I've Made It To New York!

The blog that I spoke about on April 28th has now gone live & I've been blogrolled LOL! Nicole spotted my personal Blog & asked if she could use some of my stuff on their blog - well I didn't take much persuading (modest little thing that I am LOL) & yep! You guessed it, it's that chair again!! You can see the blog entry here (scroll down to may 2nd) & all my other decopatch projects are here if you'd like to take another look. And if you've not heard enough about it yet, the Crop 'Til You Drop members only club are getting full instructions to make the top hat in this month's mailing (including the instructions on how to get it just the right size!! It's a bit of a 'Blue Peter' moment (minus the sticky backed plastic LOL)

And Sometimes Nice Things Happen ...

So I've been having an awful time of late & wondering how to/why I should/ Is there any reason to carry on & then there is a break and some nice things happen. First, there are all the messages of support that I've had on this blog, through the forum & in personal e-mails. It means so much when everything is going wrong to know that you have the support of sooo many people, even some that I have never met - or even heard of before! Yep, when things are bad even complete strangers will offer a kind word - & that restores your faith in human nature. For the couple of genuinely bad people that I have had the misfortune to cross paths with of late, there are scores of decent and kind people who hope that their support will do something to make it better - and it does!!

Next, I received an e-mail from the US wholesaler of decopatch over in New York, who had seen my projects on this blog & would like to use them in the decopatch blog they are building on their website! Apparently they think my stuff is (and I quote) 'terriffic' & if I have more they would like to see that too - Oh let me think ... OK then! LOLOL. So it's not quite a place on a DT but it's alot closer than I have been since the demise of the many magazines that I used to write for! For a reminder of what I've done, here's the decopatch handbag I filled with butterly craft goodies for my mum this mother's day, you can see more of my decopatch projects here!

Finally, today one of my customers (who I would now consider to be a friend) arrived at the shop with a bouquet of yellow roses. 'for friendship' she told me - there was chocolate too, but that NEVER needs a reason LOL. I've not seen her for a couple of weeks while she has been settling in to her new job, but she has been following the blog & wanted to do something to cheer me up - and it did!!

It's Picklelicious!

Oh dear! I suppose I should have made a post about the brilliant Rusty pickle workshop on the day itself but I was just soooo fired up about it that I only managed to post a bit on the forum - as did several of the other participants. It was such a good day LOL. The mini album we made was neither of the ranges I was expecting (or had been promoting!) but I think it is absolutely beautiful. Here's a photo of the front cover! I've not yet put the photos in (or the all-important journaling!) but maybe I'll treat you to a few extra piccies later.




I realised two things in the 24 hours running up to the main event - first, we were a bin short for the tables and second (and a bit more of a problem) the lads had not measured up right and the room was too small (way too small!) for the people we had coming. Well the first was fairly easy to fix - I suppose a carrier bag taped to the end of the table would have done but as I've got a bit obsessed by decopatch recently ... and there were the new & totally yummy Rusty Pickle 1847 chipboard letters begging to be used (a pack split when I got it out of the box - so obviously I had to have it LOL) ... And there was that plastic tub sitting in the stock room ... So check it out!!






There was little I could do about the lack of space! One of our guests called in sick and I moved a small table into the hall for myself but it was definitely cozy in there! But we had a great time & Lance was a scream ... soooo many jokes! There were freebies galore and a fantastic project - what more could we ask for (except to do it again ... and we will, but in a much bigger venue!) I picked up a couple of extra class kits (complete with step by step photos) so if you missed the workshop and want the kit, contact me here & I'll e-mail you the details!! Space for one more photo I think! Here I am with the great man himself, Lance Anderson!

Do You Decopatch?

And now the moment you've all been waiting for . That paint spattered old chair that I found abandoned when we moved into the new premises is now a thing of beauty and takes pride of place in my window display (you can sit on it too LOL). It took SIX hours to decopatch the chair - not because it was difficult but simply because of the huge surface area. Each of those slats on the chair back had to be covered and thats a lot of little corners to get into!

I used just two different patterns - the pastel stripe showing to the left of the picture and a lilac paper with a tiny floral print. It's not necessary to sand the wood first (which is great because I'm basically lazy - that's the bit that puts me off altering with paint) and I didn't remove the paint spatters either (although there were two 1" areas that I covered with a second layer of paper).

I have recently got into decopatch in a big way & it's like scrapbooking in that you start to look at things in a completely different way. With scrapbooking, clothes for my little boy that I'll buy because they have cute buttons or an embroidered image, take on a new light when I'm thinking '& when he grows out of it those buttons/pockets/patches will make a great embellishment'. I have been known to photocopy a t-shirt if I can't wait for him to grow LOL. With decopatch I'm looking at a scruffy door, chipped vase, unusual shaped bottle or whatever & thinking 'I could decopatch that!' It's also like scrapbooking in that I'll go to the £1 store and see all these hideous things that would look great altered as well as all the tinned travel games (pieces for embellishments, tins for mini albums) so now I have to be even more ruthless about what I buy - sure, it's only £1 - but when you buy 10, 20 or more items it can add up to bankruptcy before you blink.

