2011 Coaster Calendar

OOh, I'm early with this one! It's a calendar for next year using a beer coaster.

They are ever so simple to make - you just cover a coaster with some nice patterned paper, add some suitable embellishments and a ribbon to hold them up.

I've made mine suitable for a male receipient (although I'm not sure who yet!) as it has a 'mechanical' feel about it with the circles.  I also added distressing to the edges using a file and black ink.

It's most unusual for me to be this organised this early, a first in fact!

Thanks again for stopping by and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Awaiting my Craft

I am still in the process of doing tonight's craft - I am looking for an image on the web of some pedestrian crossing lights.  Why? You may well ask.  Because my husband [who has returned to work in China today :-(  ] and I have a little jokey thing between us about our younger son who, whenever we ask him to do something, invariably will keep saying, 'Wait', while he finishes off a stage on his computer game or something.  We decided that we would make him a t-shirt that has the 'WAIT' symbol on it (hence the pedestrian crossing image) as an in-family type of joke.

I have, however, been having difficulty getting a Copyright Free picture of the pedestrian lights, which is why I am still searching.  While I have been looking for them though, I came across this great image:

What an enormous traffic light 'tree!'

This is the type of image I'm looking for, but this one is of such a diddy size that it wouldn't be suitable for printing on a shirt:

So I shall plough ever onwards in my quest!

BREAKING NEWS.....Paperchase have got a brand new website with shopping! Yay! Shipping Worldwide.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you've had a great weekend,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Cupcake Case Flowers

I've been making a home decor item for tonight's craft.  It's one that is so easy you could make it with young(ish) children.

Here we have:

Faux flowers made of shiny little cupcake cases.

To make them you use straws and drawn (or stamped) leaves and buttons stuck to the centres of flatened shiny cupcake cases .

Stick things all together (I used glossy accents for the buttons, sellotape for the rest) and to keep them upright, insert the straws into plastercine that is put into the bottom of the plant pot.  

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Thanks for popping by and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Gift of Dreams

I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself today, I've been to the dentist and had my very first extraction! Owwww! Certainly makes me want to take a lot more care of all my others! :-(   I liked what the dentist prescribed though, 'you need to lie on the sofa and have flowers and chocolates!' lol.  This was directed at my husband who was there with me - shame it didn't happen though! (bah!)

Tonight's craft:

...is this scrapbooking page of Christmas 1999 - Love the lettering on this Bo Bunny Paper (free with one of the papercrafting magazines this month), that says this:

'You are the Gift that made all my Dreams come true"

I've always loved this picture of myself when heavily pregnant, taken the month before my eldest was born:

I did ask my husband to deliberately chop my head off when he took the picture - it made it more photojournalistic!

I just thought it suited the sentiment on the Christmas themed paper perfectly.

* * * * *

My two boys have had their first lesson in Fencing after school (in school) today, hope they don't start practicing - on me!

Have a great weekend.

Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Photo Album & Christmas Frame

Fortunately my camera fault from yesterday was only minor and fixable so I can show you the photo album that I covered yesterday:

(click to enlarge)

When we went to Birmingham on Tuesday I managed to sneek a peak in TK Maxx.  Sometimes, if you are prepared for a jumble sale style rumage, you can get some great craft bargains there, like these:

Packets of transparency shapes made by Memory Makers.

As you can see, these are what I used on my album cover, together with a title that I made using Picnik.  The cover, before I covered it in gesso was very bright:

 

..which is why I toned it down.

I have sealed the album in 3 coats of modge podge and used an inkjet spray sealant on the title. I just need to print all the pictures off for the inside now:

 

* * * * *

Tonight's craft is a little moneysaving tip.  If you already have some flourishes stamps you can make a nice frame for your christmas cards:



You don't need to buy the new flourishes stamp set (sold by a well known craft retailer) that have holly & berries on them.  Just draw them yourself around the flourishes:

They are quite simple to do (you could add some glossy accents for shine) and it gives the frame a nice Christmassy touch:

Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Apologies

MY CAMERA is!!



Sorry for this but I made my craft tonight, came to photograph it and my camera wouldn't work! :-O !!  

I can describe what I was doing though, just so you know that I did do some crafting today (honest!)

