The Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - T for Tailleur (Tailor)

The Alpha Challenge at The Craft Barn is on T, no twists. I have so many words I could do in the T section!
For those who don't know, The Alpha Challenge was set at the beginning of the year, and the challenge was to alter an old dictionary. Every two weeks a new letter is given out - not in alphabetical order. Sometimes there is an extra twist to add something, or restriction on which words to use. By the end of the year the alphabet will have been completed.
I don't know if I will manage another of the 3 or 4 T words I have bookmarked though, I have one page prepared but I don't know how I am going to do it, and it will need a lot of doodling!
Well T for Tailleur, or tailor, I had a lot of fun with this one. I used my Toodles and Binks Habedashery stamps, first time they saw ink, and a new Stampendous stamp - the sewing machine. I also used some freebie stamps, the needle and the spool tops. I die cut some elements with a Sizzix Tim Holtz die called Sewing Room, and I wrapped the dummy with material tied with ribbon. I added a couple of scissor charms and a real button to finish.

WOYWW #217

This is the card on the desk, it looks a bit out of focus so I better try another one! The stamp is from Stampersaurus, I love this stamp and it seemed to me it should be dark, the lamps are on, there are stars and a lit candle in one window though I haven't seen it coloured like this! It took me a few hours to colour with Promarkers and Trias, then I die cut it with Spellbinders long deckled rectangles. I made the sentiment on the computer and cut a ribbon tag. Papers are Papermania, years old, and I added some fibres.

I have entered this card in the following challenges:

Creative Inspiration Paint - inspired by anything goes.

Some of you might not believe it but I had a good tidy up last night before taking this photo very late before I got to my bed!

You can see the card above, and a peeking kitty - work in progress, stamp from Crackerbox Palace, as well as some Unity Sheep, and the Alpha Challenge page which I will post seperately. Under the desk is visible, EEEEK!

View from the other end, and you can see Christmas images, well one of them by Penny Black, underneath you can't see I have Spyder Lyn and Dustin Pike images ready to go on cards. Yes I am trying to break the habit of a lifetime and get organised for Christmas! There are also some die cuts, I was playing with some new dies and made a fancy frame which I was considering putting peeking kitty into, but maybe it is a bit fancy for that!

In the background the tub of stash I am trying to sell is still there, I have taken a couple of bagfuls to the shop, and of course the minute I did someone asked if I had such and such. Well I retrieved one set of stamps from the shop, the other had sold. I saw an email Saturday when I logged on saying the shop was closed due to no volunteers, so I went over to open it up for a couple of hours. Not good to be closed on a Saturday afternoon. I didn't sell much, though there were lots of people coming in to look round, and later to shelter from the downpour. If I had seen the email earlier or had a phone call I could have got there at least an hour before I did.

The bench, eBosser surrounded by dies, and there are my Prismacolor pencils getting a long overdue airing!

This is an Itty Bitty stamp from Unity, the challenge for this week is to make something with a different Itty Bitty every day, however I only have one - can I do different versions do you think?

I stamped the image and sentiment onto black card with Stazon Cotton White, which is one of those weird pads that you get dry with a bottle of ink you put on the pad yourself. I added Prismacolour grass and a light blue shadow, or that is what it was supposed to be. DCWV paper. Die cut with Spellbinders.

Pancakes attempt 2, they are thinner. I used Doves Farm white bread flour which is made of rice among other things. I added some coconut milk too.Nom Nom.

This was a dish of quinoa, with samphire, passatta and Greek salad cheese. Maybe the passatta was a step too far.

 I've been making smoothie ice pops!

Sooty and Alfie met two young Mini Schnauzers while out walking, they always love other Schnauzers! The new boys were called Mikey and Toby and were two years old.

 Mikey eventually vanished into the crops, much to Alfie's amazement, and didn't come back out when we were there. He does it often apparently.

This was Sooty when he got back to the car!

A Quirky reminder, ha ha ha ha ha

Your mission if you choose to accept it: An Octopus's Garden (in the sea). Three prizes up for grabs and as nobody has entered yet (too challenging to stick a fish and some flowers on a card?), there is a very good chance of winning if you follow the brief!

I used images by Squigglefly to make my first ever centre step card. The instructions are on Split Coast Stampers. I used Birthday Octopus, Sea Maiden, bubble fish, Crabby, Unbrella fish and Beach Star Fish to make my card. with extra greenery using Martha Stewart punches, ribbon from Crafty Ribbons, ribbon slider die cut with Spellbinders. I coloured all images with Promarkers or Trias, and added some Anita's 3d gloss to the bubbles. Images come in pairs so you don't need to know how to flip them.

The other sponsors are Paper Pretties and Robyn's Fetish.

So hop on over to Quirky Crafts and join in by Saturday 3rd August midday, and you could win some digi images.

