Christmas Photos

Today I've been hunting out some of our old Christmas photos and thinking about ways of displaying them:

Love these sticky card holders and they are so easy to change the pictures around.  Its fun to see pictures of past Christmasses and how things (and people!) have changed.

I also found this creative Christmas abstract picture I made a while ago:

This was done by 'painting' PVA glue onto none-bleedproof tissue paper and then onto silver foil. (Apologies for the picture, its very reflective).

Just having a day working out how I can put Christmassy pictures/photos/artwork ALL around the house!

***

Time for a break, a german Cadbury's choccie bar:

Mmmmmn! Thanks, hubby! :D

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

PS - We haven't had a lot of snow yet, its due soon, but my boys were determined to have whatever fun they could!:

Unfortunately those sledges weren't going anywhere! :(

Creativity Boot Camp

One of my good blogging friends, Carmen from Whoopidoo...ings, told me about this (free!) 'Creativity Boot Camp' this morning that is taking place between June 6th and June 18th.  See the details here of the first day's prompt (which was yesterday).

I'm not sure I will be following it religiously, because as you know, I like to do lots of different crafts here on my blog and I don't want to only show work I do for this project.  (Also, today's prompt word was 'Picnic!' How difficult is that?!) 

But anyway, here is my fave picture out of the ones that I took around my house today on the first day's theme, 'Ivory':

It's one of my son's shells/fishbone collection

 I'm tempted to do other day's prompts but maybe I could do it together with another craft?

I also covered the other side of the clipboard I made yesterday with some distressed Basic Grey paper:

I added some more peeloffs to the bulldog clip this side and also some more ribbons.  Looks quite different doesn't it?

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave 

The Lightsabre Gang

As you know, I've been away for a couple of days visiting my sister in Milton Keynes so I haven't been able to craft (I did however spend hours on her computer reading everybody elses blogs - I've been loving Shimelle's scrapbooking party, which was very inspirational!)

The weather has been really sunny, with lovely blue skies but it still has that nip in the air which keeps me indoors.  We did a couple of trips to shops like Toys'r'Us for me to get my little nephew something for his birthday and I had my first ever trip to Costco.  What a place!  It's a giant warehouse with goods packed up to the ceilings and GINORMOUS packets of everyday things.  I saw the biggest can of tuna I have ever seen in my life!  But, amongst all this they also had really expensive jewellery in there too, just across from the washing machine aisle they had a diamond necklace that would cost you, get this, £11,000!!  There were also Prada handbags costing a mere £1,000....  Its another world I tell you.  I did spot some scrapbooking goodies I would have liked to have got, including a nice vintage set for £13 for 300 sheets and a great storage caddy but I was coming home with the kids on the train and was already carrying 4 bags (blast!)

Just took a couple of pics of my kids and their cousin in my sister's big garden.  It has a children's mini fort in it!:

These brave knights didn't have swords,

they had...

..Light sabres!

(Pics modified using Picnik)

Finally today, I can show you a card I received yesterday in the post from kayc, who is from a card swopping group on the internet called craftrak.com.  It's fairly new so not many people are using it yet.  It was a nice card I received, but was very small (7.5 x 10.5cms). 

For details of how you swop, (think you have to register) pop along to the website http://www.craftrak.com/. (I haven't done any swopping  myself on it yet so am not necessarily recommending it).

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

x

Passport Photo Fun!

I've been very brave with my project today!  Today you will see a side of me you will never have seen (or see again!) and some of its a bit scary! 

Here it is (brace yourselves!) :-) Ta, da!:

Now stop sniggering at the back! (I know those shots at top right make me look as though I should have a number written across the bottom!)    This project, which was for my own amusement really (but I'm willing to share) was created by using lots of old passport photos (mainly, the middle one bottom certainly wasn't!) and a very old transparency of haircuts that you slot your picture behind to see what suits you.  I think I've had it since the 1980's (check out those groovy hair styles) and it was a freebie from a hairstyling magazine. 

...And when I've finished making a fool of myself?

KABOOM!!

(My subscription to Picnik is worth its weight in gold!)

