Craft Tutorial ~ Make A Book Bag

Craft ~ Stained Glass Angel Suncatcher

I love this beautiful stained glass angel with a heart.  It's been created by Recircles9 and is available for sale. 
The colour tones in the glass are great and she'd look great with the sun shining through.

How did they ever manage without alarm clocks?

Last night, I carefully packed my boxes for the market, tidied the house, laid out my thermals and then picked up my mobile (that I use as an alarm clock), put it on my bedside table and went to sleep, safe in the knowledge that my alarm would wake me at half past six, so that I could be up at the market at half past seven.

This morning, I was not infact woken by my alarm, but by my husband asking me what time it was.  My reply was a muffled rebuke for having the audacity to talk to me before the alarm went off.  Glad he persisted though because eventually to pacify him I looked at the time to discover to my horror  that it was infact one minute to eight.  Well then the preverbial hit the fan.  My husband had infact been due to leave the house at eight with my son to collect my sons friend and take them off to an event.

I ran through the house like a banchee screatching at everyone to get up and sorted.  In the end, having looked at the rain falling horizontally that I wasn't going to the market anyway, so I would take them.

We did eventually arrive with ten minutes to spare and I had  a leisurely drive home through the storm, rain and thick thick fog.  So now, I am sitting here feeling guilty about all the poor stall holders standing up at the market in the rain and cold..... while I am snuggly warm with a cup of tea and dry feet!

Take a look at The Cirque de Chaussettes

May I introduce you to the amazing Cirque de Chausettes the wonderful sock kitties circus characters created by Sarah Wheatley, known to many of you as "The other mousie"

They are all available through her Etsy store 

Crystal Hair Spray

Made this Crystal hair spray for a bride just before Christmas, but was too busy to post it.  It's to be worn in a side bun and the fronds will tease out over the curls.

My Lino Prints

 So finally the brayer arrived and I was able to put ink onto the lino cuts and print the images and here they are in all their glory.

Craft Tutorial ~ Make Flower Corsage

Psalm 33

Lana Wynne ~ Artist

Painting based on Psalm 33 by Lana Wynne a very tallented artist based in North Carolina, but originally from Belarus.  You can see more of her fabulous work on her site

Sing joyfully to the Lord, you richeous: it is fitting for the upright to praise him.  Praise the Lord with the harp make music to him on the ten stringed lyre.  Sing to him a new song: play skillfully and shout for joy.
For the word of the Lord is right and true.  He is faithful in all he does.  The Lord loves richeousness and justice;  The Earth is ful of his unfailing love

Look at my Lino!

 As I blogged previously, I was lucky to recieve a lino cutting kit for christmas.  I've had lots of fun with it and the shards of lino all over the house are proof, as are the scars and cuts on my finger tips.

The only down side to the kit which included 3 A5 pieces of lino, ink and a set of cutter blades with handle was that no brayer was included. (A brayer is a roller for applying the ink)

so I have free handed all these lino plates and have as yet, not got the brayer to apply the ink It is however on it's way, so as soon as it arrives I'm going to play!

 fossil design

free hand pattern

floral

A Broken Necklace

A few days ago I answered a plea for help to fix a broken necklace on the Uk Crafts Forum.  The necklace arrived with me this morning and I was initially at a loss for what to do.  After a little bit of head scratching I did this:

The central butterfly is snapped and the loop for attaching the side panel is missing.

Using a piece of deep green velvet as a backing I used GS hypo cemement to glue the two parts of the butterfly into position.

I filled the area around the break with the glue.

Allowed the glue to dry

Cut around the butterfly

Trim

Now the scarey bit, cut off the loop (no going back now!)

Create  figure of eight loops using a headpin then attach through the antenae.

And finally attach the side panels.

The Community Orchard

I've been meaning to blog about this for some time now.  On the outskirts of our village, there are a few allotments.  The waiting list has always been very very long.  One of the members of our church had his name down for several years and then out of the blue he was contacted and asked if he'd like to take one on. 

 Here's his story:
"
Chris heard about community orchards and thought, this is it! So, together with a group of friends we agreed to grow soft fruits such as raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries and blackberries as well as some vegetables. We also agreed to plant apple trees, pears, plums, cherries, nuts and some other varieties not readily available in the shops.

As more people said “yes”, we agreed to run our project as the early Christians would have done: those who could afford to, put money up, others gave their time. Everyone would share equally and any surplus would be given away or used to raise funds for a worthy cause.

The adventure soon began with an order of a range of plants and everything required to fence in the area to protect it from rabbits. Unfortunately they all arrived on the same day in April 2010. So, that Saturday was a very busy day with 600 fruit bushes planted and the fence erected too. It was a fantastic day and we all had a lot of fun involving all the families.

Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings have become regular days to meet at the 'orchard' to plant, weed and harvest, oh and enjoying the sunshine and outdoor life. We have enjoyed the first fruits from The First Fruits Orchard including beans, potatoes, artichokes, sweetcorn and a surprise crop of rasps and currants!"
(from Facebook)

The orchard has also been embraced by the local school and the children will be making trips there to help.

Indescribable

Craft Juice Tuesday ~ Glass Class

This is a really sweet little farmhouse style stool.  The top has been mosaiced in complimentry blues and white tones and the wood painted with a aged effect in pale blue.  It has been made by Rush Creek Mosaics.

A cute little votive candle holder in glass.  I love the asymettry and colours sit so well together.  This has been created by: BPR Designs.

 Bilt More Glassworks has created this fabulous bubble effect mirror.  I love the different sized of bubbles amd the natural looking froth design.

S....no.....w Problem!

Woke up this morning to discover that over night we'd had a beautiful fall of the white stuff.  Now after last time (which incidently has still not gone), we made a decission that we'd clear the drive path and road outside our house immediatly so we wouldn't have the same hard time as we did when the snow turned to hard impacted hazardous surface.
We'd been unable to buy a snow shovel and so this morning I made one with a piece of hardboard and an old curtain pole.  It works a treat and is so quick and easy to use.