au revoir jill

a long serving work colleage left this week, only she is coming back occasionally when needed, she will miss the ribbons i'm sure so she wont stay away long.

anyway here is the card i made her, i also made a beaded box but forgot to take a picture of it so never mind.

jill and i worked together for about 3  years then she changed her days so we didnt work on the same days anymore. so every time we saw each other at social things or on notes we would always  write merry christmas. i thought i should include this on the card. i also have to say jill loves purple!

the circle is a spinner with choices of greeting from christmas,  retirement, birthday and crafting. it should cover most of the rest of the year.

the spinner part did take a bit of working out, so that the greetings were in the right place.  i sprayed the backing paper with cosmic shimmers and it is lovely and shimmery. i think she liked it 

my crafty week

it has been quite a busy week for me this week. but i did get some crafting done on my day off.

 my daughter moved again last week and i finally got around to making her a card, although instead of a card i made her a hanging tag for her sunny lounge window.

the base is a chip board tag. i wiped it with various inks pads in her favourite  purple colours.

i stamped some flowers and hearts on top with stazon. as it was a new home card i also used a little house stamp free from craft stamper a few months ago.

finally i added a layered punched flower and some text; home is where the heart is.

hanging from the bottom are some shrink plastic tiles with new home spelt out and my favourite fairy stamp from butterfly kisses.

an old workmate had a baby this week: a little boy this is the card i made her.

on thursday i came home from work to find i had a parcel in the post, 3 set of beatrix potter rubber stamps and cds from crafters companion. i had won them in a giveaway competition from papercrafts essentials. they are lovely, i am so lucky.
anyway peter rabbit is perfect for a new baby card. it was quite simple, i just coloured the stamp in with aqua promarkers and layered it on top of some ribbons. i added a tag and wrote on it with sakura glitter pen.

it was a very quick card but i am quite pleased with it

collage folder

i just love this folder.

i had a brilliant day at itchen valley lacemakers this weekend. we have workshops most months, the projects vary greatly,  including lace, embroidery, felt and sticky, glue experimental stuff. this month was definately the latter.

we started the day by dying our fabric with procion dyes (i haven't used these before and i love using new products. i used a combination of turquoise and yellow, the fabric was dry so we needed to use more dye which made the colours more intense.

next we dyed some paper with brusho dye and made some paper batik by scunching up paper and rubbing on distress inks when it had been smoothed out flat again, this produced a really good effect.

next we made some texture stamps and rubbings using piece sof lace and anaglypta wallpaper

the final piece of experimenting we did was some transfer printing, we usedthe pieces of lace, if you have done this you will know how effective it is.

not only did the impression of the lace come out well on the net but the lace was dyed as well, again i used blue and yellow which of course gave me a lovely green colour. i used the best pieces on my folder but still have some left to make another one.

finally we gathered all our bits and pieces together and glued them onto the pelmet vylene that susanne had prepared and folded for us earlier. the fabric  and paper was layed across the vyene in an 'organised' random fashion, it was very sticky, then i glued the pocket inside, this will hold the notebook in place.

 i added the decoration, pieces of transfered lace and i stamped it with a flower  i had taken with me. i used stazon, not recommended for fabric but it seemed to work ok. i also stamped the same flower onto some spare dyed fabric and cut them out. sadly we ran out of time, but i was amazed at how much we had done in the time.

when i got home my hubby was still out so i finished it off. i used  some paper flowers and brads. the last job was to sew all the way around the edges and down the middle. then the final, final job was to make a wrap and toggles. i made fabric beads with some of the dyed  material i had left and then covered them in utee. the cord was a piece i had previously made on my lucet

i cannot believe how many different techniques i have used on this folder it is a real sampler, even some of the lace is hand made.

well we are a lace group after all.

i'm back

hi world
 i have had a blogging break . . . . been too busy
but maybe i'm back for a while, till i get fed up again coz not many people leave comments.
anyway i had a fabulous crafty day yesterday at my craft group.... itchen valley lacemakers. we dont just make lace. yeasterday we had a workshop to make a note book folder, it was fab spent all day playing with dyes, stamps, inks and gluey stuff, i finished my folder this afternoon and i am reaslly pleased with it. no pics yet coz my camera has broken and i need to borrow my fellas. will do tomorrow, so look out then
janet