New Year - New Organisation!

Yep, it's that time of the year again when you want to get out there, sort out, re-organise, clean..... now I did say 'want' to, this is not the same as doing it! I'm still enduring all the negative effects of the osteo-arthritis only now I have a back problem which, since the beginning of December has caused acute sciatica from the hip to ankle in my right leg and for virtually twenty four hours a day. It's hideous and means that I have to take advantage of any slight improvement to get things done so blogging and blog hopping have had to take a back seat I'm afraid. I do have some positive news on the health front though but I'm just waiting to have one more appointment confirmed this week and then I'll give you an update.... it's far from doom and gloom but I don't want to temp fate until I've had everything confirmed.

So, back to organising. I really do need to do a lot of tidying in my craft room, it still hasn't recovered from having everything dumped in there over Christmas. Initially, I thought it was just all of the boxes from the Xmas Decs and that once they were taken down on 12th night and stored safely back in the loft it would be all clean and tidy again..... wrong! It would seem that every homeless item in our house found its way to my craft room. One thing has become clearly apparent - I need a bigger room. Negotiations have commenced with DH and he agrees with me so we just have to agree with each other on how we are going to achieve the impossible!

After posting a comment about stamp storage systems on the Graphicus Guild Group last week, I promised that I would let you see how I store my unmounted Stamps. I also realise from the Group that many of you are 'in the mood' for re-organising your stash and work areas. I love to hear and see peoples ideas on how they organise stuff and if you want to utilise my system please do. It works for me....

This is just a small selection of the most frequently used stamps. They sit just above my work surface and are always within easy reach. There are many others which are stacked within the storage unit on the back wall behind where I sit. The beauty of this storage system is that they can store flat or be stacked on end like books. When I want a set or two to take to an event or work I simply choose the boxes I need and they keep my stamps safe and make them easy to transport.

You can laminate the stamp graphic and attach the EZ Mount cushion to the laminate or attach the stamp to the box lid and base and insert the index inside to save having to open every box when you're looking for a specific set of stamps.

These are the boxes that you can purchase through Graphicus. You can even get 'Boxed' sets which come with an outer unit that the boxes slide into - a self contained housing so that they needn't occupy precious shelf space.... you could stack them on the floor or under a bench if need be.

And don't forget, you can label the boxes to make indexing your stamps and finding them again, so much easier!

While I'm showing you my stamp storage I thought I would show you what I've done with all my small rolls of ribbon.....

I have a Ribbon Locker (Graphicus used to sell them but the company that made them are no longer in business) that I use for rolls of ribbon that won't fit into these clear plastic storage pots but I love these.... they can be wall mounted, carried to crops or craft clubs and the storage pots which link in three's can be removed and carried separately if you only need certain colours.

I can clearly see all the different colours and patterns which makes finding the right ribbon a lot less time consuming. I can simply hold up a small piece of card that I am using in my project and match the ribbon without having to open pots, drawers, boxes etc. I'm delighted with how they work and I'm still in the process of colour co-ordinating another stack..... do you think I have a ribbon addiction? Nah! just a total craft addiction that no amount of medication is going to help relieve the symptoms (thank goodness).

Ooooo yummy! I want to go play but maybe I'll just organise the next set. Now for the bad news: I'm afraid that Graphicus don't stock these (not yet anyway - note to self: speak to Glenda) they are just something that I came across while out shopping one day.

I have found some super stuff of late, not specifically designed for crafting but things I liked the look of and could see how it/they could work in my studio both on a practical level and for eye candy too. So I may make this a regular feature and share my shopping finds and organisational skills (eh? well, maybe I do have them sometimes) with you on my blog. I just need to find the time to blog 'regularly'! I will try to get back again this week but it's that time of the year again...... TRADE SHOW and it's coming up FAST!

I may not have a lot of crafty stuff that I can share at the moment as I'm knee deep in preparing delectable little pieces for the show and some not so little either - remember Percival Ponsonby Smythe from last year? Well if all goes according to plan there will be another 'themed' creation taking shape very soon, I just need to get my skates on!

Happy Crafting and good luck with all the organising!

It's a Brand New Year!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year with good health, good fortune and great contentment to you all.

