Paper Obsession

The UFOs are piling up!

I blame Julie Kirk and Kirsty Neale. I have a mountain of half-started/someday-to-be-finished projects, cluttering up every available surface, since their 12 Days: Copy + Paste Christmas Project.

I guess I should also blame my *tiny* attention span and easily-distracted nature.

Here's a quick run-down of a few of my current UnFinished Objects...

Exhibit A:

An antique printer's tray, bought off eBay last week, now propped up on my desk behind the laptop. Someday I will paint it and fill it with fascinating found objects and hand-made treasures (Kirsty: I definitely blame you for this one ;o)

Exhibit B:

A pile of gesso'ed clothing tags, inspired by Julie's project. Someday I will get around to transforming into a miniature art journal full of insightful quotes.. just not quite sure when.

Exhibit C:

A mod-podged and napkin'ed mini canvas (Kirsty - I actually leaped for joy when I saw your project with the same IKEA napkins as I'd been hoarding for months). Someday I will complete the artwork with a silhouette of something cut from patterned paper.. or maybe felt.. or fabric..?

Exhibit D:

A painted canvas, complete with fabric and felt collage of tree and bird. Except it's not complete yet. Someday I will decide I like the way I've stitched on the leaves and stick it all together. No really, I will.

I hope that by publishing this little list I might, just might, get round to finishing something. Someday soon.

A money-saving top tip for Tim Holtz fans?

For a while now I've been trying to get into Tim Holtz's distress inks. Having watched a few of his You-Tube videos and stalked his blog, I've been dying to get my hands on some Distress Inks and have a good play. I bought three of them at the Big Stamp & Scrapbooking Show back in September but have been almost too scared to have a go in case I just can't do it right! Not to mention the fact that I don't have a non-stick craft mat like the one Tim uses in his videos. I saw one at the BSSBS but couldn't justify the £15.99 it was selling for.

Then a couple of weeks ago, in the new Clas Ohlson store in Croydon, I saw something that looked, for all the world, exactly like a Tim Holtz non-stick craft mat. It was actually a TFX Non-Stick Baking Sheet... it says on the back of the box, 'Suitable for cooking and baking in the oven... nothing burns or sticks to the surface...'.

And the best thing about it? The price... £2.99! I don't know what the difference is between this and the Tim Holtz version, but I can honestly say it does the job just fine.

OK, so my first distress-inked tag was by no means a masterpiece - but at least now I'm having a go. If you have a Clas Ohlson store near you, get down there and invest in one of these.. and get inking! ;o)

{By the way, Tim - if you happen to read this - please don't get the hump with me.. I LOVE your products and my lucky find will only encourage me to buy more of your fantastic stuff, honest!!!}

Harry's little book of 2009 - pictures!

Following from yesterday's post on Harry's day, I thought I'd share a few pages of his 2009 mini-book so anyone interested can see just what I was talking about!

Here is the cover:

I made the book using burgundy A5 thick card (simply because I had lots of it) and a slightly larger chipboard cover, bound using the Bind-it-All. I have been restricting my patterned paper to a 6x6" pad of BasicGrey Archaic papers (although I may sneak a few other bits in as supplies dwindle!).

Here is the inside front cover and facing page:

 

Here are my pages for March:

The stamps are by Banana Frog and there is hidden journaling on a card behind the photo.

Here are the pages from April:

I have put all my completed pages in my Flickr photostream (Mini-books set) if you have a burning desire to see more!

18th Nov = Harry's day

On the 18th of every month I try to record a few details about Harry's day and complete a page in his mini-book. It's a bit like Shimelle's 'Scrap Your Day' class but focused on the new things Harry has done over the past month, the funny things he says and what he did on this day. I do the same for Charlie on the 23rd of each month.

I am not entirely up-to-date with the scrapbooking side of Harry's minibook, or Charlie's come to that. But if I take a few photos and write down a few things, I can do the scrapping when I have time.. at least there's the theory.

Harry's day:

Morning:

• hot Shreddies and raisins for breakfast, plus 'milksnake' (Actimel + milk)
• drawing/scribbling on the dining table, occasionally on paper
• watching Postman Pat videos (for the umpteenth time)
• dragging chairs into the kitchen to help me wash the dishes (please, no)
• drinking 'pink milk' (strawberry Nesquik) and eating Humzingers

Lunch:

• 'bubbly cheese' on toast with Branston pickle and baked beans
• throwing cutlery on the floor, smearing bean-juice on face and hair
• NOT liking having face and hands wiped

Afternoon:

