Well, it's not as easy to get hold of a mould and deckle as you might think, considering it's basically some wood and mesh.  In my quest to make my own paper (ie. reform old paper) I've been trying to find one of these. I'm currently too lazy to make one myself - plus I have half a dozen other projects in my mind that simply won't take a backseat while I fiddle around with hammers and wood.  So, impatient as I am, I took the sieve, the sink and a fistful of paper and had a little play around.  And I made my first little bit of paper. :) 



Heh, it's not very impressive, is it?  (As you can see, I'm still loving the orange nail polish!)


I tried advertising on Freecycle (a fab site for finding/getting rid of stuff) but so far nada.  And I think the family may revolt if I jam up the sieve with more paper mush.  So, that's on the backburner for a little while. 

In the mean-time, two new cards are up (finally!).  Two dragonfly themed cards quite different from each other but hopefully both equally gorgeous.  I've also been busy packaging bumper packs and wrestling with our wireless printer which completely out of the blue stopped working, and just as unexpectedly started working again after about four hours of foot-stomping and a lot of swearing.

Anyhow!  Onwards.  Have a good week all. x

This week, I used the purple striped material from my last post to make a cushion cover – it’s not perfect, and the button I sewed on to it is a little bit wonky, but I’m happy with it.  I have another cushion insert of the same size so I think I might make another one over the weekend.  I love my sewing machine – it makes it so much quicker, although it still took me about three hours to do… not sure how it takes me so long.  Hopefully with practice I’ll improve.  They're not great photos as I seem to get the urge to create stuff in the evenings, and I’m not very good with night-time photography.  If anyone is – please give me some tips!

1 x material from sale (@£2.50/metre)

1 x old cushion insert

1 x button from old cardigan

1 x white thread reel

The material and the cushion

Finished cushion

+ Also this week I was invited to sell my cards through a local group!  I’ve volunteered with them for almost a year now, and I’m quite excited about selling through them.  After receiving this news, I set about looking to find some more blanks for my designs and opened up my card-making box which re-ignited an idea that I’d had a while back about using all the off-cuts that I’ve collected to make my own paper.  

So I’ve been sitting here for the last hour ripping up bits of paper into small squares ready for me to soak them.  I apparently need to make some kind of frame, so I shall have to search the internet for instructions on how to do that (or buy one…).  I’ll post photos when I start the process.  My aim is to eventually be able to use the off-cuts that I produce from printing my designs to make the paper for the cards/envelopes.  It’s a long way off, and who knows… but it’s good to have a goal!

Hope everyone has had a great week.  It’s been good weather here, so I’ve been in the garden a lot, attacking the greenery.  It’s quite a naked garden now… eek. 

Take care all!

Phew, busy morning.  I had a tutorial and to start with I thought I was going to be the only one there which wouldn't have left me with much opportunity to gaze out of the window.  Thankfully, a few more people turned up shortly after me. 

Still a little bit buzzing from being featured on Roxy the traveling dog on Tuesday.  There were a few nice comments on the post - always nice to have feedback.  If you didn't check it out, go and have a look.  I am so impressed with the bead-work that Roxy's mum does!

Anyway, on a day with a distinct lack of summer sunshine (literally might as well be someone chucking buckets of water around outside my window) I thought I'd post a few pictures of the Rimmel SunShimmer I bought the other day.

For £3.99 I can't really say much bad about it.  If you don't like a bit of sparkle, steer clear.  But otherwise, for the price it's an excellent little addition to my make up bag.  I've tried the three shades separately and although I don't think I'll be substituting my regular eyeshadows for it, as a bronzer it's pretty darn good.  There are two types available, either 001 Gold Princess which is a lighter trio, or the 002 Bronze Goddess which is a darker set for those that aren't quite so pale to start with.

Firstly,  go and check out Roxy the traveling dog!  Her owner, Mary makes amazing beaded collars and Roxy features a new artist each Tuesday.  This week, she's been kind enough to showcase me. Thanks Mary and Roxy!

I had meant to update over the weekend, but annoyingly I had an evil head cold that kept me in bed.  It’s been so hot the last few days, walking home from town in the heat on Friday didn’t help. While I was in town I bought a new bronzer as my Benefit Hoola finally gave up the ghost this week – found a Rimmel Sun Shimmer 3 in 1 Golden Princess for £3.99.  I do love a bargain.  Sells for about £6 in other shops. 

 ‘Multi-tone bronzing powder for the face and body. 3 shades of shimmering colour, in one compact, adds a soft luminous glow to the skin. Blend together for a shimmering effect, or use them separately as highlighters or eye shadows!’

 Being slightly slow, I hadn’t thought about using them separately as eye-shadows, but I shall be sure to give it a go.  I’ve been using it just as an all over bronzer - I’m pretty pale, and it doesn’t look obvious and gives me a shimmery glow.  Yay. 

I've hopefully avoided the orange look and confined it solely to my nails. Here's the picture I promised of the nail polish “mouthy”:

Sorry for the lack of posts!  After overhauling the site a bit, I realised I had a fair amount of work to do - work that would be marked, so I had to tear myself away from the admin page and write about alternate dispute resolution... but thankfully that's in hand now and I have a new design almost ready to go in the shop, so look out for that next week.

Also, some photos of the 'Mouthy' (orange) nail varnish that's available in the shop - I've been trying to decide whether to keep a bottle of it for myself and tonight I gave into temptation - glad I did - it's gorgeous.  At least I think so.  You can see for yourself when I put up the pictures.

Longer post on its way.  Double promise with a strawberry on top.

P.S Don't forget to click the new clicky icons on the homepage!

Since my sewing machine arrived, I've been doing a lot of experimenting with various beads, fabrics and charms that I have hanging around and I came up with this ring.   I was inspired by a visit to the local indoor market where there are loads of gorgeous charms that I plan to buy next week.  Hope you like it as much as I do.  I might make some more of them if people like them, so let me know. :)

As I'm sure many of us are prone to doing, I just lost half an hour or so clicking through various pages on a variety of different sites reading about giveaways to green living... and I ended up at this site: http://business2blogger.com

It's such a good idea that that I'm really quite surprised that I haven't seen something like it before.  Of course, this could be because I've reached the stage where I'm quite happy with my old laptop, rusty phone and have experienced having to ask a electrical store helper how to turn on the display Kindle... my point being that if there is another site like this - well, I've missed it. 

Anyway.  As I've just started this Update/Blog part of the site, I thought I'd sign up with them.  I've reviewed products before on a few of the review sites that are around and really enjoyed it - but the idea of putting my thoughts together on some stuff I hadn't previously considered forming an opinion on - well, it could be interesting! 

So, all fingers and toes crossed!

xx

 

Hi everybody,

Been busy these last couple of days working out where to go with new card designs and whether to incorporate new elements into my site.  Initially I hadn't planned on keeping this website up but time ran away with me and I had a day before I went on holiday to decide - and I'm a bit too attached to it to just let it wither and be lost! I've got some gorgeous new buttons and such that I'm debating whether to turn into jewellery and put up here... we'll see!

So, two new designs are here!  The first is from a collage - a kind of stained glass effect - it's currently my favourite design.  The other is from a colour pencil drawing - it's a little Chinese-y and a bit peacocky... It took a while to get them here but I hope you like them both!

Also, make sure you check out the ace nail polishes now available in the shop.  Grab one for only £2.50 - bargain!

Much love xxx