May 2009 bring you fun, creativity in abundance, and lots of new crafting adventures!

Just for now, I will leave you with this.... it cracks me up every time I come across it:

Life should
not be a journey
to the grave
With intention of
arriving safely
In a pretty, and
well preserved body.
But
rather to skid
in broadside,
chocolate in one hand, martini in the other,
thoroughly
used up,
Totally worn out
and loudly proclaiming
WOW
WHAT A RIDE!

Have fun and happy crafting....

Ooooo New Toys to Play With!

Whew, what a weekend we've had. It was the open days at Graphicus on Friday and Saturday so the run-up during the week had been ultra busy getting everything ready.

I was eagerly waiting for a delivery to arrive from the USA. Knowing that it had left the USA by air on the 25th of November, I had fully expected it to reach us by the end of that week. On past experience, the company we order from are pretty good at getting stuff to us quickly, on one occasion we placed an order on the Friday and it was delivered to us on the Monday! So when it hadn't arrived by Wednesday I began to get impatient. Why?.... Because it had all of the Tim Holtz new stuff in there, Stamps including the Christmas Stamps, the full range of his Masks, the Ideology range, Seasonal Grungeboard, Grungeboard Books, the brand new supa dupa Pink Bind-it-All, DreamKutz, Storage Tote and the Corner Rounder to name just a little of what was in the shipment. To cut a long story short, the shipment had arrived in the UK on the 28th and was sat in a corner of a warehouse in Manchester! Arrrrggghhhh! Don't you just hate it when that happens. Rob, (the man who can) said he would do everything he could to get it overnighted to us so we'd have time to check the delivery, price it all and get it out on the shelves for Friday's event.

Thursday morning we woke to the most horrendous weather.... Snow, Snow and more Snow! Very beautiful but I have quite a drive to work and it normally takes me about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes in traffic and on country roads. So I left early at 0700 hours and joined the slow moving traffic, it was truly awful. It took me three hours forty five minutes to get to work and then I got my car stuck as I drove into the car park. I couldn't move forwards or backwards. The guys at the Carrosserie Car Company next door came to my rescue and got me out of the snow drift so that I could park... thanks Guys, I really appreciated it after the drive I'd had.

Needless to say, there were problems getting the US shipment to us from Manchester. We had a phone call to say it wouldn't happen that day but they would try for the Friday.

I was keeping my fingers crossed the shipment would come in time for our 11 o'clock kick-off on Friday and sure enough it did, just at the time I should have been starting the demo's. But after seeing what Tim has been doing with all this fantastic stuff on his blog I knew our customers would be straining at the leash to get their hands on it, after all, I was too!

Annette and Lesley got the demo's underway and the rest of us set to and got it checked, priced and on the shelves. Several things found there way to my shopping basket of course and I was able to demonstrate the Christmas Stamps, Masks, Grungeboard and Ideology line together with the Distressed Inks I love so much, Stickles, Prima Flowers, beautiful silk May Art Ribbons, Hambly Rub-Ons (see the lovely White Grungy Alphabet on the tag above - yummy) and lots of other lovely stuff.

I was surprised that so many people braved the weather to be with us. It had stopped snowing and the roads were in the main, much improved. But so many people had driven considerable distances, some from the Midlands, others from the West coast and a couple of ladies who's flight home from Egypt on Friday was so badly delayed due to the weather that they hot-footed it to be with us on Saturday instead.... now that's what I call dedication!

Glenda decided to give everyone a special treat just for the weekend and released a limited number of a brand new A4 themeplate that is absolutely amazing... it's called the Harlequin Rose and it is not going to be available until the 14th of January, 2009. I am going to be real mean and show you some of the sample pieces I made with it on Saturday while demonstrating.

This is a white tag that has a semi-gloss finish and I was asked by a customer if alcohol inks would work on this surface. Well, what better way of finding out than to try it. So I took some Red Pepper and Butterscotch alcohol ink and applied it direct to the surface of the tag using an ink applicator and felt pad. Then I overlaid it with Gold Mixative and a couple of drops of blending solution and cold dried it. I then inked the large Rose Collage image from the Harlequin Rose themeplate with Ranger Archival Black ink (a beautiful black ink that is fab on alcohol inks) and stamped the image onto the tag. I built a decorative corner from Prima flowers and gold and green leaves and finally added a gorgeous silk bow tied from May Art ribbon.

Here's a different colourway, still using the alcohol inks but this time it's Lettuce, Butterscotch and Pesto with Gold Mixatives and finished with a different Prima collection. Oh boy, do I love these stamps. I'm so sorry to do this to those of you who haven't been able to get your hands on them yet but please.... get your new 2009 diary and mark up the 14th of January, 2009 or put a reminder on your PC in Outlook or something similar so that when you switch on your PC on the 14th you will be reminded to order your new themeplate. After all, you've got to have something to spend that Christmas pressy money on don't ya? The only other way to get hold of this themeplate NOW is through the Graphicus Guild.

I am desperate to play some more with these beauts but there's a Christmas tree or two (or even three or four) waiting to go up at home. I do intend to get me some play time over the holidays so look out for some more samples with this set. If the light is good enough I might even do a step-by-step for the blog or if you're real good and you're on Santa's 'Nice' list, it could be a video! Let me know if you want to see more, there's a lot of lovely stamps on this themeplate!

On this tag I used Alcohol Inks in Cranberry, Caramel and Gold Mixative with Tim Holtz and 7 Gypsies stamps (all available at Graphicus).

The background on this tag is the Distress Inks applied with the blending tool, Tim's mask and stamps and finished with a piece from the Ideology collection. The script stamp in the background is an Elusive Images stamp from the Antiquities themeplate. Don't they go well together?

More of Tim's stamps inked with the Clear Distress Embossing Ink pad and black embossing powder. The background was created with with paint dabbers.

And finally, I was also playing with some of Stampsmiths photo-realistic stamps on Saturday and this is one from their Christmas plate, it's new for this Christmas and is a beautiful collection, elegant and artistic. If I'm not too busy tomorrow I will try to get these onto the Graphicus blog with full details of the products.

A little word of warning though... the Tim Holtz products were absolutely flying out on Friday and Saturday, I think we sold out of the Christmas stamps completely and the masks were close behind. If there is anything you want urgently, get in touch with Graphicus quickly. If you don't know what the product is that I've used don't worry, pick up the phone and ring - we'll help identify it for you. I don't think any of the new products are on the website yet but I'm sure Carrie will do her best to get everything that's still available photographed and uploaded this week.

Happy Christmas Crafting to you all!

Chocalisciousness!

OMG! I blinked and the end of November came steaming round the corner and hit me full in the face... Yikes, it's frightening how quickly the days are passing and there's so much to do that I really don't want to do, like cleaning and decorating the house so that it's all fresh for the Christmas decorations to go up.

There are also so many things that I do want to do but haven't got time to, like crafting. Isn't it funny how you get so many ideas running wild around your head when you just don't have any time to play? I've had a note pad and pen surgically attached to me so that I can make quick notes of all my ideas which tend to pop into my head when I'm at the top of a ladder with a paint brush in my hand or elbow deep in sudsy water washing walls and windows.

And yes, my poor blog has suffered badly in the last few weeks. What with all the extra work at home, together with 'work' work and running backwards and forwards to the Doctors, the hospital and the Musculoskeletal Clinic while decisions are made about my knees that it's left me severely devoid of blogging inspiration.

However, the time taken going to all the different appointments has not been time wasted I'm happy to say. Once referred to the specialist clinic for assessment, it wasn't too long before they told me what I already knew.... I am way past any interim help or treatment. I have now been referred for knee joint replacement surgery and have already had my pre-op assessment meeting and completed all the necessary form filling and health checks to make sure I'm 'fit' for surgery.

Last week I trekked off to the hospital for all my blood tests.... honestly, they took so much of it that I thought they'd made a mistake, thinking I was there as a blood donor (I have quite a rare blood group and they are always trying to get their hands on it)!

So now I'm just waiting for my appointment with the surgeon and then I should have a better idea of when they will operate. I'm not looking forward to it but I am looking forward to eventually being able to get around without being doped up to the eye-balls with pain killers.

