Mojo Monthly - Heartstrings - S is for Sewing

Ahoy Peeps

I am sure most of you are aware that I am a bit of a fan of Sarah of La-De-Dah and her Mojo Monthly and I think so far I have taken part in every Mojo Monthly and have indeed won twice.  I feel very honoured.   I have learnt a lot from Sarah and her guests and it is because of Sarah I found my new passion ATCs.  Thanks Sarah.  If you have not seen Mojo Monthly please click HERE to see what I am on about and why not join in.  If not this month, then a new one comes out on Thursday.  Yikes - the start of a new month AGAIN??!!

Well then.  Down to this post.  This month Sarah interviewed the lovely Tracey Evans and the challenge is entitled Heartstrings and Sarah asked us to "plunder the stash you DO have and also discover the potential in cheap, everyday materials".  So here is my take on the Challenge.  Hope you like it....

Yes it is a heart.  A cooking tin no less which measures about 3" x 3".  But it is a heart.  Next, what to do with it.  If you came into my kitchen you will see there are a lot of hearts hanging around in the kitchen, so when I saw this tin in my local Cook Shop I just had to buy it.  That was over a year ago!!  So Sarah thanks for making me do something with it.  

The tin has been sitting on my computer desk since before I went away on holiday (did I mention I have been to Prague recently?  No?  Where have you been?!!)  Anyways.  The other evening I had a brain fart  storm (maybe having looked up the definition it should read "brain storm"!) - again!!!  and a little thought came into being.  

Buttons.  They were in a tin bucket having been given them by someone in work.  Thimble.  It was either Hubby's Great Aunt's or his Grandmother's.  Too big for me to use but I could not throw it away so now it has been used.  The snippets of fabric were left over from the Sunbonnet Sue and Sam project before Christmas. Wooden Bobbins.  The one on the left is from a Dolly kit which is very old, and the dolly now has no legs, poor thing.  The one on the right (purple thread) I bought last year at the Tim Holtz/Paperartsy event.  One was recycled anyway.  Sewing bobbin (top right) was given to me by the lovely Kate recently.  I will post up what came with it in tomorrow's post.  Flower.  Prima and had it for ages.  Typewriter key.  Tim Holtz and had them for ages and not many left.

Feathers (on the left) I have had forever. Cotton reel paper (behind the sewing machine) was in amongst sewing ephemera I have from Hubby's Great Aunts. Sewing Machine. Was originally black and was sprayed silver to make a "tiara" for our Quilting Group's 25th Anniversary in 2009. Diamond pins. I bought recently from the flower arrangement section of the local garden centre. Measuring tape. Tim Holtz from stash. Paper lace. Snippet from a previous project. Background. Crowded Attic snippet from previous project. Silk ribbon. From stash and coloured with Mustard Seed and Dusty Concord distress stains.

So there you have it.  A heart with a mixture of old and new parts to make a sewing piece.  I do hope you like it and please leave me a comment, as well as pop over to see Sarah and other projects.

I am now thinking of taking the S out and replacing it with a B for my Mum for Mother's Day next month.  Or maybe I will pop back to the Cook Shop to see if I can make another one.  Any idea where I bought the sewing machine from?  Hmmn.  

TTFN 

Hettie

GM 37 - Wearable Art!

Ahoy Peeps!

Wow - Grungy Monday 37!!  Good Grief - how did we get to this number?  I know I have sadly missed the last two weeks due to holiday and life but I was determined I wasn't going to miss another week.  So wear!! do I start with wearable Grungy Monday with the lovely Linda?

First of all I thought of a Pinnieon (apron to most people) but then I had a brainstorm (yes it hurt) and decided to jazz up a pair of flip flops, which I was given by a well known company when I had my feet nibbled and toes painted last year.  It had been raining before I set out on my day out to Bath so I wore my boots to keep my feet dry.  I hate wet feet.

