Cor Blimey what happened to the last few days? Oh well I'm here now and what a gorgeous day we've had again. I even got a little bit of gardening done. Its not often I really feel up to doing it although I do really love gardening, even if I can only do it in small bite sized snapets. I should really have been doing some work for Barbara but unfortunately nothing arrived in the post so it will be all hands to the pumps when it does arrive.

I have a few more cards for you, the first one I had totally forgotten about.  It is a couple of years old now so I think I can be forgiven.

 Claritystamp xmas stamps and stencils. White embossing powder on velum and it could be white pen to colour the holly and ivy but the layer behind I did some gentle white work after running the mask and vellum through the Grand Calibur.

 Claritystamp Wee stamps and the new Alphabet.  I love these cute rabbits. When I do a painting project I will often slap any unused paint onto a piece of card or tag rather than waste it.  This was such a piece from my bits box.

 Polkadoodles Lavender Tea Stamp Soup for this one and good old watercolour paints with a few bits from the accompanying CD.  You can't really see it from the photo but all the flowers and leaves are decoupaged.

Arhh, Bertie Pug. This stamp is from a dog set from Oysterstamps that Ive had for years. You can't get them now but its such a handy set for dog lovers. I coloured him in with pencils.

Take care everyone, I'm off to bed now. Dee xxx

 

Hello there. Sorry for the delay but I've had a little blip, but that's life is it not?

Anyway here are a few more samples for you.

 Claritystamp wee stamps and the new alphabet set.  The background was done on the Gelly Plate with green and blue inks and torn paper.

 A sample from the newest Groovi plate release. Coloured with pencils.

 A Polkadoodles sample from Lemonade Fizz CD and Stamp combo. The umbrella is a template on the CD. Flower and leaves were coloured in with Copic markers.

Catch you all again soon, Dee xxx

Back from the dead (figuratively speaking)

Well hello anyone passing by. I'ts been a tad long since I was here, I am sorry but I've had a good excuse honestly. Just ask my mum, she'll write me a sick note to explain lol.

Seriously though I have been quite poorly. I've had so many different medications and treatments I've lost count. None have really helped except regular infusions of a type of Chemo. Some have made me so ill I honestly felt like I was dying. That sounds a little dramatic maybe but if you've never been there just pray you never do.

Now I promise you this isn't a post to get pity and people feeling sorry for me and leaving sympathetic messages, believe me after two and a half years of feeling utterly crap I'm so over it.  Sometimes you just need to get things out of your head and write them down. I don't feel sorry for myself, well not often anyway. I don't deny I have my moments, but on the whole I get on with what I can with a happy heart.  Between the Lupus and medications I started losing my hair and in March last year I had to accept that it had gone too far and I shaved my head of what was left. I have the biggest collection of hats and scarves you've ever seen lol. I will tell you though that I hate it, but it is what it is and no amount of worrying or wishing is going to change it.

I know there will be those among you readers that have illnesses that you cope with like me, there are so many different diseases out there with no cure, little understanding and woefully underfunded for research. Many fall prey to depression and I know only too well how that feels, but I'm lucky, I made a conscious decision back in 1999/2000 when I was diagnosed that I would do everything in my power to not go there, not get that bad and so far I've managed to resist the pull of the dark nightmare.  Yes, I have days when I feel down and sorry for myself, I wouldn't be human if I didn't, but I've always been strong enough to pull myself out of it and get back to enjoying what I can. For me life is way to short to waste it pitying myself. It doesn't do any good, and it eventually turns you into a miserable bitter person and that's not for me, no way no how.  My family have been very good, my close friends and of course Colin my long suffering partner. I don't think any of them will ever know just how much help they are to me, especially in the bad times. I'm so thankful to them for their love and support, and a couple of them that continuously go way above the norm. These people are angels pure and simple, and my debt and gratitude to them could never be paid in this lifetime.

So there you have it. The reason for me being quiet and abandoning my blog. Some people find blogging helps them, but for me it was just something else to try and fit in, something to concentrate on when I had no concentration or focus. When you are struggling to just get through the day doing the bare basics then blogging really isn't high on your priority list.  I am going to try blogging regularly again though. I cant promise that I will stick to it but I can promise to try. After all, I have a couple of years worth of crafty makes to catch up on. If you are among my friends on Facebook then you will likely have seen most of what I post for quite a while, I will be filtering in any new makes though so it may be worth checking now and again.

Talking of crafty things here are a couple of projects for you. They are all Claritystamp samples using Clarity stencils and stamps. I hope you like them.

 Spritzers, stencils and stamps.

 Stencils and ink

Stencils, stamps and glitter embossing paste.

That's it for now, hopefully I will be back soon and not in two years time!!!

Well look at me, two tutorials in a row. This time its pen storage, so all you penholics this is for you. It's another make for Studio 12 so you'll have to hop over to the Studio12 Blog for the instructions on how to make it. Its a great little box, you can fix several together this way up or lay it on it's side and stack more on top, perfect for your desk and making it easy to select and use your pens.

I used papers from the Polkadoodles Studio12 Picnix collection 1 CD and Studio12 Stamps

Have you visited the Polkadoodles shop recently, there is a fab new collection of cute characters, Work and Play collection 1.  There will be more to follow too so eventually there will be something for everyone and every occasion.  What more could you ask for?

If you like entering challenges don't forget the Polkadoodles Challenge Blog with a new challenge every Friday, and the Digi Choosday blog with a new challenge every Tuesday. 

Here are a couple of Cards I've made recently using papers from Heartfelt Creations. The pads are so beautiful you really don't want to use them unless you have a duplicate you can keep and stroke. It brought tears to eyes just pulling the sheets out the pad, and when I started cutting them .......... well you can imagine how I felt if you like me are a paper hoarder. Still it's done now, there really isn't any point in buying them if I'm never going to use them, right?

That's it for now. I shall return at some point in the not too distant with more papercraft makes for you to see.

Hello everyone, I'm here at last with plenty of pics for you to see.  I really don't know what happened to March, so much work and it flashed past before I knew it.  April has been a little bit calmer, but only a bit. 

This last week I've been doing some artwork with paints and inks and having a whale of a time with it.  I do love paints and inks, maybe that's why I took to Faux painting/effects.  It's a real shame I don't have more time to do it more often, I do miss it.  I would have loved to work for National Heritage/Trust restoring the old big houses, but alas I needed a degree which entailed being at Uni 5 days a week and with a morgage to pay I just couldn't do it.  If only I'd found it when I was younger.  Our careers advisers at school never gave us any information on jobs like that, all they ever banged on about was shop, office and bank work, none of which was I the slightest bit interested in.  Had I known about restoration of faux painting it may have been a different story.

I had a 50th birthday pressie to make for our friend Jez, it took me a while to decide what to do for him as it had to be something special that he could keep.  Inspiration hit when I was sat in the Dr's surgery, not quite as strange as it seems.  They have a few shelves of second hand books that they sell for charity, so that was what got me thinking.  Below is what I made, I was quite pleased with it, but flip me did it take a long time to do, even after ripping out about a quarter of the pages.  I don't think I'll be doing another one anytime soon.

 

 

 

 

I've also done a couple of projects for the Polka Doodles Studio 12 blog since my last post, both use Studio 12 stamps.  Nikky has loads of new goodies added to the shop website, it's well worth having a gander.  The first project is a wooden sign I picked up in Wilkinson's for £3, it's about 14" long so it was a real bargain.

 

A bit late now, but here are the Clarity samples from the April shows.

 

 

 

 

 

That's it for now. Have fun creating till I'm back again.

Here we are again, and not too long after my last post considering. I'm jumping up and down shouting 'its a miracle' lol.  Actually it is, cos I'd rather be curled up with the dog in front of the telly with a nose bag to catch the drips.  I don't think its a cold (I hope not anyway), just infection spread from my abscess into my sinuses, but I'm on good old penicillin so I'm not fretting about it.