I have found some time (just a little) to do what I love best.... playing with stamps, inks and wonderful papers, yey! And of course, I taught several workshops in November, all of which have been great fun with fab people and an opportunity to paint canvasses, make accordion journals and concertina keepsakes with origami boxes.


With only four weeks 'till Christmas, almost everything is now geared towards the festive season. I've been working on a 31 day tag book. I'm about half way through covering plain white tags on both sides with lovely Christmassy papers, to which I will add smaller tags with embellishments, stamping and the date. The 'plan' is to take photos every day throughout December regardless of what I may be doing...... housework, shopping, gift wrapping, putting up the decorations, baking..... well you get the idea. I will then add the photos and journalling to the tags as a pictorial record of December 2008. I will let you see how it's coming along when there's something more to see.

Talking of photographs and putting up the deco's, several people have asked me if I'm going to do what I did last year and include our Christmas preparations on my blog? Well, as I'm planning on taking photo's every day for the December Album it should be easy enough to combine the two. So if you don't like Christmas I'd look away now and pop back in January when I'm all Christmassed out! I'll apologise now...... as anyone who knows me, knows that I love the festive season and totally enjoy every aspect of Christmas, even all the extra work. It's well worth it. So from here on in be warned, I'm in festive mode and loving it!!!

If Christmas had a flavour for me it would be epitomised by Starbucks Gingerbread Latte, in their words - 'a sweet and spiced latte with the aroma of freshly baked gingerbread'. Yummm it's delish! A couple of weeks ago while out shopping with DH, we popped into our local Starbucks and tried out the Christmas menu. I couldn't resist buying these lovely festive mugs so that we could make our own scrummy hot chocolate at home:

and this is what it looks like......


So now that I'm on a chocolate high, it's back to the painting (walls.... not canvas) oh poooo!

Have You Seen the Headlines?

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with not a lot of time for crafting on a personal level as I have been knee deep in prepping up workshops and teaching of late.

Thursday saw us having fun with concertina albums filled with interactive tags. We used book board, some fab papers, lots of glue, Tim Hotlz’s Hitch fasteners, stitched envelopes some great fibre ribbons, brads, tags, hessian and a whole heap more super stuff. I have to say the finished pieces were incredible.... really neat work and a lovely bunch of crafters made it such a super day.

The weather was extremely unkind to us on Saturday, it was simply vile but despite the conditions we had people who travelled from far and wide... by train, on the motorway and across country to attend the Waxing Lyrical workshop. We had a blast and it goes without saying that Canvas and Wax was involved, you may have read about it in the newspaper yesterday......


......ummmmm! I shall say no more. If you would like to see the results of the workshop hop on over to the Graphicus Blog here and take a look.

I have been giving a lot of thought to the Christmas preparations that lie ahead and really must start to get cracking on jobs that need to be done this month, where the days are going I just don't know. Christmas Eve is seven weeks tomorrow - aghhhhh! I've got a few ideas in mind for recording events throughout December and I'll share them with you as soon as I have something to show you.

One of the girls on Saturday's workshop has finished all of her Christmas Cards! Oh how I wish I was that organised. One of the few things I've made with a seasonal flavour so far is the Glimmer Mist and Glimmer Chips tag tree:

Just a small selection of tags made with Glimmer Mists, Glimmer Screens, Glimmer Chips and some of the new Elusive Images Christmas rubber stamp themeplates. This was such a fun project to do and has loads of scope for Christmas banners, gift tags or even hanging tree decorations for the 'real' tree. The reverse side of the tags were all covered with papers printed from the Artylicious Season's Greetings CD Rom.

If you've already visited the Graphicus Blog to take a look at what we were doing on Saturday, you will have seen the canvas I was working on:

I have included a couple more shots here so that you can see some of the detail on the canvas, such as this cute little bird nesting in a bed of feathers, waxed and etched back....

.... images stamped onto tissue paper and applied with hot wax so that they look almost transparent on the canvas....

....stencilling with Stewart Gill's 'Galactica' applied with a pallet knife, yumm....

....dripped wax, Pearly Doodles with bronze beads and oil pastels! I will finish this piece soon now that I know exactly where I'm going with it and I'll let you see the finished results.

Happy Crafting!

