Beauties!

We had this beautiful stem of roses that was crying out for a photo and then the 'Dumpr' treatment so here it is.

Family

As OH and I are both only one's we don't have a lot of family so it is good to see the Canadian side of the family as often as possible and as my cousin's 2nd eldest daughter is living and working in London we get to see her more as well - here is a picture from a visit to our local Country park on sunday, all girls together so to speak.( As usual I'm the one not smiling - sorry)

Homework

As you can see it didn't work!! - followed instructions as well - give up!!!

Homework.

Just doing my 'how to get links in your post' homework from Jackie - slapped hands if I don't - everything crossed (please work)

When you come to England?

"When you come to England you must have a scone with clotted cream and strawberry Jam",( even tho' it is morning coffee time! ) so said my cousin - and here is the photo to prove that she did.

New Award

Last week I was given an award by Connie and Viv, the Wylde Woman award recently started by Tammy Vitale (www.tammyvitale.com/). The purpose of the award is' to send love and aknowledgement to women who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy' The rules are that you can give this award to one or one hundred whatever you wish. You must link to their blogs in your post and back to this blog to enable Tammy to visit. I know that we agreee that all the blogs are marvellous and it is not easy to pick one rather than another so I have chosen just one and that is Jackie of dogdaisychains

A great visit.

Have had a couple of lovely days with my cousin Sandi and she goes off to our Aunt's in Yorkshire tomorrow, tonight i found out that back in january she had started a blog then thought nobody would look at it so never bothered any more, after an extensive lecture from me re blogging and blogland she has started it up again altho it will be silent for the next couple or so weeks while she is travelling and trading. ( see my links re sanderella.).We did have a small workshop tonight on soldering, have posted my first and only piece -it's not that easy , I didn't know you needed to use flux and also solder on top of copper or brass tape so it's a good job she was here, not a bad attempt but as you have to wash the flux off how do you stop the water going into the picture between the slides - anyone know the answer?

Today

Today I find I have been given the Wylde Women award by both Connie and Viv, thank you so much ladies, I will put it onto my blog as soon as possible, when my cousin has left us. I may not be around much over the weekend unless she also decides to visit you altho' I'm hoping for some instruction in soldering. Have had a fairly lazy afternoon sitting in the sun but then I started reading Somerset Sew - a fantastic Magazine, I found something I really had to make and that was it , back into the craft room until it was all finished - that also is something that must wait to go onto this blog. Jackie asked in Comments - do I ever rest - yes of course i do but when you have to make something you have to make it!!! The ATC pictured is for the Friendship themed ATC lottery in the New Inspirations group I belong to.

Water

The MAMMA maggiesmondaymusings atc swap theme this week is water so have used my favourite sizzix dye to cut out a seahorse from felted wool tops, it is on a background of fibres that have been embellished then zapped with a heat gun and this hopefully gives a waterworld effect.

Good Intentions

How come I go into my craft room intending to make the next set of pages for the book I'm making with Jan and Wendy but end up making a note book?? strange but true, I also made one at the weekend so one can go to my cousin, as she'll spend much of her time picking my crafting brain and going thro' my books and magazines at the same time making copious notes, and the other may go as a little raffle prize for the Do Crafts meet that is coming up next month.Perhaps the pages will get started tomorrow! The covers are much the same and the lovely main image I got from the Flickr collage site that has copyright free images that can be used in our artwork, I think it will be used on a few things.

'Wild Weekend'

As the pic shows I've been making some 'Wild Women', quite a calming change from the last few weeks of course work, so am doing a little of everything at the moment and enjoying it. The bases of the W W are wool topps hand embellished onto felt then decorated with stitching, sequins and charms, a pin has been fixed to the back so they can be worn as brooches - they look good on a chunky cardigan.

Lucky Me!

Met my cousin for lunch and she brought me some gifts,lovely Brads, rubber stamps, tack and peel for my acrylic blocks, a 7 Gypsies ATC holder and a lovely pendant (see picture) handcrafted by herself - would you believe it's a piece of broken blue and white china soldered around and put onto a chain so now if you break your china just recycle. She has gone off up the motorway on a wool buying mission and will be back with me in a week for a few days - with instructions to buy anything she thinks I can't live without.

Waiting

I'm sitting around this morning waiting for my Canadian Cousin to arrive, she's driving up from London on her way to Liverpool (never know how she does it as I have trouble driving across my own city!)so am not settling to do anything. About two years ago I started to make an evening bag by layering organzas and angelina, overstitching then cutting parts away, I was thrilled with the finished result of the fabric but the actual bag just didn't work out well at all so it is ending up as backgrounds and embellishments on ATCs - those I like.

Embellished Book

No challenge for the final lesson of the ESE course but a suggestion to make an 'item', so bull by the horns and I had a go at a book, the cover and pages went well but - how to put it together - I used eyelets to thread the cord thro on each page but I think perhaps the fabric is too soft to hold them so no rough treatment, it'll never grow up to be a library book!!! The pictures show the book open and the three other pages; the reverse side of the embellished page has an Eleanor Roosevelt qoute, ( for no other reason than I like them) - I suppose the theme of the book is 'Colour'. Forgot to add that the pictures on the pages are printed onto cotton inkjet fabric sheets that Connie sent to me.

Good Weekend

We had a good weekend caravanning at a local steam fair, despite horrendous rain on friday and mud everywhere for the saturday. Managed to get some stitching done and finished reading 'The Labyrinth'by Kate Mosse, a very good book. Two more ATCs for Margarets swap on maggiesmondaymusings this week, the theme is Three, so after bursting into song (not a nice sound) I remembered I had a stamp of the 'Trevi Fountain' so it had to be 'Three Coins in a Fountain' then Roy said why not do a Three pence postage stamp - yes folks it really was that price once upon a time! So the 3d/p stamp atc was born.

Inspiration needed!

This is Da Masi yarn woven and embellished to make a piece of fabric, the plan is for it to be a book cover if I can come up with some inspiration, it's just barely hovering at the moment, I'm going to work on finishing the pages over the weekend and hopefully put it all together next week?? This will be my final piece for the embellisher course. Hoping for good weather this weekend as we will be going to the local steam fair, usually lots of interesting stalls so may find more stock for the craft room.

One More

One more ATC for the MMM swap, have really enjoyed making these, this last one is a stamped collaged background with the picture and jigsaw piece triple embossed. Now down to reading the last lesson from Embelish Stitch and Enrich, have really enjoyed doing this online course and I have learned to look at fabrics and fibres differently and think of different ways of using them (also it has helped to justify my purchase and today my birthday money replaced the amount spent back in March when I bought the embellisher - thank goodness!)

Paris Chic!

I have made this atc for a swap on maggiesmondaymusings, a new swap site set up by Margaret . The theme for this swap is'Parisienne' so I have transferred the picture,called Paris Chic, onto fabric using Golden Gel medium then fixed it onto a background of french text collaged with stamped images, I think it fits into the theme.

Coursework

This is a photo of a mini wall hanging I have made from part of a sample for my course work. The base is kunin felt overlaid with silk,organza and chiffon - embellished then zapped with the heat gun this melted the fabrics and distressed the felt. The seahorse is a die cut from foiled/wool embellished felt. Bugle beads and drops were added to the background. I think I will change the ribbon for something else.

Good day Sunday!

Had a lovely day today visiting Crafy Notions open day at Newark, managed to spend and indecent amount for two very lightweight carrier bags of goodies, things for the Embellisher, charms, stamps and a couple of books. Really cheered me up after a couple of rough days with my Mum who has a bad summer dose of Bronchitis.Sarah Lawrence had all her little 'Wild Women' on show and Leonie Pujol (of QVC fame) was there demoing ATCs and it was lovely to talk to her.

New Award

I have just been given a lovely award by Viv of Vivsvisuals.blogspot.com/ so Thank you Viv. I can show the award on my blog and then choose 7 others to pass the Award onto, showing their links on this post.There are so many wonderful blogs out there, many belonging to 'cyber friends, and it is very hard to choose between them so i am going to follow Jan's lead and choose just one , this will be Deepas blog at deepashome.blogspot.com/, I have just found this blog and love the way Deepa is sharing her Indian embroidery stitches in the form of mini tutorials and her work is beautiful.

Techniques

The pink ATC is made by layering,painting,stitching and burning then adding stitched patches. The blue ATCs are foiled felt with embellished silk patches added, these were done as part of the course work.

Add Elements!

I've tried to get the badge in the right place but no luck so thanks to both Doreen and Connie who seem able to do these things and even instruct me how to do them but to no avail - useless that's me I'm afraid.Must go off and do some horrible H.W.!!

Page!

Nothing on my page at the moment, just wanted to put the badge up but I never seem to get these techy things right.

I'm a member

View my page on EmbellishStitchEnrich