Death and beauty

Over on the Unity Facebook page Angela Blom set a challenge to make something with this lovely digi image she gave away. This is for the Unity creative CHA party which is on all week. I printed the image onto kraft, and had to fight the printer to get this, but managed two copies after which the printer sulked. I was going to print it on white card and colour it, then I was going to colour the white card and cut out the flowers to mount on the kraft background, and in the end I decided to get my neglected Prismacolor pencils out because they colour beautifully onto any colour card. I kept it simple, die cut the image and sentiment with Spellbinders card creator dies (I had to pop the leaf outside the box), and made a c6 card blank in purple with a lighter mat, finally adding some polka dot ribbon.

Anyway check out the details on the Unity stamp company blog.

I have entered the following challenges:

Crafty Ribbons - anything goes with ribbon.

I found this beautiful butterfly dead, cooked to death in the conservatory. Sad because I have never seen one of these before, I thought it might be a moth, but finally decided that it must be a Marbled White butterfly. I know it doesn't look very black and white but remember - it cooked to death! I hope that there are more of these around.

WOYWW #216

 It's WOYWW today, or Whats on your workdesk, this photo is what's on your working wrist today! A new bracelet for chocoholics made by a very talented young lady called Kate Prime, who makes mini food items that are charms and look so real, you should see her pizza slices!

I wanted to show you a breakfast I made last week too, all very healthy and rather nice for a change.

These are two of my new birthday toys, I have now used them both. The spice grinder is brilliant, not so sure the meat grinder or mincer is as good as I hoped, and I now need to buy ear defenders to wear when using it!

Ermm, well my excuse is that I had to rest and keep my leg raised up last week, so I didn't join in. I could have snapped the coffee table where I took my Promarkers and boxes of stamped and printed images and lay there trying to colour them in, but I tried to keep off the computer too, as wouldn't be keeping my leg raised. I had cellullitis, and after two days of strong antibiotics it got a lot worse so I was on even stronger antibiotics, but at least I didn't have to into hospital on a drip which I was really worried would happen. All better now, phew. So on my messy desk are dies I am using, a card in progress with a Stampersaurus lighthouse image, a card I made for the challenge, see post below, my dictionary ready to do the next page, or pages as I have a lot of choice this time, and general mess. including new stamps, and on the floor is a package just arrived that I am going to go through next. The trimmer has been nudged along and is hanging off the end of the table, and I really was going to tidy up a little!

This one came out a bit fuzzy, view from the other end of the desk, and I had to lighten it a lot so you might see Sooty creeping round the corner to where he thinks is the coolest place in the house to lay down!

I was colouring in wintery Christmas images to try and cool me down a bit last week, it has been so hot here and we really could do with a good downpour. 6 waterbarrels are now empty, I am saving shower water and kitchen sink water to put on the plants in the hope of saving some of them.

Maybe doing this midday I won't be last like I am usually.

If you want to see more workspaces and to find out what this is all about: hop on over to The Stamping Ground and say Hi to Julia who started it all.

Phew it's so hot, so "I want to be, under the sea in an Octopus's garden by a cave" It's Quirky!

Daire set the challenge at Quirky Crafts and it is "An Octopus's Garden" by The Beetles. I can't stop singing this song, and have done for years, it seems to play in my head!

Now you don't have to have an octopus on your make but it must be under the sea with an undersea creature and a garden and if you hop on over you can see some more great examples.

The sponsors are Squigglefly, Paper Pretties and Robyn's Fetish, images provided by the first two. I have used Paper Pretties images on my first card, I used Daisy (fish in bowl), Billingsley (diving duck), Butterfly Blossoms, Max Splasher (dive bombing dog) and Hani (parrot in treasure chest). Most of these come with several great sentiments, Best Fishes is one that comes with Daisy.

All the images are coloured with Promarkers or Trias, the treasure chest is finished with gold Stickles and Liquid Pearls. Paper is by Papermania from years ago. Sentiment die cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities.

You know that awful feeling when you have spent hours colouring images and cutting them out, assembled your card, punched eyelets, added patterned paper to the inside and you are feeling pleased, then you turn it back over and on your main image there is an orange ink line that shouldn't be there? Well I had that feeling last night! Hastily coloured the smaller daisy image, just the daisy, which I had printed previously, and cut it out to cover said line! I tried using the Promarker blender, it was Memento Ink I think so that didn't work. Well a happy accident you might say!

I am working on a second make using Squigglefly images which will appear later,I might not finish it in time.

It is so hot here in the UK that everything in the garden is dying, so I am now trying to save water from washing fruit and veg and rinsing things and even took a bucket into the shower to catch water. Last week when I had to rest and keep my leg elevated I coloured in winter images to try and cool me down!

Wall of Fame at The Craft Barn

I made the wall of fame at The Craft Barn in the Alpha Challenge with this page: B for Brittanique. Finally I am famous!

