The Craft Barn's amazing giveaway!

Have you seen this yet?

The Craft Barn

are having a giveaway of

over £200 of crafting goodies !!

What are you waiting for, get yourself over there -

click on either the link or the photo above.

You have until November 25th to enter.

The lucky winner will be announced on their blog by the end of the month.

GOOD LUCK!!

The Play Date Cafe Challenge PDCC107

This week's challenge over at

The Play Date Cafe

is to create something using the colours

black & white with a SPLASH OF ORANGE.

For my doll this week (who's called Clementine!)

I gave her a black dress with white belt

made from sari ribbons needlefelted onto a piece of white felt.

Her hair is from an old wool scarf and is swept up with

a piece of orange ribbon.

She's wearing a necklace and bracelet of white pearls.

For the background, I used mountboard covered with old text

painted white and added a splash of orange paint here and there.

Thanks for looking and if you'd like to see more of this

colour combination there's a linky thing here.

She-Art - the journey continues.

I've completed week 2 of this on line course -

click on the picture below if you want more details.

This week it was all about creating layers -

 landscapes and clothing and of course, two more She Art Girls.

I was a bit more adventurous this week and worked on

 artists' canvas board although only small ones

measuring 7" x 5".

For the background of this one, no scrapbook or other papers

were used, just paint, sprays, crayons etc.

Apart from the birds that is, they are gingham fabric.

I originally cut a 'bird shape' from paper,

but as my husband pointed out when I showed him

it looked a bit like a daschund dog sitting on a line - lol -

it really did, and was far too big - so I scraped it off

and rubber stamped two birds onto fabric and am

much happier with the overall look.

The layered skirt is created with strips of paper

folded up to resemble ruffles.

I think she looks a bit like a bag lady.

Do you remember the lovely song

'Streets Of London' by Ralph McTell

".... carrying her home in two carrier bags ..."

My bag lady has left London behind for the day

and had a day out in the countryside.

I decided to make the next one a bit brighter.

This time scrapbook paper was used as a starting point

for creating the landscape - then a little bit of everything else!

(I don't think my craft room has ever been messier!)

The dress has a layered skirt.

The words I chose are from a selection provided by

Christy Tomlinson

"She knew where she was from"

and this reminded me of another song

"Where Do You Go To My Lovely" by Peter Sarstedt

My girl - or should I say Marie-Claire has left

".....St Moritz and the others of the jet-set....."

for the day and has joined the Bag Lady for a day in the

English countryside!

The final week of the course is next and it's about

creating a She-Girl based on our own photograph - doh!

Don't like the sound of that, but I'll have a go.

Thanks for looking :)

"What's On Your Head" Challenge!

This challenge is over on

The Order of the Opus Gluei

and set by the very lovely and witty

Gini.

The challenge is to make any type of project but there must be something

on the head of the subject.  Gini invites either traditional head wear

or more wackier interpretations - anything goes really!

Well I took the traditional route (quelle surprise!) and used two rubber stamps by Dina Wakley (Create with Abandon and Lonely Girl).

I painted the background, glued an old book page onto card,

rubber stamped the Lonely Girl on, stamped out her crown

and stuck it on with 3D tab and rubber stamped the

Create with Abandon text.

The little fibre bow is attached with a sticky dot.

Sorry Gini, I can't think of a funny story to go with the card,

but I do have a song in my head now ~

"Homely girl, you used to be so lonely

You're a beautiful woman oh yeah"

by UB40 - Beautiful Woman

Thanks for looking :)

Patched with love - finally!

I finally finished this patchwork quilt about half past midnight last night.

It's been a work in progress for several years.

It started off with twelve small cross stitched cards some made by me and

some by my sister many years ago.  They were originally cards for our

Mum and of course she kept them and passed them onto me a few

years ago.  I

Using up some little patchwork fat quarters I bought at craft shows

years and years ago, I put the two together and made something

resembling a quilt!

All the cross stitched 'squares' are grouped together.

As they were all different sizes a few are on their side

(horizontal rather than portrait).

The reverse of the quilt I made up with an assortment of fabrics

The colours don't really 'go', but I liked the large piece of fabric

with the Teddy Bear family and it saved me doing more patching!

I didn't quilt the whole thing as it all started

to pucker up!

I bought some bias binding to go around the edge.

Just look at that perfect stitching - I liked it so much

I stitched over it again and again in places!!!

The problem was the bias binding was too narrow and the machine

stitching kept missing it!

Never mind, it's finished - yay!!!!

I took it to my Mum this morning and she loved it.

Even my Dad said it looked like a real patchwork quilt!

That'll do for me - true praise indeed!



A little pucker it was to do, but totally stitched with love xxx