Fabulous Christmas presents :)

I hope you all had a great Christmas!  I did - full of family fun, pressies and food.  We had a great time, and Santa, family and friends all brought me some great gifts so I thought it would be fun to share some of my favourites although be warned, it does show what a weird mind I have!!!  

I am a very lucky girl in that Santa still visits me...twice!  He fills a pillowcase in my own house and at my Mums's!!!  And he knows I love picture books :)  I have some that are just ace stories (I just love the Aliens in Underpants stories) and some for their illustrations

I AdORe Angie Lewin's prints so was thrilled to find this book in my pillowcase :)

It has some great images of pages from her sketchbooks...

and I can feel some eraser carving coming on. although how Angie gets such tremendous detail I do not know!

Santa also brought me a new Martha Stewart punch :)

My Mum and sister both got me a cushion from BHS (I always forget about the new section of The Trafford Centre where they've put all the home shops!)  

Wendy at The Stamp Attic knows me well, I love this pencil case with these gorgeous flower images on

and she also understands my love for corrugated card lol

And how fantastic is this mouse from my friend Tracy?

I just LoVe his legs made of nails, and his safety pin arms.  He is now living in my attic :)  

My 'main' present this year was an embellisher, for needle felting, which was immediately ambushed by my daughter and youngest son!  Sophie made a fantastic mouse (it was going to be an owl but ended up more mouse like so Tom made it a tail!)

then went into production making flowers for brooches.  These feel soooooooooooooo yummy and warm when held together in your hand

Tom had a play with different fabrics and fibres

And once I made it onto the machine I too had a play

I'd love to see what you got for Christmas...great books?  fun gifts?  handmade items?  If you'd like to share them, please link them on my sidebar so we can all go and take a look.  :)

Brrrrrrrrr!

It's very, very pretty outside today, with stunning frost and snow, but it's flippin cold!!!  -8c is far too cold for me, so I'm putting off going to the post office (much of the post is delayed anyway!!) and doing jobs in the house to keep warm.

I did venture out earlier to take the kids to school, and came back a bit of a nervous wreck after sitting at the top of my road giving way to a car which then slid towards me on the ice.  Fortunately it stopped a few inches from my bumper.  I hate driving in this weather, I did a graceful slide in the same spot on Saturday. 

This is one of the views from my attic bedroom window on Saturday morning.  I'd been really looking forward to the Christmas party at the Cubby Hole and although they'd had very little snow in Crewe, we'd had enough to make the drive a bit dodgy, especially in Malc's little car.  I can't wait to get mine replaced!

In celebration of all this white stuff, and in an attempt to put off the many jobs I have to do today, I made a tag!

I have a little packet of flowers I crocheted in the summer :)

I layered the flower with bits of lace and organza ribbon, having collaged a plain manilla tag with stamping, dabbing and some music paper (7 gypsies, Paddington paper from The Stamp Attic)   :)

I'm going to post this on Jennie's blog as she's been suffering from tag withdrawal symptoms!  

Oh and ps, we're introducing our new designers over at The Play Date Cafe this week.  We'd love you to stop by and meet them :)

WOYWW? - the results of a Christmas gift idea!

This is the elegant, posed shot of the project ;)

Whilst this is what is underneath that calm exterior - I put some white paper on top of a box of inks to take the pic above!

I've had the idea in my head for this project for ages!  Lots of ink, snowflakes and glue later it's finally finished :)  Although I'm going to need a lie down now, I'm worn out.  Anyone else suffering with this nasty cough?  I spent all day Sunday and Monday asleep, and Tuesday am.  Not good when you've still got tonnes to do for Christmas!

I made this wintry piece as part of my design team brief over at The Stamp Attic (more photos and details over there) using Tim's filmstrip alteration die by Sizzix.  I love the versatility of this die, and it also punches great weeny rectangles which you can use on tags or cards :)

I was asked last week on WOYWW what was in my drawers [??!!] - nothing exciting I'm afraid, but here's a pic for the curious.  The plan is to store inkpads etc in there that are best kept at hand...

The trouble is, my distress inks and stazon are in separate boxes cos there's too many to go in a tray, and I keep losing my versamark pad and black memories pads.  Hopefully, with a home they'll stay put!

Happy Wednesday everyone :)

PDCC#44 Play date with a difference

Oh if only I'd been standing a little more to the right, that crown on the wall would look like it really was on Penny's head lol!

We have a Play Date with a difference this week, courtesy of a conversation Penny Bearcroft and I had at one of my workshops at The Stamp Attic, Wantage!  Penny thought it would be good to give people a ReaL colour challenge, with colours that didn't go together, and were yucky!  I had a think, and asked Penny to come up with some such colours.  After she named hot pink, mustard and navy blue, I gathered some art supplies in said colours, and off we went!

Now I've picked the colours to tone, and happen to love this combo, but my question is, if the colours are tonally correct, are there any colours that don't go together? We'd love to hear any suggestions.

Penny produced this gorgeous piece using a Stampotique stamp, available from The Stamp Attic:

I was in the mood for a play with my needle and thread:

This is a 1 1/2" square memory frame.  I coloured the lace flowers with True Colours by Stewart Gill.

I know many of us in the UK are disappointed we can't get hold of Memory Box stamps, so you'll be glad to know, there's another chance to win this week.  Head on over to the cafe to check it out, 

and don't forget to visit our other designers, including our guest designer this week, Elise.

Julie Ranae
Suzanne Czosek
Stephanie Kraft
Savannah O'Gwynn
Lisa Somerville
Ruby 2 Shoes

Elise-Guest Designer

We say goodbye to our fellow designer Stephanie this week, although I'm sure we'll stay in touch!  We've loved working with you Stephanie, thanks for all your hard work at the Play Date Cafe.  We'll miss you

Steampunkin' Saturday

Quite how this collection passed me by, but when I arrived at The Cubby Hole, Crewe on Saturday to teach my Steampunk Journal workshop, there was the MaGNiFiCieNT Steampunk Debutante collection from Graphic 45 - wonderful not just because they're Steampunk, but they're in my favourite colours AND Art Deco. 

Wow!!!

When we'd finally all got over the excitement, and selected our must have papers, we settled down for the class.

And look!  Two blokes on this workshop :)  Paul, Carol's other half, joined us this week, and judging by the gales of laughter from the 'top table', he fitted in perfectly and had a great time. Paul had never done any stamping before, never mind playing with inks and making books, but he did a fantastic job!  Special thanks to Christine who helped out when necessary :)

I'm sure I've said this before, but what I love about workshops is how differently people's work turns out, and this one was no exception.  There were some wonderful additions of colour to the 'sepia' palette...

 Paul

 Sue Roddis

 'little' Sue

 ...different front covers... 

 Tracy Evans

Paul

 Suzanne

[We were so impressed with Suzanne, she sometimes finds this inky, messy work a bit much, in a workshop situation, but she was in her element with this book, and was so chuffed to use the sewing machine for the first time!]

And of course, the inside pages.  [Sorry about the orange hue, these pages are quite orangey but my camera phone seems to think the surrounding table is too!]

 Wendy

 Suzanne

 Sue B

N

Nigel

C

Christine

 I had a fantastic time everyone, thanks for being so much fun to be with :)  I'll leave you with some pages from the sample journal I left with Carol...

...a reminder that if you're a 'southern gal', I'll be teaching this class at The Stamp Attic in a couple of weeks [check out their website for deets]

...and finally,  the link to the Graphic 45 blog.  If you're a fan of Steampunk, you HaVe to see their stand at CHA, and how the girls all dressed up, and this amazing project using the new papers :)