Another Award

What an honor Faye has given me when she passed on this award to my blog. Here is the text that goes with the honor, the wording of which is not mine.

"This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY -nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers, who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

There are so many blogs that I look forward to viewing and there are so many blogs that already have been awarded this honor. I am choosing the following eight for this time:

Susan

Cookie

Lay Hoon

Sharon

Hilda

Jean

Patty

Dawne

A great deal of inspirational work comes from all of these great blogs. Thank you

A Real Person…A Real Award

A Real Person…A Real Award
Thanks so much to Nancy at Never enough atcs who nominated me for the “Marie Antoinette…A Real Person…A Real Award” award.

I would like to nominate the following to recieve it, in no particular order
Linda Vincent
Rosie
Karen
Linda B
Denise
Roni

To all of you , you are an inspiration, always.

ABAA Week 10 - An altered tin

The challenge for week 10 at The Awfully Big Art Adventure was to alter a tin.

The tin I chose was a small green one that was from Marks & Spencers ( it had fab little mints in it- yummy).
I always go for purple with it being my favourite colour so the dark green was a challenge too. However I have been collecting all manner of peacock, stamps, feathers etc so that gave me an idea.

The dark green tin lent itself very well to the shades on the feather and it wasnt hard after that to add on the other bits and pieces.
Of course it wouldnt be the same not to include PARIS in there somewhere, hence the title, ( and I couldnt resist the purple bling on the letters).
I wasnt going to do the inside, but got carried away adding some eiffel towers, a metal charm heart which has "Love" on it, a stamped butterfly with stickles glitter on its wings, a fan and again I used stickles glitter to enhance that, some quotes "Bonjour!" "May all your dreams come true" and "it doesnt hurt to dream".

My friend Gill who has her spare bedroom decorated out in the theme of the Moulin Rouge, and who adores anything peacock related will be after this .......I will have to hide it as ive fallen in love with it myself..........on the other hand, I could make another !

Thank you to Rosie and Linda for another great challenge, and once again, this isnt something I may have tried but now that I have, I will certainly be making more.

ROLL ON WEEK 11.

tick , tock, DAFT CLOCK !

Well this is my altered CD for the challenge over at the papergirls blog. The winner for this challenge was Karen and you can visit her here Congratulations to Karen and I now have an actual clock that works which is velcro'd to my crafting station door........now I have no excuse for not knowing the time.

Thank you for stopping by.

ps. And just in case you are wondering......the sign on my crafting cupboard door says " My next husband will be Normal ". ( Just realised you can only see half of it in the picture)

Be quick and take a look !

Why not nip over to Bootiful Stampz blog and read up on Sallys fantastic daily giveaway....hurry up dont miss out.

Arch Mad !

I have been promising myself to join in with the Gothic Arch challenges for a while now and finally got around to doing so.

After making my yuletide arch on Saturday i got a bit carried away and ended up making 2 dozen Christmas cards with arches on.....
Oh well at least it used up those Christmas bits and pieces that I had stashed away.

Silhouette for Gothic Arches

This is my entry for the Gothic Arches challenge this week.
Thanks for visiting.

Fantastic giveaway at Kristens......

Why dont you nip over and check out Kristens Blog.
Kristen has some amazing blog candy to give away, all you need to do is pop over and leave a comment.
Hurry up , dont miss out , its a great prize !

They asked for an inch- Week 9 (ABAA)

What a great challenge set by Rosie and Linda this week on the Awfully Big Art Adventure.

This weeks challenge was to make a set of inchies. Never having done them before I was worried as to how I was going to work with these minatures.
However its taken me less than 50 mins to complete.

I decided to do a set of 16, I used the letters from my name, my favourite number 16, a heart, a key, a photo of me when i was a baby, an image of a woman, some quotes , some stars to wish on, and a pair of legs.

All the card was black and cream, and I used cerise ink to colour the grungeboard letters, numbers, shapes and stamping.

I intend to maybe put them in a frame and make a picture for my bedroom wall, the colours are perfect and Im pleased with my end result.

Thank you again Ladies, another excellent challenge.

BIRTHDAYS !

Got lots of birthdays coming up before Christmas, and ive just noticed that the box I keep my cards in is quite empty, its been a busy year.
I found some lovely paper with these really lovely images on and ive made this card for a friend and im pleased with it that much ive decided to make a few more to have on hand.
I added some pink ribbon to pick out the pink in her dress, and some corner pieces made out of black card which were cut with the cuttlebug just to finish it off.

I used some similar images to this a while back to make some atcs which I traded so I may do some more atcs too.
Thanks for stopping by.

Definitely Dottie

Well Dottie has finally branched out ! After a hilarious photo shoot on Sunday , whilst she was baking and making lunch, she decided that she would like her own blog to show off her photos.......Our atc Queen Dottie was given to the Artist Trading Club by Louise her creator from Dotties World No sooner said than done, you can find The Atc Queen Dotties blog here and I will help her to post her photographs very soon.
Why not pop in and leave her some encouragement, Thank you .

