Simon Says...................

I've never entered this challenge before, but I'd been watching a Christy Tomlinson tutorial where she'd used texture paste; which is something I love to use; so when I saw that the SimonSays challenge this week was to 'stamp and show texture' I was inspired to have a go.  I've added texture with the use of texture paste and also by using corrugated card.  I don't know how much stamping you have to do but I've just added a little using a 'zigzag stitch' stamp on all four edges and stamped over the flower and torn corrugated card at the bottom with a 'bubbles' stamp.  I didn't want the stamping to show too much so used a blue Distress Ink.  I've used Basic Grey paper on the background and daubed a little peach and blue paint in.
I've not been able to crop it properly as I was using MS Officed Starter 2010 to do that but it's stopped working.
(Canvas, but it's a flat one)

366 Journal and Yorkshire Sculpture Park

On time this month :-) Not a lot to say about my pages.  I haven't been able to crop the pics this month as I had finally installed the software for my camera onto my laptop but it has mysteriously disappeared.  Previously I had been using MS Word (Starter 2010 pre-installed on laptop) but that is refusing to work, I cannot open it at all.  I've tried installing a free download again but it's not working so I don't know what's going on :-/  I'm trying to get advice from several sources; just waiting for replies.

I went to Poland for a few days with Pat, really enjoyed it.  We had  room overlooking the river which was lovely.  I've uploaded photos onto laptop so will blog about it in a few days.  I intend to show a selection of pics on here but upload all of them onto Flickr so if people want to see them all they can.  Also visited Yorkshire Sculpture Park earlier in the week; for the first time since I moved here - shame on me!  It's a wonderful place.  Stupidly I didn't think to take my camera so had to rely on my phone so only got a few pics.  There are sculptures by many different artists; I didn't make note of them all.  There was quite a large installation of sculptures by Miro and a small gallery in the same building as one of the restaurants/cafes showing limited edition of Miro prints.  Also an installation named 'Family of Man' by our very own Barbara Hepworth.  Oh I'm so fickle, after all Barbara Hepworth hails from Wakefield; where I now live; and I of course hail from Liverpool which is on the opposite side of the country.  Though Liverpool is now in the county of Merseyside it was once part of Lancashire - do you know about the 'War of the Roses?' - enough said! hehe  Many of the sculptures at the park are on loan from various parts of the world.  I loved the little greenhouse that housed lots of plantpots with 'Word Poems' in; onlyh one of which I'm showing here plus info about the author.  I could've reduced the image quality and taken more photographs but wasn't sure how well they would turn out, actually the last 2 are lower quality and are fine.  This is only a tiny taste of what's on offer.  The park covers 500 acres.

On the left, one of the 'Family of Man' series by Barbara Hepworth

Beautiful bark (not one of the sculptures haha)

Miro Sculptures

Thought I'd share this - it's nothing special except that I planted it up along with another for myself and 2 for my daughter whilst they were on holiday last October!  Can you believe it?  There were other plants in which died off and the pansies have taken over :-)

I've been productive

When I met up with my friend and fellow Scouser Ann at the recent show in Liverpool she gave me a set of Dyan's house stamps that she'd hardly used but no longer wanted, so I said I'd make her something as a thank you.  I made this bird for her and she's delighted with it.














I'd been wanting to make a 'Wood Nymph' (pattern by Julie McCullough) for some time.  As I'd previously borrowed the pattern from someone I had scanned it onto the computer but the some of the pages were missing so I didn't have the pieces for the body, thighs or wings.  I used the top arm to do the thighs just enlarging it then estimated the body size (I had a picture of the shape of the body to go by) the consequence of this was she ended up with a fat neck lol.  Actually I don't know why I said that because of course Wood Nymph's always have fat necks - but you knew that right? haha  I did in fact discover that I had previously cut out all the pattern pieces (apart from the wings) so wanted to make one for myself with the correct pattern so gave this one to my granddaughter who loves it, fat neck and all ;-) The fabric for the lower legs is some I'd previously dyed.

