Happy Halloween 2012

Halloween snook up on me this year and all my preparations were done at the very last minute.  I left it so late tonight that I was still carving the pumpkin for our doorstep after the first lot of trick or treaters had left!  

These were my boy's costumes this year:

 Ryan, our eldest, went as Darth Vadar which was easy as we already had the helmet, voice box and light sabre.  He only had to find some black clothes which was easy enough - he raided my wardrobe!

I found the idea for Joshua's last minute costume on Pinterest.  To make it I simply drew the skeleton's face freehand on a black tshirt:

 ...and then cut out the features with scissors.  Initially he wore it with a white t-shirt underneath:

 

(Zombie facial colouring courtesy of photo editing program PicMonkey)

...but then we thought it looked even more dramatic with a dayglo glow-in-the-dark cycling shirt on.

It was difficult to know what additional horror he could wear with this so we settled on just giving him some fake blood facial scars.

It's amazing what you can do when you are under a strict time pressure!  (And thank goodness for the wonderful resource that is Pinterest! :) 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Hope you enjoyed your Halloween,

Nicky


PS (Late additional posting) - I also decorated these 'baby pumpkins' (satsumas)

..using a Sharpie black marker.

 

Vintage inspired Shaped Christmas Cards

Today, as part of my preparations for the school Christmas Fair which I am doing in December, I decided to make some Christmas cards.

I made these:

 I figured that if I didn't sell them at the craft fair, I could use them myself! 

 Not even sure of what type to make when I started, I decided to give the alcohol inks and distress inks on a non-stick mat method a try.  Routing through my christmas craft boxes, I found some unused and admitedly unloved, peel-offs and stuck them down onto some cardboard before dragging it through the ink & sprayed water mix.  

Whilst they were drying, I found some old christmas shaped cards that I had never known what to do with and decided to use them.   They were made from a dull silver and gold card which wasn't that appealing so I covered them up...

 ...with christmas collagey bits from my stash.  After they had dried, I re-cut around the shape of the card.

This was the third one I made:

For this one I added some glitter and gemstones to the embossed snowflake that was already on the card. I then attached my cardboard embellishment on to it, directly in the centre so that it could follow the existing snowflake pattern.  

* * * * *

I've also been doing some other crafts that I haven't yet photographed...

...apart from some more of these blocks that were popular at my last craft fair:

This time I've added christmas messages to my blocks.  They will also make nice decorations for my home, if they don't all sell (I almost hope they don't, I quite like these!...)

Thanks for looking today, I appreciate it.

See you soon,

Nicky

Aaaggggh! Spelling Error!

I hope you'll excuse my mini blog break (again!), I've signed myself up to do another craft fair and am once again busying myself up making things to replenish my stocks.  This one is at my youngest boy's primary school, their annual Christmas fair.  I'm using the lessons learned from the one I did 10 days ago and I am also making new things that are more 'me' than standard craft fair 'fodder'.  More of that at a later date but for today I have some photos to show you.  WARNING: Some of them are not for the faint hearted, they are pretty halloween-y scary!

I was in town today and my favourite shop for reflection photos had another interesting display in their window:

Clocks, lots and lots of clocks!  But no, they aren't what was scary!....

Just around the corner advertising their 'delightful' range of fancy dress they had this:

...which produced some great reflection pictures

loving the spooky face reflected in the sky:

Very gruesome!  No photo trickery, just straight photos taken of the reflections in the shop window.

(In case there is any doubt, the 'face' is a mask!)

As for the spelling error (from my title)?

This:

....spotted in a cheapo shop. Unbelievable! 

Thanks for looking today and for any comments,

Nicky

Post Craft Fair Analysis

So, how did it go?

 Some of the items I made

These snowmen, containing a Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate bar sold like hot cakes.   The snowmen's hats, you may remember, are made from cutting the tips off a pair of cheap children's gloves.  The glossy effect on the eyes, nose, cheeks and buttons was created using glossy accents. 

None of these calendars sold.  Is it too early to think about next year?...

(I did wonder if the proportions were wrong with these.  I put the scrapbooking paper on to the cardboard  before I bought the calendars.  All the calendars I found in the shops were bigger than they were last year!)

