Postage Stamp for my Dad

I had to take the day off work today because the cold I've been fighting off since Hogmanay finally caught up with me and I felt awful this morning, achy and shivery.  A couple of extra strong Lemsips later and I'm feeling a bit better, but still coughing like a drain.

Not one to look an unexpected day off in the mouth, I finally got around to making a little frame for a favourite picture I have of my dad when he was about 2 years old, which would have been circa 1922.  I used the Tim Holtz Alterations Postage Stamp Frame to make a small box frame, with paper from Tim's Vintage Shabby paper stash.  I also used the dies Elegant Flourish and Honeycomb, and a small heart from Movers and Shakers Cupid set.  Some ideaology in the forms of a word band and memo pin, a bicycle (probably Prima, but out of packet so not sure) and some flowers and ribbon hand coloured using distress pens and inks finish the frame.  

I've got a picture of my mum at a similar age that I think I will do another frame for, as a matching pair.

The letters are Victorian or Edwardian bone squares from a partial set that has been kicking around my family for as long as I can remember.  Something that was used in the schoolroom I think, and as my grandfather was a schoolteacher that would make sense. They have lowercase on one side and uppercase on the other.

The frame is about one inch deep.

Relocation, Relocation, Relocation....

It's MONTHS since I did a blog. Months. No excuse really other than after I moved my craft room upstairs to the spare bedroom, I totally lost my crafting mojo. In didn't like being so isolated so rarely went in there.  I've not got a big house but I felt so out of the loop up there. It was also a bit too compact, so it had to be kept tidy (and I'm a mess magnet).  And there was no room for spreading myself about, which I like to do, with 2 or 3 projects on the go at once but that was a no no too. And no room for any crafty buddy who wanted to come over and play.

Problem.

This was solved on October.  My youngest son Tom graduated as a building surveyor on July and has been working as such for a firm in the middle of Edinburgh since May.  He and 2 of his ex-university mates decided to take a flat together in town, which meant I could take over the now spare sitting room that my boys used to have.  Hurrah!! Whoop!!!  But also a little sad as we are now empty nesters.  Hey ho. Swings and roundabouts.

It's taken a bit of time to get it as I wanted, and required a trip to ikea for another desk and storage shelves, but I'm sooooo happy now.  Here are some pics.

New desk area, and shelves.  The ikea cd rack holds all my paints, pens etc, and also space for sissix dies etc. ink pads are in old cassette shelves on my new desk.  I spray painted the multi cubbyhole shelving white, to match in with the rest.

The spare desk, for spreading out on or for craft buddy, and the metal wall board that I store my Movers and Shapers dies.  This is now hanging on the wall within easy reach of my diecuttting and embossing area:

I've also got a sofa for lounging about on (an important part of the creative process I find!) and other cupboards for storage.

It's all fab.

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Since I moved everything in, which was in the middle of November, I have busy on lots of projects, so here are some of these.

It was my sister Ailsa's 60th birthday in December so I made her a memory assemblage using a tim holtz mini configurations book. We went to London for a girly weekend, theatre, shopping and met up with friends for dinner.  Fab time, had by all.  This is the book, using 7 Gypsies papers and various TH ideology bits and pieces,

Cover

Inside the book I have filled the boxes with all sorts of bits and pieces that are relevant to her life.  She loved it.

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I saw a lovely Christmas burlap panel on Paula Cheney's web site, a site I follow as she has some lovely ideas on it, so I hope she doesn't mind me borrowing them. 

http://www.oneluckyday.net/2013/08/christmas-burlap-panel.html 

I ended up making a few of these as Xmas presents for friends.

This one isn't finished, but don't have a photo of the final outcome,

I coloured the tim holtz christmas charm with alcohol inks and then sealed it with glossy accents so it looks like an enamelled charm.

The papers I used for these are a mixture of Tim Holtz Seasonal Stash, some leftover paper from a christmas project from last year (can't remember what paper this was), but mostly pictures from a a John Lewis carrier bag!  This is it:

 

I've got loads of this left over, so will use it again next year.

Another present i made was a model of my son Lucas' kitchen.  His partner Jill gave me a box and

suggested that I could build a kitchen in it, and she would love something like that.  After such a forceful hint, I could hardly refuse.  Even I was surprised how well it turned out.  The box is roughly 8 x5 inches, to give an idea of scale.  I used white foam board, greyboard and some dark mirror card, and made some Fimo bread and eggs.

The top one is the real kitchen, and my version is underneath

Finished item.

