Late for PDC

Last Tuesday I was talking to Sarah and I said I would hurry and make a card for the PDC Challenge.  Sarah had chosen the colour scheme so I felt I had to support her as she had been such a gem with my corset (see earlier posting) and she really is a lovely person in every way.

Well, I did do it, and went to upload it - went to PDC to put my name and thumbnail in.  Guess what?  It was Wednesday in NY.  I was too late.

Anyway, here it is - my late entry which does not qualify:

Took me ages to find some beige cardstock, brown was easy but what was I to do with green?  Found some little roses and peeled the calyx (is that what they are?) back on them all to show the green.

Ah well, now my friend has an easel card for her birthday - hope she likes it.

Zentangle

Over on Lots to Do this week the challenge is "zentangles". and my domino group have had a swap featuring zentangles (I missed it) so I thought I would have a go on a domino.

I have made mine into a pendant with one of my hand-made clay beads on the top - all it needs is something threading though and it can be worn.

I decided to put it on a card so I mounted it on white, then black and then white again.  The last layer of white I did some more zentangling on and then thought I would mount that on black and do even more but this time using a white pen.  Now I wish I had put a plain layer between the two zentangled bits.  My best white pen is a Signo so I used that.  It does come out thicker than my black pen but it looks sort of ok'ish.

I first was alerted to zentangling at CHA in January as Design Originals had previews of some books on it, I thought it looked easy and didn't need a book.  Wrong!  I found it difficult when I came to do it.  We all doodle and draw flowing lines and things but when it came to creating my domino, and subsequent paper bits, I had difficulty.

Mind you if you go over to Lots to Do and see some of the work posted on there by others you will see why I had a problem.  Some absolutely fab pieces on there.

Anyway, here is mine (enough blabbering) - the idea was there even if the execution wasn't.

Sorry about the angle and the flash on top of the domino but it was the best of a zillion photographs I tried to take.

More Sneak Peeks

As I said, I have been busy with my Project for the Stamping Weekend in September.  I have now only three elements to do - well 3.5 really as the wire is not complete yet.  I am so excited over that bit, it looks absolutely gorgeous and is probably going to be one of my favourite elements.  Don't let Paddy know but my own area has not been done as yet - will get this done today.

In the meantime I thought I would show you a couple of sneak peeks of the two areas done this week.

This is an addition to the original bit - a little "bling" is good for any girl and I can justify it on my project.

My photography leaves a bit to be desired.  My fabric bit at the top is rather blurred - couldn't get it right - but ...

This one turned out ok, now you can see a bit of another fabric piece and some more metal work.  I love playing with metal.  Wish I could afford (money and time) to work in it all the time.

A last bit of metal

If you have the time and the money to spare I do urge you to go to my sidebar and ring Paddy - this is now getting exciting and I know there are one or two places left.  A fab project and a fun weekend.

Is This Tidy or What?

Definitely WHAT!

I have been so busy trying to catch up with work on my "thing" (sh! it is a secret) for Paddy's weekend in September (see side bar and previous post - 3rd August) that my room has got in a bit of a mess.  If I keep showing you my desk, well, the space left on it, it will look pretty much the same, just a bit messier this week,  so I decided to do several shots around my room.

As some of you know I had a make-over by the Big Strong Boys (a tv make-over show) a few years ago and believe me it does not look one bit like it did when they had finished.  It was aesthetically pleasing for TV and I got a lovely laminate floor, counter running on two sides, Gavin's famous "floating shelf", cupboard/shelving and lots of goodies.  Had a brilliant two days with the most wonderful television team and was quite upset when they had to leave me.  A fabulous experience and some wonderful friendships.

Anyway, enough of that - here are some shots of my room today so all you WOYWW'ers (Pop over to Julia's blog (Stamping Ground) if you are new to this) can see how busy I have been.  Thanks for all the lovely comments last week, cheered me up to have so many visitors.

Taken from the doorway looking in

The start of my counter

Moving along to my bit of space to craft in (borrowed dies from Paddy for my fabric bit are Paperartsy ones)

My workspace

Moving to the right - what's my craft mat doing over the door?

Back to the door almost

That's it!

But ... this is what it was like when they left (the tv folks)

Neat!

If I remember I will do some before and after close-ups next time.

Corset

Some of you may remember way back in August 2008 I started on a twelve month journey altering corsets.  This was the idea of Paddy (Paddy's Stamping Place in Prestwich) whose mother and grandmother had been Sprirella corsetieres.  Following Paddy losing her mother she found lots of sample corsets, both Spirella and Spencer corsets, at her mothers.

Paddy got a group of  eleven of us to each work on a corset and then pass it on like a round robin, everyone adding their bit to each corset.  Each of us chose a theme, Peacock Lady (Sarah), Field of Dreams (Carol), Mermaid Dreams (Glo), Monet (Penny), Gathering Lilacs (Paddy), Construction (Sylvia), Gwendoline Grace (Sheena), All Things British (Becca), Christmas (Claire), Metallica Magic (Tania) -  and mine was Viva La Diva - showgirls with lots of glitz and glamour, reminiscent of Las Vegas.

The corsets (in various stages of being completed) were put on show in Dorset in September 2009 but as I did not go down I didn't see mine until this week when I got it back from Paddy so that I could do some more work on it myself.

Each corset was supposed to have a book with it where you put photographs of the various stages as you worked on it - mine went missing early on and when I was alerted to the fact I made a new one and sent it off.

This is it as it stands - Paddy has still to work on it and I don't know who has done what as my book is left incomplete.  In fact there is only an entry from Penny, Sarah and Glo therefore I cannot tell you which bit belongs to the others and who still should have work to do on it.