Also while at the show in Liverpool I bought a kit which included fabric, design to transfer and instructions.  This isn't something I normally do as I have enough fabric to do things like this and think 'I could do that'.  The problem is then I don't get round to doing it.  Also I want to follow more of other people's projects through from beginning to end for the purpose of learning how to do them properly and use them as inspiration for my own projects.  This is the 'Doorway Stitch Project' by Wendy Dolan.  I just need to do another 'scroll' on the lower part of the door then it's complete.  The blue is actually more turquoise IRL and the other main colour is a little darker.  The overall piece is 9"x8".

I've had a little book on Crewelwork embroidery for years intending to have a go, well I've finally got roung to it.  I've only done a little bit so far but thought I'd share it.  I've not done a lot of embroidery apart from cross-stitch; my stitching isn't very neat so don't look too closely :-D For reference the hoop is 7".

366 Journal and other stuff

It's that time again; time to post our pages for Kate's challenge.  On the ball this month!  After adding the fairies I thought I'd just add a few toadstools but then decided to do them all along the bottom - I preferred it when there were only a few.  Same with the tiny flowers, initially was only going to add a few but then added more.  The pages looked better with less toadstools and flowers but I thought it would be too much faffing to try to fix it.  The colours for May look too wishy-washy here, the background is PaperArtsy Fresco Haystack and Crushed Olive Distress Ink.

I went to the Stitch & Creative Craft show at Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool last Friday with a couple of friends and met up with 2 other friends there.  I didn't buy a lot as we went to a big show at the NEC in March and I spent enough there.  I couldn't resist the fairy stamps even though I was adamant I wasn't going to buy any more of Tracey's (Lavinia Stamps) beautiful stamps.  Are you a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character when it comes to crafting?  I am.  I love grunge, steampunk and the like and lots of detail but I also like plain and simple and not so much cutesy but pretty; I love fairies.  At shows Tracey does lots of demos and she had some beautiful cards on display.  I don't make as many cards or do as much stamping as I used to as I'm doing a lot more needlework, but was inspired to use my Lavinia stamps to make a birthday card.

At the craft group I go to in Brighouse once a month we sometimes have a challenge.  Last month it was to do a challenge we found online (not to enter the challenge but to make something using the theme from the challenge).  I made this tag which I'd previously done the background on using monoprinting.  The theme of the challenge I liked was to use a mask.  I think you may just about be able to see a button mask I used towards the top lefthand corner.

Out and about and soft toys

I've been making some soft toys for the children that DD looks after.  As well as what's shown here I've made some glove puppets.  I'm also going to make a Chinese doll and an Indian doll for her.  They are all my own designs apart from the bird.  The bird is approx 4" high, the mouse approx 8" , the duck approx 8"and the owl stuffy approx 10".

I love seeing Elizabeth's pictures she takes when she's out and about so thought I'd show a few I took in Manchester last weekend when I met a friend there.  Manchester still has trams so I thought it would be interesting to show a picture of the lines and a tram.  I also took a few pics at Manchester Piccadilly railway station.

366 Journal

March's pages complete and April's started :-) Not much to say about them. For more about this challenge pop over to Kate's.

 I've been making other things but can't show them as they're for a challenge for the 'craftydollybirds' formerly the Dolly Birds but as we do so much more than make dolls these days someone came up with the name of craftydollybirds for our blog.  I made a Kindle cover but then turned it into a journal cover.  The journal has been passed on with the head I made for the challenge.  I can show a couple of Easter cards I made as they've been received now.

Also been doing a spot of DIY.  I've put together a vanity unit for the bathroom but had to cut a hole in the base and shelf to fit it round the sink pedestal.  As you can see the cut in the base is very wonky.  I really needed some clamps to hold it firmly and also had to use the jigsaw upside down - that's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking with it.  The hole in the shelf is much better.  Just have to cut the top now to fit round the sink :-/  That may fall to DD's partner.  I'll take a pic of the unit once the top is in place.

