Back, temporarily!

Hey people, haven't been updating as the day before I went away on holiday my laptop without warning went Kaput!
My files should be recoverable when we can find an external case for my 2.5in hard drive so i can connect it via USB to M's computer or my new one - My parents and M have clubbed together to get me a new computer for my birthday: A Dell Base unit and a Compaq flat screen monitor! Just waiting for it to arrive.

Ebay is going well and keeping me busy.

I've finished my oriental bag. Photos will be up once its arrived with Jo in NZ.

Button and Bead Trails.

In between general work and playing with clay I've been sewing on my oriental bag project. Its starting to come together now, which is a relief as was getting worried that it wasn't really working the way I'd wanted it too...

After mentioning that I had done some bead and button trails on it members of one of the online groups I belong too wanted to see pictures so here they are:



Enjoy!

Goodies from Rhonda, Judyth and the charity shop

These are some vintage buttons I found at the charity shop for 25p a card! The red ones say Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief....cute or what!No idea what I'd use them on but i couldn't leave them there at that price!

This was my giant parcel from Judyth. Spent ages last night sorting it into patterned and plains.


These are the ribbons Rhonda sent in addtion to the press and seal.
These are the charms, beads and novelty buttons she sent me

These are the shank buttons.

This is the lace and trim.And these are the buttons.

Right,back to work with me. Enjoy looking at my goodies!

Clay Faces Mark 2 and a general ramble.

I've had a strange few days.

Friday, I went to the doctors to pick up the results from the blood tests I had taken last week. Seems I am anaemic, (which explains the tiredness and irritablity lately) so he packed me off with some iron tablets and told me to rest - which is easier said than done.

On Saturday, me and Mark went into town for lunch and coffee and I popped into the Craft shop to pick up some ribbon, felt and beads. Also picked up some Sculpey for when they get my art doll face push moulds in.

Saturday night my tummy was playing up and was in a lot of discomfort so couldn't sleep so got up and did some stitching on a couple of projects. Then my eyes couldn't cope with that much longer so I decided to play with my little moulds again.

These are the rigid plastic moulds:

My aunt suggested that on these rigid plastic moulds I use a very fine mist of furniture polish as a release agent.I did just that, wiped most of it off the mould and got lots of successful little faces out of it. I finally got tired enough to sleep at about 7am and slept for about 4 hours.

To give you an idea of size of the small ones heres me holding one:

On Sunday I was tired so I sat quietly (i sit a lot but rarely quietly!) and painted the first batch of faces and did some more stitches, then we went to a friends house for dinner.

On monday I felt too weak for doing anything much other than curling up and trying to feel up to doing some stuff. Got a few stitches done, but was really feeling out of it.

Tuesday I had to go and have blood taken for yet more tests - I was provisionally diagnosed with IBS several years ago, and due to moving never finished having the tests. My doctor has decided its time to finish the tests. Only problem with this is that taking blood from me while i anaemic has a tendency to make me feel rather spaced out.

Luckily when I got home a package from Rhonda was waiting for me, and it really cheered me up. She'd sent me some Press and Seal for doing motifs with (I can't get it or anything like it here) and I have to say its an amazing product. Have had to stop my fella stealing it to play with it in the kitchen though! The envelope was rather heavy when I picked it up and when I opened it up I found a squishie full of goodies. She'd not only sent me some ribbon for SRE, but lots of buttons, some lace and some fabric!

I didn't get to play with them properly till today as by late afternoon yesterday I was feeling so spaced out that I couldn't get up without feeling faint. Mark looked after me - even forsaking a night out at the pub to do so! Don't know what I've done to deserve him!

Today I'm still pretty shaky but managed to get some stuff (work stuff mainly) done. My parcel from Judyth arrived and WOW! So much pretty fabric. Judyth is an online friend of mine who sells recycled fabric for crazy quilting.

Clay Faces First Attempt

I saw a link on the CQEmbellishers yahoo list about this tutorial on making the very very cool beaded clay faces I'd seen several months ago on the incredibly talented Gramarye's blog.
I told my mum about them and she had a look on ebay and found me some basic moulds, of which we got one with about 1 inch long faces and another with 3/4 inch long faces.

Due to a mix up the smaller ones got sent to her house so i experiemented with the larger ones when they arrived. I had some air drying clay called Das Pronto. So, i got on, and squished the clay to get out air bubbles, and then set to pushing into it the moulds. I did that and then realised I didn't know how to get them out again as the larger moulds weren't as detailed so I needed to etch details into the faces. Having done more research polymer clay like Fimo and Sculpey are better and are on the shopping list, but my clay ones have turned out sort of interesting. I had to lift the backs up to release them and then reshape them but out of the 8 i made 6 survived with varying results! I'd scribed the faces of some of them and tried to give them mouths. the one in the right top corner is going to get painted brown and be a tree spirit I think. the two middle ones I was going for an older look and the bottom central one may be the face for my witch halloween art doll. The others may just get used for paint experiments!


I've ordered a set of sculpey push moulds for art doll faces (the same ones used in the CQMagOnline tutorial) and should have that within the next three weeks and once I've got them to a standard I actually like I will start making lots. Will just have to be impatient till then!

I'm going to try some with the smaller moulds I have already later today with the airdrying clay as they have better details. Will photo as I go along and do a photo post in the next day or so.

Oriental Bag Teaser Photos

Jo, as promised! Teaser photos of some of the seam treatments on your oriental bag.....but thats all your getting, and not all of them are finished :P I've been a lot braver on this project and made myself go out of my normal comfort zone and be adventurous with my seam treatments.

Jo NZ's heart

This is the heart I made a month or so ago for Jo in NZ. She liked my insect needlecase so much I thought I'd make her a insect heart! Hope you like it Jo.
I've tried lots of new seam treatments I hadn't done before!

I've been working on....

Ebay most of the time, in fact its actively consuming most of my time, but in my spare stitching time I've been working on my oriental bag....

No pictures at the moment....am enjoying keeping Jo in suspense...though wanting to show off what I am doing . Have become more adventurous in both seam treatments and embellishments and look forward to sharing photos as soon as I can.

Me and Mark are off on holiday on my Aunt's canel boat Marigold for a week, a week on monday.
Here are some pictures of the boat:
This is the exterior. That small figure at the back is my Uncle.





These are shots of the interior. All the work was done by my Aunt and Uncle! My aunt is a very talented lady!