See you tomorrow!

qwiksave

x

My Photo meme

Thanks to Lucy from Crafting in the Beach Hut for tagging me to do my first photo meme.

Here's what I was asked to do:

1. Open the first (oldest) photo folder on your computer

2. Scroll to the 10th photo

3. Post the photo and the story behind it

4. Tag 5 or more people to continue the thread

 
Here is mine:

It is of my youngest son being held by his father at a green festival held in Wiltshire (called the Big Green Gathering) in 2002.

The baby, Joshua (who is now nearly 8!) was just 3 months old here.

I had previously copied some pictures of one of our storage discs so I could 'play' with them and make scrapbooks which is why this was on my laptop now. 

It was taken at a festival (that sadly no longer runs) that we used to go to quite often because we always had such a fun and relaxing time.  As well as lots of seminars on environmental issues, they had a fantastic 'Craft Area' where you could go to workshops and learn how to make felt, baskets or digeredoos, amongst other things.  They had tent cafes (where this picture was taken) that sold amazing organic feasts or just coffee and cakes.  And as you dined, live music would just start up by passing musicians with all manner of instruments.  It was lovely.  I'm not a natural camper and festival toilets are not my ideal (!) but after a day or so I would get into it.  It was a place that was awash with colour, people really dressed down (I had to have a set saved for it!) but so cheerfully. They also had an amazing end of festival parade too, where people dressed up in incredible handmade costumes.  I have loads of fantastic photos taken at this event over the years and would love to show you them one day....

At this present time I can't list 5 people to send this to but if you too would like to do this, you are very welcome, say I sent you...

Memory Lamp Box

Today's activity has been the hardest I've done, I've been getting through a box of tissues whilst doing it.  Didn't realise it would be quite as hard (emotionally) as it turned out to be.

I apologise for the bottom photo but it had to be taken in the dark and my camera doesn't like the dark!

It is a glass memory light box:

(showing two sides of 4)

I know this is a very personal thing, and its a bit difficult to show such a personal item, but I thought there are other people that might like to do the same thing for their lost relatives.

To make it, I used a 3" x 2"glass box with a hinged lid (this one was a charity shop find but its a bit mishapen, a bit of light escapes out the sides!), a BATTERY operated nightlight (VERY important!) - I got 4 for £4.99 with spare batteries from Cargo - pictures, all sepia toned, some with added text and Spray Vellum Glue (not shown).

All you do, once you've prepared all your photos the right size, is to spray the vellum glue (recommended, it doesn't show) on each of the pictures and stick them onto the inside of the glass.  Pop in a nightlight through the lid and you're done.

This is the other side:

(Apologies for this picture, and the light gap doesn't look as dramatic as this, the camera picked it up!)

The original idea for this was on Martha Stewart's site,  Link HERE, She suggested using vellum which I tried but my printer REFUSED to print on it.  I used ordinary thin photo paper and it still worked. 

If you do make one, do make sure you've got a box of tissues handy!

qwiksave x

PS  Oh, I forgot to mention, you don't have to make it a Memory box, you could put celebration pictures  in it instead!

My new clothes collection!

Snow and ice on the ground has been causing havoc on the roads and pavements the last few days, even the schools were closed for 2 days. But today my boys went back (reluctantly!) so I was finally able to hit the January Sales in town! A lovely children's designer clothes shop is closing down so I made the most! I got both Winter and Summer hats for £3 each rather than nearly £40!! plus some lovely clothes - which inspired today's crafty project: A Photo Shopping Bag!:



I spent quite a while taking lots of close up photos of the clothes I got today and of the most arty clothes I possess (the flowery tshirt I used is a sale one from River Island) and then simply played about with them (altering contrast, boosting, etc) on that wonderful site I mentioned the other day, Picnik. I then simply printed them out and put them in the slots of this bag I bought in Ireland a couple of years ago. You could probably get photo bags like this on the net, maybe on ebay?

I took loads of pictures and had to narrow them down to just 5 but I have the option to change them around when I fancy a change!

Here's some of the other photos: