It's GIVEAWAY Time!!!

...oh YESH!  Indeedily!  Thrice and all that malarkey!!!   I have news!  Special news!!!    Being as it has just passed my 7th bloggy birthday, the lovely guys at Jones of Nottingham have very kindly offered a very special prize giveaway for me to do!   So, if you fancy grabbing yourself a very, very, very awesome prize, read on...

You see the papers I have used on this Candy Box Crafts frame?  They are the new 12 x 12 Graphic 45 Raining Cats & Dogs papers... and...one lucky person will WIN a 12 x 12 pad... all you need to do is leave me a comment on this post.  The giveaway will be open until 21:59 GMT, Tuesday 23rd September 2014 and the winner, who will be randomly chosen from all entries left, will be announced on Wednesday 24th September 2014.   Multiple comments won't be accepted, one comment per person please (and any duplicates will be deleted before the numbers are popped into Random.org)  If the winner doesn't claim the prize by 23:59 GMT Thursday 25th September, the draw will be re-done and a new winner picked.  So!  Whatcha waiting for huh?  Comment away!!!   

These papers are truly gorgeous... they have a very special place in me old heart, the colours and the beauty of the designs just really have grabbed me!  This frame is a 6" insidey bit and about 8" in total with the frame.  I cut up some of the papers - the little gal is just so pretty isn't she?  And I also cut more flowers out and layered them up... and then made some roses and added bits and bobs to finish the frame off nicely.

Look at those cute little puppydogs... aren't they just adorable?  Even AlfieCat likes them!   I shall away now... thanks for looking... and good luck!  TTFN

Hels xx

Mix & Match... Part Quatre

... I promise I won't do the whole french counting thing again... well, for a wee while at least!   Here I am again with my last piece for Jones DT using Kaisercraft Mix & Match papers.  This time I have made a hanging... and of course, I couldn't allow paper useage without the addition of one of my Tattered Roses...

The base is mountboard that I have layered up with some of the papers from the collection - I love kraft and black together, it is a really classy look (IMO)  Please excuse the wonky photo, I tried and better tried to straighten it up but it still looks a bit wonky!  And I can't re-take the photo as the artwork has already been posted off to Jones... memo to self, always take two photo's just in case like!  Anyways, layered up papers and then I cut out some of the doily's from the doily paper sheet... inked them with Antique Linen and then edged with Vintage Photo and applied the to the top layer... I curled up the edges of the doily's to give the piece a little more dimension.  The sentiment was cut from the sentiment sheet... but it was too big for the hanging so I cut it up into individual words and then layered them onto black card, a cool tip for when you have a sentiment but it won't fit... chop it up!    The rose was cut using Tim's Tattered Florals and then inked with Barn Door to add a smidge of colour and formed into a rose... I added a couple of Tattered Leaves too and then popped some of the delish buttons made by Jones of Nottingham... I love these!!!   A bit of rusty wire for the hanging and voila, done!

That's all from me for today... I will be back again tomorrow with a little sample I have made for my demo day at Coleman's Rushden (on Saturday)... am rather chuffed with the way it turned out... something slightly different for me too ;O))   Thanks for looking... TTFN

Hels x

Easily Distracted...

...cor blimey and thrice alive!!!  It has been one of those weeks... you know, when you start the week full of goodly intentions to "do stuff" and end spending most of it doing "something else instead".  Well, my "something else" has been distracting me good and proper all week!  Oh yesh, the Greenhouse-That-Grim-Built has kept me occupied all week so all promises of sharing some of the stuff from the Jones' Retailer Day last Sunday has kind of been overlooked.  I meant to type up a blog post the other day but this week has fair whizzed past though.  You see, Grim has been on night shift all week and being as I am of a clumsy persuasion, I find it really hard to be as quiet as a mouse whilst he is in the Land of Nod during the day.  And why, when you are trying to be mouse-like, does everything end up being realllly noisy??  Anyways, taking the opportunity of the good weather and the fact that I have several hundred weight of cucumber, tomato, gourd and sunflower plants to pot on, I have been hiding out in the Greehouse-That-Grim-Built all week!

