A Fantastic 'Aussie' Post Day!

I received two parcels from 'the land of down under' this morning,

one was a matchbox swap and the other a OWOH prize.

I'll start with the matchbox

This beautiful box was made by Lynne from Queensland

for the Flickr Matchbox Monthly Group

where the March theme was 'Birds'.

I love the funky, retro feel to the box.  The bird on the branch

feels like it's made from wood and the little nest is gorgeous.

Even the draw pull is another chunky bird!

Here's what was inside

Lynne had crammed the box full of wonderful goodies.

I love all the different birdy embellishments, the large buttons,

the music ribbon, the green glass butterfly - and everything else too!

I don't think Lynne has a blog but if I discover she has

I'll add a link here.

Many thanks Lynne!!

I was over the moon with my first parcel, but then I opened the second one!

It was from Linda Baldock of NSW who I know does have a blog as I'm one

of her many followers!

Eclectic Visions of An Altered Journey

I was lucky enough to win one of Linda's One World One Heart Prizes

It's a 6" x 8" altered canvas which Linda calls

'Baby Night Owl'

On her blog post Linda wrote

"Originally I was going to make him as a wearable necklace but decided I wanted to add textures that could be touched and explored."

Well, I've touched and explored all that fantastic detail -

I love his chain mail chest and big beautiful beady eyes!

Fear not Linda, I'll take very good care of the

Baby Night Owl x

As Linda was a little late in sending me her prize

she "added a little sorry gifty to make up for the delay"

I think I would have waited a year for the prize without

the need of an apology yet alone another gift - well another

two gifts to be precise!

Firstly, a beautiful butterfly

It looks to me as if the butterfly is wooden with a UTEE base,

then the over wings have been covered with fusible film.

It really is quite stunning.

I've been scouring Linda's blog and found this which

shows part of the making process.

My photo really doesn't do it justice as the wings

actually lift away from the base, but I was afraid they'd break so

kept them flat. 

The second extra gift Linda enclosed was one of her

Art Doll Kits!

Did Linda know art dolls are one of my most favourite things!

I was just a little bit pleased with this gift!!!!!

The kit contains items to make one full sized and

one petite sized doll.

Thank you Linda, you have no idea how pleased I am

(well, if you've read this post, you may have a bit of an inkling!)

As I said, a fantastic post day!

Feminine and Masculine Cards

A few weeks ago I made a Father's Day card following the 'Design Details'

technique in Tim Holtz' book Compendium of Curiosities.

My blog post for the masculine card is here.

With Mother's Day coming up I decided to use the same technique

to make a feminine card.

Of course it had to be pretty in pink!

Again I used various scraps of paper and some pink brads,

pink wire and lilac embroidery thread.

The stamp is the gorgeous 'Moth Fab' by Stampotique.

She is stamped onto white card, cut out

and attached to the background with 3D pads.

Thanks for looking and I hope the sun shines on you

this weekend whatever you're doing xx

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday, Week 94

Another Wednesday, another workdesk!

Well, it's actually the same desk as last week but today it has on it -

A card I've just started, which will become a feminine version

of the masculine one I created using the last technique in the Tim Holtz book 'Compendium of Curiosities'.

Also on the desk is another pair of jeans which when I tried on

this morning had a rather unattractive hole in an un-mentionable place!

They'll be added to my fabric stash I think.

Finally, on the middle of the desk is what I call

my poor man's configuration box!

When I saw this in a charity shop last week for only £2

I really couldn't pass it by could I?

It's new and from Ikea and called a 'Knick Knack Shelf'.

I don't know how much it would have cost from Ikea as they're

usually very reasonable, but some things you just have to buy!

All the parts are fixed so don't move and I haven't decided yet

whether to decorate it and place small decorative items in each hole, or

just to use it as little shelving unit - the Distress Ink pads do fit,

although with a little bit of over-hang.

On my desk last Wednesday was a domino I'd just started to alter,

it looked like this. 

I did prise the wooden stick off so I could position it higher to make a neck, but in doing so, it broke in half - doh!

However, a little more glue and it was almost as good as before!

I've finished the doll, but won't post the finished photos as the swap doesn't close until the end of next month.

I'm useless at holding back photos though, so here's a little peek at the back of the finished doll!

I'll be linking this post up to Julia's blog

Stamping Ground

where there are well over one hundred other blogs

who'll have done the same!

Happy Snooping x

Kingfisher Fabric Collage

Last week while Charity Shop shopping I found a small framed woven

picture of a Kingfisher which I decided to rescue and dress up a bit!

Here's what it looked like when taken out of the frame.

The information label was on the back of the mountboard.

(I left the wooden frame and glass in the shop)

I then had fun trawling through my stash to find various pieces

of lace, fabric and fibres to complement the picture.

I thought these fibres made a good nest!

The buttons at the top are mother of pearl and the one on the left

had the perfect blue colouring for the piece.

.... and finally a peek at the back!

Thanks for looking -  and can't you tell Spring is finally here with all the

lovely bird song - unfortunately no kingfishers near where I live (too urban!), but plenty of pigeons, magpies, blackbirds, sparrows and blue tits.

Edit:  Thanks to Viv for providing a link to the website of
the manufacturer of the Kingfisher woven picture
 Cash's

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday, Week 93

I'm getting later and later in showing what's on my workdesk -

at least it is still Wednesday, albeit evening now!

Jeans - mine, but with the leg all cut up!

They were my old faithfuls, but unfortunately I had worn them out

(I won't share whereabouts!)

I've been cutting circle shapes from them to make some boobs -

yes, boobs!  If you're intrigued have a look at my earlier post here.

I've been laughing at the first few comments I received.

What else is on my desk?

Here's a close up look.

Some buttons I bought today from the Oxfam shop.

Look at the size of the two at the bottom,

they must be the biggest buttons I've ever seen!

I shall enjoy sorting them all into colours and placing with others

in my button box  (oh yes, little things, please little minds -

mine must be tiny - lol)

What else is on the desk?

Admittedly it doesn't look much now, but it will transform

into an altered domino art doll (yes, really).

The wooden part is from a little bottle of lavender essence

and I'm kicking myself for not glueing it higher up to make a neck!

I may try to prise it off and re-attach.

It will be for a Spring Domino swap on Flickr which closes

on 30th April so there's still plenty of time to sign up

if you're interested in joining.

That's about it really - if you looked at my desk last week, you'd

have seen a canvas I'd started with some of my doodling from the

OWOH event - well, it's finished now and if you're interested you can

see it here.

I'm linking this up to over 150 other desks on Julia's blog

Stamping Ground

and this week I'm going to try to get around to looking

at as many others desk as I can!

Thanks for looking at mine!

I've Made A Boob!

Well to be precise, I've made 16 boobs in total

because once I started I couldn't stop!

Why you may ask? 

There's a lovely lady from Norway called

Nina Lise or to use her blog name

Mrs Moen.

She has another blog dedicated to her project about breast cancer

whereby she invites us simply to

Make a Boob

The aim is to make 1000 boobs by the end of May.

Plain boobs will be used in workshops and decorated

 by people with breast cancer.

Decorated ones will be used as inspiration at workshops and stitched into Make a Boob quilt(s) which will eventually be donated. 

All the details are on the

 Make a Boob

 blog together with specific and easy to follow

instructions on how to make them. 

I really enjoyed making these and decided to stick to

a (patriotic!) red white and blue colour scheme. 

All the blue fabric is cut from a pair of my old jeans

(old, but washed and ironed of course!)

For the two above I stamped images (of the house and dress form)

onto the fabric using Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Creative Layers Foam Stamps.  I cut the images out and machine stitched them onto

the background circle of fabric.

For these two, I cut the denim fabric using Tim Holtz

Alterations dies (Tattered Florals and Caged Bird).

The red fabric was quite flimsy and moved around while I was

sewing it, so the circles are a little mis-shapen

(well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

If you fancy making a few yourself,

hop over to the Make a Boob blog

 really all you need is a CD (to cut around)

some fabric and wadding

  all the instructions can be found

here.

It's fun, addictive and for a great cause too!

Thanks for looking!

Finished Canvas - My Homage to OWOH!

On yesterday's WOYWW post, I showed a canvas I was working on

 - well here it is in it's finished state.