Kindness In Abundance

I must start by saying a big hello and thank you to everyone who left a message over the last week. Your good wishes and helpful suggestions have really lifted my spirits. The knees and back haven't improved much but I feel so much better knowing that there are so many lovely people out there who firstly, so unselfishly care about others and secondly.... visit my blog! A huge thank you. If kind thoughts could make you better I'd be the fittest person around.

One good thing has come out of last week: the back pain is all being caused by the problems I have with my knees. Some weeks ago I was given the results of the x-rays I had taken and it appears that it's got a lot worse than it was a few years back. I now have chronic osteo-arthritis in both knees.... no surprises there! What has changed is that I have been referred to a specialist clinic and now have my appointment date to be assessed - yey! I'll keep you posted.

I'm sorry I didn't get back to update my blog during the week. Sitting at the computer for any length of time has been difficult and that goes for sitting in my work room too. So not a lot of what I set my sights at a week ago has been achieved. I have chosen little things to work on that I can do sitting where I can be comfortable. Stampbord needs very little room to work on and that's one of the things I have finished....

This is a piece that I originally designed as a workshop piece for Elusive Images's Retailer Training event earlier this year. It is an articulated pin made from a domino sized piece and a 1" square piece of Stampbord. I used Ranger's Distress Ink Pads to colour the Stampbord and stamped the images with Archival Black ink. The stamps are all from the Antiquities themeplate (one of my favourites for this type of work).

I added some embellishments: the 'heavenly' word is a pre-etched Creative Acrylics piece that has been over written with the white Inkessentials pen and attached with Glossy Accents. The brads have had most of the struts cut off with wire cutters (just leave a millimetre or two) then the holes in the acrylic piece have been filled with Glossy Accents and the brads set into it.


I finished the pieces with some white rub-ons and a domed letter. The outside edges of the Stampbord have been coloured black using a Sharpie pen. My trusty Crop-A-Dile chomped the holes and set the eyelets to link the pieces together and I attached a sticky-backed broach pin to the back of the main piece!

I have been doing a little bit more to the canvas I showed you in the previous post and I now know exactly how I'm going to finish it. I may get some more done this evening with a little luck.

What else has been happening this week? Well, it was Diesel's Birthday and boy did he know it - he was full of it. My parents bought him a 'giggle' ball. He absolutely lives to play. I suppose being a German Shepherd it's in-built in him... after all, that's exactly how Police dogs are trained - everything is a game. I'm sorry to say the giggle didn't last long, within minutes of giving it to him he'd fathomed out what was making the noise and removed it. He takes the 'squeaks' out of all his chewy toys too! Funny thing is, he doesn't destroy the toy - just the noise.

As a tribute to the birthday boy.......

The photo of him was obviously not taken on his birthday! It's cold in the North East but not quite this cold...... yet! I finished this layout for Glenda's Winter Glimmer TV show recorded a couple of weeks ago and I used some of the Glimmer Chips (the icicles across the top) and the Glimmer Glass (fancy corners and the articulated hanging snowflakes).

He loves the snow and always manages to come in covered in it and with a little 'heap' on his nose where he tries to push it around.

And finally, how fast is this month going? I sat down to prepare my working timetable in the run up to Christmas and was horrified at how little time I have to get so many things done. I always do a three month planner on the PC for October, November and December. I fill in all of the work related dates first and then anything that I have to travel for and finally, any personal dates that need time allocating to them. I then look at what's left..... and finally at my list of all the jobs that I have to do in the house to get it ready for the festivities and the two just don't correlate... nowhere near. Oh dear, I feel a headache coming on!

But you have to start somewhere and on Sunday afternoon, just before the shops shut, DH and I rushed out to an out-of-town shopping centre where there's a Borders book shop. So while he went into Borders I headed for TK Maxx and they had just set up their Christmas department. It was lovely to browse while it was quiet and I couldn't resist this......

.... just what I needed to get me full swing into the preparations, I'll catch up in no time (knees and back permitting). I wish I had time to decorate the house for the fall. Some of my American blogging friends do the most beautiful things to their homes and one of these years... yeh, I know - you've heard it all before! But I will..... one day! But for now, I will just enjoy the beauty of the season and the wonderful colours it brings.

Have fun and Happy Crafting!