When I say several hundred weight, I am not joking!  I have never grown things from seed properly before - well, apart from a seed tray on a window sill which isn't the same thing - so this year, armed with packets of seeds and a new greenhouse, I got all down and dirty and planted all the seeds in all the packets... plus a load of seeds I had collected from Calendula and Morning Glory plants last year.  Little did I realise how easy cucumbers, gourds and tomatoes are to germinate.  At one count, I had over 40 cucumbers, 33 tomatoes and 43 gourds (not sure how that happened as I only sowed 37 gourd seeds!)  And of course, once these little beauties start to grow, they need potting on (get me, proper terminology and everything!)  Not to mention the Phlox, Sweet William, sunflowers (lots of sunflowers) and Sweet Peas.  The Sweet Peas kind of caught me out too... mainly because I didn't read the packet... after a month, not a single smidge of green was showing in the tray of Sweet Peas, so I got a bit grumpy, went and bought a different flavour of seed and sowed those too.  Impatience is not a virtue... Two months later I have 30 odd plants as they all decided to show their faces (not that I am complaining) so the one big tub of Sweets Peas in now three big tubs!

Anyways, the point of this waffle is my excuse for being a baaad blogger!  It would be just plain rude of me to ignore all those little plants - by the way, I have done a "clinical trial"  I decided that this "talking to plants" thing might be worth a punt.  So, I have little chats with them as they are growing... except for one pot of chilli seeds that I decided to ignore.  Well, sure enough, all the seeds germinated except for the single pot of chilli's.   There it sat, a pot of compost looking a bit forlorn... until a week ago when I said "if you don't start to show your faces soon, you are for the compost bin"  Sure enough, a couple of days later little green shoots have appeared!  So, it is true!  Chat to your plants and they will grow!  Simples!  Oh and I almost forgot... we have already had our first harvest too!  Oh yesh, I grew some radishes, just to see how easy they were... and nom nom nom!  They have grown perfectly and already been scoffed!  I have a massive tub of different flavour radish on the go now and another I am planting at the start of next week so that should see us through to July at least.  I am loving this gardening lark!  I hasten to add that I have found homes for a lot of the cucumbers/toms/gourd plants... there is only so much salad I am prepared to eat lol

This post is peppered with pics of the two tags I taught on the Jones Retailer day last Sunday - the blue tag, which is a Graphic 45 tag base, is from the morning class and is using the gorgeous new Kaisercraft Storyteller range of papers and two fabby stamp/stencil sets from Hampton Art... and the red tag is the afternoon class, that one is using the Be-YOU-tiful collection from Kaisercraft.

The card is using the Be-YOU-tiful collection too; the butterfly is a Kaisercraft stamp, the sentiment is also from Kaisercraft and the flowers... yep, Kaisercraft - these are Fire Fly colour - aren't they lushness!!!   I shall away now, I have bent your ear long enough with my tales from the greenhouse!  Have a great day... don't forget to check back tomorrow for the brand new CC3 challenge too.   Thanks for looking... TTFN

Hels x

Distress With Extra's...

...cor blimey, Wednesday already!  I don't know where this week has whizzed off to, I have just had two days off and I spent most of the time asleep! I think the Manflu from last week has wiped me out!  No more Moomin Mamma, thankfully, the old schnozzle has gone back to the normal size... phew!  Anyways, I spent a wonderful weekend in Telford at Crafty Bunch, teaching lots of lovely ladies all about Distress Inks and techniques you can use them for... and at the same time, they made a lovely piece of bespoke wall art using a Kaisercraft MDF frame.  Here are some pics of the creation I made for the sample:

I won't go into detail how we made the creations as it wouldn't be fair to the ladies who came to play... I can tell you the colours I used are Antique Linen, Dusty Concord, Tumbled Glass and Faded Jeans.  And yes, purple again!

Today I am mostly unpacking all the boxes from the weekend - told you I had been lazy! - and then I have this creation popping around my head that I want to make before I forget what I am wanting to make (yes, that happens regularly.. .I even have a little book to sketch things into and forget to use that too!)  

Hope you all having a goodly week.... thanks for looking, TTFN

Hels x

Take A Note...

