May Tag Purple Haze

Gosh, where did April go..!?

I've been busy making a wedding cake for my sister in law who is getting married next week, so I've not been doing as much craft work. I've never done a wedding cake before, but she asked me to do it because she likes the Christmas cakes I make. But those are just single cakes, and now I'm making a 3 tier effort, with butterflies. A bit scary, but I find fear does concentrate the mind so I hope to do a decent job.

Here is the finished article.  It went down well, thank heavens.

I've also made some more Domino 'books', but more of those later because today is Tim Holtz Tag Day!

This months' tag incorporates rubons. Or is it rub-ons? Hmm. Whatever, I don't get on with these usually, I end up with broken transfers and random bits stuck where they shouldn't be stuck. But hey ho, I'll give it a go.

I did't have all the rubon images that Tim used but I did have some that I got for 70 pence in Txmaxx. Can't resist a bargain. But that was ages and ages ago and I couldn't think what to do with them. They have images of Edwardian men and vintage games which made me rethink the colour scheme that Tim uses. I love the bright colours he used but they weren't suitable for vintage images. I used a mix of chipped sapphire, seedless preserve and iced spruce which ended up a sort of purple haze. I love the contrast with the white of the rubon and the white enamel tag which i made from a numbered plaquettes, covered the number up with snowcap alcohol ink and then added rubon words. The background stamps are a mix of Paper Artsy and Tim's.

Domino Duo

I've had a bit of a tidy up of my crafting area, so not much creating was done for a few days. But on Saturday OH and I went for a trawl of the charity shops in Stockbridge. I was hoping to find some dominoes and was lucky to find a tin of them for a couple of quid.

I'm indebted to a couple of you tube contributors for the idea for making these little 'domino books'. I will find the details and note them here, when I have access to my PC.

(YouTube contributors RachO113 and AKCaraboo I love your work, hope you don't mind me stealing your ideas!)

I think they will make nice gifts.

Another go

I wasn't particularly happy with my take on Tim's April tag. I didn't have the right colours and thought it was a bit dull.

So today I went searching the craft shops in the Edinburgh environs and at the third attempt I founding that had some of the distress paints in stock. Stampers Grove is well stocked but a bugger to park near as it's in the middle of the city in a one way system! But the drive through the park was lovely as the view is stunning and the sun was shining for once.

Unfortunately I'd forgotten the list of colours, and was too stupid to remember I could have looked them up on my iPhone. Pfft.   But I bought a few that I thought were right, though no metallics in stock yet. I also got Paper Artsy stamp set 'Wings4' as it had a tiny dragonfly in it.

As it turned out I didn't get the right greens, and thought I'd use some perfect pearls bronze mica powder in lieu of the metallic paint. But I'd forgotten how powerful the powder is and that a little goes a VERY long way. Mixed with water to make a very wee puddle, it just about coloured half the tag and so the effect is just a bit overpowering! I've hidden the worst behind the date ticket and rocket square.    And the metallic finish of the tag has a very strange effect on my ink stamping - the ink just fades away.  I'm new to stamping and am a bit confused by all the different types of ink there are so presumably Memento fade resistant Dye Ink in Tuxedo Black is only fade resistant on non metallic finishes!  Who'd have known? Another lesson learned.  If someone can explain the difference between dye inks and solvent ink (I have Stazon)and all the other types inks then I'd love to hear from you...

I'm going to try and incorporate (or hide) a date ticket in every one of the Tags of 2013 marked with the day I made it. I thought that would be nice.

Let's Play Tag

April at last, the sun is shining, and another tag from Tim Holtz to play with. He used his new metallic acrylic paint dabbers along with other dabblers none of which I own (yet!) so had to make do with what I have in my stash. It's okay but a bit muddy as my colours were not as bright. And instead of a dragonfly I used a silver foil butterfly that my crafty friend Cheryl sent me in a swap. I'm not much of a butterfly person but after a bit of tinkering and dabbing this was perfect. And my friend Elspeth posted a photo on Facebook today of the first butterfly of the season so doubly apt!

Life's a Beach - done!

It's been a busy week.  The fire service that I work for, along with the 7 others in Scotland are joining together to become the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service on 1 April 2013.  This is a huge undertaking that will take a few years to settle in, but this week it entailed much hand shaking and hugs goodbye to those who decided to jump ship (whilst the going is good?), planning meetings (where not a lot got done), panic over the lack of properly headed letter paper (okay that was just me)and also a large cake and wine. Much wine. I have had a hangover today.

BUT, hurrah, it's a public holiday!  So I took the dog for a walk to settle the head, made a quick visit to my friendly local scrapbook supply shop (The Mad Scrapper in Longniddry) for supplies, some  I needed and some I didn't (isn't that the way it always goes in a craft shop?), and then settled down to finish the book I started last week.

This is made with Fab Scraps papers, Dusty Attic die cuts that have been inked and embossed, various Tim Holtz elements, and some shells from the beach.  There are other bits and pieces but as I have a habit of chucking away the packaging I'm not sure what make they are (sorry).

The  white fish net I bought online from Calico Crafts and I distressed it with distress inks then dabbed it with Mod Podge mat sealer to stiffen it. This makes it much easier to work with.

Tada! Some of the pages - there are more but my phone refuses to upload!

Life's a Beach

I was going to sit down yesterday afternoon to start a new mini album, but got an unexpected invite to meet friends for coffee. This turned into an four hour coffee and shopping marathon. I was 20 minutes too early to meet up with Sharon and Dot, so decided on a quick butchers in Hobbycraft. That quick look cost me over £20 but I got a few bargains, including some Papermania clock hands and label plates from their Chronology range, for only a quid each.

Coffee drunk, Sharon abducted me and drove us to the Gyle (the other end of the city from where we were) to have a look at some dining chairs in Marks and Spencer's on which she wanted our opinion. Nice chairs, but undecided. However she did get the bargain of the century, surely, as she bought an office table/desk and chair from M&S reduced from £1200 down to £270! Lovely.

Today, I sat down and started my album. This will be made from Fabscraps 'Summer Collection' papers and tags. I managed to do one double sided page but had to take the dog out for a walk mid afternoon, so we went to the beach. Here's the first page:

An unexpected exit

Today has been an unusual day.  It snowed overnight, about 4 inches on ungritted roads,  and consequently the journey into work was an absolute nightmare.  It took 40 minutes to go the mile from my house to the A1 road into Edinburgh, and traffic was nose to tail all the way in to town.  The actual journey into work took 1 hour 45 minutes.  It usually takes about 35  minutes.  And when I got to work there was no heating or hot water.  Oh joy.  We soldiered on for the morning, hoping that the problem would be fixed, but it wasn't, and we were freezing, so we went home at lunch time.  Hopefully the heating will be all fixed tomorrow, but I'll wear lots of layers just in case,   Brrrr.

No time for crafty stuff today so here's a picture of an 'assemblage' I made as a Xmas present for a friend. I love doing these. I tried to make each square meaningful for my friend, such as the initials of her 4 children in scrabble letters, and the pink basket she uses for her jewellery business. I get a lot of bits and I pieces from car boot sales and charity shops.

Half the fun is searching for the items. Sometimes you find an item that just makes you go 'Huh? WTF is THAT?' But you have to buy it all the same. If anyone can throw any light on this please let me know!