• taking Charlie to Nursery, riding on the Buggy Board
• NOT liking being dragged away from Nursery
• having a nap (peace at last..)
• a quick Jaffa Cake before going to collect Charlie
• splashing in some DEEP puddles in the park

• home for a complete change of clothes
• back out to the charity shop (bought some lovely eyelash wool) and newsagent (the new Craft Stamper magazine.. couldn't leave it there)

Evening:

• dragging chairs into the kitchen to help mummy make dinner (nooooo....)
• pizza, oven chips, carrots and sugarsnap peas, followed by an ice-cream for dinner (we don't eat junk food every day, honest!!)
• bathtime = let's see who can splash the most water onto the floor
• stories - 'Shhhhh, Duck - Don't Wake the Baby!' by Jez Alborough is favourite this week.
• bed at 8pm.

Harry's favourite things:

• Going to the park
• Chasing Poppy the cat
• Splashing in puddles
• Postman Pat (Po-po Pat) - he can name all the characters
• Helicopters (Ta-ta-ta), ambulances (La-la-lance) and trains
• Scooting around on his trike

I'll be back soon to share my mini-books as they are so far.. now there's an incentive to get some scrapping done! ;o)

12 Days... One project complete... {eventually}

Last night I managed to FINISH one project from the 12 Days class.. and I am feeling pretty pleased with myself, I can tell you! Although it was very nearly at the expense of my iron, not to mention my sanity.

The project is a fabric notebook cover with a very cute appliqued dog. I decided to adapt the idea to cover an A5 ring binder, using scraps of fabric I've been hoarding up the loft for quite some time. I knew they'd find a use one day!

Making the cover was remarkably straightforward - it even fitted the ring-binder! My next task was to use Kirsty's template to trace a sausage dog on to Bondaweb fusible webbing, iron it on to fabric and cut it out. This cut-out dog would then be ironed on to the cover. 

I was about to cut out the dog when I realised I had traced it the wrong way round. Bah! Not really wanting my dog's backside to be on the front of my folder, I tried again.

This time I traced the dog correctly but then made a fatal mistake attempting to iron the Bondaweb on to my piece of fabric. My Bondaweb was NOT 'paper side uppermost' as it should have been... and it bonded itself very firmly to my iron. AAAAARGH!!!!

After salvaging my poor iron with brown paper, salt and elbow grease I was back in business, managing to get the dog ironed on to the cover the right way round. I added a white ear, machine-stitched around the whole thing and sewed on a black button nose and a green eye to finish.

So here is the completed folder... ta-daah!!

I think I'm going to use it to store my Banana Frog acrylic stamps. Apart from the Bondaweb-on-iron disaster, this really was quite a do-able project (i.e. if I can do it, anyone can..). I might even make a Christmassy one with a reindeer on the front to use as a Christmas planner. 

Thank you Kirsty - for inspiring me to make a dent in my huge bag of scraps, for your fantastic instructions, and for all the other projects which I will eventually have a go at!

Mallow Magic... the layout

Just like the proverbial London buses... no blog posts for five days then two turn up at once. I've been up to my elbows in various projects over the last few days, largely prompted by the start of Julie Kirk and Kirsty Neale's 12 Days class, amongst other things. I will share what I've been doing for this class in a couple of days.

For now, though, I would love to share a layout I did to record the story of Charlie and his first taste of marshmallows (blogged here).

and a close-up...

As you may be able to guess, I used giant bubble wrap dipped in pink and white paint to create the background splodges on black Dotted Swiss paper - enormous fun!

The alpha stickers are American Crafts Thickers (Smoothie) and black Dymo tape. The rest is just Bazzill cardstock and little scraps of other card. 

Thanks for looking!

Six Flickr Favourites

Here's a little mosaic of some of my favourite photos on Flickr.

1: 'Thinking of You' by kiaraleestudio

2: 'Eyes up' by PlanetCoco

3: '20090916_Port_Lympne_Wildarena_0119' by Darren's

4: 'Scooterin'' by Stitchy Wishes

5: 'Banished' by Nabview

6: 'EXIT' by petervanallen

If you click on any of the links above, you will be taken to the photo in Flickr, where you can explore the artists' other photos - which of course I heartily recommend!

Thanks to Kirsty Neale's post, "Glorious Technicolour", for inspiring me to try out this mosaic feature by BigHugeLabs.com - I have been struggling for days to find a good way of getting some Flickr pictures into my blog and this is perfect!

Charlie discovers marshmallows

I bought a packet of marshmallows for Halloween with the idea that I would hang them on strings from the doorway and let the boys try to catch them in their mouths.. just as I remember doing when I was little. As it happened, in the excitement of eating our dinner by pumpkin-light, I forgot all about the marshmallows.