Because things were getting hairy in the posting of these (they had to go back and forth from up north to Dorset) I made a bag for mine with a pocket on the front for my new book.  I put some rubber stamping on, wrote on asking for people to graffiti it as they pleased and added lace to cover my stitching LOL.

Only Sarah did anything on it - The red bit is hers.  To be fair the bag was only made after about four people had had it.

I thought my fastening of the top flap was ingenious - suspenders closing on buttons - this reminded me of my mum who used buttons inside her stockings if the rubber round bit had come off.

Not a clue who did this bit but the clay head and feathers was a bit of my work before it went off.  I dyed it with Cranberry Adirondack spray ink.

This was Glo's work.  She did me some pages later and sent them on to me when I started my new book.  She's a love.

The playing cards were done by Penny in Dorset.  She was the first person to work on mine and she wrote on a card in my first book how she did them.  "Thought Wow to the corset when it arrived.  Wondered how to keep up the effect so hope I have.  To add "fun" to corset decided on set of playing cards - scanned them into computer, onto some fabric printing paper and printed individual cards.  Then put this on to Fast 2 Fuse and added pearly beads around th edge.  Ironed Fast 2 Fuse to corset then with metallic thread added stitches tomake sure cards stay attached as Viva La Diva has a long way to go still.

No entry, don't know who did it

To say this is Sarah's bit is an understatement as there is so much work in it.  Dear, dear dependable Sarah worked so hard on this section and has said she would like to do some more at a later date.  How can you not love her?

Not only all that work but four pages in my book explaining her thinking behind what she did and how she did it all.  And an atc to boot!  (We were all to send a calling card - only got one from Sarah and one from Glo).

The Final Picture

This is how it stands now.    I know Sylvia did the "flounces" at the bottom but no idea if she added the beads or they are someone else's bit.  Paddy has ideas on how she is going to do her bit (flashing stars and feathers) but in the meantime my friend Jo would love to work on it so when she has a moment it will wend its way to Liverpool for her addition.

When it is finally finished I will post a picture - but I won't be wearing it - those ladies in the 40's were stick thin!

Domino Book

Before I upload my domino book here is a fridge magnet I made using a domino and a trionimo.

First of all I drilled the dominoes top and bottom so that I could thread something through.  Then I coloured the domino with the Brilliance tri-pad, "Twilight" (these are the ideal size for dominoes) and went around the edges with a silver Krylon pen before glazing with Glossy Accents.  The trionimo was coloured with Brilliance "Orchid".

The crown and the wings are Grungeboard coloured with Dabbers (gold for the crown and three shades of lilac/purple for the wings).

Then I threaded some beads and tiny dice on crochet cotton and threaded them through to represent hands and feet and added some bling.  Finally a magnet on the back and here it is on my freezer in the utility room.

This is an entry for the "Wings" challenge on Simon Says Stamp and Show.  I guess my book below could also be an entry as it is stamped with butterflies.

Now to the domino book!

On one of my groups there is a swap for a domino book.  Several people had been asking how to do one - this is how I do mine:

First of all I coloured my back and front cover (dominoes) with Brilliance Ink.  I find the best inks to use for dominoes are Brilliance and Stazon.  Then I dried them off with my heat gun - I always use the heat gun between each stage of colouring  and stamping dominoes

It is much easier to ink your stamp up (Stazon) and take your domino to the stamp - that way you can get the part of the image you want if the stamp is larger than the domino.  Lift straight off.  Heat set.

Next I coloured my butterflies with watercolour pencils.  I used my Perga-Liners this time but I also use Caran D'Ache - both by scribbling on a piece of plastic and adding just a tiny bit of water to mix to a thickish paste.  Sharpies are good for colouring on dominoes too.  Heat set.

When cool I covered them in Glossy Accents to make a glaze on top of them.

Then I cut out my pages from some stiffish paper.  You can see I have three sets of three; these are called signatures.  They are just a bit smaller than the domino all round.

The photo above shows the "carrier" - a piece of card with four evenly spaced pinholes in.  This is the same length as the pages and helps you to align all the signatures when you start your "coptic" stitching.

This shows the coptic stitching holding all signatures together.

Put some double sided sticky tape (red liner is best - you need it to be strong) on both outside pages as above.  Notice how I have trapped some ribbon underneath for a closure.

This shows the book open

This is it closed with the ribbon tied.  The back spine shows the coptic stitching but as it is so attractive it doesn't matter.  Also if you can do coptic stitching you want to show it off and let everyone ask you how to do it.  (there are You Tube videos showing how to do this stitch)

Bookie Joint

Never done one of these before so can't tell you "really" what it is.  All I know is that Mel asked for between 8 and 20 players.  Each player had to make a number of pages of a certain size and they had to be backed with double sided sellotape.

Anyway, my cut out "Alice's" and "Mad Hatter's"  caused some questioning yesterday so here is the finished page.

I stamped the words on previously coloured (Rusty Hinge and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks) paper and tore it in half with a bit out to make a gap.  Next was to mount it on some cream coloured paper. Then I stamped, cut out and coloured (with Twinkling H2o's) my two characters from Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and put them over the words.

Finally I mounted the whole thing on Navy Blue cardstock and then put my shrink plastic words "Curiouser and Curiouser" in the gap.  Oh, you can't see but I coloured the only heart in (bottom right'ish) with a red glitter gel pen.

Now I have to wait until Jo comes back from Stempel Mekka (boo hoo I can't go this time) with my completed Bookie Joint with lots of lovely artwork from my friends.