Mirror Mirror

I've had this cheap mirror from IKEA lying around for ages, and decided it was time to stop tripping over it. I wanted to do something different, but wasn't really sure what until I spotted a roll of metal lying around. That sparked off someting I'd seen at Ally Pally last year and from there I was on a roll

First I gessoed the mirror. I then used some Dylusions spray inks, and paint dabbers to colour the frame. The flowers are made with Spellbinders Rose creations die, metal and all sorts of weird tools like rollers and embossers.I alcohol inked them and then layered them using hot glue. My hands are a sight to behold. I used some coloured ball chain to add interest and stuck a little bead in the centre of each flower. I then stamped and UTEEd some flourishes around the other 3 sides of the frame and finished off with some beads glued randomly on the frame. TFL

Liebster award

Many thanks to Jackie fromhttp://jyorks80.blogspot.com for nominating me for this award.

 

Here's how it works (and I admit to hitting 'copy & paste' for this):

This award is given to bloggers with less than 200 followers, in the hopes that it will bring many new friends/followers.

Leibster is German and means 'dearest' or 'beloved' but it can also mean 'favourite'. The idea of the Leibster award is to bring attention to blogs with less than 200 followers. So, in the spirit of good fun I am passing this award on to five other bloggers. Please stop by and visit them.

The Rules are:

1. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

2. Reveal your five picks for the award and let them know.

3. Post the award on your blog.

4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the blogshare-other bloggers.

5. Finally and the best rule of all..........have fun and spread the love!
My favorites for this award are listed below. Click on over to their sites and take a look!

So, after a fair bit of thought, here are my 5 nominations -


Pam thorburn from whom I get loads of inspiration http://waltzingthroughlife.blogspot.com/


http://salamandaspaperadventures.blogspot.com/  Sal whose art journal pages are brilliant


Suzie, whose blog I have been following for a while now.  http://suziemakesart.blogspot.com/

My dear sister Judith, who though she doesn't blog alot does amazing stuff. http://jsteinscorner.blogspot.com/

And Terri Ann .http://terriann87.blogspot.com/ who does lovely crafty stuff

Ice cream

I know I haven't blogged for a bit, but life has really been under my feet recently. I'm still wading through a bunch of issues, but I just had to do some crafting today 'cos I thought I was gonna lose it otherwise. So I made a LO of DGD2 comforting herself with ice cream from the tub.

This LO veers away from my usual style in that it is fairly minimalist with lots of white space. I'm working on my fear of white space snd needing to fill up every inch of my LOs.
The background pp is from the new 7 dots studio dreamer collection, and so are the little word stickers. I used a Martha Stuart deep edge punch for the border. The flourish is a very old one from my stash which I first painted and then glimmer misted. I then inserted some jewelled brads randomly on the LO around the flourish. The flowers are Prima vintage and the little studs on the border and the photo mattes are 7 gypsies. I used some thickers which I scratched with a tonic scratcher thingy and then applied green ink to them. It can't be seen very well on the picture, but there is some journalling on the top edge and down the right hand side of the page. Thanks for stopping by my blog

My Little Book of Secrets

Well not my book actually, but the one I made for my swapee over on UK Scrappers. So if your username begins with H and your real one with C, go away unless you don't mind seeing before rceiving.
For this swap we had too make a book wrapped around some matchboxes whose drawers are little secret compartments filled with surprises. Each member chose a theme and it was up to us to make and decorate the book.
My swapee chose words as her theme and I must say it was quite difficult coming up with ideas for the book. I didn't use  the teeny tiny matchboxes, or the big cooks ones, but a size somewhere in between so my book is 7 x 7 inches.
Below are the pictures of the book, and how I made it up. Thanks for looking

 this is the front cover. I distress inked some craft CS and then painted the grungeboard letters for the title for a grungy look. I bound the edges of both the back and front covers with som Tim Holtz tissue tape, and the flower in the top corner is one I made with a spellbinders sunflower die and some orange CS which I also distress inked.

 I used word associated papers for the whole book. This is some lined notebook paper. The random alphas are done withfoam shapes dipped into acrylic paint, cut out and adhered with foam squares.

