Scrapbooking With Michelle Jackson Mugford at Crafters Companion, Evesham

Another apology from me, this time for only just posting Marc’s and my day scrapbooking at Crafters Companion, Evesham with Michelle Jackson-Mugford, blame three busy weekend on the trot!

The day started off a little fraught for Michelle as she got stuck in traffic on her journey down, hardly able to move for hours, finally arriving, poor lady, four hours late, but despite that we had a BRILLIANT day, the staff of Crafters Companion were so hospitable and Michelle a real trooper.

Michelle gave us a choice of one of her scrapbooking kits, accompanied by a detailed instruction sheet to get us started on the background for our page and then, using the smaller embellishment elements we were left to soar!

The kit Marc and I choose had a sort of potting shed/garden theme, so I am glad I took, among others, a picture of Bertie in his rabbit ears …… which made me think of Peter Rabbit.

You will notice, as per usual, that all but Marc’s hands managed to evade any attention from the camera!

I tell you what, working on a 12ins x 12ins sheet is a world away from a 5ins x 5ins card …….

……… and I seemed to fiddle fart forever before committing to any sort of gluing.

It was also tempting to use everything we were given, but I managed to restrain myself.

The page is now safely put away, it still needs a title somewhere near the top …… I was thinking something along the lines of “…… Little Bertie Rabbit had a fly upon his ear, so he flipped it and he flopped it and the fly flew away ……” – I just need to find a suitable background paper to write/put it on …. and then I might put it in a frame to go in his bedroom to embarrass him when he is 18!

Thank you to Michelle for taking me out of my crafty comfort zone, and the elusive Marc, whose idea it was and treating me to a wonderful day.  Hopefully we will now keep an eye out on other workshops going on at Crafters Companion and who knows, do a few more in the future.

Wedding Invitation Samples

This is the first sample pack I have sent my nephew and his fiancée to see what they think, after they asked me if I would “make” their wedding invitations.

Amanda sent me a link to a very expensive site in the US and asked me if I could come up my own interpretation on the basic theme/idea, wanting clean simple and very less is more.

She liked the idea of a band, a vellum wrap and a seal, but not necessarily all of them together, so I tried as many variations on the theme as I could, incorporating the rose gold mat card she had picked out from all the paper and card samples I had sent her from various companies and using a grey font.

As you can see there isn’t an awful lot of crafting to be done, it’s really all computer lead, except of the odd tiny flat back clear gem or pearl and the seals, made using my Ranger Melt Art Melting Pot, now discontinued!

So much of my time was taken up with experimenting playing an assortment of fonts, varying their size and style, be it capitals, regular and italic etc..

I am now waiting to see what they whittle their choices down to (if any) and what other variations, changes to wording etc. they want before I set up another round of samples. I think there will be an awful lot of too-ing and froing before we get to that final production stage, so watch this space. 

Disney Countdown Drawers

OMG  ……….. IT’S FINISHED!!!!

I finally got two days to sit down properly and get the final thirteen drawers, as well as the sides and top finished.

It’s been a long old slog, but I am so chuffed with how it’s all turned out, with the end result exceeding all my expectations in buckets!

Some drawers were a bit of a fiddle fart to get all the buttons I wanted to use along with the countdown number, like the Aladdin one, but the extra space over the drawer top and the dividing partitions gave me some much needed wiggle room.

I was also determined to use up all the buttons I had bought, as I knew anything left over would just end up at the bottom of a box, probably forever.

In all, I only had two Tinkerbells left over, but they are now “hidden”, one on each side of the box for Iris and Bertie to “search for”, as they will be lost among all the other stuff.

At first I wasn’t too sure about all the fuss on the sides and top, using all the left over bits and pieces from the Carpe Diem Say Cheese sticker book I bought, so that was when I called a halt at the end of day one and slept on it, returning next morning with fresh eyes, thinking “yes, it’s over the top but it works” and then continued to add even more bling to it …… with my less is more mantra well and truly out of the window

I have to admit to getting a bit bored of using flat backed gems and stars to “fill in the gaps” and then I remembered some tiny nail art flowers I’ve had for years, they were so perfect for the Winnie the Pooh and Chip ‘n’ Dale outsidey drawers.

I even decorated the sides of all the drawers with washi tape and stickers, nothing was going to remain unused and unadorned.

This wasn’t a cheap project, it was my choice to use Dress It Up Buttons, however it was during the collecting of all the bits where I found how hard it is to find legit/licensed Disney pieces, unless they were “knock off” like a few Frozen and Disney Princess stickers and to be honest they just looked cheap.  So on the very conservative side, the bits alone cost me around £60 ……and I say that in a whisper.  The drawers were from The Works, usually costing £15 each, but I got three when there was a 30% off offer which then worked out at around £10.50 each – although I have noticed that lately promo codes aren’t applicable on then now, so I’m not sure if getting another bargain would be possible. 

