Dress Form TLC

The other afternoon Chris and I had a hour to waste before an appointment so I suggested we pop into Winners (love that shop) and I found this in the final sale section - it was damaged and reduced from $14.99 down to $2.00!!

A couple of the wires had come loose and it looked pretty drab and Chris pointed out the damage but I thought some TLC might give it a new lease of life...

I think she looks quite regal now.  I gave her a coat of a lighter shade of blue and then some crackle paint and   a final coat of pinky beige.  Added some inking to shade parts and a touch of gold to the frame lines then added some beading to the skirt lengths with the words 'tempest fugit' and 'carpe deim' and finally gave her a little flying clock as a necklace. Some rub-ons at the shoulders and sides of the bust with a flower and some feathers at the waist finished her off.

I think I might pay for $15 for her now... 

and is living happily with the other dress forms and birdcages on the high shelf above the stairs.

Dress Form.... work in progress!

I have been playing with my dress form... I thought I had made quite a few pieces of chipboard but once they are tied onto her I realised I need to make a heap more!! LOL

I'm now thinking that perhaps I should have got a smaller one?  She stands five feet tall!!

and I tried to use some ribbon reels for my snippets but it didn't work because they are made of chipboard so I have slung put them on here too! ;)

When I was shopping and the dress form fell in my basket, I also found this...

Isn't it great?  I picked it up for my son as a 'talking point' in his flat....

It's made of old yellow pages or newspapers and laser cut... it won't go in the post so he will have to wait for it... 

I have nearly finished the snippet roll...  they are perfect for when you are sitting about waiting for appointments as they take up no room and you just need a needle and cotton and some buttons and beads to decorate them.

WOYWW 23 February 2011

Here we are at What's on Your Work Desk Wednesday again... time flies and policemen look like they should be in school... both definite signs of getting old!!  If you have chanced upon this post and are wondering what I am waffling on about then please go to Julia AKA Specialist in Snooping and keeper of the blog roll where all will be explained! In short it is the day when many peeps from around the world take a peek into the craft spaces of others to see what sort of mess their desk is in and what they are up to, it's fun and it's informative, so join in if you will!!
My desk this week just has some chipboard pieces I am working on, the plan being that I will hang from the dress form of last week, though that idea may change in the next day or two as Chris came up with a fab idea that I might have to try out!!

The now notorious d.stress is evident, it is a whizz with chipboard!

Here is a close-up of the chipboard pieces, they are a work in progress at the moment.

On my other desk is another snippet roll that is awaiting the sewing machine.

I have more snow... shovelling snow from the path and driveway has become monotonous... no sooner than I have it all clear and looking nice and some more of the stuff comes down - and today was pretty nippy, -15 degrees C but with a bit of a breeze that made it feel a lot colder!  

The sides of the driveway just keep getting taller and taller...goodness knows what will happen to it all when it thaws in the spring - I think I will invest in some sand bags - just in case!  It is completely white out there again now... and still snowing, in fact, I could have saved my energy as nobody would be any the wiser but the local government bylaws say that you have 24 hours from snowfall to clear your path in front of the house or they will come and do it and then bill you! Why this worries me I have no idea, as there are houses on my street that haven't cleared the snow since November and nobody has been and cleared it for them.... but SOD's law says if I leave mine....  LOL

I'm doing the happy dance!

Not just once....

but twice!

I hardly ever enter anything that involves winning because I don't win (some might say that you have to be in it to win it.... but it didn't work in the past so I am not a slave to entering any more) so though I did a lot of visiting during the One World One Heart blog hop and enjoyed finding loads of lovely people with such a huge variation of interests and talents, I didn't actually leave my name except for a few and guess what?  I won Elizabeth's grand prize and Hels' prize!! Thank you ladies, I am super chuffed!! Heck, I wish I had done the lottery that week too! LOL

Yesterday, we were having a play day at Odelia's, well, Brigette and Odelia's kids were having the play day and we were going to drink coffee and eat calories!! I decided to bake a cake... an angel cake to be specific, as I had never baked one before, I wasn't really sure how it would turn out and of course I wasn't equipped with an angel cake baking pan with the funnel thing... and I couldn't really see the necessity for the funnel bit so opted to use a couple of loaf tins instead.... what could go wrong? LOL  I was chatting to Brigette on the phone shortly after putting the loaf tins in the oven and mentioned my baking and lack of funnel pan thingy and she says 'watch out they don't overflow'..... so when I came off the phone I thought I would have a quick check of the oven contents...