The other good news is that my Cellullitis is responding well to the new anitibiotics I have been on since Tuesday, and my leg looks almost normal now so I won't be hospitalised!

The Alpha Challenge Y for Yoga and yellow.

The Craft Barn set the letter as Y, and must have yellow on the page. 

Y was a big challenge for me, mainly because I had to patch the back of another page that was tearing so covered up some Ys and there weren't a lot to begin with in the French part of the dictionary. So I chose yoga as the only possibility. There may be a word in the English part, I seem to remember that section is very limited too. I hope to manage a second page.

My U entry actually made the Wall of Fame, and as soon as I recieve a badge in a format I can use I will display it proudly on my blog. This page is not living up to the last two that I did though. Flowers are Hero Arts, lady doing yoga (maybe) is by Funstamps designed by Lindsay Mason.

Quirky zoo challenge reminder.

 I hoped to have my little book totally finished by now, unfortunately I went down with Cellulitis and I am supposed to be resting with my leg raised. Especially as the infection failed to respond to the first antibiotics and I am on even stronger ones now, if the infection goes up the leg I will end up in hospital (which is where I thought I was heading this morning and am very glad that I am not yet).
So this is what the book looks like so far, with second and last pages not yet completed, and they will show Cedric and Daddy, with Daddy telling Cedric that it is time to meet the other zoo animals, and in the last one that it is time to go home and go to bed!

Here are the first of the two new pages featuring Bugaboo Tiger and Giraffe block and Chameleon of course!

The next two new pages feature Bugaboo Elephant topper and Zebra and Chameleon (of course).

All images were coloured with Promarkers, adhered and sealed with Deopatch and the ribbons used to join the pages are from Crafty Ribbons.

WOYWW #214 not tidy, if you are of a nervous neat disposition please don't look!

First you better look at some nice calming pond photos.

This is the view from my upper patio, and I ate my breakfast and lunch sitting right here! We have white and pink lilies flowering.

Pink lilies through the Kenny proof netting!

O.K. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, relax, and open your eyes to see my messy workspace! In the background against the exercise bike is the trug and baskets of stash I took to the fete for my stall - and brought them right back again! I bought the bright green trug and a few matching baskets to catch people's eye, or so I thought!

You can see a tub of saved "bits" I seem to have a few of these, anyone want some random "bits"? You can also see a few ink pads, two of which I got free at the Artstamps Exhibition at Newbury on Saturday - my birthday treat to me! I better show you a photo of my haul hadn't I! You can see a new set of Promarkers, which arrived all packaged up in lots of bubble wrap from France, I got all excited because I hadn't ordered anything from France and thought I had won something exciting for a minute, lovely new colours though and from Letraset.

In the middle are a few stamps I am using, and some Promarkers, and on the far side you might just see the pages from the book in progress I am making for Kenny. I used the Promarkers that are out for the book. There is still a lot of tidying to do though.

This is the rug behind my work desk, andI have had a good sort out, move round and vacuum of the rug. The Promarkers are out because I am using them, but I have managed to find a space on the shelves for the box to fit. The problem now is that the shelf of unmounted stamp folders is full and I have 3 on the floor! The carrier bag is full of offcuts and bits I will be passing to one of the neighbours children to use, there are two girls and a boy, the boy is probably too old but the girls love the bits.

The bad news is that Craftwell are unsympathetic about my eBosser problems, telling me to "watch the video" and "refer to the platform chart", and indeed "Funky Foam and Chipboard might just be too thick" (yes I know but I want a solution so I can cut them), and "unfortunately we have not used a Crafts Too A4 folder so we don't know how thick the folder is in order to put together a combination for it", I have offered to send it to them, it is useless to me if I can't use it in the eBosser and it is too big for the Big Shot!

O.K. here is my haul from the show, mostly stamps from Visible Image, Stampersaurus, Little Claire and Indigo Blue, paints and portable craft light from Indigo Blue at show special prices, free ink pads from Stampersaurus, glitter film from Little Clair, and a couple of pens and that A4 embossing folder I cannot use!

I got there at 3pm or maybe a little later, we got up much later than planned so didn't leave home until 1:30, and I didn't realise until I got home and read the little catalogue provided that there were stalls upstairs, some of which were new to me so I missed a load, but if I get there next year I will know, and I will get there earlier. Also there was a Husband Creche upstairs (only Husbands?).

The craft light is something I was looking for when we last went to Devon, the hotel lighting is not great for reading or working on anything, well it isn't if himself has gone to bed and turned the ceiling light off! I had a couple of tiny reading lights which were of little use so I hope this will be a good solution. I doubt I can take it down in the lounge and plug it in though! It will have to be for the room, and I could use it in our living room and sit crafting if it doesn't disturb himself's TV viewing!