 Here I used some inspirational words to kick off some writers cramp. I stuck the mini alphas onto strips of paper and stuck them to the page.

 On this page there are 8 little dustbin shapes, courtesy of google images, and in each one a strip of paper sticking out with different versions of the word RUBBISH on the. There's gobbledegook and codswallop and more in that vein.

 This double page has the pictorial alphabet spread across it. It's from one of the Tim Holtz collection.

 A newlywed once called her mother in tears that her brand new husband had been saying 4 letter words to her. When the shocked Mum asked what he had said, she replied ''You know, words like COOK, IRON and WASH''. I love this little snippet and felt it belonged in a book of words.

 

I used this crossword puzzle paper to make a little puzzle of my own. These scrabble tiles came in very useful here.

 

I decorated this page with the Phonetic Alphabet. I have had these Making Memories alphas since I started scrapbooking and they came in very handy now.

 The envelope on this page contains words which have long gone out of fashion, but in my opinion never should have. Who remembers saying 'smashing' or 'stupendous' and flibbertigibbit is just the most delectabele word and should never have left our vocabulary

 And lastly the back page features a little pocket with a little note to my swapee on a tag inside the pocket

In this picture you can see the little secret compartments pulled open. Although you can't see them each drawer has a brad attatched for ease of opening

As ever thank you for popping by to my rambles and thanks for looking.

Raggedy Anne

I've been busy sewing Purim Costumes for my granddaughters. Purim is a Jewish holiday in early spring when children dress up, give and receive gifts and generally make themselves sick eating too much junk food. Anyway this year it works out on 8th March which is a day after my daughter is due to have her 3rd baby. I've therefore started really early because as the sewer in the family I get besieged with requests from my daughter and sister to create lovely costumes. And of course I have my own kids costumes to do too.
So DD decide that she wants her girls to be Raggedy Anne's this year, so she duly went out to get me the fabric and told me to get the creative juices flowing. This is what I came up with.

 Tzivi is the demure one, who stands and poses in whichever way we ask her to. She particularly loves the hair I made to go under the little bonnet, and asked if she could wear the outfit to nursery tomorrow.

 Estie can't stand still long enough for me to snap a pic, but here she is peeking out from behind the door. She's a real ball of mischief and you can see it in those cheeky blue eyes of hers. She adores the mittens and was waving goodbye to everyone with them. In the end we had to prise them off her

Thanks for coming by my blog and looking

Lights. Camera, Action

Hi there fellow bloggers. I've had a crazy week and haven't had a minute to breathe, but I'm back and I'm really excited because I've got a brand spanking new camera. I've saved and saved and finally my pennies turned into pounds and I got it. It's a Panasonic Lumix FZ45 and I've been stroking it all day. I've played with it a bit, but I'm determined to make the most of all it's wonderful features, so I've booked myself an intensive get to know your camera course. I really don't want to just keep it on auto. I've got some pictures of my new camera taken with my old camera. My canon Ixus is a very loyal camera and by no means am I going to just stick it in the back of my cupboard. It's a great little point and shoot and perfect for those granddaughter moments when I just have to grab my camera and capture the moment.

Over on UK Scrappers there's a great ongoing class to get us into making the most of your camera, so pop over and check out the Capure 2012 thread.
As always thanks for visiting and have a good day

Finally

I finally managed to upload my instructions for the leaf mini. Have fun

Leaf Shaped Mini Book

Clocking in

Hi there
Today I have an altered clock to show you. I have also finished doing the instructions for the fall mini but have tried and failed to post it up here. I will give it another go tomorrow and see what I can do

This is a Kaisercraft beyond the page clock. First I gessoed it. I added texture paste and had loads of fun slathering it on. I needed to let it dry overnight which was a pain for me because I'm not very good at waiting. I like to finish something once I get stuck in. When it was finally dry I spritzed some glimmer mist and added distress ink. I also used some gold UTEE in random areas on the background of the clock. The pp's , trinket, bling and rose Bo Bunny Timepiece and the rest is a mixture of Prima, 7 Gypsies, Tim Holtz and other stuff too old to know where they come from. The pocket watch at the top left hand corner comes from a large bag of roken watch bits I once picked up for a song. The clock face in the centre is cut with a Sizzix Bigz die out of canvas with patterned paper on top. The flourish is done with Tattered Angels Glimmer Glam which I dried with a heat gun to give it a bubbly effect. Thanks for looking and I really appreciate all your lovely comments

Falling into Autumn

Hello fellow bloggers. Firstly I want to wish you all a happy peaceful joyous and healthy 2012.