Did you see the Polkadoodles shows on Saturday? Yay some stamps at last, it's been a while since we had some new ones, and these are real cuties.  It's just occurred to me that these were rabbits too, do we have a theme running here?  You can order them from Polkadoodles or Create and Craft.

I'd just like to make a little point that has reared it's ugly head again. Copied crafting CD Roms.  If you get offered them please don't buy them, even if you really want it and can't afford the real thing.  This is theft pure and simple and its taking away valuable income from all the smaller designers such as Cupcake Crafting, Polkadoodles, Robert Adams, Sharon Duncan etc.  These smaller companies cannot afford to lose this income.  Things are tough enough at the moment without making them worse for people who spend hours of blood, sweat and tears designing them.  It really can make the difference of them staying in business or going under.  So please please don't buy them.  The sorry excuses for human beings that sell these copies deserve to be shopped.  Theft is theft and there is no excuse for it, we are all hard up but we don't all go round breaking the law just because it's easy.

This week I had a play with a crafty prototype. It was supposed to be a quick play, but it lasted all day nearly. I had a blast, unfortunately I cant tell you what it is cos I'm quite fond of living, but if you like messy crafting you'll love it.

Anyway, onto the Clarity Samples from today's show. Its always such a shame from our point of views that all the samples don't get shown when they sell out quickly, however it is very good for Barbara which is the main point of doing them.  The bunny rabbits didn't hang about long did they, they hopped right off rather quickly, but then they were rather sweet and my fave sample this time was made with them.

I stamped on fabric with deColourant for this one, then used it to cover a notebook.  Bookbinding glue is essential for this

 

Aww, the wee bunnies, the one above is so simple but so effective. Mind you I nearly lost the top of a finger cutting out the whiskers, a very near miss indeedy.  The one below is a Joanna Sheen backing paper, it seemed the perfect thing to put the bunnies on

A couple of ATC's.  I don't make them very often, maybe I should make more of them, they are so much quicker than the other samples.

Phew got here at last, better late than never eh.  And what a week, snow snow and more snow. Well that depends where you are, we got rain for a couple of days too.  The snow did scupper my trip up to Peterborough last Friday, it came down so hard and fast the grit and salt didn't have a chance to work and the roads down here turned into a complete nightmare, Colin got as far as Emsworth and turned back after taking an hour and a half to get about 15 miles. There wasn't much point in me trying to attempt 180 odd miles. That meant getting up at silly o'clock on Saturday to be in Peterborough by 1pm. Not knowing what the roads would be like I had to leave a lot of extra time to get up there.  As it turned out I actually made quite good time considering.  The A3 had snow on the road and I did a little bit of graceful skating, but pretty much all the other roads were snow free.  Coming home was a tad dodgy on the A1 and A1M, snow on the road and really stupid drivers thinking they were immune to the conditions.  It snowed all the way home which did make for pretty scenery but it wasn't really much fun to drive in. Despite all that I still love the snow and I'd rather have snow than wind and rain any day.

Thank you to everyone who watched the show last Saturday If there's anything you'd like shown or explained better in the next show let me know.  If I can do it I will.

I made a little canvas for Polkadoodles Studio 12 blog this week. Canvasses are fun and quick to do if you have all your ingredients to hand, it makes a change from making cards and scrapbook layouts. You can keep them simple or really go to town on them, plus it gives me an excuse to get the paints out. I really don't use them as much as I would like to. All the paper elements are from the Studio 12 Heavenly Garden collection, you will also find buttons and bakers twine on the Polkadoodles webshop.

Here are the samples and some odds and sods form the deColourant show last Saturday.  Spritzing the decolourant and d-plus misters onto cut and dry foam makes an excellent stamp pad and gives really good detail.

 

Fabric and inked card.  the top images are stamped with the misters and the bottom images are stamped with the cream

 

 Arashi Shibori technique on these. It does give beautiful pleats and patternation