That'll do for this blog.  I've got another one to do about the 12 Tags of 2015....

May Day May Tag

It's the holiday weekend, and of course it is raining.  We were intendingto go to Dobbies for bedding plants and stuff for the hanging baskets, but the rain gave me an excuse to stay indoors and play about in my craft room.  I recently ordered some new dies and embossing folders from the fantastic Sizzix sale, which arrived on Friday, so I was dead keen to get in there and start messing with them.  Spent a while unwrapping and examining them all, as you do, and it was only when I started to do my May tag that I realised that one of the items I ordered is missing, so I will have to ring Sizzix and get that sorted.  I ordered the movers and shapers old jalopy and arrow, but it was not there and it would have been great on this tag - I was going to use the jalopy in place of the butterfly that Tim put on his, but never mind.

Tim's tag did not have a theme, but he made it with the advice to crafters to stop hoarding all our ideology charms and stuff, and actually get it out and use them in our projects.  LOL, that's me. Got a drawer full.

 Tim's May tag showcased ideology bits and pieces, so I had lots of those to choose from.  Anyway, I'd decided to make mine on a travel theme, old jalopy or no, so here it is:

I did not have the Shadowpress embossing folders that Tim used, but found that one of the Texture Fades embossing folders from a set called 'Travel Signs' ( one of the folders I had just received) had some partly debossed words in it, so I used the word TRAVEL from the embossing folder.  Using his ink technique, where you ink the actual folder before inserting the. paper and putting it through the embossing machine was a bit scary, but it worked a treat and the leftover ink did come off the plastic with a bit of buffing with a baby wipe, so that was alright.  The little train is made of wood and is from a set I got in Hobbycraft.  I inked it with felt pens and embossed it with several coats of embossing powder, including a dip into silver embossing powder at the end, to metallise the wheels.

The white bird in the frame at the top is cut for another texture fade embossing folder (called Patchwork) which i embossed on white card and Then gave 3 layers of clear embossing powder to turn it into a 'charm'.  The chipboard frame it is in was one I had In a drawer, out of the packet so no idea who makes it it was originally cream with blue glitter, but I gave it several coats of silver embossing and then pressed a paisley patterned rubber stamp into it before it cooled down.

All the other items are Tim Holtz, including the background papers which are a mixture of his Retro Grunge and Seasonal stashes.  

The only thing I would change would be to use thicker chipboard behing each item.  Mine is quite thin and it looks too much like I've just stuck bits of paper behind each piece. Tsk.

My other project today was another altered metal biscuit tin.  I got this one from a charity shop a couple of weeks ago, and after I took the sticky labels off I stuck some embossed metal tape on it, added a Tim Holtz drawer pull and a dymo label.  I then swiped it with DecoArts Traditions raw umber acrylic paint, rubbed some of that off before it was totally dry, then dabbed it with Ranger alcohol inks in Rust, Espresso, Bottle and Pool..  This is another box for husband who after having walked the dog, cooked the dinner, brought me sustenance and coffee throughout the day today, is now vacuuming the floors to make me feel guilty for having closeted myself away in my craft room.  Not working though, I'm still here, and I'm not moving.

I've been doing a lot with this metal tape recently.  Gone a little metal mental tbh.  Here are some more charity shop finds that I have 'improved'.  Or so I like to think!  

Cheery.

60th Birthday Boxes Book for Bill

It was my husband Bill's 60th birthday this month, so I made him this assembly in lieu of a birthday card.  It is made out of 2 Tando Creative mini printers trays with covers, stuck together to make a book.  The frames have been covered in silver embossing powder for a metallic finish, and each window is backed with Tim Holtz seasonal stash papers, though there may be an odd one with different paper. Many of the pieces are Tim's Ideaology pieces.

Each window represents some part of his life - hobbies, interests, work, play, family etc. and a private joke or two best left that way!

It took a long time to collect all the little bits to put in this.  I suppose his birthday has been at the back of my mind all year as quite a few of the pieces are from car boot trawls over the year.  I altered most of the pieces in some way, and made some up from Fimo.  I was particularly pleased with the altered plaster head Borg (he's a Star Trek fan) with fimo headdress and resistor.  Because resistance is futile...

Some of the references were a bit too subtle for him, so took some guesswork on his part and explanation from me.  Like the L, T ans S.  He couldn't place that, so had to explain that was the initials of me and our 2 boys! Jeez.

Anyway, he loved it, so that was good.