The mini that I've got for you today is one which I made with pictures I took in the park of my grandchildren and also of the leaves and trees. I think autumn is my favourite time of year. All the leaves changing colours and crunching through them on the ground is just really enjoyable.

I made this mini in the shape of a leaf. I googled a leaf shape, cut it in half and bound it in the middle with my BIA. The book came out really fat and I should have probably used bigger wires. I'll be cleverer next time. There are lots of pictures here, and I did try to make a video, but I decided that videoing is just not for me, so I hope you'll be patient and look at all my pics. I used mostly the Forever Fall collection from Bo Bunny, but also pulled out everything I own in order to decorate this album. The state of my craft room is a sight to behold.

 The cover is yellow bazzil decorated with some Tim Holtz pine cone die cuts and Forever Fall chipboard stickers

 On the inside front cover I have a journalling tag. The sunflower and leaf are rub ons (or offs) rubbed onto acetate and then cut out. I punched holes in them and hung the from a Tim Holtz hanging thingy

 Here is a tree in glorious full colour. The metal embellishments are ages old and I have absolutely no idea where or whence they are from

 Here are my two adorable GDDs crunching in the leaves. I alcohol inked some Tim Holtz foliage and used some more rub ons on acetate. There is a close up below.

 Here are some examples of the amazing changes the leaves go through at this time of year. The blooms are Prima e-line which I distress inked and then added some bling.

 I wanted to get more than one photo onto these pages, so these mattes open up to reveal more picture space. I  used some forever fall buttons and created a trail with some inked bakers twine.

 This shows how the matte opens up. The green ribbon at the top is done by gathering it and then folding it over as I stuck it down. The dragonfly is cut out from one of the patterned papers and then I added some perfect pearls to the surface. The effect is beautiful and looks gorgeous in real life. The picture doesn't really do it justice.

 On these pages I created some pockets into which I put tag shaped mats with my pictures on them. The little mattes on the  pockets are from the Forever Fall diecut paper. At the bottom of the pockets I added some Tim Holtz chains, facets and muse tokens all of which got the alcohol ink treatment. A very easy way to ink the facets is to mix your choice of colours in a plastic bag and then dunk them in. Just make sure you don't have a cut finger when you fish them out because it stings like crazy. You might have noticed by now that I am a HUGE fan of Sir Timmy. I love his stuff

 This page is a mixture of leaves and grandchildren. Again I wanted to add more than one picture, so I made a lift up matte. Close ups are shown below

 My little granddaughter had a wonderful time in the park and was climbing everywhere looking for buried treasure. She got deliciously dirty and muddy and I was quite glad to hand her back to her mother in time for her bath.

 The sunflower is another rub on/off onto acetate and adhered with foam squares to give it some dimension

 Here are my little angels sitting in ''their'' house. Some fibres, buttons and blooms decorate this page

 This page shows my older GDD who would never dream of crawling in the mud. I used som Tim Holtz adage tickets which I distress inked. I alcohol inked a bottle cap and then adhered a muse token which I used perfect pearls on again. I'd never tried perfect pearls on metal and the effect is stunning.

 Here's little miss mischief again. You can see what a great time she's having. The leaves are done using stamps on patterned paper and then cutting around them. These were also adhered with foam squares for dimension.

 This is a simple page with some ribbon and trinkets added for embellishment. The left hand side is a pocket in which there is another picture. I used a trinket as a pull tab for the tag as seen below

 The last page shows some more autumn splendour. The fibres are glued down with glossy accents in a twirly shape

And last but not least here is a little picture of how I added some bling, ribbons and fibres to the binding of my book.
I do hope you enjoyed looking at my mini and I am in the middle of working out a pattern and instructions for this. I hope to put them up on here later in the week. In the meantime thank you so much for taking the time to come here and read my blog