Operation Julie's Smile

It's a big thing to accept help in a time of need, and I'm so proud of Julie for saying 'yes' when Nicole Rixon, her colleague over at the Sweet Stamp Shop, decided she'd like to raise money for our friend to have the dental surgery she so desperately needs.  Although dental bills are rising here in the UK, they are nothing like those people face in the US, and part of me wishes that Julie had grown up here and had the resources available that I've enjoyed all my life.  Julie shares her story over on her blog, Julie's Open Window     

"Many of you may have heard that I recently

had to have emergency oral surgery which resulted

in the removal of my front teeth.

As a child, I struggled with brittle teeth due to

some health concerns and my parents did all

they could to ensure that I went into adult-hood

with the best teeth possible.  Unfortunately with age,

the brittle teeth became a problem again and well,

long story short, the dentist recommended that

I bite the bullet and have them all replaced.

I made the appointment, had the consultation

and was handed a piece of paper that said to

bring $4,000 with me to have the rest of the teeth 

taken out.  I was in shock because the dentist made

reference to the idea that 'it could all be worked out' ; )

Well, here I am today, missing front teeth (and a few others)

and being frustrated because I believed that this was

a procedure that would be taken care of quickly.

The unfortunate thing, is that THAT amount was JUST for the

removal of the rest of my teeth...it does not account

for the 'permanent teeth' that would need to be put in place."

I was so thrilled for Julie when Nicole contacted me about this fundraiser.  There will be a benefit blog hop called 'Operation Julie's Smile' taking place 7th-9th October with a variety of individuals, companies and design team members participating in order to help raise these funds.  To date, about £300 worth of prizes have been made available, and with such a great collection of blogs it should be a great weekend.  Which reminds me, I'd better get off the laptop and go and get my prize made, it's got to get to the US so Nicole can co-ordinate the prizes on the blog hop.  

If you are interested
in getting involved in this creative fundraising event, 

please contact Nicole Rixon at nicolehrixon@gmail.com   

The deadline to be
a part of the hop is Wednesday, Sept 28th.  

Participants will be notified of the blog hop order 

between Oct 3rd-5th.
This blog hop is an opportunity to have fun, 

feature your blog and raise money for a friend in need.  

A donation button
will be made available to all who participate.

Operation Julie's Smile

hippos, seahorses and giraffes

Just look at all these yummy goodies Julie sent me (and there are more lurking underneath these).  This was the second parcel I received on Thursday.  I visited Julie in the US in 1991, attending her fantastic retreat 'The Art Stamp Cafe', and we also managed to squeeze in a day trip to Chicago where I bought this cuddly hippo

who, 9 years later, still sleeps on my bed!  So imagine how I felt when I turned up these two stamps in the parcel!

I was so touched, and a bit teary!

It's been a bit of a weekend for animals.  I've been eyeing up Carla Sonheim's Drawing Lab on Amazon for ages, waiting for it to be released, and it finally arrived on Saturday morning. 

I've been wanting to get back to drawing for ages but the voice in my head has been super, super critical of any attempts.  What Carla does brilliantly in this book is give 52 exercises that, certainly so far, silence that voice completely.  I think this is because you complete the exercises in a way that mean the image couldn't be perfect.  For example, the first one is to draw an animal, from imagination, whilst leaning on a mattress.  You do this 30times and if you find you are getting too concious of what you're doing, you switch to your left hand...

...hence the two seahorses on the far right who look like they've been electricuted LOL

The next task is to draw a giraffe using one continuous line, looking at the giraffe image 100% of the time and not looking at the paper.

I'm really, really enjoying this book.  If you have it, or end up buying it, I'd love to see what you come up with , and how you feel about it :)

play date cafe challenge #37: Julie's french fancy

Julie LoVeS anything french, but especially when it's related to the Provence region, so when she saw this photo she had to use it for this week's challenge at the Play Date Cafe.

You will notice that there are no colour 'buttons' this week.  That's because we'd like you to choose from the range of colours that are in this wonderfully colour-rich photograph.  I chose to start with yellow, then layered it with orange and terracotta before adding my highlights in blue.

