - short and sweet this week..

More Updates

Have completed the 5th ornie on the list and number 6 is on the way !

 

Found time to start thinking about making yuletide gifts. Mostly we were cleaning out the gargage ready for the new roof.

Crafty Week

So during the week I have completed stitched Ornie 3 & 4...

On pinterest had seen a project for menu board. So yesterday made my first version. The tags each hold a meal and you peg them to the days... We so often have a plan on the Monday but then forget to defrost part and we end up buying more food or getting take out.

Card Making

Saturday afternoon looked at how to use the Sizzix ornament for cards again. Had a dig through my ribbon drawer and found a couple if interesting pieces. Mixed with a torn book page base which had edges ditressed with ink. The ornament is cut from red felt.

Both ribbons worked well. I see a few more of these being created ...

Hollywood at the V&A

 Friday headed into town to the V&A to attend the preview day of the Hollywood Costume exhibition with my Aunt. WOW ... an amazing one. It took us 3.5 hrs to walk the four halls. We loved watching the interviews, looking at the costumes and remembering the films.

 

We were both interested to see how badly damaged Charlie Chaplin's clothing are.

But the star was Judy's whole costume from "The Wizard of OZ" ... OH my !!!

These are reproductions but they did have the originals in a box ...

At the end , other than needing a sit down and drink, we both agreed they should have had cinema set up as we were both ready to watch a film or three..

Two down , ten new designs to stitch. Although sixteen altogether planned !

A catch up

 

Tuesday evening was the Liss In StitcheS AGM for 2012 .. Can you believe that the group has been running for 5 years now !!! WOW ... Five years without having to deal with the Embroiderers Guild Head Office and 5 years of not paying them fees for which they do nothing !!!

OK ... rant over ... But I did come away from the evening as the new Programme Secretary. Spent Wednesday going over all the paper work I had been given, sorting though files and generally getting up to speed. See more about the evening at the club Blog Site... http://lissinstitches.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Had a little time in my room thinking about how I could use the Sizzix to create cards this year. So a little felt and a couple of cards later had these ... :( Not very good ... There must be a fun way to use these.

 

TODAY has been so much more creative. First I have finished the first of my stitched ornaments for 2012. It has come out real nice.

 I then had time to go play in my room with an technique which Tammy T showed on her blog. First creating my version of her card, then trying my own with a pear stamp. I think these have both come out really nice. I would be very happy to send a version of the pear card to my friends.

 Perhaps I could try a version of this with the ornament cutters to make Yule cards !?!??!

Jam Making

 Yes this morning was spent making Pear Jam. Not made this flavour before. Come out quite well I think. Well here it is bubbling away.

I always go for the winkle test so a number of plates get put into the fridge are the mixture starts to cook. Apart from home grown pears, the other contents was a bag of jam sugar , juice from 3 lemons and juice from one orange. 

 Here is the final outcome. Four good 1lb jars and a baby one. Rescued the baby one from a set we had for Yule a few years ago. Some of the contents were over but the jars look like they could be handy.

And finally, here is a halloween display from one of the stores in Petersfield. |This looks SO much better in the dark when the window lights are on. BUT I tried to get a picture on Saturday, well I did take a picture and even showed my friend Caroline as we walked into the resturant. By the time we had driven home the photo was GONE !!!!  When did I step into the twilight zone !

Art on a Monday

So as we have a week off work, there may be a few extra posts this week !! So Sunday was spent sorting out my Art room. Quick look before it starts to look like a bomb has hit it again :)

 

 I also started to stitch this years Yuletide Ornaments. This is the first of the bunch. As normal I have been selecting them from the JCS annual magazine.

While today had time in the afternoon to watch a few more episodes of the Gilmore Girls (Just reached the end of series 2 for the Xth time) while working in my room.  Had a box which originally held nine small jars of Xmas goodies. With a little work with a craft knife this became a configuration box.

 Decorating with pretty papers and started to think about contents. The main item, shown below , is a watch given as a birthday gift. The wrap said this was to be used in a piece of art. Well its a real clock with a great image of a bird in the centre. So cool .

 Well it jst had to hang not sure if I will be placing anything below it but I know the completed box will stand on my art table so I can see that time :) Right now I have just started to think about what else will be going into the alcoves and thinking about the feet. It has to have feet. 

Cotton reel feet feel good right now, but I do have some nice LARGE purple beads which might work too. The light bulb is a jar and the allow you to add items inside it ! Really think about a teddy maybe, would have to be VERY small.Perhaps more birds to go with the clock !?!? Not sure ... watch this space !

Art Weekend ~ Alter box with Kraft Paper

Yesterday my two friends came round for a day of creating an altered box. We were starting with cigar or cake boxes... but generally these were wooden boxes. After clearing and covering the dining room table we were off. The idea originated from the July 2012 edition of Craft Stamper. 

 

Loads of gesso covered the boxes and give plain background to work on.

 Here my box is drying while I wait to sand the edges to create a distress look  and add a touch of vintage photo distress ink to age the box on the edges.

 Now we could begin to tear strips of Kraft paper (Tim Holtz pad) to fit the sides before embossing them, rubbing over detress ink (walnut) and then adding just a little treasure gold. The kraft paper was mounted on to old book pages the edges peeking out. All the edges were rubbed with walnut ink before mounting on the side of the box.

Next is was time to consider the lid. Three layers were stacked, stitched together and then stamps added. The words in the lower left say "Alter your life".. We could now take some more Kraft paper to create tatty floral flowers. Dig into the boxes to find different object to decorate the lid. 

 Now before glueing the lid decoration completely down, we all wanted to add feet. Having wood boxes meant we could use pin tacks or nails ... Caroline's box ended up with skull feet. So cool ! A little surpise as you look round the box.

 Caroline and Lynn's  finished boxes.

 My finished box . The butterfly frame sits on a layer of lace. It is inspiring me to consider creating a fabric book on Butterflies to live in the box.

 At the end of the day - here are our three boxes all together.