A little bird told me.....

.... there was a bigger and scarier looking bird around the corner.  I like to think he was looking after his Mrs!  This is my first successful photo through a cage - normally I can't get the focus to ignore the metal.  I'm still not sure how it works but the photo looks stunning without the cage - modest (?!)

I've kept the layout quite simple as the paper is very busy and the photo needs to be centre piece.

Debz
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Books, books. books

and not an altered one in sight!

I've been struggling to find time to spend time in my craft room without feeling guilty about housework, ironing and those other boring tasks.  Solution:  book classes and once they're paid for you have to go (and if you aren't in the house you can't see the chores need doing!!)

What is it they say about buses? When one comes they all come at once, well in October I had Artsy Craft, followed by a weekend of two classes at LB Crafts with Lin Brown.  My last class in her little shop, but she has promised to keep on teaching and I've been doing my best to persuade her that the Craft Barn would be a lovely place to start!

I'm always looking for interesting ideas for displaying my photo's and in this class we made three little books which would be perfect for a photo story.  The first little book was a fairly standard book held together with a ring clasp, the second a house shaped book and the third little book reminds me of children's picture books (without the chew marks!)  The best bit about the last book is that when you look at it you wouldn't realise it was so simple (well I didn't anyway!)  The book on the right in the picture below is covered in crumpled foil and then coloured with alcohol inks.  A great technique but the colours I used are a bit bright!



A menage of books



Close of up the simplest book, but it works perfectly

Close up of the house shaped book

Can't wait to create some of these books to use for my scrap booking and I loved it so much I might start making them for friends.  They might need to be a bit bigger though!  I'm addicted to 4x6 photo's.

Debz
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Tracing my ancestors

I've been tracing my family tree for a few years now with the help of my Aunties.  When I first started tracing my family I was under the impression that we were from the West Country and a lot of us are.  What I didn't realise when I moved to Reading was that I was moving closer to the birth place of my grandfather and his family in Oxfordshire. 

Going further back to my Great Grandfather twice removed I discovered he ran the Swan Inn at Bampton, Oxfordshire.  I decided that whilst I was up in Oxfordshire I should take myself on a family history tour to find the Swan and have a swift half where my ancestors had trodden.  Well, maybe a coke, as I'm not a beer or lager girl and I'd be driving!  Unfortunately like a lot of village pubs it's become a house, but the placque was still there so I took a sneaky photo or two (the owners weren't in, I did knock first!!)

Shimelle Laine has made me fall in love with ways of using one scrapbook layout with a number of photos on through her Two Peas in a Bucket class.  I find it a personal challenge to see if I can work out a different way of getting as many photo's on as possible.  So far I'm up to 8, but I'll show you that one another day.  This one has four photos on it and a journal spot. 



The Swan Inn, an ancestral home



More photo's of the gorgeous stream

Hidden journalling



Rub ons used to add extra dimension

 I love this layout, mostly as it's about my family and where we've come from.  It's just a pity I couldn't drink in my ancestor's pub!

Debz
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Artsycraft Oct 2011

It's that time of year again when I buy myself a birthday treat of a weekend of craft.  I love going to Artsycraft playing with paint and metal. It's about the only time when I can dedicate some serious time to being creative.

This time there were only about 20 people so it was quiet, but still just as great.  We did two projects, the first a bird box which I did in purple which included lots of metal work and the second was a steampunk project.  That's for another day when I've finished it!

Here are the finished birdhouse.

Front: distressed metal work

Back: Faux panels

Sides: moulds + metal

Close up of front



Yummy flowers with even yummier material buttons




Debz
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Scrapagogo

One of the Scrapagogo DT team recently asked for guinea pigs (aka volunteers) to have a chat for the blog. I thought loads of people would jump at the chance but it must have been a slow week on the forum and I was one of only a handful of volunteers.

Nic, asked me me what made me start scrapbooking, what I like to do LO's (layouts) about and to show some of my favourite LO's.  Now that it's been shown on the blog I thought I'd share them with you.

The first is of Railay, Krabi in Thailand. Thailand is my all time favourite destination so any layout that shows anything about my holidays in Thailand bring an instant smile to my face.

The second layout was of one of my ginger monsters. Look how handsome he is, how could you resist!

And the final, was of Casa Battlo, Barcelona.  Fabulous house in a fabulous city.  It can be found here along with my chat with Nic.

Deb
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Junk, junk, junk

I keep everything and I mean everything.  There's no wonder I can't get into my craft room half the time!  One of my latest projects involved taking one of those boxes you get the flowers in - don't ask me the name as I'd be a hopeless promoter.

For ages it sat there covered in tissue tape, gesso'd and inked, until one day I popped into accessorize and discovered these necklaces on sale - very industrial.  Some might even say steampunky but I don't do steampunk (I can see some of my crafty friends rolling their eyes as I type!)  Once the necklace was attached I had a spark of inspiration, grabbed some Stampbord, my trusty Tinkerbella inks (hope they still do these as I'd be lost without them!) and a PaperArtsy stamp.

Here's to my steampunk flower!

I had thought of putting a clock on the stampbord and creating a fake pendulum, but I like the stamp too much!

Hope you like it
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Better late than never

I did a class with Andy Skinner at the Craft Barn back in September (I think) and I've been meaning to blog about it ever since!  I find him inspirational as I'm a technique junkie and Andy specialises in messing with paint and textures.  He works on ceramics a lot and loves working with paints and textures.  I'd never considered what could be done with ceramics , but as I love working with paint I thought this would be an ideal class for me. 

We did some test pieces where we learnt how to create a rust paint effect and then how to use moulding paste.  Moulding paste is a great product as you can get great depth using it.  In the afternoon we all decorated a ceramic box however we wanted.

A really fun day and I met some great crafters.  Can't wait to do Andy's next class in November.

Here's some pictures:

Ceramic tile covered in moulding paste, stamped into and painted

Top of ceramic box covered in gesso and dry brushed

Side of box showing fake rivets

Thanks for looking
Deb
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