366 Journal plus Ferry 'Cross The Mersey

366 Journal pages complete on time for Feb and March's ready to go.  Pop over to Kate's to see her wonderful pages and be inspired to join in.

During half term I went to see my son and granddaughters.  We got the train into Liverpool and then a ferry -The Royal Iris - across the River Mersey to Spaceport, Seacombe.  It was freezing on the way out, not quite so bad on the way back.  I intended to take a picture of the ferry but only had my mobile phone and it's not quick enough.  I did get a pic of the Royal Liver Building before we sailed and then took one from the other side of the river; the colours on that pic aren't very good but it was only with my phone.

366 Journal, other stuff and £100 refund ;-)

Firstly apologies to those who left comments on my last post.  I haven't tried to leave comments in the last couple of weeks but you may remember I couldn't on most blogs.  I'm hoping I can now if not I'm going to try installing Firefox to see if it makes a difference.
Onto the 366 Journal.  I wasn't really happy with the borders I did on January's but didn't get round to trying to take them off and do something different.  February's pages were ready on time but I only photograped them  couple of days ago.  To see more pop over to Kate's.

For the doll group - now the craftydollybirds - we had a challenge to do a Bridal Panel use any theme we liked.  I chose Gothic.  If you want to see the rest pop over to our blog

I made myself a Kindle cover, thought I'd show the inside as well.  I did consider just doing a kind of bag to just slip it in.  If you want to see how this fabric started out look here :-0 May 2009!!!

Lastly; I purchased a laptop from Dell before Christmas.  I'd phoned up as I was having problems with the DVD drive onmy Dell PC and ended up buying a new laptop.  I had been considering it as my PC was about 5 years old and getting very slow plus the problem with the DVD drive.  I was told I was getting a good deal as Dell were doing an offer for Christmas.  I was happy with the price but wondered what price it was on the website.  I couldn't find the same one but found one I thought had a better spec and was cheaper.  Anyway to cut a long story short I wanted Dell to compare the 2 and explain to me the difference.  I emailed them 3 times in all starting 6th January each time receiving an email to say someone would contact me.  I also phoned but think I was talking to someone in India and he didn't have access to the emails I asked if he couldn't get access somehow.  He got frustrated when I insisted that he should be able to as it was all customer services and I didn't want to be put through to someone else as I was paying for the phone call and he put the phone down on me!  Disgraceful behaviour from Customer Services.  After the last email someone did phone and when I explained the situation but said I didn't now have the detailsof the laptop I compared mine to but that I'd put it in the first email.  The outcome was he offered me £100 refund, yahoo!  I think that was mainly 'cos I'd sent 3 emails and phoned without any success.  Anyway good for me in the end :-)
Edited as I'd left the 2nd pick of the Kindle cover out and didn't do the link to the fabric correctly

366 Journal oh yes and Happy New Year

Hi, I'm still in the real world but bought a new laptop just before Christmas and have only just got round to uploading pics from my camera.  Was going to install the camera software but thought I'd see how I got on without it.  But also for one reason or another I've just spent sooooo much time online and none of it for crafty reasons.
Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year.  The main thing I got was a Kindle :-) I'm very pleased with it.  I've read 2 books already and have started War And Peace.  I know! but it's my Everest hahaha.
On to the main reason for this post the 366 Journal.  Not totally happy with January's but faffed about enough with it, and it looks better than it did.  As I didn't keep up to date in December I couldn't remember what I'd done on many of the days as you can see.  Pop over to Kate's if you want to see more or find out more about this challenge.

Have also made a Kindle cover for my youngest sis and am going to make one for myself.

My niece asked me to make a doll for her daughter for Christmas, both dellighted with it.

NB Am having problems trying to leave comments on some blogs.  Can only think it's 'cos my new laptop runs on Windows 7 and the old PC was Windows XP.  I will Google it to see if I can fix it but if anyone knows of a fix please let me know.  (My browser is IE9)