They were unfortunately very slow in our treatments, despite having booked in advance, so we did not get a chance to sit down afterwards and drink a cuppa whilst the polish was drying.  We had to leave straight away or else we had a two hour wait for the train.  So they gave me a pair of flip flops to wear home.  Fortunately it had stopped raining but there were quite a lot of dirty puddles!!

They were pretty boring and were going to be thrown into the recycle bag but thanks to Linda they have been grunged up and look far prettier.  So here they are.......

....and note the sunshine streaming in through the window on the flip flops!  I need to clean the windows now we have had sunshine to show up the dirt though!

A lot of fun to decorate, using grungeboard, tattered florals, Stampers Anonymous stamp, Rock Candy crackle, distress stains, distress inks, glossy accents, (I cannot remember the make of the flip flop stamp!), brad and braid.  I declined putting them on to take the photo as my toes are not exactly photogenic!

Don't forget to pop over to Linda's to see some of the other wonderful work which has been done for the Challenge and why not join us! Also, of course, there is the Lord of Grunge himself's website HERE where you will find lots of ideas and inspiration for making art!

TTFN

Hettie

Happy Rudolph Day Folks

Ahoy Peeps!  Happy Rudolph Day to y'all!  

Before I start today's posting I would like to say "Hi" to my new followers.  I really love to have you join me on my blog and hope you like what I do.  This is great, I go away on holiday and come back to new Peeps following me.  Brilliant!  Maybe I should go away on holiday more often!!  

Rightio!!  For those of you who do not know what Rudolph Day is it means that it is the 25th of the month and my friend Sandra started a "thing" off for making a Christmas card on the 25th of every month.  In the latter months of 2011 I started to join her and a few others followed and now Sandra has a Rudolph Day with Mr Linky and everything!  Feel free to join in with us as it runs up to the end of the month so you still have 4 days to dust your Christmas papers and embellishments off and get ready nice and early for Christmas!  Incidentally, I had a stapler thrown at me in work for mentioning the "C" word yesterday - can you believe it?  She will be sorry when she is running around like a headless chicken in December!!

Here are mine......

I used some new Banana Frog stamps that I bought in their recent sale, some Ranger Archival ink and copic pens for the baubles.  They should have been very quick to do but you know how things go.... the bauble ones were stamped lots several times until I was happy with them.  And that blue thread is an absolute sw  very awkward to control!  The tree card went brilliantly in less than 10 mins though - swings and roundabouts ey!

I just love the way the glossy accents has made a glossy bubble over the baubles.  I hope you can see it on this picture.

I did actually stamp enough bits of cards to make 10 cards, but only managed two last night, but at least they are ready to go ahead and make. 

Don't forget to link up with Sandra.

Chow

Hettie

P.S.  Well done the boys in Red.  You have done Wales proud today! Da Iawn!!

Snippets Challenge - Busy Birthday Month February

Hello Peeps

Time to sign in to the Playground with the lovely Di again! 

I have decided to follow Sandra's example of doing one posting for the Snippets each week so that poor Di does not have to link quite so many cards to her posting.  Poor thing must have typists' cramp by the end of Saturday evening so I have a selection of cards for you to see......

First up was my friends' Emma and Gryff's Anniversary card....

Then another card along the same theme for Joan.  Joan was 90 last Friday!  What is even more amazing is that she still regularly attends the Scottish Dancing Group and still dances!!!  Amazing woman!  I will be one happy bunny if I can still be dancing when I hit 90!! 

Next up is Annie's card.  Annie's birthday was Wednesday and she loved her card.....

I made the little Friends tag removable and printed on both sides of it.  I then handwrote a message on there for her eyes only.  Annie is one of the solicitors who is at my place of work.  Such a lovely lady who will be retiring next month so look out for a retirement card. 

Incidentally, she is Farmer and has chooks so I couldn't resist making her a chicken themed card.  When she opened it she almost immediately asked me to make her one for her friend!!