Another Box File this time A5

After having such a great time with the box file challenge and the grungeboard I decided to have another go.
When tidying out a cupboard I came across 2 A5 box files, a bright pink one ( which I still need to find inspiration for ) and this black one.
I knew straight away which image to use for this. Still keeping my PARIS theme from the last box, this one has all silver grungeboard on it which picks up the black and white photograph nicely.I havent decorated the inside this time but im using it to keep my grungeboard in.I was given the Gaslight stamps (which are metal not rubber) from a very good friend whose family had a farm shop some years ago, at the top of their drive stood 2 gaslights. Her dad had the stamps made so that he could make his own letterheaded paper. The farm shop is now gone and her family passed away. But the gaslight stamps are being put to good use, Thanks Yvonne.

Now I only need to think of something for the pink one and I have a set.
Thanks for stopping by.

Awfully Big Art Adventure Week 7

This is my entry for The Awfully Big Art Adventure Week 6 .
This week it was to transform a wooden block of similar size to an atc.
Thank you to my cousin Tom who came to the rescue with a wooden block, and also to Linda who kindly popped one in the post as I thought I was going to have trouble obtaining one.
I really enjoyed making these, I covered them with Gesso, and then a couple of coats of Crackle paint. Once dried I rubbed them with gold wax and distress inks.
The gold wax smelled lovely. One my first one I added images of English Poets , with quotes and a verse, and stamped pencils on the top.
The second one had a large angelic image on the front and a shrine on the back and again small quotes and gems etc, and a couple of metal charms.
I put red felt on the bases so that i could stand them on any surface and they wouldnt damage anything. They are on my mantlepiece in my sitting room and I love them. I think I would like to make more to use as Christmas decorations.
Im sure I will make them for friends too. Thank you to Rosie and Linda for the Inspiration once again.

Saturday Nights Together

Well im sat at my craft table and I have an audience !
Sam and Dotty are cuddled up watching me. They are so pleased to be spending so much time together. Dottie has asked if she can help make the Sunday Dinner tomorrow, Roast Lamb ! Sams favourite.
I imagine the antics in the kitchen may end up on film !

Agyness Deyn

Its coming up to my sons birthday, and hes a huge Agyness Deyn fan. When I saw these sample cards advertising the new perfume from Jean Paul Gautier, I just couldnt resist.
The small images were on the reverse of the cards, the picture is really good , they are on glossy card and look like photographs. I drew black lines on a plain white card and the attached the images. Although I havent taken a picture , Ive stamped the verse inside with red embossing powders, looks good with the black and white.
They have made a simple but wonderful card, perfect for him. He needs something to cheer him up so hope this helps.

Awfully Big Art Adventure Week 6

This is my altered box file for the Awfully Big Art Adventure challenge week 6.
I had a great time doing this, It was more like a Scrapbooking page, and the fact that it was in my favourite colours helped too.
Started off with a plain box file, and added that lovely purple Dotty Paper from Bo Bunny. (This impressed Dottie she thought it was named after her !)
I added my photo, which Ive just been waiting for the right moment to use, I think its a lovely image. The hearts I punched out then used an emery board to sand off the edges and give them a worn look. A little vase of flowers with Lilac added flowersoft to give texture and of course the wonderful Grungeboard which I bought from Karen at Scrapz. Wow this is amazing stuff and I dont know how I didnt know about it before.
I added the words "Inspire me" on the side with the key to the lock.
Inside I used another piece of printed paper and then tried out a stamp I have had a while and never used, the peacock, I printed it on white card and then coloured it all by hand with paints, distress inks and stickles. I love it. I was sorry when it was finished I had such a good time.
Thank you to Linda and Rosie for the Inspiration for this fantastic project.

Distress Inks and Dottie

Dottie has been a huge help, shes been helping to get these atc's ready to post off to a friend.
We have been working with distress inks and rubber stamps. My sewing machine was at the side of my crafting table and Dottie talked me into trying to do some sewing on one of the atc's, it turned out quite well.
She insisted getting in on the photos, and is getting quite a dab hand at posing when the camera comes out.

We have been working on my altered box file which will get posted tomorrow as the light isnt any good for photograhs at this time of night.
Shes sound asleep now, dreaming of Sam no doubt........

I got roped in....again !

The last 2 days have been spent making last minute Halloween costumes, although they all know I hate sewing, they turned up yesterday morning with bag fulls of stuff that needed , gluing, painting, sewing, curling, cutting and accessories making.
My grand daughter Emily was a Vampire, and my Grandson Joe was Optimus Prime, although he wouldnt put his head piece on and went in the huff a bit.
My son David was having a party tonight at his house for about 30 people. I went around about 5 pm to help him get ready.
I have altered a nurses outfit for him and cut his wig from a long curly one to a short flicked out style. First we put latex scars on his face, then covered the whole of his face with the white paint, then the black eyes and red lips, he was the Joker dressed as a nurse, from the new batman film. He had black lacy stockings on and very high white high heeled shoes.
My son Andrew, went as the "Phantom Raspberry Blower from Old England Town" so I had 30 business cards to make for him with a raspberry on. Thats him in the black mask and hat, and cape.
The rest of the group arrived just as I was leaving, I think I would have cramped their style if I had stayed and taken photos of all the rest.....My job was complete, for another year.
Now to some crafting, maybe its not a good idea to have all this craft stuff, its too easy for them to say , "Mam will sort it" I just hope they have a good time.