...or even a Notelet Box!  New for my Jones DT this month is a great MDF blank Notelet Box by Candy Box Crafts.  Now, as you all know, I am stooopid when it comes to assembledge... and therefore I was a bit perturbed when I saw the Notelet Box in kit form... lots of bits of wood... but actually, it fits together really easily, which is a good thing right?  

In order to ensure I didn't waste my fabby Kaisercraft 75 Cents papers, I made a pencil mark on the side of the woody bits that I needed to cover... and then covered the rest of the bits with Kaisercraft Black paint, applied with Cut & Dry foam so it was a nice smooth finish.  Once that had dried I used good old Cosmic Glue and stuck the papers to the woody bits... using a craft knife to make the fit perfect and then sanding the edges to reveal the white core of the paper and make the box look a little older than it is.  I also got my Texture Hammer out and gave it a bashing so it has gnarly bits too... and I also used me Tim scissors to snip the edges of the front of the lid and then sanded these back too.  My aim was to make the box look like it has been around a few decades.  Check out the stamping... that is an ancient date stamp I picked up on eBay and I used the bottom of a Diet Coke can to add the circles...well, it is more authentic!

Also from Kaisercraft are the fabby Attic Stickers... I used the ruler, cutting it to fit the lid, blending with Distress Ink (good old Walnut Stain) and then scruffing it up with the edge of my Tim scissors, tearing bits out and then sticking the sticker onto the lid using a smidge of Cosmic Glue for extra adhesions.  Next came the "fixing it all together" moment... a moment I always seem to hold my breath for because no matter how many times I check I have done the measurements right and the colouring and paper covering, I always seem to drop a doo-doo.  Well, I did this time too... not because of the design of the box, oh no, that was a doddle.. no because I am, as I mentioned earlier, completely stooopid!  Right at the very front, I didn't factor in the little tabs that fix it all together, thankfully cos of the design of the papers it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb... unlike my real thumb which was sticking out as I had inadvertantly stabbed it with my Tim scissors!  I need those chainmail gloves that butchers wear... 

Now for the decorations.  As you may have also noticed, I have a bit of a penchant for the embellishing bit of any project.  Now this box would have been lovely left as it was... bit oh ho, why not slather a pile of stuff onto it and jazz it up?  So, out came my mahoosive Tattered Florals and regular size Tattered Florals dies along with my Tattered Leaves die and I cut some flowers, making them into roses (sanding the edges of the petals before assembledge to make them shabbier looking) and addin Forest Moss DI to the leaves to make them...erm.. greener!   Of course, being as Jones are button makers (what, you mean you ain't checked out their website???  GO NOW!!! No, hang on a mo, finish this and then go *rofl*)  Yes, Jones have the most amazing array of buttons and it just so happens that they have some new steampunky geary coggy ones... so it was only natural that I bung them into the floral embellishment pile... along with a few bits of Idea-ology and... check out the ickle lightbulb... that is a proper, real, actual lightbulb from my Dad's car!  Don't worry, I didn't just randomly nick his tail light, he changed it cos it had "gone" and I asked if I could have it... he looked at me as if I am bonkers (he doesn't realise just how mad his only child is I fear) so on that went too! 

I took a few days off over the weekend... the busyness of the past few weeks had caught up with me and after the 7 hour drive home from Cornwall on Friday, I felt I needed a few days away from everything... so I spent Saturday asleep - well, for about 18 hours of it!!! And then Sunday I went to Costco with Rich & Mary.... then came home and Skyped Ellen for 4 hours (we hadn't Skyped for yonks so it was a mega catch up!) and then yesterday I spent the whole day happily ensconsed on the Sofa of Slouchiness, watching daytime tv and generally being mouselike as Grim is on nights this week so I needs to be uber quiet... not normal behaviour for me I can tell you (he will too!)   Today I am back to work, sample making for classes I have coming up and catching up on DT stuff... so that means that last night (yes, actually just after I finish typing this as I am scheduling it) I spent several hours unpacking work boxes, storing stash and tidying the Room of Stash.  And I know, I said a week ago I had plans to attack the Room of Stash... and no, I didn't!!   With all this in mind, I shall cast aside my slatternly behaviour get a wiggle on a get tidying!  Thanks for looking.. have a great day!  TTFN

Hels x