Dragon Eggs are done!

So what do you think?  Are they dragon eggy enough?  I used inks to give them that wonderful dragon egg colour and depending on whether you do the egg in silver, gold or brass you end up with different shades... it's pretty cool. 

This was me beside a loch on the way to Oban... had such a good time with our Canadian friends eating and site seeing.

This is Fingal's Caves on the island of Staffa... it is totally amazing that this was created by nature... those columns are so uniform it's mind boggling.

The Hebridean islands are amazing, the scenery is stunning.

I have been playing with thumb tacks/drawing pins... lots of them... in fact, 400 of them for this Gae of Thrones dragon's egg!  

It's actually quite soothing to sit with a huge pile of drawing pins and press them into the polystyrene egg... I just have a couple of them to make as my son quite likes the idea of a couple for his coffee table.  

and a photo of the lovely Pandora in the cat tree staring out of the bedroom window.

Chris and I are off to the west Coast of Scotland for a few days to meet friends from Canada and bring them back to stay with us.  I hope the weather holds, it's been so lovely for the last two weeks.

Wrap Journal... just for a change...

This was one of my first attempts with the Eileen Hull wrap around journal die, love the papers, they are old and I am not sure where I got them.  I threaded lots of beads onto the elastic binding which was great fun and makes it look a bit lush!

I attached the bottom danglies with leather and threaded them through the elastic holes at the bottom.

I also used elastic for the closure, it keeps everything nice and neat.

Another Wrap Journal

We had another beautiful sunny day here today so once I had been for my bike ride and had breakfast I sat in the scrap room and had a play with the Wrap Journal die by Eileen Hull, it is becoming a firm favourite of mine.  I had some suede-like stickyback stuff in my stash and thought I could give it a try out, it looks lovely and cuts without any problem at all.

I added the Bind It All o'wires to it and lots of pages but had the most fun with my Bejeweller and went mad with the bling and gems!

Some of the pages fold out to give extra room for photos or journaling.

Yep, I added gems to the fold over cover piece as well! 

Wrap Journal Die with BIA Tutorial

I was playing with my latest Sizzix die - the Wrap Journal by Eileen Hull and found that you can put it into a Bind It All and add o'wires to hold pages and stuff which certainly adds another dimension to it's usage.  Some of the girls on Eileen Hull Facebook page asked if there was a tutorial on how to do it... so here goes!

For this version I chose a sewing theme, I think this will make a fun gift for people that sew and obviously, this is just one version as you can do what ever theme will work for you.  Plain paper for the artists among us, scrap pages to make a memory book, note books etc...

so start with your chipboard, mountboard etc that you are using for the base.  I then covered both sides with patterned paper and used the wrap journal die to cut it out.

I then decided to try my Tim Holtz On the Edge Sewing die but this is an optional step that you can ignore if you want.

but it does look kinda cool! 

I inked the scissors in silver and the cotton reel in brown and added a button to the top of the button piece so that there was some contrast with the plain paper.

Fold the centre line of the spine in half and squeeeeeeze it into the Bind It All (BIA) and then punch the holes through.  It was a tight fit but the BIA cut through all the layers without issue.

Open it out and flatten the centre line down. You can see that I also put the front of the journal piece into a lattice folder and embossed it in the Bigshot... that's optional too... I am just testing some theories as I go along.  

I added some sticky pearls to the front cover... I regretted that decision later as it made the front quite bulky... I would do it to the wrap front piece only next time.

Nope, I haven't lost the plot... those the foam things you put on your toes when you paint your toenails... but I use them for holding bobbins filled with cotton thread because they are brilliant, they hug the bobbin and stop the thread from unwinding!

I cut squares of transparency film for the pages... you can use paper instead if you prefer, it just makes it all very neat and light.

I cut some lengths of paper 1 1/2" wide which I then folded length ways.  These need to be the width of your page.

I used double sided tape to attach the folded paper to the tops of the transparencies and then put all 4 into the BIA and punched holes in them for the pages.

Then you need to put a strip of double side tape on each page and attach the foam toe thingies which are now cool bobbin holders to each one! Voila! 

I added a dangly to the o'wires and filled the holes top and bottom with half pearls, added a cord to tie it shut and that is it done and dusted.  You can see here why I would pass on the half pearls to the front cover next time round... ;)

Hope you have fun with the wrap journal die, it really is a brilliant piece of kit.