Next up is Patti's card, whose birthday is today.  Happy Birthday Patti.  A cat lover but I don't think I have any cat stamps and so mice with chocolates will be a good substitute I am sure.  The stamped image is one from my buddy Sandra.

Next up is Gloria's card.  I could not resist butterflies and lots of stamps.  Gloria will be retiring from the firm at the end of next month too - so another retirement card is imminent!!  :-(  Perhaps I should invest in a retirement stamp - any ideas where/which one?

Right then.  That is enough from me for one posting.  I need to pack my stuff for quilting tomorrow and also a dancing lesson and a visit to my folks on the way home.  I think I will need a holiday after all this running around!!  LOL!!

One more picture for you...... we stopped at a coffee shop just before we headed back to the hotel to pick our bags up and wait for the taxi and I could not resist taking a photo of the noticeboard outside.  Enjoy!!

Chow for now!!

Hettie



Karlov Most Scrapbook Layout

Dobrey Den Peeps!!

Hey I am back in the land of the Blogging at last!  Sorry I have been off the radar for the last week and a bit, but as most of you know I have been away to the land of the freezing temperatures and cool beer that is Prague!!  I had planned to post this layout last week from Prague but unfortunately the wifi at the Hotel was slower than at home so it didn't get done.  So here is a layout of the lovely Karlov Most bridge that I would not like to mention how many times we walked across last week....

This photograph was taken from the top of the tower on the "new" side of Vlatva River and was taken on our first Winter break to Prague back in 2000.  This actually is one of my favourite pictures of Prague that I have taken, and I am surprised that it has taken until now to scrapbook it, but I have now!  At the top right of the photo you can just see a little peek of St Vitus Cathedral.

The papers were Piggy Tales - Three Bears I believe, which I bought from Banana Frog in their closing down sale recently.  Wish I had bought more as they are lovely double sided papers and great to work with.  The stamps are Technique Tuesday which I bought a long, long time ago, lost them, found them, lost them and now found them again.  This is actually the first time I have used them!!  I must ensure I do not lose them again as they are rather "Praguest" don't you think?

The Passport card is 7 Gypsies, the plain cardstock is Bazzill, font is Bloom from Sizzix and of course the lamp post is Tim Holtz - the whole reason I bought the lamp post die is because it reminded me of Prague!

You may possibly pick up that I stamped a flourish stamp on the lamp and then embossed with copper/bronze embossing powder.  (It really is copper/bronze powder as I only had a little of the bronze left so I mixed in the copper and I love the colour!)

(sorry about the wonkyness of this picture!)

Embossing folder, Post Card stamp, distresser, flourish stamp on the lamp post and accordian dies are all Tim Holtz, and I used Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain distress inks throughout. 

We were planning to climb the tower again to get another up-to-date photo of the bridge but we never seemed to get around to it as it was either too crowded, or getting dark or some other reason when we went past.  Never mind, it isn't going anywhere!  If you go to the right of the bridge there is an exhibition of the former bridge that this bridge replaced (Judith Bridge) and a coffee shop where they sell an elixir made there which former Templar Knights used to drink!  Just right for warming you up and giving you rosey cheeks!

Somebody (Vikki I think) left me a comment last week saying that she loved Prague more than most of the other cities in Europe (Paris, Vienna)!!  Whilst I cannot vouch for Vienna, I can certainly tell you that in our humble opinion Prague is nicer than either Paris or Rome.  If you are fancying a trip over, please feel free to e-mail me and I can point you in some interesting directions with ideas of hotels, restaurants and things to do!!

TTFN for now.  I will try to be better at blogging and will show you some more photos from Prague as soon as I upload and edit them onto my computer.  I don't know why but life is definately getting in the way at the moment.  I have even had to change my morning routines due to the mornings becoming light again!!  How did that happen in a week?

Hugs

Hettie

WOYWW - Greeetings from a different workdesk!!