These quails from Stampotique (and available at The Stamp Attic) always make me smile.  They are definitely off somewhere with a particular purpose in mind!

The 'day out' ticket is one I recently purchased at The Cubby Hole; it's by Crafty Individuals.

I was intending to share a felted piece with you for this challenge, but my sinuses have been playing up and for some reason, it's easier to journal when I'm feeling a couple of degrees under. I feel much better now after having a good play with my paints and stencils, alongside some other journaling friends :)  I'm sure the felt flower will get finished at some point lol.

Don't forget to head over to the Play DateCafe to check out this cool prize from Jelly Bean Designs, and to see what my fellow design team members have put together using the photo for inspiration.  We had record numbers playing along this week so I'd just like to say a HuGe thankyou to everyone who joined in.

celebrating

Julie is sooooooooooo much better at remembering anniversaries than I am.  In fact, it wasn't until she mentioned her blogaversary was coming up that I realised I must have missed mine!!  Julie's got some goodies for a blog birthday giveaway over on her blog so head on over and "leave her some love!"

I'm off to look up treats for next door's hens who I'm looking after - well, I'm just putting off sorting out my craft room really ;)

did you know that today is 'Earth Day'?...and PDCC#26

It's printed on my calendar but I did have to look it up in Wikipedia to check what it was as I'd never heard of it before, although it was started 40 years ago.  Apparently it is "a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment".  In honour of Earth Day, Julie chose some earthy colours for this week's play date cafe challenge:

But get this!  I reckon that terracotta colour is the exact colour of 'rusty hinge', one of Tim Holtz' new distress inks.  So it would have been wrong of me not to play with my new distress colours for this challenge ;)

Not having any ink or paint in that pinky/peachy colour I decided to start with that colour card for my base.  It's been ages since I decorated an envelope so out came my Cricut and George cartridge and I cut a pale envelope.   Then it was time to get inky with the gorgeous Rusty Hinge and Tumbled Glass - they are both so yummy!!

I

 

I used a little butterfly mask by Heidi Swapp as well as my faithful sequin waste to create some texture.  Along with a few splatters of water of course!

I do feel that this little envelope is begging for a tiny book to be tucked inside before finding a home in one of my journals.  I love how it's turned out, but it was a complete act of faith that if the colours worked so well in the challenge photo then they must also work on my piece..and they did!!  

We've got a very talented celebrity designer, Jen Tapler, over at The Play Date Cafe this week, and sponsorship from Mod Podge, so it's really worth heading over to the Cafe to see what all our designers have produced as inspiration for you, and to link your project to be in with a chance of winning this prize:

 

I love this image, all those little pots are so colourful!   Thanks Amy for this generous prize :)  ModPodgeRocks is Amy's blog which has lots of wonderful ideas for using mod podge, including making fabric bowls with your scraps of material!!

and breathe...

What I really want to do is shout AAAARRRRGGGHHH!  The Play Date Cafe starts tomorrow [don't forget, if you add the above image to your blog sidebar and leave a comment on Julie's blog you're in with the chance of some one of a kind blog candy] and my picture editing software has died!  It wouldn't crop earlier so I duly switched my laptop off and back on again [the answer to everything in IT], and now it won't even open the photos!!!

Don't worry, I'll find another way to do it ready for tomorrow.  But to keep me calmer, and to add a bit of pictorial interest to my post, here's the lovely Vernon Kay!

ps a colleague of mine was on a course last week, in the same building as Vernon!!!  He was doing  a journalism course.

pps  aaarrrgh, now virgin tv isn't working

the play date cafe design team

Julie over at the Open Window has put my bio up today.  :) :) :)  And I'm giving myself a play date tomorrow and intend catching up on the pieces I owe people, and the things I've been wanting to make for a while now :)

un-be-lievable

What is it about best laid plans?  Yesterday the plan was to visit Wendy at the Stamp Attic, a nice jolly day out with the girls.  I woke up to the news that a lorry had hit the central reservation of the M6 motorway in the night and that the motorway was closed for 2 junctions.  We didn't need to go on the motorway to pick Sue up but the impact on surrounding roads was horrendous!  It took us over two hours to do a 40 minute journey, nearly as long as it then took to get to Wendy's!  But all that driving was definitely worth while!  Look, here's a sneaky peek into Sue's 'studio'.

