Pyrography

I began by stamping the Butterflies onto the back of the wood icon, got my tool up to heat then promptly burned my arm. I still bear the scare.

With tongue hanging out for concentration I eventually managed to burn the design into the wood. I did find it a bit off putting when you hit a knot in the wood and you 'skipped' somewhere that you didn't want to be.  The tool did get a bit too hot and you had to switch it off every now and then.

I coloured them using Promarkers then gave them about five coats of a water based varnish.

I intend to put photographs on the other side eventually.

Wire Wrapping

I have been trying to master the art of wrapping a stone without a hole. A few weeks ago Lynn and I went to the Bead Show in Harrogate, armed with plenty of money we went on the rampage!

What a lot of great choice, I came away loaded down with goodies plus a very good book on wire wrapping. I had tried this technique before but did not get the look I wanted. This book gave some very good tips that helped to make it just that little bit easier.

These stones are beautiful and the pendant is actually reversible so I get two looks in one.

I used three lengths of wire and wrapped these in three places with a thinner wire and teased the sides out so I could pull them apart later and twist to hold the stone.  I have tried this with a smaller stone but so far I have not succeeded in holding it tightly enough and it keeps dropping out.

                                        

These beads are a perfect match for the pendant and with the addition of some bead caps and spacers it makes a very striking bracelet, simply done, threaded onto elastic.



                                        



Flash & Corfu

We went to Corfu for 10 days at the end of September (was it only then, it seems like such a long time ago). We had seven days of glorious sunshine and three of torrential rain.  It was a lovely break and Steve made a very good friend. Flash, (because of the little flash on her head) that's what we christened her. We stayed at the Palmar Corfu Apartments in Sidari and if you ever visit we would thoroughly recommend you stay there. The owners are so friendly, the bar stays open till the last man drops and nothing is too much trouble. The cat apparently wandered in one day and has stayed there ever since.

Steve is not a cat person at all and I found it very surprising that he made such a fuss over her. Every time he sat down she would jump onto his lap and purr very loudly, she followed him all over, if Steve went for a snooze, so did Flash, curled up beside him. She stayed with us for the 10 days. It was quite a wrench to leave her. The morning we packed to come home she sat in the middle of the kitchen and just watched us filling the cases and occasionally she would wander over and jump in to have a look, we discovered when we got back home and unpacked that we had brought quite a few souvenir cat hairs back with us. I have no doubt that once we left she wandered away and found someone else to transfer all the affection too but if there was any way we could have packed her we would (don't know what Bertie would have made of her if we had!) She really was the most adorable cat and so affectionate.

The temperature on our balcony one day hit the 50 degree mark. My little travel clock has a thermometer so we sat it on the table, once it hit the 50 it hit an error and went off.

We took a trip into Corfu Town one night and wandered around the old part, with it's small bazaar like shops and I bought some lovely amber jewellery.

Sidari had a really nice beach and because of the time of year it was not packed with people. The season only had two weeks to go when we left and apartments and businesses were closing down for the winter.

Apparently the whole of the town closes from around 15th October and opens again in April, the place must turn into a ghost town.

I think we may have to go back next year at some point, if only to check on Flash and see how she's doing. Do cat's have long memories?





The view from the plane window coming home, it always reminds me of snow.

Home again, back to the cold and the wind. Never mind, I will keep looking at the photograph of the 50 degrees and sigh with longing.



My Little Wedding Album

I am always guilty, like a lot of people of taking so many photographs and either leaving them on the camera, downloading or printing and leaving them in a drawer always with the intention of putting them in an album.

When my daughter Rachel got married last November the camera went into overload. I downloaded the photographs to my external hard drive and when anyone wanted to look at them out came the lap top .

So I decided I would make myself a little album to show people and let the photographs tell the story of what a wonderful day it was.

The outside of the book is made with the Tattered Angel Glimmer Chip Tiles, Nature. I bought these in the Graphicus sale and put them to one side, you know how it is, you will always find a use for them at a later date. I distressed the tiles with Antique Linen and Old Paper Distress Inkpads and gave them a quick spray with Pearl Glimmer Mist. Once that was dry a quick spritz with hairspray fixed the colour.

A pearlescent card was used for the pages and the corners were cut with the Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper, Scallop/Cloud. The edges of the pages were gilded with a Krylon gold pen. The book was bound using the Bind-it-All.

This is the first page, the Romance Rub-Ons look really good. I placed vellum pages between to protect the photographs. As you can see the pages overlap each other as the album is bound at both sides.  

The photo corners are a Cuttlebug Die and just lend themselves to the photographs giving it all a touch of class. In hindsight (hindsight is a great thing) I should have put the photographs, corners, done the stamping and everything else before I bound the book, it would have been much easier than working with the completed book. In saying that I did take it to bits at least twice. The stamps are from the DL stamp set Hearts and Flowers.

 

And finally, the back of the album. Two tiles glued onto thick card. The back of the card was covered with one of Glenda's papers from her CD Decadent Brocade.

A little album to keep and treasure.

Published

Wow!

My work published in a magazine, I never thought I would see the day, my name in print and with the word 'Designer'.

The Magazine is 'Creative Beads & Jewellery', Issue 1 featured my Devinely Dotty Polymer Clay Bracelet.

In issue 4 you can find my Cupcake Tiara, this was made for the Graphicus Birthday Bash and worn proudly for the two Open Days. I then sent it along to the magazine so they could photograph it. I will pop photographs on my blog when it is returned to me.

I couldn't believe it, a two page spread.

A close up of my printed name and the word 'Designer' alongside for all to see! 

