T on Tuesday

I am joining Elizabeth for T on Tuesday with..... TEA! Chai tea to be exact.  It's my first try at making it myself... and it has a lovely scent of cinnamon and spices and tastes pretty good too!

I have taken the dress form wire thingy from the family room and thought I would make her a dress with the offcuts from my Graphic 45 material.  I think she is meant to hold necklaces and things but she is very handy for holding all the charger wires for the cell phones and tablets, which is why she lives in the family room, next to the drawers I decorated for chargers.

so the chai and dress form are joining me for T.  I know, all dress designers and seamstresses the world over can sleep peacefully in their beds tonight, having no fear that I will be running rampant with my dressmaking 'skills'!!  I am hoping she will look a bit better once I have added one or two (or more) touches... LOL

WOYWW and Yellow Pages Fairy Tutorial

This could be regarded as a bonus feature or whatever the opposite is to a bonus feature... but it is Wednesday which means that it's that time to reveal desks in all their gory detail to be perused by like minded souls and you can find all the details at the desk of our leader, Julia.

So on my work desk is an empty cup of tea.... where's a good tea making fairy when you need one?? Also there is the pile of freshly cut golden dress forms ready to be turned into Yellow Pages fairies!! Looking at my green mat I think a new one could be top of my Christmas list... it is looking decidedly grim with ink and cut marks!

So Neet asked if there was a tutorial for making the Yellow Page dress forms and as I have 9 of them to make I thought I might as well document it so if anyone wants to have a play, they can!!

Yellow Pages Fairy Dress Form

You will need:

 to 'borrow' a copy of the Yellow Pages from somewhere.

 a Tim Holtz Sewing Room Die

a butterfly die

a Cuttlebug

a glue stick

Glimmer Mist

Inks or metallic felt tip pen

Grab your Yellow Pages and cut strips about 3” wide from your chosen pages.  Do not feel bad about the Yellow Pages, this is a form of recycling... you Google everything you want to know anyways!!

If you are making one fairy you will need about 25-30 Yellow Page forms and one chipboard base form. I found that about 10 forms of the Yellow Pages can be cut at once without any problem at all.

Cover chipboard base with your chosen paper... I used a piece of the Yellow Pages for my original one because you really aren’t going to see very much of it. If you use a glue stick and stick the paper to the chipboard and then put it through the Cuttlebug you get a perfect cut out already papered... you can choose to cut both individually and faff about getting it on their perfectly if you wish but I have 9 of these to make...

Cut the stand and the little nob at the top off of your paper dress forms leaving yourself with a torso. oooh, that sounds all CSI and grim...

Take a slurp of your Capuccino Mocha and tell yourself that a few hundred of these dress forms will be a piece of cake (go get yourself a piece of cake if it helps and whilst you are in the kitchen get me a piece too)!

I tried inking the edges and it was a bit hit or miss.... the paper is very thin so I opted to using a copper marker and drawing around the edge of the forms.... all of them... (then take a painkiller because your tendonitis is really giving you jip at this point)...

Once you have your lovely little pile of outlined forms you can start!!

Fold each one in half longways...

Get your glue stick and take the first YP form... run glue stick along the straight edge... not too wide or your pages will glue together and that is not the look we are going for...

Put next form on top and then glue stick that along the straight edge... and keep going until you have done all  of them... you will find that you have excess glue stickiness along the border and this is good... it helps to hold it all in place.

Place your pile of body forms on the centre line of your chipboard form, it will sort of stay in place because of the excess glue ;)

Fold out the bottom right hand half of your pile and glue onto the chipboard form.  Do the same for the left hand side and now your pile will splay out evenly. Voila!!

I used a butterfly die cut in half for wings and glittered them up a little and attached them to the back of the fairy.

You can now decorate it as you wish... a little Glimmer Mist sprayed over it adds sparkle.

You now have your Yellow Pages Fairy... and I have 8 more to make... 

Tim Holtz Dress Forms

I have been playing with my Sir Tim Sewing Die with the dress form on it... and at 2 a.m. this morning I had a thought... so I got up and tried it out...

I tore pages from a Chinese version of Gone With the Wind and had a play with them... you see, I have no problem ripping pages out of books in Chinese... I figure I am never going to want to read them!! ;)

I wasn't entirely happy with her... she still needed something so I gave her a spray with some Tattered Angels glimmer mist... hmmmm, still not sure....

So then I went off to Chris' study and dug out the Yellow Pages... the paper is already a lovely aged yellow and its very thin... so I cut heaps of the dress form shape and I like this version much better... 

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.

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.