Ahoy Peeps

Happy Whats on your Workdesk Wednesday Day

Happy Hump Day

And a belated Happy Valentines Day

I do have a workdesk this week but not quite the messy one which you are used to, but  I have been working on my Journal,  my Holiday Journal as we are on holiday in Beautiful Prague at the monent.  Just 'cos we are away that doesn't mean I was going to miss out with linking with the world's largest blog hop which takes place every Wednesday and is organised by the Lovely Julia! So here is my desk......

And here are some photos of Beautiful Prague to help you to wish you were here!

Off to have some breakfast and then wander around this beautiful city some more!  Yesterday we found some beautiful streets which were only just off the beaten track so it is worth turning a left when you normally go right once in a while!! Be back to check some desks out later!!

Dobrey  Den!!

Chow!

Hettie

P.S. Please link to Julia's blog using the button on my sidebaras this wifi is far tooooo slow!!

Happy Valentine's Day - Snippets

Good Evening Peeps from, a very snowy Praha

Hubby and I have taken a short breaks to wonderful Praha to spend Valentine's Day.  So I thought I would show you the Valentine Day card which I made for my lovely man......

As you can see it has the theme of Praha, the medieval manuscript and illuminations were from a book which I bought some time ago, second hand for £1, as I knew it would come in handy for some Praha scrapbooking in the future, the cogs were to represent the clock tower in Old Town Hall (plus it also justified me spending money on the die!!), the hearts are kinda obvious and the heart punch border I actually borrowed from my friend Penny, and the image stamped on the bottom is Karlov most aka Charles Bridge, one of the most significant monuments of Praha after the castle of course.

All the pieces were from scraps which entitles me to entry into the Snippets Playground of the lovely Di.

And, just because I cannot get enough of Praha at the moment, here is a picture I took earlier today - please bear in mind that I have not yet edited this photo and we are on our way UP this hill with further to go til we get to the Monastery! 

 And as for Fergus - he has been a bit of a naughty boy not that he needed much encouragement from Simon!!!

TTFN

Hettie

Snippets Challenge Baby Girl cards

Hello Peeps

I am running a bit late this week.  I have been working desperately hard to finish my cardigan however, at about 1am this morning, I discovered the horror of horrors - I ran out of wool!!  Happy I wasn't I can tell you!!  Never mind, a quick e-mail to the place where I got it from and they will get another one in the post for me so at least I can finish it soon.

Now, down to the business of tonight's post.  As regular readers will be aware, I am taking part in Di's Snippets Challenge.  Click HERE for more details.  Each new week starts on a Sunday, where else and a whole new challenge starts again.  Here are my (late snippets) for this week......

They ARE two different cards.  Two of my friends gave birth to baby girls in a very short space of time so I used a similar design for both cards, though they are slightly different.  Both were liked so one Happy  Crafter. 

Don't forget to pop over to Di's blog HERE where you will see more cards made from Snippets.  

I also wish to say "Hi" to my new latest followers Liz and Lisa and Welcome to my Blog!  Hope you like what you see and I look forward to hearing your comments!!

TTFN

Hettie

WOYWW 140 - Wednesday Here Again!

Hello Peeps

Well Happy Hump Day to all of you.  Of course it is Wednesday and that means one of two things.  One it is Hump Day - once today is over it is downhill to the weekend - wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!  Two it is WOYWW Day!  I am sure you know what this means but in case you don't it is where some of us (daft) craft bloggers take part in the biggest Blog Hop in the World (probably) with the lovely Julia!!  Click HERE to join in.

Here is my desk.  A little tidy in an untidyish way.  It is just as I left it after finishing my cards for Di's Snippets Challenge.  Di - I will join in the Playground tomorrow!!

Here is a sideways shot....Oops I have not put my stamps away!!

Oh O!  My sins have found me out.  A wine glass (empty I hasten to add).  Whilst shopping in Waitrose on the way home I fancied some fresh mussels.  So I bought some onions, garlic and of course, wine - Cabernet Sauvignon of course.  Well after pouring some in with the mussels I couldn't throw the rest away now could I?  Does wine count as one of our 5-a-day I wonder?  It is grape juice after all.  