There was a lot of interest in the 'Pint of Socks' (see top picture).  All 5 sold, and if I had had more then they would almost certainly have sold too.  They are made with a pair of black socks and a white flannel, wrapped up in cellophane and tied with a ribbon.

Most of these items sold:

Reindeers with Penguin bars inside

.

..and a few of these sold too.  I also had some orders for different words and different combinations of coloured blocks to be made.  

Here is me at my stall. See if you can spot the 'deliberate' mistake:

Doh!  When I made the banner very late the night before, I missed out the 'U' in 'Flourishes', oops!

Things I did which worked well:

I invited friends along using Facebook.

I brought along some battery operated christmas lights which added sparkle to my items.

My two boys came along and ran the 'Children's Lucky Dip' which brought children to the stall.

Things I learned from the experience:

Give myself more time to make things - not just 9 days!

Carry more stock.

Bring along a flask of tea and snacks, so you don't have to buy it at their cafe which will eat into your profit. 

Consider the type of people that will attend.  In this case it was a church and attracted more elderly people than youngsters.  Make items accordingly, where possible. 

I was hopeful at the start when our town Mayor turned up to officially open the event, but I don't think it was advertised very widely.  Quite a few of the customers that bought my items were other stallholders...

Thanks for popping by today and for any comments,

Nicky

Apologies but I have had to add word verification to my comments, I have been getting 20 spam comments a day recently!

I'm doing a Craft Fair!

Those of you that follow me on Pinterest may have noticed that I have a new board on there which I have called Craft Fair and the reason for that is I am running my own stall at a local Church Hall in just 7 days time!   This is one of the reasons that I've not been on here, I am working flat out to get things made.  The panic of it all is that I only booked the stall two days ago on a momentary whim when I noticed the Craft Fair being advertised. 

Earlier on in the week, before I knew I was making items for this craft fair (thank goodness for Pinterest for quick to make fair ideas) I made this Christmas decoration:

The rice was coloured with two different green food dyes

and the pearls were simply coloured with Sharpies

 They are difficult to photograph but they look like the retro metalic coloured baubles you see sometimes.  Paperchase often stocks them.

The bottle was a charity shop find.  I'm now thinking I might use it for a table decoration for my stall on Saturday, but I would sell it if someone wanted it.  

I made some other table decorations for my stall, also with Sharpies:

I bought a set of clear bulbs from the 99p shop (4 for 99p) and coloured them with the Sharpie pens.  Ideally they would look good on a wire, but at this moment in time I'm not sure how I get them fixed on

For the craft fair itself I have been making objects that I have made in the past, though when I made them before they were for individual christmas gifts.   Things like the 'Pint of Socks' and the Paper Snowmen that contain chocolate bars.  I've also been making beermat calendars and greetings cards, amongst other things.  (Most of these objects can be found using the search facility on the right hand side of this blog).  

As well as Pinterest I have been scouring FiddleFarts blog [so sad (but understandable) that its being wound down :(  ] and also the crafty section of the forum of MSE.  There are loads of ideas to be found on there, if you are prepared to go on a good mooch.

Finally today, I will show you the prize package I received from Creative Craft World when I won one of their blog hops recently:

(It was for the Rainbow Blog Hop and I won for the colour yellow).

Have a good weekend.

Not quite sure when I'll be able to be on next (busy, busy, busy, craft, craft, craft)

but I will see you shortly,

Nicky.

It's Time for some Unfinished Projects

I get nagged! No, not by my husband, or, for that matter, by anyone else, but by my own conscience!  It regularly reminds me that I have got a rather large list of UFO (unfinished objects) or, more accurately, unfinished projects, that I must get round to, well, finishing.

One of them is Natalie Malik's 'In the Sun' art journaling course that I  had been faithfully following every day in the Summer until I went on holiday to Ireland.   'But there are still prompts left undone!' nags the voice of my conscience.

So, despite the fact that Summer is most definately on its way out, I am feeling this (guilty) need to go back and complete this project, preferably before the next season comes along and makes me forget what this Summer was like! 

So, today I made a start and worked on the next in the series of prompts:

It was, "If you had an extra hour a day, what would you do?"