Oooeeeeerh 'eck!!  What happened there? A definite case of the 'too much mix for a little loaf tin' perhaps? Now the weird thing is when faced with this you have a tendency to panic... so I did, panic, that is.... with cries of no, stop, flippin' heck.... and there really isn't a darn thing you can do but let them continue baking!! (oh and I have an oven to clean this morning).... and I have also learned why you are supposed to use one of those cake pans with the funnel in the middle...

Once they had baked and cooled I prised them from the loaf tins and ate all the crunchy bits that fell off the edges - which were exceptionally yummy and I figured that little people will be perfectly happy to eat angel cake no matter what it looks like and the bigger people will be quite happy with the sugar high and not worry about the aesthetic beauty aspect of the whole thing... 

For Valentine's I got some new tools from Chris - one of them was the d.stress by imaginisce which seemed to bring out the gutter mentality in a few folk... (you know who you are) ;)

Of course, whilst at work some of the men were asking each other what they had bought their wives for Valentines..... and Chris blurts out that he had bought me a battery operated de-stress tool in pink....  no.... no, no, no.... I will never be able to show my face near the office again!! It's a scrapping tool.... honest!

So... other than the fact that imaginisce may have not quite thought through the actual shape of their new tool

I could hug them because it is brilliant and it is battery operated! I have now got their i.rock and their hot glue gun, also all battery operated!!  The joy of this is that they are then supremely portable - great to take to crops where you have no idea if you will be seated near an electric socket and for me?  Well, all my tools were for the UK so I can't actually use them here in Canada and it becomes an expensive exercise to replace them all, especially when you know you won't be able to take them home again!  So this is the perfect solution... 

Who would want to sit with a nail file and go around all the edges of a shape like this in chipboard? Well, the d.stress did it with ease and in a couple of minutes!! 

So guess what I am doing today?  Yep, no chipboard is going to be safe... it will all be d.stressed to within an inch of its existence!

What's on Your Work Desk 16th February 2011

It has been one of those weeks where I seemed to spend most of it chasing my tail.... so not much new on that front then!  Here it is Wednesday again where heaps of peeps reveal all where there work desk/table/floor is concerned and it is amazing the things you learn on the way.  If you want more details then pop on over to the Leader of the Gang AKA Julia where all is explained.

This is my workdesk today and as you can see, there isn't much in the way of scrapping going on which is entirely the fault of Margaret who had a lovely little snippet roll on her blog and then gave a link to the tutorial by Carole  on how to make one.  Well, I had to give it a go, didn't I? LOL  Just a couple of problems, I haven't got any wooden cotton reels and they want silly money for posting them to me here in Canada from the States.... you'd think I was five continents away instead of next door!  But, that didn't stop me attempting it and I even got the sewing machine out and had a play with it!!

So here is a photo of my first attempt...

I'm hoping the next one will turn out better...

This little photo in the middle of it is of my great great great Grandmother taken circa 1835 - her name was Anna Maria Parker.

This is a scan of the original which is on metal and has a weird name.  I think I actually look a little like her!!

The other thing on my desk is a card... and we know I don't really do cards but every now and again I feel I have to make the effort.  My younger brother recently had big problems with his leg and the doctors wanted to amputate it, so we were all dreading him going into hospital and awaited the outcome.  Luckily he had a brilliant surgeon who has used some new techniques and they have saved his leg, but there were doubts about the foot which had gangrene and he had to go back into hospital last week to see what they could do.  He is back home again now and minus a toe, the toe next to his big toe, and in normal circumstances we would have felt terrible at the loss of it, but given the alternatives he has had to face in recent weeks, a toe seems small in comparison and he is feeling much better and happier.  So I  made him a card...

I know, I'm terrible, aren't I?  It's a good job all us kids have a similar sense of humour, as it was my older brother who sent me the pic!! 

It was all change in the scrap room earlier this week, mainly because I needed to find a home for the new toys I got last week which included the paper stand.  So with much huffing and puffing and sorting I moved everything about and managed to fit it in!

