Could do better

I've not managed to do much this week - I've been so lazy I bought cards for my grandaughters 6th and grandsons 18th birthdays. I've not managed any sorting or housework either - I don't know what's wrong with me but my get up and go got up and went!.

I did do a class at Art from the Heart on Wednesday with Sandra which I enjoyed a lot. It is a nature book with notes and tags in a decorated box.

It involved lots of distressing and stamping, which I enjoyed a lot.

and 7 gypsies papers and nature quotes.

Have a good week

Sara x

O.M.G.

I did a workshop with Tim Holtz - on thursday morning at AFTH [I was very excited but still managed to be late for the 9am start as I called in Sainsburys to get an offering of Nobbys Nuts]

It's a horrible picture of me [to be honest most of them are - that's why I'm not in many] but I don't care, it is Tim & me in the same photo so I love it. He was very generous with his time, after spending 4 hours teaching us and with only 2 hours till his next class he was in the shop for ages having his photo taken with people. I took his photo but wasn't going to ask for one with me in it but someone offered to take it [thank you whoever it was - I was too excited to notice] and when I said I didn't usually appear in photos [I keep the camera firmly in my hands to avoid it] Tim said I should be in one - and am I glad he did.

This is what I made - a journal using wendy vecchi art parts book covers, and lots of Tim stuff [book rings, kraft resist, distress inks & stains, grunge printers blocks, canvas, perfect pearl mist,....]

and we got lots of stash to keep after we completed our journals including salvage stickers and plastic letters, a craft scraper, 2 distress ink pads, a cut and dry handle, 2 rolls of tissue tape, glossy accents, glue & seal, perfect pearl mist, a new black dabber [softer bottle],...

It was a brilliant class and I had a great day - now I need to journal all the little tips & hints he gave us in my new journal. I did obviously manage to buy a few bits [to go with what I had bought through the week when Ben put them on line] and now I can't wait for the butterfly tissue tape and kraft resist paper [which I wasn't sure about before I used it - but now I need it].

Dyan did a piece of art which she turned into limited edition tickets. She hadn't altered Tim and he wasn't happy about that so she spent most of the class altering him on each ticket individually. My ticket was 2 of 60 and Tim signed it on the back as well!!!! I tried to scan it in so I could put a picture on here but my printer and laptop ane not best friends.

Sara x

Better late than never

It only takes a small change to my routine and I forget all about blogging!

I went to the regular art journal class at Art from the Heart

where we were playing with Dyans new inks

and paints [both of which I obviously couldn't live without]

to make backgrounds incorporating Dyans ghosting technique on card

and in my A6 journal

which I've only just bought so I haven't done any journalling in it yet

We also had a challenge to make a page about what lights us up [in my case shopping and listening to Queen] using magazine images and doodling on an inked background

I also gave Christine her circle journal back - she asked me to do a page for her, along with Dyans paints & inks it uses a steampunk lady image from the Octopode Factory
[I also did one over xmas for Claire, using the snowmobile elf, but I forgot to take a photo, oops].

I'm not making any obvious progress in the tidying and sorting [hopefully I will start to see a difference soon] but I'll keep plodding on with it.

On a positive note however, I have managed to learn how to put links in my post [I'm not the most technical person in the world so I am quite chuffed about that].

On Thursday I'm going to a workshop with Tim Holtz [getting quite giddy now!!!!].

Sara x

Not Much Progress

This week I intended to do so much tidying up that I would be able to find a home for everything. I had seriously underestimated just how much junk I have accumulated and although the magazine ripping has been ongoing all week I have only got rid of one pile of crafts beautiful so far.

I also bought some shelves for my really useful boxes so they can be pulled out like drawers instead of having to unstack them [which obviously I could never be bothered to do] - they arrived at work on Friday in 6 enormous boxes and wouldn't fit in my car until they had been unpacked and the boxes folded up [all in the driving rain so I looked like a drowned rat by the time I got back to my desk - and it took from 10:30 to 3pm for my trousers to finally dry out - jumper went on the radiator & I wore my cardigan], then took over an hour to unload from the car and assemble in the attic once I got home.

I spent yesterday trying to get to the bottom of the paperwork that has stacked up in the study so I can re-house some toys from the attic to the study for my grandkids to play with [when it is eventually tidy enough for them to be able to come and stay - they may have grown out of the toys by that point!].

So instead of current papercraft projects I thought I'd share some of my beaded creations with you this week.

a choker with trailing back

my first [and only] attempt at designing for a loom

a dutch spiral necklace using multiple sized beads

and a free form bracelet - I enjoy free form work as it is really the only time you don't have instructions so it seems more creative to me

I haven't done much beading since I let the caravan go because I haven't got any clear space, but I'm booked on the Beadworkers Guild great bead show in May [only 1 of the 3 classes I wanted to do is confirmed but I'm hoping if the others don't run that there will be room on different classes for me] and I'm hoping to have re-discovered my mojo before then.

Having said I haven't done much recently - this is a bauble I made for my mum for xmas [I make her something for her tree every year] but it was from a kit.

Sara x