I have two other sets taking up far too much space at the top of my wardrobe, so they need to be done before too long ……. I am thinking one should be for Christmas 2018, using wooden snowmen and snowflakes which I already have and cost less than £10 through sales and offers, and there’s really enough there to do two or three sets of drawers!  The other set I think should be more eclectic and for me! I have a lots of key and lock embellishments as well as other interesting flat back bits and pieces which I am thinking about  ……… all I need now is the time!

Easter Sweetie Favour Jars

A bit late I know …….  but these are the little sweetie favour jars I made for Iris to take to school to give her nursery helpers.

The hexagon (?) jars I have had for ages, which I filled with a mixture of tiny Easter eggs and equally tiny chocolate rabbits that I found in New York.

They really didn’t take that long to make as the rabbit heads and flowers were party confetti from Poundland and just needed gluing on, the bunny tape round the middle of the jars came from Aldi last year and the self adhesive crochet edging from Home Bargains.

All I had to do was make the tags, using a scalloped edged square punch, with a thread that was tied round the top of the jar.

Easter in a jar  – done and dusted!

What’s A Girl To Do?

The mug I always use for my morning coffee says it all ……….

I had thought my little flat was almost done, although one or two things had been mithering me like the mirror in my lounge …… I knew I wanted to go bigger with perhaps a change in style, but I just never saw anything I liked until ………..

…….. the other week when I was in town just to buy stamps and exchange my unused dollars back into pounds  ……. when there it, well, rather they were ……. in the Georgian House in Evesham ………

What’s a girl to do? …….  a stunning, very large, circular bevelled edged and etched mirror was just £10, I didn’t need to think twice, it was mine, for the princely sum of £10. 

I didn’t really consider it’s weight, and there was some doubt when it came to actually hanging it as to whether it might be a bit heavy, but after a tense half hour or so, it was safely attached to the wall using four mirror screws. via the holes that formed the centre of the flowers. It’s perfect, and when the light hits the bevelled edge it’s almost magical. I don’t think my picture,really does it justice …… neither does the untidy reflection, but I was in the middle of a major spring clean and in a hurry.

And, erm …….. there was a second mirror …… marked at £35, but which managed to get down to £30.  It’s also quite heavy, but was a lot easier to hang in my bedroom than the other.  I just couldn’t resist it, to find a mirror with candelabra, OMG, so Beauty and the Beast!!!!!  I don’t think there’s much age to it, but it’s the final finishing touch the room needed.

I am also having yet another re-think about my spare/guest/craft storage room …….. heaven help me, and I have Mr Pete my carpenter coming over sometime this week to look at my plan and give me the yeah or neigh  ……. so watch this space.

Posts As And When ..........

Oh my goodness ............ I have been soooooooooo busy and as a consequence Fiddle Fart posts have suffered, without notice, for which I apologise to all those lovely friends who always check in on Mondays and Tuesdays.

And I am afraid it's a trend that looks set to continue .....  I've had Marc over, then went to Marc's and then stayed on longer than originally planned, I had a flat full last weekend for Easter, followed by a two night sleepover this weekend with Iris and Bertie with Auntie Lu coming over to lend a hand and then there's another weekend away planned in Weston Super Mare with Bertie in two weeks time ....... and it's going to be pretty much the same throughout the year ............. as for crafting  ....... well,  it's all on hold as tomorrow I plan to start designing and then making up of a set of invitation samples for my nephew's wedding in September. With just three days to get the bones of them done, including getting out my melt pot as Amanda (the bride) quite fancies seals, I need to work with blinkers on.  There's not a great deal of crafting with the ideas put forward, but there is an awful lot of computer design.

So please bear with me. How I ever went to work, worked for The Duke, kept house and posted two blog posts every day and crafted I'll never know.  I will post as and when I can, I have photos all ready for a few projects, finds and outings, I just haven't had the time to put the words together to go with them.

I'll always be here, if only once a week  ............ it's just that life has a habit of juggling things around now and again.

There will be a post tomorrow and Wednesday.

   

Iris Roo’s Bedroom

I didn’t intend to have a post today after spending the weekend with Marc, but I thought I would just share Iris’s bedroom and art work with you, as Monday and Tuesday posts are such an ingrained habit!

Iris is a prolific artist, like so many children of her age and Laura has put little washing lines along two of her bedroom walls to hang Iris’s “works of art” up with little wooden pegs

It’s a display that you just can’t look at without smiling, especially when there is a memory attached to when some of them were drawn.

They are so innocent and drawn entirely from the heart ……and now “words” are beginning to appear in them too ……..

And my very favourite? The one above, because of it’s simplicity, the Big Bad Wolf with a tree in the background. Oh Iris, don’t grow up too soon and where on earth have those first years gone?