Snowman card

This is the card that we did in class today, my student did very well and although she didn't finish it this afternoon, she has made all the pieces for it and will complete it next week.

The colours are a bit bright on the scan, the turquoise is not quite as bright as that and the whole thing has been very sparingly dusted in glitter. Looks good.

Choir boys

When I was at the Farmer's market the other week, a customer said she would like some more tree decorations. So, I made these choir boys and the tree is out of Alli Bartkowski's book Paper Quilling for the first time. I got the idea for the choir boys from the UK quilling guild's magazine. Jean Barnwell sent instructions for Christmas Carollers and I altered the design for the choir boys giving them a white under skirt and quilled hair.
I love the tree, its so quick. Only had that horrible bright green for the trunk, will have to remedy that on the next one I make, and also added an extra branch at the top. 

Valentines day already?

All card makers are probably now finished with making Christmas cards and are thinking about St. Valentine's day. These are card toppers or scrapbook bits. Made with cream and red punched card edged with Krylon gold pen. The roses are pink pearlescent folded roses and LCC's red sparkling paper. The golden hearts are wooden. 

The Biggleswade Farmers Market

Hey at last I have actually done the Farmer's market! Thats me grinning madly behind the counter. It was a cold day but I was warm enough, I put my Uggs on, and they were the only bit of me that was cold. Was told to take a piece of carpet or a small rug next time to stand on and I will be warmer. I took just over £50, it's not much, but it's a start.

Next month the market is on the 20th of December so I need to make stocking fillers and last minute presents. The tree decorations went well I sold lots of those so will need to do some more.

Had to keep my temper a couple of times, when silly people kept saying "Ohhh aren't they lovely, oohhh aren't you clever" and then they walked away... If they are that lovely and I am that clever why are you not buying them? Didn't say that of course, but just smiled sweetly...

The guy on the next stall was selling wild boar sausages, turkeys, and various holiday food stuffs. So next time I shall have him on one side and the cheese stall on the other. Wonder if they give samples....

Well back to the quilling got targets to keep you know....

memo blocks

These are memo block holders that I am doing for the farmers market on Nov 15th. Would never have thought of this if it wasn't for Stefani Tadio. She did some for her fair and when I saw these thick blocks in our local newsagents that I thought they would be good for the market and to fill my stall up a bit.

Wishblade works

This is made with my new Xyron Wishblade. It cuts the most amazing fonts, this one is Harrington which I just pulled from the fonts on my computer. It cut my name in about 2 minutes, perfect cuts and so easy to use. It's not as big as the Cricut which puts it in my favour, as I don't have much room on this desk.

Brown and Blue

Sorry about the photograph on this one, will have another go and see what can be done to improve it. However at least you can get some idea of this piece of work. Not sure about the frame on this one, the more I look at it the more I hate it. What do you think?

This week has been a bit of performance, discovered that I have diabetes, and am now getting down to eating the right foods and having more exercise. There really is no excuse for my being in this state, and now I am paying for it. These days we are always eating fast and convenience foods, and if you have a sedentary lifestyle - like I have - you need to alter it before it is too late.

This morning I tested my own blood, it was quite easy really, nice little blood monitor tells you all you need to know about your blood sugar. It struck me that it is not the physical act of doing this, but the things going through my dimwit brain that made me stop and think. I am 47 and up until now I have always thought I had good health. I am overweight and according to the magazines and articles my BMI tells me that I am obese. Now that is a foul word and one which I am about to abolish from my life. This is such a big wake up call, I hope I haven't damaged myself too much eating Florentines at Costa's and muffins at Starbucks. Salad all the way now...

Ivory on Blue

This is my new piece of work, ivory flowers on a mid blue background. My Grandmother had a glass bowl similar to this when I was a girl, she used it on the dining table for celery. It was all very bumpy and lumpy and I used to love to run my fingers over it.




£98 (unframed)

 

Changing face of crafting

Yesterday I spent most of the day sorting through a decade of craft magazines. I needed more space and decided to only keep the mags with quilling in seeing as thats what I do most of the time.
When I first started buying craft magazines, here in the UK, in about 1988, there was really only one, called Popular Crafts. It was a magazine that was for all crafts and there were loads of crafts in it, from decoupage to thatching the roof of your cottage. I came across knitting, crocheting, tatting, painting, porcelain dolls, mohair teddy bears, dolls houses, making jewellery... Actually, just about any craft you can think of except making greetings cards.

In about 1990 two other magazines became available Crafts Beautiful and Practical Crafts, and it stayed that way with just three magazines until about 3 years ago when tons of new magazines became available, these are all card magazines and basically they are pretty boring in my opinion.
They all have the same thing, how to make cards as quick as you can, only occasionally do they have something that will appeal to the more advanced card maker and then there is still nothing for the advanced crafter. Even Crafts Beautiful has gone the card making way and Practical Crafts has now changed its name to Practical Crafts and Card Making. I will be so glad when the card making obsession is over and we can get back to having the 'proper' crafts back.

Thankfully quilling will always be on the negative side of popular, people think its too difficult, too time consuming, too fiddly. Only the artists who do it know that it's all those things, but the finished object and the contentment of rolling strips of paper hugely outweighs those niggling feelings.

Printer saved!

This is another card from the card kits on my website, the dragonfly wings are stuck to acetate so they actually flap.

I eventually got my printer sorted out, thanks to my wonderful John, what would I do without him! We depend too much on computers, oh for a substantial fountain pen, some lovely blue black ink and a sheet of thick cream paper....

#4 son is taking part in the summer performance at his school. He is Cardinal Biggles in their interpretation of Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch. Will let you know how it went on Saturday.

Medallion cards

This card is made from one of the kits on the website www.thepapertreasurecompany.com It was very simple to make and looks much better in real life. Medallions are layered onto acetate and they certainly do sparkle when the light hits them.

Yesterday was spent getting a new hard drive installed in my laptop. It suddenly died on Sunday night, thankfully after I had finished loading tons of peeloffs onto the website. Now of course I can't seem to get the printer installed properly, which means I can't load other products on the site. I have spent all morning trying to do this and am about to scream and throw the whole lot through the windows!