During the 'One World One Heart' event I visited over 800 blogs and sometimes blogs were very slow to open - I therefore tended to scribble and doodle on a large piece of scrap paper I had on my desk whilst waiting for the sites to load.  I also used to scribble down the number on the list I was up to and various other bits of nonsense.  It occured to me that this sheet of scribble would make a great background for something or other. (I don't know about 'great', but you know what I mean!!)

Here's the scribbled sheet of paper glued onto the canvas with

 Liquitex matte medium!

 I used water soluble crayons to add the first layer of colour.

Once dry, I added some more

I slapped on some white acrylic paint and brayered it into the background



Once I decided to add a fabric heart, I introduced some of the same colours around the edge of the canvas

Once it was all dry I stitched the heart onto the centre of the canvas with three strands of embroidery thread (it was quite tough to do)



I stamped a few random images onto tissue paper and stuck them onto the canvas with more of the Liquitex medium.

There are two buttons on there somewhere!

The blue flower and green stems in the right bottom hand corner is some tissue paper that one of my OWOH gifts came wrapped in - so how appropriate it should go on too!

Unintentionally then, this canvas has become my

homage to the One World One Heart event!

Mad about cats - two birthday cards!

This is our neighbour's cat who loves to come into our house

 and make herself at home!  Isn't she beautiful, even upside down!

I have quite a long list of cards I need to make for family and friends (what joy!!) and what good timing, some stamps I ordered from QVC arrived today

 and I couldn't resist using them.

Cats 1, Cats 2 and Cats 3

from Personal Impressions

designed by Lindsay Mason

I kept the cards very simple and on this first one stitched

my nephew's name freehand.

Here's a close up

How could I not put this image on the back of the card!



The scruffy blue colour is 'Stormy Sky' Distress Ink.

Here's the second one

The letters are die cut (Sizzix Sizzlet alphabet 'alpha bubbles')

from self adhesive paper (the letter 'n' looks a bit odd -

maybe I cut it in reverse!)

I stamped another of the cats onto the same paper,

and added some 'Baby Blue' Stickle accents.

Another cat of course on the back of the card too!

Not quite as cheeky, but just as cute!

Dylan has four cats at home so hopefully he'll like these cards.

Miaow xx

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday, week 92

This will be a very short post as there's not much to see on my desk -

a canvas I'm 'working' on if you can call it that! 

A fabric heart which I intend to stitch to the canvas.

To the right there's some lovely cotton lace I bought from a charity shop yesterday - just 50p for two pieces - I think they're doilies and will probably be cut up at some time.

There's also the 'Cloth Doll Artistry' book which I haven't touched

since last week's WOYWW post! 

  I must say another thank you to

 Julia

though for pointing me in the direction of

 Mary Anne

who has since given me some tips and links on dolls faces

 - so I really have no excuse now!

  Thanks again Mary Anne.

Here's a photo of what my desk looked like last night

You can see the canvas before I started to paint it -

 I'll do another post on that when it's finally finished.

If by any chance you've no idea what

'WOYWW' or 'What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday'

is all about - and you want to find out, hop on over to the

afore mentioned Julia's blog

Stamping Ground

and all will be revealed!

Thanks for looking - I'm off to have my cup of tea now, before it goes cold!

Compendium of Curiosities - The Final Challenge

The last challenge I took part in was number 21 and this last one is number 35, so I missed out quite a few inbetween.

  I couldn't miss out on this final challenge though - using Tim Holtz' fantastic book of techniques called 'Compendium of Curiosities'

- all the challenges have been set by Linda from her blog

 Studio L3.

This final challenge focuses on the very last technique in the book

 on page 67 and is called 'Design Details'.

I made a Father's Day card and it was great to use up various scraps of paper - some handmade (not by me!), scrapbook papers and there's even part of a bingo page in there too.

You may notice that my stitching isn't spaced evenly because I didn't have all the required tools, but I quite like the effect anyway (I would say that wouldn't I - lol). 

Having pieced my card together, I needed something extra to go on it.

The image I had stamped and coloured a few days ago and it was laying on my desk and the colours fitted perfectly - so it had to go on!  (It's a Stampotique image called 'Bow Tie')

Here's another close up of some of the (imperfect!) detail.

Linda has hinted that although these challenges are now over, she has something else in mind - and will announce what it is next Monday - I'll be keeping tuned to her blog!