Touching Wood in Cyber Space

How do you feel when someone leaves a comment on your blog?.............. It's a nice feeling isn't it?..........Most people are kind enough to not bother to comment at all if they can't say anything nice!

Touch wood........... (can you do that in cyber space?)........... I have not had any nasty experiences so far with this and I'm hard skinned enough to take whatever comes and not go down the "this will appear on approval" route (well not yet anyway:))) )...............however, I have a wicked idea brewing!............Not that wicked!!.........Not arrestable - throw her in prison wicked! Just my quirky take on something which I hope will be amusing to most people.................I do hope so because I would hate to offend anyone.

xoxo

Oooo er! I'm a bit scared now.

TYI - Week 51 "Cute & Cuddly"

Here is my entry for Cute & Cuddly over at Tag Your It this week.

The teddy bears and the wording background were from QVC a long time ago, afraid it does not say the manufacturer on any of them!

Coloured with DI - FB,WS,TR,WL,SS,TD. The ribbon, if I remember rightly, is from H.O.T.P. Studio G letters stamped onto textured Chatterbox paper.

xoxo

Graphicus Challenge - March 09

This month has been a struggle, both artistically and personally. My usual sunny outlook on life went AWOL for a while (hormones I suspect, although it is not like me at all), which in turn seemed to send inspiration out of the window as well!! I have literally crammed the past couple of days with creating again. So here at last, and only just in time, is my entry for the Graphicus monthly challenge for March. The prompts were the colour Yellow and the theme was Sing.............................couldn't have picked a worse month for such a sunny feeling!

It is very difficult to see after all my tinkering with inks that the papers used were two free downloads (Pink Bandana and Mystic Paisley) available here on Glenda's blog. I also tinkered with the hue/saturation etc to make them a bit more yellow before I printed them out. I then proceeded to tear up the Mystic Paisley which was glued higgledy piggeldy for the background.............inked with DI scattered straw and stamped with a little birdie stamp that I cut out myself from a bit of left over rubber from mounting another stamp, not perfect, but I don't do that anyway so it will do nicely!!

I cut a Moo sized piece of heavy weight watercolour paper which I stamped with different yellows by Colourbox and added the gold birdie image which I made bigger than the stamped birds and cut from embossed card and drew on the elongated legs.

Stamped the words using my Studio G letter stamps onto one of the yellow printed papers and 3D'd using different depths of foam pads. It was still missing something so I found an acrylic tile that was a freebie from some magazine some time ago and glued it to a piece of the printed yellow paper a la Tim Holtz and attached with a brad.

I am under no illusion that this ATC will turn out to be a winning entry but at least I have come up with something for this month...............should never have given myself the goal to play along and make 12 pieces using the challenge :)))

xoxo Hoping you have inspiration wherever it may come from!

BTW the wording is from a Eurovision song sung by Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson in 1959 (it came second), ..................call me sad but I love Eurovision.

Craft Stamper April Sketch Challenge

A spark of inspiration popped in my head today and I finaly managed to come up with something for the challenge here and turned the sketch on its' side. Only just in time I fear as the May issue is due very soon!!

This ATC is made up of reject bits (apart from the embossed gold background which I did on purpose). The red mat that the japenese lady from PaperArtsy is sat on is a classic ;))........................as the decorative marks at the side was a failed attempt to put the card through a Fiskars lattice border punch, it turns out I liked the effect here, but I had better not try that too often!!!

The caligraphy strip held by the brads is another PaperArtsy stamp, half on and half off a printed bit of paper. I used Studio G letter stamps for the word "home", stamping onto a bit of my own design caligraphy paper.

Hope you have an arty weekend.
xoxo

Beauty in the wrong place

It has been a lovely sunny day here today so I got out my camera and took a few shots. I had intended to post the usual spring suspects i.e daffodils and tulips but I ended up taking these and I got a bit philosophical...............................What is a weed? - only beauty in the wrong place!

And perhaps my favourite shot...............................................................

I can usually see the best in everything but looking at the back lawn today I only saw weeds and gloom until I reminded myself there are two ways of looking at anything and these photos' just prove that beauty is everywhere......................just sometimes it takes a bit of effort to see it.

My camera is a fairly standard digital, did not cost the earth type, one that has automatic focus. The focus was essential as my eyesight is not what it should be even with glasses! I used to love my SLR camera but it got to a point that I was not taking any photo's with great focus anymore and me being me, if it's not perfect then forget it! This camera (Pentax Optio s45) has a few different auto settings, but sometimes the focus does not seem to be great, however today is was playing ball and I am pleased with the end result.

Arty Girlz Last Challenge

This is the last challenge at Arty Girlz boo hoo:(. Yes I know I have not joined in much, but I feel attached to this particular challenge as it was the first one that I entered ever.........I still look every week even if I do not have the time.
Had to enter then this week.........and tonight is the night or else I am in danger of not entering at all!! So here is my "Stamping" ATC. All done with DI - FB,SM,WS,TR. Black pen to outline the words and gold marker round the edges. Music, caligraphy and Japanese lady Paper Artsy. Letter stamps?

Hope all goes well with whatever Julie and Crissi do in the future. Perhaps will see you again somewhere and will put your personal blogs in my list as I only ever connect to them through the challenge site!

xoxoxo

The Artist Trading Club

My four ATC's went in the post on Saturday for the Artist Trading Club March swap. This is the first time I have done this and am looking forward to the swaps returning at some point. Will post the ATC's when swap complete.

Chriss assures me that I can enter whenever I choose, I hope that I can enter more often than not, but sometimes life just gets in the way!:(

I'm still a little amazed that I finished them so quickly, not like me LOL.

Chocolate Tax!!!

I've never heard such a load of twoddle......Yes twoddle!

I heard on the news that some misguided Scottish doctor wants the government to tax chocolate!! Is it April 1st?..... I think not. .......Perhaps he imagines we can all go back to living in caves and foraging for food so we can all be healthy again.

I don't know why I am quite so worked up about it because I don't eat that much........honest! But if I want to eat some I'm darned well going to do it......... so what if some people eat too much of it........that's human nature and quite frankly it is probably the only pleasure some of us get, seeing as the powers that be have messed us all up big time recently.

I started the week having a red hair day and it seems that it has turned into a red hair week........maybe it's hormones but I don't like using female excuses :))).....I can't repeat what I said to the telly!!!

Hope you all post something to let "them" know that it if they so much as think about putting extra tax on chocolate we will "fight on the beaches" etc.

Enjoy your choccie fix today.

xoxox

P.S. If you want to join me in protesting please feel free to display my "Chocolate Button" on your own blog. See side bar to copy code into an HTML gadget in Blogger. Please do not distribute the button yourself but direct people from your own blog with this button.

Thanks for reading this bit of nonsense and if you would like to leave a comment I'd love to read it.

ISMAKI Challenge 09-010

I made this card using the sketch by Isa Norris here on ISMAKI this week. This is yet another man card for a friend and as it is for a man I did not want to go overboard with the swirls bit but hope the ones on the postcard stamp make it a qualifier! I really like the effect of repeating the focal image on all three squares and will most definitely use this again. Thanks for the inspiration Isa.
I stamped the three printed paper squares with Royal & Langnickel stamps.........you know the ones I mentioned before that don't stick anymore & a lot of them have actually turned an opaque white colour?!........All the papers were printables on a free CD with Scrapbook Magazine by Daisy D's, I printed them ages ago and have only just got round to using them :)))

I'm the sort of crafter that craft companies must hate!! I need to save money wherever I can and digital papers are a great way to do that. You can find some really stylish designs nowadays. I even make my own up when I feel in the mood, which makes it even cheaper!

Wings - TYI Week 48

Here is my offering for "Tag Your It" this week. The theme is Wings and as I have really overused the couple of stamps that would fit the theme I was getting bored with them and instead I went for a bit of simple cutting out.

Now.........me and decoupoage are not great friends possibly because there is such a lot of tat out there that simply does nothing for me. I like a touch of class don't you?

The other reason for trying the cutting out approach was because I received my free Fiskars scissors on Monday........for joining the Fiskarettes (see side bar).......so I had to give them a work out on something. I printed off the butterflies and a backing paper with an alphabet on which were a freebie from "The Vintage Moth" SSBFL. I also printed off three labels which were a freebie from "The Graphic Fairy" SSBFL. Then just kept cutting and the result is this.

I've now got 4 tags ready to go on cards at some point. I layered more than one image on some butterflies and added a eyelet to each. Thanks for looking.

P.S. The scissors passed the test and cut really well.

Fiskarettes

I had a surprise package in the post today........ a pair of Fiskars scissors with green & pink coloured handles. The problem is I don't remember why I might have got them!!! I signed up to the Fiskarettes blog some time ago but for the life of me I don't really remember..... (perhaps they were giving the scissors away if you joined?)............I barely have time to post to my own blog never mind anywhere else. I thought the least I could do would be to display their blog banner on my side bar...........I wonder if they could design a slightly less blingy one for me?

I was lucky enough to win a wodge of Fiskars goodies a few years back (2005 Fiskars category winner) in "Simply Cards & Papercraft" magazine competition and here is the card that I won with. The woven background, cut with some Fiskars shapes scissors, was a real pain to get right and my "style" has definately changed.........for the better I hope? I certainly would not have had the nerve to send it in for this years competition, there a things that need changing on it most certainly......... Although I still like my bird house design and the cloth padded hearts I made from scratch.

There isn't a project I make that does not include one of their products somewhere in the process as the wodge of things included a pair of scissors that have a non-stick coating that are great for cutting double sided tape as the glue residue easily comes off the blades. .........not something I would have bought myself but as I have road tested them for 3 years I can highly recommend them. I have just tried the funky ones received today and they are great quality too......obviously not a cheapo freebie giveaway promo item..........having said that I do hope Fiskars don't expect me to rave on about their stuff on this blog because quite frankly it ain't going to happen on a regular basis because

a) I am not on any design teams so

b) I do not have any agenda's to keep to and

c) I do not work in the craft industry which means that

d) My job does not depend on it and

e) I do not own a business that sells Fiskars products!

When I feel the need to mention something......I will.........but one pair of free scissors does not a mouthpiece for Fiskars make. Sorry if this offends anyone but the blurb that came with the scissors was a bit OTT and quite frankly it got my back up!

P.S. I suppose that means I won't be offered any jobs with Fiskars in the near future then!!!

Hope you have a crafty day (with or without Fiskars products).

Excuse the rant today I'm having a red hair moment!! :))))

ISMAKI Challenge - 09/009

I have been a bit busy this week crafting away at this and that. Here is my take on the sketch for ISMAKI this week..................Heavens! It will soon be time for the next one at this rate!! The colour combo was brown & red and now I have a card ready to go when the occasion arrives!

I think this is the first time one of my challenge cards has not been made with someone in mind and perhaps that is why I am not really connecting with it. The papers are K&Co Maison (background), Deja Views Red Diamond and Chatterbox..... the stamped image and the sentiment were bought in a job lot on QVC a long time ago.............and I'm ashamed to say I have only used this in the past to add a bit of a grungey line to the edges of a project and most of the rest have only been used on the (very) odd occasion. The background for the sentiment was made using DI.

P.S. Am very pleased with myself for managing to use papers that were all in a bit box! :))

P.P.S. How big a box should a bit box be? Answers on a postcard addressed to The Tardis, Second star to the right, Somewhere in the Universe.

Van Gogh

Just seen a lovely piece on But is it Art? that was inspired by Van Gogh who's art I admire and who's life was a tragedy. It got me thinking.....I wonder if Van Gogh would have been less troubled if he had known so many people could be so inspired so many years later? Or perhaps not - inspiration would still not have paid his bills!!:)))

Winter Weeds

The few winter weeds I was tidying away from the front garden yesterday miraculously filled 3 bin bags!.....How I really don't know. Perhaps that is why the front border now does actually look tidy!!!!!!

Tag You're It! Challenge #47

When I saw the theme "Diamonds are a girls best friend" for TYI this week on Kath's blog I just had to pay a visit.......not because I love bling........as anyone who has looked at my pieces can see (Er..... that would be the people I can count on one hand right?)...........but because I love old musicals and this song sung by Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is a great bit of movie bling and very iconic. I used the first line from the song "The French are glad to die for love". By the way I can't get the darn song out of my head at the moment so thanks for that as well TYI!!!!!!! :)))

Here is my entry for TYI, absolutely adored making it even if I had to force the bling issue a bit.

Thanks for looking. Off to tidy a few winter weeds from the front garden and mow the lawn! Yes it really must be done!!!! Hope you have an Arty week.