The craft that I did today was to recover a photograph album that I plan to put photos in of the artwork I have done on 'Creative Flourishes' since I started in January.  When I am out in the 'real world' (lol), friends and relatives (that aren't on computers, imagine that?!) often ask me 'what kind of art & craft I do' and I have difficulty describing it.  I have done so many different things, but invariably get stumped when put on the spot.  This is why I thought I'd make up a photo album so I can show them.  I have previously bought a photo album from a charity shop that has bright paint splashes all over the cover, its fun and arty looking but also much too bright and far too 1980's in style, so today I have altered it by gessoing  to tone it down and added up-to-date embellishments.   Hopefully, when my camera is fixed (?), I'll be able to show you.

Thanks for stopping by,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Wall Sculptures

Today's post is a photographic one. For our anniversary today my husband and I went on the train to Birmingham and we visited a new 'Arts & Media Quarter' called the 'Custard Factory'.

This photo is of a great linear art sculpture that I took with my Instax Mini 10 Instant Camera.  It was fun using a 'polaroid-type' camera with pictures that develop in front of you but the colours were a bit off:

This was all white!

Here we have a ginormous 'green man' sculpture (my husband is sitting underneath it):

This dragon really does look as though its climbing the wall:

and finally, I loved this green vertical garden:

 

It looks like a giant piece of embroidery.

Lovely day, but it was a shame about the weather.  The 'Custard Factory' itself didn't seem to have much going on for visitors.  I think its still in its early stages so has empty units waiting to be filled with creative bods. I'd love a unit to spread out and make a mess, surrounded by other creative types.

Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave



Happy Anniversary Card

Why do I always leave my cardmaking until the very last minute possible?  This is what I have done with my husband's anniversary card, due when he wakes up tomorrow!  :-O

This card, which is a very simple design was made using a technique I learned from Gina G (link here) using stamped & embossed leaves and bleach.  In this case, I really shouldn't have left this craft until the last minute because after preparing it all, I found out that I hadn't got any full strength bleach.  I made an attempt using a weak solution (of bleach) but I wasn't very happy with the result so when the leaves were dry I coloured over them with a gold signo pen.

(These pictures replace the ones I originally showed when it was wet)

..and it worked! I really like the effect now!
* * *

 In my defence for doing this very last minute, I didn't know that my husband was going to be back this week from China, he only told me late on Saturday night.  I thought for this anniversary I was just going to be sending him an ecard.
 

Thanks for reading and for any comments you may leave,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

China Hearts

My husband (as old regular followers know) works in China for weeks at a time.  Tomorrow he is coming back for a week.  This time his work break coincides with our 14th wedding anniversary, which is on Tuesday.  Whilst browsing the web today I found this romantic idea and I made my own version:

It has a map of where we are on one heart and where he is living and working in China on the other.

The one on the web I saw was on notonthehighstreet.com and uses genuine old maps, I haven't got any of those so used Google.  I drew around a heart stencil on each of the maps and cut them out.  I then simply stuck them onto red card and framed them. 

* * * * *

I also made some bookmarks using the letter idea I showed you yesterday:

These were made by saving each of the individual letter photos from flickr (see yesterday's link), compiling & resizing each of the names in a word processing program, then cutting them out and laminating them.  To finish them off I used a hole punch and then tied on a piece of ribbon.

Hope you've enjoyed your weekend,
Thanks for reading and for any comments you may leave,
See you tomorrow,
qwiksave

Letter Photo Mosaic

Surprise! I've done an earlier post today.   I was a bit more organised today and got my craft done earlier than usual.

It's this:

(Click to enlarge)

A photographic letter collage.

The letters themselves weren't created by me, they were found on Flickr, created by Leo Reynolds, who generously lets you copy them (Some Rights Reserved). I copied and saved each letter and then put them together in this format using bighugelabs.  (This is a free mosaic maker but you need to register to use it).  You could also compile your message/name in Word or other word processing programs.

I found the information about creating this whilst bloghopping today.  The site I found it on was this one, Under the Table and Dreaming.

I'm liking the idea of making all kinds of words, and the letters are so creative.  It's the kind of thing you could do yourself, photographing letters in the environment.

It's quite time consuming to create the mosaic but also

..with gift making potential too! :-)

Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave