Not exactly a Birthday card!

Don't know why but I do have trouble making cards these days, but I sat down on Tuesday to make a card for an interenet friend, and it turned out to be a little gift instead. She has just become a Grandma, and quite rightly, a very proud Grandma, and what Grandma, doesn't like to have a little brag from time to time?

So obviously if I couldn't make a card, I had to make her a Brag Book!

The cover is made from Grungepaper, so should stand up to a fair bit of handling and is painted with a multitude of different paints and inks and sprays, and then stamped with a flower stamp which came as a free gift on this months Craft Stamper mag.
The pages inside are blank, but I am sure she has a photo or two to put in there!

So that explains the mess on my craft desk yesterday and the reason for the diecut letters!

Two Out of Three Aint Bad

but can I make it 3/3.... or can I kill 3 birds with one stone??

1. My Dads 80th Birthday 'card'
 2. Hels Sunday Stamper challenge is Men ..... and this is for a Man and she can only be hugely impressed that I actually did some stamping on this one.
3. Tuesday Taggers challenge this week was to get Messy.... and messy I got in true Sir Tim Style

So pretty please can this cover all three??

Here is the cover, metal work of course and I am so loving my new metal alphabet punches that I used for the wording on the cover.

I would love to lay claim for the paper used on the back cover, but it is some luscious handmade paper I bought from my recent trip to The Craft Barn. I must love my Dad to use such precious stash

Here is the Star Card/book opened out, it's very trick to photograph, but basically its bound together with I think its called Japanese Stab Stitch ?? I may be wrong

so that's the Men bit and my Dads Birthday taken care of

now for the Tuesday Taggers messy bit

Think I have managed that bit as well don't you??

All Present, Delivered and Correct....

Well maybe not correct, but pressie has been delivered to Katherine T.

Another altered box, which was just a plain pine jewellery box to begin with.

Katherine gave me some model magic so I wanted to have a play with that, and it ended up on her birthday present.

I rolled it very thinly, stamped into it and folded it, tweaked it, painted it.

This sits on a layer of painted and heated Tyvek.

I made a mould of a Gargoyle fridge magnet and used the model magic in that... its a very details and in parts undercut mould, and it came out much better than the ones I have tried to make with oven baked polymer clays.

Inside there is a removable tray. There is a working clock inside one of the compartments, the face of the clock is embossed metal, which i just doodled on. The bottom of the other compartments are filled with UTEE, coloured with Mica powders.

The lower tray has been lined with metal from Tomato Puree tubes... I love the colour of these and usually flatten them in my Wizard, but have left them creased here and covered them with clear UTEE and a few micro beads.

I have just noticed that some of these photos were taken whist the outside was matt black.. I have since sprayed it with a green mica spray.  The sides are metal, wire, beads, embossing powder and some fab felt like stuff that you can heat and it melts... oh I am so sad getting excited about such stuff!

Poor in pocket...

but rich in friends..... had just the best weekend with Mr and Mrs Bessie, some of you may have read about the Bessie's but don't know who they are... well I just had to share this lovely picture of them

that's them, bless their old hearts!

Ally Pally was as good as usual, met up with some friends and spent far too much, esp at LBcrafts and The Artistic Stamper.... yummy paints and yummy stamps and yummy goodies that one just had to have! Can't wait to have a play with them............ and my friend Debs gave me the most awesome thing to alter that she picked up from a car boot sale for me, so I have no excuse to get out my new paints!

Now AP is over, I can post a few things that I made and gave to some special people at AP... two very late birthday presents!

A pressie for Dee62 who had a 'significant' birthday last month

An altered Tuna Tin... grungeboard. For a smaller friend who we tease that she must live under a toadstool, who's birthday was in July!

No prizes for guessing who this is for, not a Birthday pressie, just a pressie for her new purple bedroom!

I was very chuffed with the 'Best Mate' bit, do you recognise it? I managed to take a mould of a 'Love Heart' sweet (which I have to admit I loved as a child and still love them, they are my guilty pleasure!) - anyway I took a mould and then made a polymer clay embellishment from it. Obviously you can't make and sell them, but great fun for personal projects.

Oh well back to real life again now... off to pack tomorrows lunches, check school uniforms, polish shoes etc etc

It's Safe to Post Now Cos She Has Opened it..

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FUCHSIA
Blimey Guv it doesn't seem 5 mins since we were sitting outside a cafe which is close to our favourite craft shop (well to be fair really the only craft shop in our neck of the woods, but it's a pretty cool place to shop nonetheless!) in May 2008 on a glorious sunny day, celebrating Fuchsia's birthday with a zero at the end...... but here we are a year later and surprise surprise Fuch has another birthday...... unfortunately as you will probably gathered by now, my mates get my tat for their birthdays... it's the penalty that they pay for knowing me !!

Fuchsia is a great cook and loves cooking for her family, so this year I have altered a napkin holder for her. ( YCJ has some great alterable stuff which will be on sale soon, well as soon as I can get the photographer aka SSO over with her camera. As you will have guessed and as she constantly points out, my photography skills leave alot to be desired! But keep an eye on our website http://www.yourcreativejourney.co.uk/ as they will be on sale soon.)

Back to Fuchsia... she is one of the nicest people you could meet and extremely talented, but I haven't nagged her yet into getting a blog up and running so you can't see her great work for yourself, but trust me she is good! She is also very patient with me cos she knows I am very slack at returning emails and that I have in possession of a few of her books she lent me an age ago!!


I am still having a bit of a polymer clay moment and a bit of a leaf moment and it seems a bit of a Paperartsy moment!
I tried so hard here to be more colourful and cheerful, once again it doesn't seem to have happened, think I am destined to be grungy and sombre in my colours!

Oh and... just before I go, I did a bit of blog hopping yesterday and came across this blog.... for all you women/mums/slightly insane mad people ...... take a look at http://slightlysouthofsanity.blogspot.com/ I was crying with laughter at this ladies blog and her very amusing anecdotes!