I have turned the desk so that it now faces the wall and much prefer it this way as stuff doesn't fall off the back when I give it all a good shove out of the way.

and this is the other wall, which is looking pretty neat and tidy now too!

When I was out shopping the other day look what fell in my basket!!

OK... I admit, it didn't fall into basket... as it is as tall as I am... but you know what I mean? So I thought she could use some brightening up and got the embossing powders out and some chipboard circles...

so now I have to decide what to do with the other bits... I thought maybe hang some chipboard tags and some metal bits and pieces?  Any suggestions welcome... I am thinking of maybe using her to hang all my ribbons.

What's on Your Work Desk Wednesday 9th February 2011

It's been a busy week, with snow and shopping and finishing the chipboard book I started last week but none of that is on my workdesk today... no, I have been rejected.  Yes, totally rejected, I am crushed.  Last month I made a book for Chris to keep all his interwebs stuff in - websites, passwords and that sort of thing.

This is the book in question with its lovely big fat nobbly bead and leather tie.  OK, I admit, when I was adding the bead it did cross my mind that it wasn't really his type of adornment.  Anyways, I made a similar version for Alister, who's birthday it was at the end of January. But, being me, I cannot duplicate stuff, it's boring, so I made a few changes. I decided against a big fat nobbly bead as a closure and went for the hidden magnets instead which gave it a nice sleak clean look.  Yep, Chris saw it... and decided that he wanted the same thing!!  He gave me back his book with the request that it be like Alister's.

So I sort of ignored it and hoped he would forget and be happy with what I had made...

But it kept turning up on my desk.... so here it is...

dismantled....

with the circular section removed to bury the magnet...

and then covered with paper and the other matching hole made...

and finished.... with not a bobbly bead in sight!!

Now, I apologise for the weird colours of the photos, I am in the basement and depending on how sunny or not it is outside the photos change colours and I did mention last week that I would have to look into getting a light box to photograph things.

So I did! Got up early this morning and had it done and dusted in an hour...

It's about a foot and half wide and high and I had a couple of lights for shelves sitting in a drawer so used them.  Hopefully now my pics will be lovely and actually show up the colours they should be!

Happy Valentines Day to all, hope you get lots of chocolates and roses by the dozen!!  I won't, because Chris went to the scrap shop with me at the weekend and I got this....

and this....

to keep all my papers nice and tidy!!  I know, spoilt brat.... ;)

I Changed My Mind...

I'm female, I think it is our prerogative to do so? (ok, I had to check the spelling of prerogative as it ended up with a squiggly red line under it, I left out the first r because that is the way I say it)!!  Last week I was just starting on making a recipe book with October Afternoon papers and a Bo Bunny chipboard layered book and once I got started I realised that it was perfect for the late '50's early '60's photos I have of my family, so that is the route I went.  Only one small problem, the said photos are in a cardboard box in my scrap room back in Scotland.  They are pre-digital, obviously, and I have a horror of losing them so I don't pack them up and transport them about with me. So it's another of those little projects that will have to undergo completion when I finally stop hopping about the world.

I really had fun with this, love the colours and the designs of the papers and think it looks quite 1950's in style.  I cut a chipboard half apron (with some little wooden pegs clipped to the frill just like Mum used to do when she was hanging up the washing) and attached it to the front and used the ribbon ties to wrap around the back to keep the book closed. Added a little 7Gypsies drawer handle to the corner which is similar to the ones we had in the kitchen and dangled some little chipboard circles from it.

Now the Bo Bunny layered books only have 6 pages so I had to use pockets and pull outs to increase the 'real estate' for putting the photos in.

This page I made an envelope with tags inserted into the top.

Another envelope used sideways for tags inside and behind.

A corner picture with tags slotted into it.

I added a fold out to increase the space for journaling and pics.

This is it folded open and you can see a mini layered book inserted in a pocket.

This is the mini version.

Lovely big bright corner pocket for large tags.

This is another pocket with tags slipped into the side.

These are the tags, space on the back for photos and journaling.

This page has a concertina fold out.

Plenty of room for photos.

and the other side.

Another pocket with large tags.

Oh look... another pocket!

These are the tags, love the ad papers.

Final page has a pocket with tags.