A Sad Page

Our lovely Tom-Tom went to Rainbow Bridge a month ago, it has been a very sad time and little Pandora misses her brother.  I have managed to do this layout of him and have the workings of a mini book in my head so as soon as I can sit with all his photos and put it together I will.

Tom-Tom in Canada

Tom-Tom in Australia

Tom-Tom in Scotland in May 2018

Faux books...

Faux books sounds way more arty farty than fake books, doesn't it?  ;)  I had a dilemma, I had the corner unit in my kitchen placed hard against the wall last week and the light switch and sockets put inside the cupboard space... which was a huge improvement on the light switch being covered up and unreachable and the sockets making the unit stick out in the room.

so I ended up with all the cables and stuff in the bottom shelf and it really didn't look that nice.

So Graphic 45 papers and a load of chipboard and a morning playing at my desk created this...

Yay!  Sorted... it is attached to the sides with magnets so I can remove it easily and get to the socket or plugs if required and it looks great.

It has been a long time....

I imagine that I will be talking to myself, it has been a heap long time since this poor blog got updated.  I don't have any excuses... I just didn't seem to have anything worthwhile to say.

I have been busy with my house and getting used to having Chris at home all day, every day, it makes it more difficult to play.  That must sound like he minds me sitting and playing and it couldn't be further from the truth, it is me that is the problem, I like to do stuff when I want to do it and in the past it meant that mealtimes passed and I didn't notice so carried on with whatever it was I doing.  Now with someone else in the house, breakfast is at a certain time, mid morning coffee and lunch are planned and catered for... in the old days I came out of the craft room in time to sort dinner and that was it! LOL 

Tom-Tom looking as gorgeous as always... 

Pandy doing her leopard impression!

I did teach the toilet paper mini book at Craft Club.  It's a lovely group of ladies and we meet up once a month to play at something new.  The toilet paper album went down a treat.

Made a mini album to attach to a wedding gift... the gift was a picnic basket and it came in a large cloth sack which the company thought was 'gift wrapped'.... yeah.... so this hopefully helped to make it look a bit more special! LOL

Another class I taught at Craft Club was the Bisto granule tub... the ladies had loads of fun with this!

Didn't they do a great job? 

So I haven't totally vanished... fallen off the planet edge or anything... I just need to make some time for me....and my blog! 

Notepads and Envelopes

Every month five of us ladies do lunch and sit and put the world to rights for a few hours, it is a lovely catch up and meal out with friends.  So I was sitting at my desk and thought it might be fun to make them each a notepad to keep for messages or odd bits that they need to write down.

Made each one to suit the person....

so I hoep they like them!

You never know when a writing pad....

will come in handy!

and I managed to use some of my old paper stash to make them an envelope each to keep favourite piece of snail mail....

T on Tuesday

Actually having some craftiness to share helps when you do T on Tuesday!  I joined a swap with Elizabeth and some other lovely ladies to swap tip-ins each month for 6 months.  I completed and sent off mine for this month and the lovely Chris has received them so I can share them today.  I got them out a bit early because tomorrow I go to hospital to try and sort my right wrist out and I am not sure how much use I will get out of it for a couple of weeks. Chris' theme was anything to do with the garden but no frogs....

Feathered friends with the bird cage die from Tim Holtz and a tattered floral die cut paper flower with three paper feathers which were fun to make.

Close up of the feathers which are double sided and have wire through them.

Lots of flowers and gems for Mary Mary quite contrary!

That little girl going 'oops' makes me smile...

Dandelion wishes and dragonfly kisses.  A woodn dragonfly from pink paislee and I made the dandelion flower out of plastic coloured beads.

Close up of the beads and dragonfly

March winds, April showers, brings forth May flowers.  Tim Holtz brolly man with lots of flowers.

raining little flowers on brolly man...

Winged things of the garden.... I copied the paper with butterflies on and then sat and fussy cut them all out with cuticle scissors... inked them and added them over the original printed versions to make them more dimensional.

Glossy accents to make the bodies stand out.

I bed your pardon, I didn't promise you a rose garden.... (are you singing?) My favourite bird cage die cut and the tattered florals all cut from printed papers.  Lots of washi tape and ephemera and some lace to finish it off.

Close up of the paper flowers with glossy accent dew drops on them.

So I am sitting here drinking my green smoothie for breakfast and planning to come by and visit!