I may proudly leave these magazines on my coffee table for anyone who pops in for a cup of tea, I can then casually leave them open at the appropriate page.

Showing off .................. yes I think I might be.

Take one Box ................

I really enjoyed doing this project, it lets your imagination go barmy.

Just to whet your appetite I thought I would post some pics for you to have a look at.

Take one ordinary simple box and create a work of art.

Wouldn't this be a great gift filled with chocs.

Melt Pot and Eastern Grasses

Just some of the lovely things you can do using the Melt Pot, Memory Frames and Glass.

I used clear UTEE and added Pearl UTEE into the Melt Pot once the clear had melted. It gave a lovely shimmer when poured.

You will find that the first pour is very light and it will gradually darken the longer it sits in the Melt Pot but you can get some very interesting effects from this.

A small amount of colour has been added to the glass before stamping.

Birthday Pressie

Thought you may like to see my birthday pressie from Glenda and the gang. She is gorgeous even without her finery.



And lastly a close up of her sequined party dress.

I plan to do some jewellery bits and put her on show at our next Graphicus Open Days, our Big Birthday Bash on Friday 16th & Saturday 17th April.

Hope to see you there.

Bertie's Book

I am terrible for taking photographs, printing them and leaving them in a pile always meaning to do something with them, so I thought why not make a book using some of the photographs I have of Bertie or as a friend of ours calls him 'The Black Shadow'.

The front and back of Bertie's book was created using Tattered Angels Chip Tiles Nature which were coloured using a Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress Inkpad and given a light spritz of Pearl Glimmer Mist and left to dry overnight. The B is from the Tattered Angels Framed Fonts - Regal coloured with a darker inkpad. These really are a lovely addition to your craft stash. The strap is part of the Zutter Perfect Closure range, the leather strap on these can be coloured using an inkpad and as I discovered the metal clasp takes Alcohol Ink very well.

Inside front cover, well I had to put a Newsflash in there for the day he was born.

I used the Cuttlebug and decorated all the pages using the embossing folders then coloured them using a Versamarker Pen and chalks. I can't remember him being so little, doesn't time fly.



And just slightly larger! posing on the garden bench, I had to be quick to get this one he does not sit still for very long.




On holiday in the Lakes on the banks of Ullswater, taking in the sun.



And lastly his first birthday. How the hat stayed on I will never know but he was concentrating so hard on the muffin that I don't think he noticed it. The muffin did not last very long after that and the hat lasted only marginally longer. It ended up in shreds.


These are just a few of the pages, it could have been the longest post in history if I had put them all in but the nice thing about it you could if you wish take the metal binding strip out add more pages and photographs and re-bind it.

With the additions of a few captions to mark the occasions it will be finished, well for the time being at least.

I enjoyed making this book and intend to make another to use as a journal.

Christmas Holiday

We have just had the strangest Christmas. It was a very nice Christmas but most defiantly strange. We have just spent 11 days in Tenerife where the holiday season is very laid back and not as high priority as here which makes it a less stressful period but not at all what I am used to.

We flew out on 18th December, the drive to Newcastle was awful, it was the first morning of the snow, the roads were not very good at all and we were pleased to arrive. Our flight was on time and we arrived in Tenerife at 2.30 pm grabbed a taxi and were safely installed by 3 pm. Not bad going.

The hotel Costa Adeje Gran was fabulous and we would recommend it to anyone who may be thinking of going to Tenerife. The service was fantastic and nothing was too much trouble for the staff.

This was the view on Christmas morning just as the sun was rising, it did beat looking out at the snow. I was very surprised at the lack of festivities but I believe they do celebrate New Year rather than Christmas.

Our Christmas lunch consisted of a cheeseburger and a pint of lager after strolling along the beach, highly strange. The hotel staff made our evening meal special and each guest was given champagne, the wine flowed throughout the meal. The only change to the hotels regime was Christmas Eve when they moved the time of the evening meal to enable staff to get home to have their traditional meal with their families.

View of one of the three pools from our balcony. The standard of cleanliness was very impressive.

Bananas grew in abundance all around the hotel grounds.

Steve thoroughly enjoyed himself, he is not into the commercial side of Christmas at all so this holiday suited him down to the ground. I was very surprised that shops just didn't close for the day and all the restaurants and pubs just carried on as normal.

No houses were decorated and no Christmas trees were in any of the windows. A few of the shops did have a few decorations in the window and a Christmas tree in the corner.

It was strange to see some of the hotel staff sporting Santa hats while they walked around the pool.

Of course as usual on our flight over someone at the front of the plane sneezed and the germs bounce off the walls and home in on me so by the Sunday I was coughing and sneezing and feeling low, so low a visit to the pharmacy was required. On the way home everyone seemed to be sneezing and coughing, I think everyone must have caught a cold.

The reception area in the hotel was huge and the decorations were lovely. This photograph was taken through the mirrored ceiling as you can see from the next photograph.

Poinsettia's featured all over the reception area, at the front of this small waterfall a lovely nativity scene was displayed.

We had a very rude awaking when we landed back in Newcastle, the sleet had us soaked by the time we reached the car and you began to wish you had stayed where you were. I can't get over how many people came back wearing sunshine attire, shorts and t-shirts, they must have froze when they got outside.

We picked Bertie up from the kennels the day after and got a rapturous welcome and he was soon back to his naughty self once he was home. I think he changes into a different dog once he arrives at the kennels as they always praise his behaviour. I did miss him though and couldn't wait to see him.

It has not stopped snowing since we came back and my feet are constantly cold but that's the climate we have been blessed with so I will have to keep putting on an extra pair of socks and make the best of it.

Happy New Year to everyone.