On Monday, Charlie was busy making 'pretend fairy cakes' in the kitchen out of flour and water. Hunting around for something he could add to the mix, I found the marshmallows. He had never seen one before. I gave him a white one and asked him what he thought it was. The following pictures pretty much tell the story:

"What d'you think it is, Charlie?"

"Go on, taste it."

"What d'you think?"

I think he liked it!

He then proceeded to chop it up, stir it into his 'cake-mix' and add it to the paper cake cases.

Seconds later, he chose the 'cake' with the biggest bit of mallow and scoffed the lot. Yummmmy!?

Curiously, he didn't ask for any more.. it seems even the sweetest tooth has limits!

Harry's story

I still can't look at this photo of Harry - at two days old - without feeling a surge of emotion, without blinking away tears.There is a copy of it, on copier paper, on the side of the wardrobe in the boys' room, where it has been since the day it was taken. I used to gaze at it while sitting in the nursing chair, trying to express milk for Harry while he was still in hospital.

I haven't been able to commit the story of his birth to a scrapbook page yet, despite the fact he is now two years old. Perhaps now is the time... at least I should try.

Harry's brother, Charlie, was born by emergency C-section after a traumatic induced labour, fifteen days after his due date. Terrified of going through the same distressing experience again, I was determined to try for a home birth the second time around. I have to say my doctor, consultant and midwives were less than enthusiastic about this - there seems to be a general wariness of natural births after a caesarean in this country, let alone home births.

My contractions started two days after Harry's due date - on a Thursday evening, continuing all through Friday and into Saturday. Midwives came and went, examined me periodically and declared I was not in proper labour yet. It certainly felt like proper labour to me!!! By Saturday morning, however, I was making some progress and I was hopeful that my dream of a natural home birth would soon be realised. By mid-afternoon the situation had deteriorated - my contractions had become sporadic and I was no further dilated than I had been that morning. The midwife decided there was no choice - I had to transfer to hospital.

I was devastated. Gareth made frantic calls to friends and parents to arrange a babysitter for Charlie while I faced a lonely trip to the dreaded Labour Ward in the back of a bumpy ambulance in pain and fear. Memories of Charlie's disastrous birth came flooding back and I knew I couldn't cope with all that again.

Mercifully, Gareth had the presence of mind to request a move to the birth centre - once there, thanks to my wonderful midwife and a birthing pool, I regained my strength and belief that I could get through this. All was going well until my midwife detected fetal heart decelerations on the monitor. There was no option but to get me back to the labour ward as soon as possible. After another hour and a half of pushing (and the most incredible pain), Harry was born.

He was grey and motionless, the cord wrapped tightly round his neck. Doctors appeared from nowhere, Harry was put on the trolley, ventilated and his Apgar scores monitored. He was then taken away to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU), Gareth in hot pursuit, and I was left alone. It's hard to describe how I was feeling at this point - numb, deflated, confused, exhausted beyond belief. There was no 'It's a boy!', no crying baby, no skin-to-skin cuddles - I hadn't even touched him! I didn't even know if he was alive.

Of course Harry was alive, though he had seizures the night he was born and had to spend six days in SCBU. His brain had been starved of oxygen during the birth and we faced an anxious twelve months of monitoring to find out if he would suffer any lasting damage. He was given the all-clear shortly after his first birthday and is now a beautiful, naughty little scamp.

I am so lucky to have him.

Blogging for Scrapbookers... Day 1!

Here's my little blog-space... my craft space is just behind.. a.k.a. the dining table (and, as usual, it's rather a mess).

If you've popped over from Shimelle's forum - hello and thanks for your visit! After all the build-up, we've reached the first day of Blogging for Scrapbookers - and it's going to be a busy few weeks I'm sure.I haven't had time to do a layout today (I wish!) but I have noted down a few thoughts on what I hope to achieve and learn from this course.

So here goes - My intentions are...

• to try out different styles of writing and to find my blogging 'voice'.. so that blogging becomes quicker, easier and more natural;
• to blog more regularly and use it to document the everyday things, as well as the big events of my life - as they happen;
• to use my blog as an aid to scrapbooking, not just to showcase my layouts and other craft projects;
• to learn some more of the 'techie' aspects of my blog so that I can get it working just as I want it - and so I can make it as pretty and functional as can be!

One thing I know I'm looking forward to over the next few weeks is exploring lots and lots of really inspiring blogs.. and also getting some feedback from you, dear visitor!

If you left me a comment yesterday and I haven't got back to you yet, I certainly will - let me just say here, though, I REALLY appreciated the feedback I received on my layout 'right now, i am...' - I was thrilled to bits - Thank You!!!