 

(Finished page above) 

To make the page, I sponged on some blue and brown distress inks and splashed water on to blend them together.  I then added lots of clock stamped images from stamps that I've had for yonks.  [Clocks are now 'on trend' again, they must be, I saw them for myself in Paperchase].  I used a fine Black Versafine ink pad for the stamping.  Some of the clocks were deliberately stamped with less ink to represent the fading passage of time.

I added some number washi tape (from Paperchase) and arrow stamps to represent the hands on a clock...

...and finished off with some co-ordinating labels to write my journaling on. 

* * * * *

Something else that I did yesterday, was to make a simplified version of my son's school timetable:

(detail)

I made it on the computer using Word and some fun downloaded fonts.  

It makes it look more interesting than the ruled table they get in their planners, and it has the added bonus that we can see at a glance what books he needs to take in each day.  This version is laminated and is kept in the kitchen where he can see it when eating breakfast.  

Thanks for stopping by today and for any comments,

Nicky

My Creative Week

Back again! And because it has been so long ( a whole week!) since I last did a post I have a week's worth of stuff to show you (yay!)

First of all, last Sunday, on another fantastic sunny day, we went to another local history place to see behind the scenes.  This time it was a place called Guy's Cliffe which is near Warwick.

 This was an interesting old building. Some information about it can be found here on wikipedia.

Part of it is just a shell because it was burned in a fire during the making of a film called 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' in 1992.

It also has a spooooky past, which makes it a good place for visitors that are into haunted activities.

(Click picture for details)

It is a great place for boys (of all ages!) to explore, with secret rooms, hidden doorways and caves to discover.  It is not open to the public generally, just on special opening days.  

Next, I'm moving on to some fancy dress and on Thursday they were celebrating Roald Dahl day at our youngest son's primary school.  He chose this character and I made the costume using velcro strips to stick the food on:

Keeping with the theme of fancy dress, we all went to a fabulous Lord of the Rings party at a friend's house last night.  

My husband went as this spider:

..with a costume he made himself

and our eldest went as this character:

Who some of you who know the story of Lord of the Rings will recognise (Confession, I don't know it!)

I've also made another page in my Ireland Holiday Journal:

And finally (phew!), when we were on holiday, the youngest boy had a challenge set by his school.  It was to take a photo of himself reading a book in an interesting place.  I'm glad to say he won the competition with this picture of him reading a book with a boa constrictor around his neck:

Hope you enjoyed your weekend.

Nicky

Celebrities for the Day

What fabulous (but dare I say it, almost too hot?!) weather we are having here in the UK at the moment.  This week, just as the children are back at school we are finally getting the weather we were meant to get during the holidays.  But anyway, I'm not here just to discuss the weather....

I've got some interesting pictures of where we went today:

Our home town had a 'behind the scenes' look at some local historical places event on this weekend. 

First we went on a visit to our local railway station where we had a guide telling us all about our Art Deco station.

He was a volunteer gardener there and was mainly going on about the wonderful flowers that he and his team of volunteers had planted.  Admitedly they were nice but the discussion was a bit too flower oriented for our family who are non-gardeners. 

From there we went on to another art deco building, the one in the top picture, called 'The Assembly Rooms'.  It is now a place where rock and pop singers of past and present come to perform but in the past it had been an upmarket Tea Dance venue. 

  (Below this ceiling pic, is a ballroom dance type floor) 

The building was renovated a few years ago, by the TV Designer, Laurence Llewelyn Bowen 

..with his flamboyant touches.  

When we got there, there was nobody around to show us so we were able to freely wander, which turned out to be interesting.  Down some stairs by the stage we wandered into what we guessed was the star's 'green room':

  ...Which was a strange place, with unusual 'toys' for the stars to play with, before and after performing.

A mirror and glass vintage caravan that was fitted with glass shelves throughout....

There was a full sized dalek for my boys to pose with.

Ride on toys like a dodgem car, a horse and this ostrich!

 and there was also a display panel of hotel room key fobs.

It was an unusual find and I had visions of Peter Andre who performed there a while back, 'relaxing' in this very room.  Makes me wonder what other theatre's green rooms are like?...

I also have made another couple of pages in my Ireland Journal:

Which I have done in similar style to the other pages.  This time I've just added more journaling and less pictures.

We are off to some more local places tomorrow, wonder what we will be seeing behind closed doors this time?

Thanks for looking and for any non-spam (grrr! still getting loads!) comments,

Nicky