Having said that - check out this lizard. There are two settled at the base of the chair in the window. This one was decorated with a great African inspired collage paper and the other with red roses, which when collaged in small pieces takes on an excellent gothic red/black. I used small faceted black beads for the eyes, which were glued in place with Artsy Collage Ultimate Glue (by HOTP)

It's hard to believe that they started out as the most hideous metallised plastic wall decorations LOL. If you'd like to see more of my recent decopatch creations have a look here!

The Good Life!

OK - so it's taken me three days not the one I was going for to upload the photo of my latest layout - but I have been being creative (and spending far too much time on my forum!) But here it is. I've spent a bit of time on UKS lately and in an attempt to actually get some scrapping done I have taken part in a couple of the challenges. This one was to be about the good life & came about in a completely accidental way. I was working on a layout for a class and as it took shape I realised that it was my idea of the good life ... A whole day scrapping in the company of my favourite crafter (Sara Naumann from HOTP) although one of the photos was from a make n take with Christy from Rusty Pickle at the trade show over that same weekend.

I've also been checking out a couple of the online sites where you can generate all sorts of goodies for your pages: concert tickets; captioned postcards & journalled record cards - & I've put the links in the 'check this out' section to the right - am I good to you or what??? The layout features a Chuck Norris postcard - all guns blazing with the caption 'nobody specified glue gun!' My husband, eldest son & I had great fun thinking of captions before we came up with this one!

I've also put a bit of journaling onto a generated record card & slipped a faux ticket for the training day with sara into the mix - along with one of my other fave forms of text: dictionary pages. This one was my eldest son's school dictionary that I rescued about a year ago on one of those rare occasions that he was tidying his room! I love to ink the edges and highlight the relevant definitions with chalk - although this dictionary is already aged (it's around 10 years old!) and the pages have that comforting yellow to them (not lignin free then!)

So now I have a bit of a puzzle for you: try to imagine what the rather haggard object on the right (the white spots are paint spatters) might look like when I've finished with it! Clue: since we started stocking Decopatch in the shop I've become a little bit obsessed (my family are a bit wary of staying still for too long in case I try to make them over LOL)! Will post the finished result in the next few days (it's finished but I've not photographed it yet!) along with a few other goodies I've been working on.

Scrappy's Birthday Bash & Other Important Events

Following Fish's birthday on St Patrick's Day, was Scrappy's Birthday Bash on Mother's Day - I love it when a plan comes together (or, in fact, when all my special dates come rolling in on top of each other). Obviously, I made fish a birthday card & that was a great excuse to use one of the new decoupage sheets that have come in - I had him in mind when I first ordered them - I kept it quite simple (as he's likely to pull it apart within a fortnight) and just matted the completed picture on Gingham cardstock, adding a large 3 (guess how old he is LOL) in the same cardstock and a few alpastickers (which have all gone now & I really, really wanted the last pack!! We got him lots of crafty bits for his birthday - mostly he just likes sticking stuff on other stuff so tons of stickers was an easy choice. He particularly goes for the foam 3D ones and used a whole sheet in 5 minutes.

I received my first official mother's day card from Fish this year - & by

that I mean the one he made at nursery & not the one that daddy buys from him LOL. He is very precise with his sticking, taking care to keep the glue where it ought to be, rather than just slapping it all on. He noticed a little trickle of glue that had run down from the centre and in his attempt to remove it, he has torn a strip up that looks kinda like a curly stem. I guess there's a lesson in there ... sometimes it's better to accept a mistake rather than trying to remedy it & maybe making it worse. Perhaps we should accept more of our crafting mishaps as a quirk of the page/layout or whatever and celebrate it as the thing that makes it handmade.

I made my mother a quick card, having found my BG Undressed Monograms, and then a fabulous bag using the new stuff from decopatch this stuff is just flying out of the shop & we've had to re-order already! I filled it with various butterflies as she has a bit of a passion for them. I have to say that she was most impressed with the butterfly images that I'd cut out from vellum - she hates all the intricate cutting that we do - give her a big shot & a pile of dies though and she'll be happy for hours LOL

Scrappy's birthday was a busy event & it was lovely to see so many of his friends, old & new, who turned up to celebrate with us. The little fella couldn't be there in person but I know he was very pleased to hear how many people had come along to wish him well ;o) Scrappy's birthday coincides with the opening of Crop 'Til You Drop which was also two years old! The time has flown by and has not been without its frustrations but on the whole, we have enjoyed the journey. I thank all of you that have come along for the ride and supported me through thick and thin.