Decorated Box

I have been working on this box for a while, couldn't post about it as it was Sy's bithday pressie! I gave it to her when we met up at Ally Pally, and she opened it at lunchtime - and I missed seeing the look on her face cos she didn't wait for me to get down to the lunch hall!!!!! Ooh, she's a one that girl ........... :-)

The box started out as plain pale wood. I glimmer misted it to within an inch of its life, it actually started as being much redder, but I felt it was too much so browned it down a bit, then put lots of bronze mist over it. The sides were stamped with stazon in brown for a subtle pattern, and I stamped and embossed some corners and a border on the top. When everything had dried, I coated it with an acrylic varnish. Next I put some self adhesive green suede on the base to stop it scratching furniture. I ran some copper metal sheet through my embossing machine for the top panel, stuck it down and then edged it with the mosaic tiles. Last was the flower. The photo - as always! - doesn't do justice to it, the flower is more pearlescent than it appears here and the flash has given a high shine to everything else, where really it is more gleamy than shiny :-)

Now for the inside. I painted with a copper acrylic craft paint, then lined the base with the same green suede. Then I made up the spring roll recipe cards, which I have been promising her for months now LOL, put them onto a book ring and added a tassel.

She liked it :-)

Ally Pally Trip

It's taken me a few days to recover enough energy to blog this trip! On Sunday I went with some of the other crop girls to the Stamping and Scrapbooking show at Ally Pally. We got there about 10 minutes after it opened and got in almost immediately, no queue to speak of.

I had been saving for a few months for this trip and ended spending about £425 - would have bought a few more things, there were some stamps and punches I was going to go back for and the wonderful Linda E (I met Linda E! Yay!) showed me some new paint which I rather liked the look of............ but by then my back was protesting forcefully and I couldn't carry any more!

So here is the loot! The first picture has most of the 24 clear stamps I bought. The second has the 11 rubber stamps, mounted and unmounted, plus a couple of clear ones I managed to miss off the first photo! Third is the 9 bottles of Glimmer Mist, 3 of cosmic shimmer, plus punches and metal tools. I am racking my brains to try and remember where I got the flower punch from because they had another that I wanted to get, if anyone knows, can they tell me??? The fourth picture is everything else, some gems and pearls, a tray and three frames to decorate, some charms, ribbons and bows and a couple or three inkpads!

I carried all that lot in two bags-for-life, so not really surprising my back went! All in all a great day...... and next year I will be taking a trolley :-)

Rediscovery

After having a good sortout of my stash (and finding so many things I had forgotten about!), I am making a concerted effort to use old stuff before buying more new. This will be somewhat undermined by my trip to Ally Pally in a couple of weeks, but that is a once a year treat after all! So, I have decided that the third Little Girl album will be a "stash buster" album. with as little new stuff bought as I can possibly manage. The same goes for my 2009 album.

Another resolution - to use more stamps, especially old ones! I have so many, all stashed away, that I found several I had forgotten about. The two ATCs below both use old stamps, plus a couple which are less than a year old, but which hadn't yet been "christened" :-) Destination 1/6 uses a text stamp which I think must be about 8 years old at least (never used!) and both the relatively new background and corner flourish were used for the first time. Destination 2/6, background was inked in two colours and crackle stamped, then I used a swirly flourish (more than a year old) in three different colours over the top. Same text, and then the balloons were stamped in Versafine to finish.... the balloons are at least 12 years old and have never been used!!! I am hanging my head in shame as I type :-) The teeny butterflies are new.

Trip to Cardiff

We didn't find a last minute holiday bargain, thanks to the BA strike - no cheap flights to be had! Time for Plan B. We have never really travelled in Britain, so we decided it would be nice to do that on our week off. DH said how about Cardiff and I had thought of Bristol as we lived there 25 years ago and I wanted to see it again. So the two tied together nicely! Two nights in Cardiff and one in Bristol.

Cardiff was lovely and I would like to visit again. It didn't rain all the time, though we got very wet going round the castle! The city centre has these wonderful arcades with lots of tiny shops. Having done my homework beforehand (google: craft shop cardiff), I knew there was a bead shop and a button shop there LOL. Crystals and Ice Bead shop have a website, so I can order anything I didn't manage to pick up, sadly Claire's Buttons does not - so make sure to visit if you are in Cardiff! Here is what I bought, though I haven't included all the findings and some tools in the picture. Among the buttons are also some beads - the brown glass twists and purple glass squares. DH didn't even ask "what are you going to do with those?" !!!

We also went to the Dr Who exhibition, which was very good, and had a wander round the waterside of the bay.

Bristol was much changed, as I had rather expected after 25 years! We found some pubs we recognised :-) Also went to the Clifton suspension bridge and then went to an amazing glass blowing workshop - Bristol Blue Glass, they have a website too. Sorry, I don't have the URLs to hand! I bought some glass earrings.

All in all, a lovely break. We had 4 days away and have spent the rest of the time chilling out - I have even managed to get some crafting done. More on that in the next post!

ATC madness!

Yes, here are yet more! These are the ones I have sent out over the past two weeks for the UKS atc trail. They are Create 3 and 4, and Here Be Dragons 3 and 5 (yes I know I am out of sequence with the HBDs, but HBD3wasn't finished until after HBD4 and I had already written on the backs... LOL).

We celebrated our silver wedding anniversary a couple of days ago, I got DH a leather and silver cuff bangle and he got me a box.... made on his new laser cutter, with dovetailed joints, very impressive. Oh and it had 25 silver coins in it :-))))))))))) We will also be going away to celebrate, but we don't know where yet - we plan to see what we can find as a last minute bargain!

More ATCs

I have taken the plunge and joined an ATC swap on UKScrappers. These are the ones I sent out a week ago last Saturday (haven't uploaded pics of last Saturday's ones yet). I am still running with the "Create" and "Here Be Dragons" themes...... Create 2/6 and HBD 4/6 to be exact :-) Both use the same technique for the background - 2 colours of chalk ink swooshed around with a babywipe on the card, then overstamped with a crackle background in a darker colour. Ok, I use this technique a lot...... but it does look so effective.

I will be off to Ally Pally next month and am seriously considering taking some ATCs and putting them on the swap table there..... just need to gather enough courage!

"Dougal" cushion

Last August, while clearing out my craft room, I found some fringing which I had bought in a sale 5 or 6 years previously. I looked at it and thought "really, am I ever going to use that?". Then DS2 wandered in and said "ooh that's nice, could you make me a cushion with it?" Problem solved! Six months later....... here it is. I think it looks like Dougal from the Magic Roundabout! DS2 hasn't seen it yet, next time he visits he can collect it - hope he likes it!