congratulations Julie!

Julie, one of my best friends, is an INKgirl. She made it on the design team, her first but I'm sure not her last. Well done Julie!

last corset ... well, kindof!

Well, I've worked on all eleven corsets and just passed the final one, Monet, on to the next person. My original idea was to fill in with altered flowers as, if you've ever been lucky enough to visit it, Monet's garden is full to bursting with flowers. However, I've been really loving doing the fabric snippet collages so right after working on 'field of dreams' I carried on collaging on this one. I picked a space between another person's work using kunin felt.

A couple of altered daisies snuck in there, and some lace flowers I'd painted with Stewart Gill paints.

One of the corsets is looking in need of a bit of pizzazz so I've brought it home to add some bits to it. I truly am trying to resist the collage, and think I should do some kunin felt work on it as the person who owns this latest corset has done a lot of work with this material on other people's so I'm guessing she likes it! It's called 'Gwendoline Grace' after her Grandmother and I'm going to be able to indulge my button ..hmm, was going to say fetish but not sure that's the right word!!! ;)

Oh, and Becca's got details up on her website re the corset display in September '09.

my little princess

This is my very favourite photo of my little princess. She's not so little anymore, 12 last birthday. This was taken on her first day at Nursery. I added the wings and pixie boots a couple of years ago and now this little Sophie fairy lives in my workroom:)

TMTA: kings and/or queens

I know she's a bit predictable, but I really didn't have any other kingly/queenly images and I was keen to try this one out! This is a stamp a friend of mine leant me a while ago but this is the first time I've played with any of the images. The background was looking a bit 'iffy' 'til I swiped it gently with gesso - now I like it!!

i love buttons

I'd been eyeing up the blue button with the diamante in the middle for a while in John Lewis, especially since it was in the sale! It was the very last one and eventually I succumbed and added it to corset. She called hers 'Viva la Diva', the inspiration being Las Vegas and show girls - so think feathers and shiny bits :) The second button on there was so shiny it just had to be slipped into my basket too!!

A friend of mine recently introduced me to 'gemagic' so I've been merrily adding gems to this corset. As well as adding the shiny braids and 'fluffy' bit, I did the collage on the right with snippets of fabric, feathers, gems, and some dice earrings I found in Claire's accessories. I dyed the lace on the left using alcohol inks - they were fab as they dry soooo quickly :)

This corset is going in the post today to the next participant - I'm going to miss working on them, I'm onto my last one!!

gift tag swap

My very talented friend Julie is hosting a gift tag swap which sounds fun so if you'd like to join in, sign up on her blog here.
You make three tags, send them to Julie in the US, and she'll send you three tags back, including one by her. This sounded a very do-able swap so I'm signed up :)

where does time go?

Actually, I know exactly where it went, although I still can't believe it's a whole week since my last post! I taught a journalling class at Paddy's last Saturday and Tuesday. Both classes went fabulously but I was exhausted afterwards and couldn't do much the next day. I've also moved classrooms at school (teachers still work in the holidays!!!) and been working hard on the last of the corsets as one has quite a few people left to work on it before Sept.

This is one of Anne Jagger's pages which we all loved. People were great at trying out new colour combinations and I love her use of purple and red together. Anne was happily splashing paint around whilst Paddy was out of the room. When Paddy came back, she was very pleased with the pinkish splashes that had been added to her pages :) Check out more of Anne's pages here.

The aim of the class was to get one page finished and have backgrounds started on a few more so they could be continued at home. Another was to use our favourite stamp images in our journal pages as so often we use the images for cards for friends and never see them ourselves. I shared Pam Carriker's tip of using charcoal to highlight images (thanks Pam) and everyone loved it!

Jess' theme for her journal was finishing school and the school hols -

Chris, Neet and Sue have all put their photos and comments (thanks guys) on their blogs so head over and admire and let them know what you think of their pages! On Saturday, Chris brought some of her favourite stamps with her which we all fell in love with and have had to put in a bulk order for!! Aren't these just so fab :) They're available from the Stamp Bug.

So as you can see, we were very, very busy :)

Diary 2010 project

This is something I signed up for a while ago but I was still on the last minute whilst doing it. It's free to contribute a page to the diary which then advertises your blog/etsy etc (although I'm not selling anything so no etsy for me at the moment!). I just thought it would be fun. I've been doodling these little owls for a while now, and curly branches/trees and I've carved one little owl as a rubber stamp. Let me know what you think, but be gentle with me, I'm nervous!!

TMTA: Fly...

The theme over on 'Think Monday Think ATC' is 'Fly' which I think this little rabbit would really like to be able to do, but she's settled for collecting honey on this 'bee-yooo-tiful' day :)

catching up

Gosh a whole week without any blogging! I've been busy on my next corset, 'Field of Dreams', and loved every minute of working on it. This one is nearing the end of the round robin so involved some 'pulling together' and filling in of gaps. Apart from buying a bird necklace from Primark to take apart, and borrowing a friends gemagic to add shiny bits, I really didn't know what to do with this one. But it all came together once I painted up the sky near the cloud, then put fabric over the straps that hang out of the sides. I got very carried away adding flowers and texture and gems and only stopped cos there are two more people to work on this and I had to leave space for them!

I have absolutely no idea why blogger has turned this photo upside down. It's the second time I've tried to post it so I'm afraid its stopping. This is the whole corset laid out.

I spent today tidying and sorting. This is my dining room table, not even the workroom one! Everything was in such a heap I couldn't find anything so I piled it up into boxes, took it down to my workroom in the cellar and started putting away. My daughter was very impressed, my husband just declared there was a lot of 'stuff' and the fact that other people had more than me didn't mean I didn't have a lot!!!! Still loads of putting away to do but there was enough room for me to make an envelope...

My fabulous US friend Julie sent me a package of goodies a while back (there's another on the way, I can't wait :) ) and in it was a paper shoe. I drew round it and used all the bits on my desk to decorate this envelope. In fact, if you head over to her blog here you can be in with a chance to win some paper shoes like this! Well, actually they're posh compared to mine ;)

gathering lilacs

I've been working on the latest corset in Paddy's round robin this week. It's Paddy's own corset that used to belong to her Mum and the theme is 'Gathering lilacs'. I added paint, embossing powder, tyvek and handmade paper with beads, lace flowers and some metal butterflies which I coloured with alcohol inks. It was very relaxing, I love working this way.

Paris atc

Yesterday's atc kick-started me enough to make the Paris atc I had to do for a swap :)