The sharp eyed of you may spot I now have two ATG guns.  There is a valid reason for this.  Back at Christmas I used my gun to adhere wrapping paper when wrapping pressies and then wished I had the non acid free refills in there as it was fab - no fighting to cut sellotape, no twisting tape......  Then I happened upon Lyn Elbourne's blog and she was raving about the ATG and gave a link to the 3m site which had an offer on the ATG.  Click HERE if you are interested in buying one.  The ATG guns are on offer at £9.99!!! I paid about £25 for mine!!  So there was my answer.  Buy a new one for me and one for my Buddy for her birthday.  So now I have one for Scrapbooking and the other for Card Making (don't need acid free for cards really).  

Since I made the cards I have been desperately trying to finish this.  It is a short sleeved cardigan which I want to take with me on my holiday which is coming up.  It is knitted in one piece (fronts and back together as one piece) and I am just about to start shaping the neck and armholes.  Wish me luck ey!!  I will show you if and when I finish it!

If you want to see my Chookie Album that I showed on last week's post click HERE to see the post.

Off to work, dancing and then I will join you for the Blog Hop later today.

Happy WOYWW Day!

TTFN

Hettie.

Chookie Album - Finished at Last

Hello Peeps

Do you remember this on my WOYWW post last week?

Well, you may recall that I promised to show you more of it sometime during the week, so here it is.  You may want to pop out and get yourself a cuppa or a glass of something as it is a very picture heavy post, but I hope you think it was worth it when you finish reading/viewing!!

As some of you may know, last year Hubby and I ended up with six lickle Light Sussex Chickens by via my devious buddy Rachel.  Her and her Hubby had bought eggs and were incubating them at home.  I have wanted chooks since I was 5 about ***** years ago - or a very long time ago!!  I still blame the Waltons for this you know!!  So Rachel worked on us to have some of her chicks!!

First out of the coop are Wilma and Betty. Wilma and Betty were the smaller of the six chooks and were always together, hence being named after a famous duo (Hubby's choice! It could have been worse as he was thinking of "Drumstick and Nuggets"!!!).   Unfortunately, Wilma is no longer with us after falling prey to Mr Ferdie Fox and Betty is still the smallest of the original bunch.

Next are Tony on the left and Betty, Abby and Ziva on the right.  I wanted to name them all after NCIS characters, however, that was a little tricky as most of the characters are male. Tony was an obvious choice as from a very early age he would strut around the place thinking he was God's gift to women!!   Ziva was (and still is) quite a feisty character.  She knows what she wants and will walk over everything (and anyone) to get it.  She is also a bit of an odd one out too.  When she was still a chick she was the only one who had any markings on her, a black spot on the top right of her head (Rachel and Hubby nicknamed her Spotty Woc!).  When she got a bit older and her feathers started forming it was clear that she wasn't going to be getting the black neck feathers.  So as the character Ziva is the odd one out in NCIS Spotty Woc got named Ziva.  

Abby was easy to name.  In NCIS Abby plays a Goth with plenty of tattoos.  Our Abby had a lot of black feathers around her neck and quite a way down her back.  Hence Abby.  Abby was the first of our chooks to be murdered by Mr Fox.  :-(

Next we have Myfanwy.  Myfanwy was the nosiest of all of the chooks.  She would be constantly on the look out for anything or anyone.  Whatever we were doing when we were outside she would watch us most intently.  Hmmn.  Reminded me of someone whom I used to work with so Myfanwy it is. (I mean that in a nice way of course!)  She has since turned out to be the biggest of our hens and also Mother Hen. You can stroke her when they are in the coop at night without her objecting to it.   The character on the right is Mr Chicken Man.  I have a series of these photos where I kept asking Hubby to move the coop left a bit, right a bit, 90 degrees right, 90 degrees left, whilst I just kept clicking the camera.  Hilarious and extremely silly.  Bless 'im!!