I'm standing half way into the room and on each side of me are drawers and drawers of stash :)  It was great to see some of Sue's creations in the flesh (not the best pics, sorry!)

Again, I was so excited to get to Wendy's shop that I completely forgot to take a picture!!  But I did persuade Wendy to let me show you the 'original' stamp attic, at the top of her house.  Sue had tidied her room but Wendy got completely caught out by me producing my phone and saying "can I take a piccie for my blog?"  I don't know, how sad am I!  But I really want to get my blog candy together for 'Where women really create' and this is as much a reminder for me.

Talking of blog candy, don't forget that if you grab the 'play date' button, put it on your sidebar and leave Julie a comment before next Thursday you'll be in with a chance of winning some yummy stash!  And whilst you're over there, read up on my talented fellow designers [and check out my bio tomorrow :)]

I can proudly announce...

that I've got a place on my first design team :) :) :)  And I get to announce first as I'm in the UK and ahead by 6 hours :)  Julie, over at the Open Window, has set up a weekly 'play date' for us.  The challenges will be posted each Thursday and I'll host once a month [but will publish a sample each week so you're guaranteed to see something new here once a week at least ;)]  The other DT members are really nice and I hope you'll join in with our challenges.

Hee hee, I'm so excited!!  Julie's brilliant at organising things, and makes great cards etc so I know she'll have lots of fun planned :)

stamp shops galore

I treated myself today to a trip up to Skipton to visit Jill and Ian in their stamp shop, The Stamp Man :)  It's a beautiful drive up there through the hills, especially as it is still so green yet with hints of autumn.  I saw the occasional tree with deep red leaves, yellow and orange but not one of them was in a convenient place to stop and take a photo...typical!

I hadn't been to the new shop so it was a real treat to see the new space full of yummy stamp supplies, collect my fairy stamps, have a sneak preview at what's in the offing (my lips are sealed but there's great stuff on it's way) and catch up with Jill and Ian, who I usually only see now at Port Sunlight.  Oh, and I saw Jill's weeny suitcase, which has a gorgeous accordion fold card/book inside, so of course I now have my own weeny suitcase!!!

I did take a picture of my stash but it appears to have got very late all of a sudden and I'm not sure my brain will cope with downloading more pics.  So I'll leave you with the card I made with my new stamps.

Not that these are the only stamps I got today you understand.  I got more bits off Jill, then stopped off at Paddy's on the way home (it's on the way, honest!) and we planned my demo project for Port Sunlight.

If you've not already done so, take a pic of your workspace for our 'Where Women REALLY Create' challenge (you can take a pic of the tiniest smidgen if you like, but you'll make us all feel better if you show at least the table).  I'm going to put blog candy up for this so watch this space!!

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Julie, it's her birthday today, well, it was when I started writing this post, and still is in the old US of A!!!

wow! what a stash!!

My very good friend Julie is celebrating 100 followers on her blog by giving away this stash! My holiday stash looks tiny next to this - isn't it amazing. Julie works really hard on her blog, sharing card designs, fabulous blogs that she finds, and of course her designs for AI. She'd love to hear from you so please bob over and say hi, and you never know, you may win! Just click here and follow her instructions. Good luck :)

inspired by Paulette

I love blog hopping, and keeping up with what other people are working on, and often do this when my creative juices aren't flowing. And it's paid off! I was the third person to work on this corset and I added the lines of lace and pearls and painted the boning blue but it needed some 'pizazz'! What better than to have a go at 'picot beading' along the bottom edge. So thanks Paulette, it wouldn't have happened without you!! Or Julie, who 'met' Paulette before me on an internet forum!


I find beading very relaxing, as long as it doesn't get too repetitive, hence the variation in beads along the base of the corset. I also added beads randomly spaced along the lace. Above is a piece I made a few years back when I had glandular fever - beading is something you can pick up and put down whenever the mood/energy strikes!

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!

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 :)