Now on the final two inside pages.  (I do wish I had painted my nails!!)  I have made pockets for tags and a lickle door.  

Tags front and back.  Need to put a lickle journalling on there.  Not sure quite what yet.

Here is the door.......

And here is our first lickle eggie.  Probably Ziva's as she had laid a soft shelled egg the day before.  But this egg was perfick and tasted absolute scrummy.  Our first ever home grown egg.  

And here is the back of the book.  

Since we have had these chickens we have also had some ex-Battery Hens join us.  Three beautiful ones.  Now I need to make a book for them.  

Hope you like my lickle album.  Please do not forget to leave me a comment.  I do sooo love to hear what you think of my projects.

TTFN

Hettie and her Chooks!

P.S.  Thanks to Sandra for getting the set of chicken stamps for me and posting them.  They are wonderful and worked so well!

Grungy Monday 34 - Mayhem Magic - ATC

Hello Peeps

The Lovely Linda of Grungy Monday fame gave us two weeks to complete this week's Grungy Monday Challenge.  You may see the post HERE.  But before I start, can I ask a question?  Why is it that when I have a week to produce and post a Challenge I do so on the last day.  When I have two weeks I STILL post it on the last day!  Hey ho!  It would have been yesterday, but more below.

We were sent by Linda to watch Tim's video HERE to watch his little clip talking about Distress Crackle Paints.  I am already disadvantaged because I only have the one - Rock Candy.  Never mind, do the Challenge I will.   And, as I have recently fallen in love with the concept of ATCs thanks to Sarah, I will complete the Challenge as an ATC! 

So, here it is.....

The background was made by layering papers which I inked using Picket Fence and Chipped Sapphire Distress Stains (DS).  I have to make a note to myself to buy the Distress Ink (DI) of Chipped Sapphire!  Then I took a piece of masking tape, adhered it to the top layer at random and then tore it off, which subsequently tore some of the paper off.  I did this again in another spot, then I went over the background again with Chipped Sapphire and Picket Fence.

Here you can see some of the layers torn and also the bottom left curling up.  I like that!  

Then I added the Distress Crackle paint, having added water to it, as the Man himself told us we can do.  How cool was that?  Mine had gone a little gloopy and lumpy and I was considering throwing it away and opening the new bottle, but at least I have now got one more project out of the bottle, maybe another.  I left it to dry as we were told and then applied a little heat from the heat gun at the correct time.  

I then inked over the whole ATC with Faded Jeans DI in order for it to be worked into the cracks made by the Crackles.  I stamped the background with this lovely lady and the lickle stars - both Graphic 45 and unused until yesterday!  The lady did not stand out as much as I would like so I stamped her on a separate piece of card, inked her with Faded Denim DI and then added the white Perfect Pearls in order that she would shimmer in the spotlights.

Then came the magic part.  I used Perfect Medium to stamp the stars on the background as I intended to use gold Perfect Pearls  to add even more shimmer.  When I brushed over the stars, the Perfect Pearls went into the cracks and made the whole area look golden and shimmery.  I really liked the effect so I did not rub the crackle to remove the ink and pearls hard, just enough to remove what was on the surface.

I added the lady using foam dots so she would pop a little, made the sign and then proceeded to make the frame, on my own and with no supervision, other than Monkey who sits on my desk!  I deliberately did not colour the inside of the frame as I wanted to ATC to stand out.  Colour may have dulled the ATC I think.  I used Chipped Sapphire and Picket Fence DS on the outside of the frame and then stamped the frame using Archival ink.  A little Indigo wax smudged with my finger and attaching of the sign and off to photograph it.  Unfortunately, I had to photograph it twice, as I was not totally happy with the flash so wanted to photograph it again this morning in natural light, hence why I did not post this last night.  

Hope you like and please do not forget to leave me a comment and also pop over to the Lovely Linda to see some of the other entrants to the Challenge.  Don't forget you can always pop over to Tim's blog HERE to get even more wonderful ideas.

TTFN

Hettie