My Day Nearly Started with a BANG!

Don't panic ... it was nothing to do with my shiny new and very pink Distrezz-it-all from Zutter ... but more about that later ... first things first ... and I am not entirely sure you are going to believe me ... I feel a bit like the boy who cried wolf after yesterday's ... erm ... dalliance with a whirlwind! ... but this tale is in fact very very very true!

Alarm went off at 7am as usual ... John got up first ... which is unusual on a Thursday but also very lucky as I have no sense of smell whatsoever!!! Anyways John get's up ... goes downstairs ... goes to put the light on and luckily realises ... just in the nick of time ... that he can smell gas!!! So he walks in the kitchen ... without putting the light on ... obviously ... or I would n't be here to tell the tale ... nor would some of the street ... not that they are here ... but you know what I mean ... and he can hear a hissing sound. One of the rings on the hob was on full pelt and had been since 1am this morning when my rather drunk foreign language student fell in the house slaughtered drunk ... attempted to get himself a drink and must have fallen against the cooker and switched it on trying to get up! So once John realised what had happened ... he charged around the house ... verbalising the ways he was going to kill the poor language student ... with rather rude words thrown in at regular intervals ... opened all the doors and windows to clear the air. I managed to calm him down by lunch time and luckily I also managed to keep the aforesaid language student out of his path for a good few hours too ... so we are all safe ... and all is well that ends well!

Now for my new toy. This little book has 18 pages in it ... how long do you think it took me to distrezz 'em all???? ... oh about two minutes ... I LOVE the Distrezz-it-all ... LOTS!

The cover is a cover-all ... also from Zutter. I used Lord Tim of Holtz's Lost and Found paper to decorate as well as his corners and his typewriter key. You know Tim ... the man that can perform three life saving operations all at the same time while handcrafting a scale model of the City of Paris in the top of a cocktail stick using just his Non stick scissors and a curio knob.

Wanna know what's in the book??? Huh??? Do ya??? Well it is a colour guide to all 36 Distress Ink colours and every single page has a distressed edge ... all done at the same time! The Distressed edge that is ... not the colouring.

Have a lovely evening people ... only 22 more sleeps ... Ta ra!

I Can See How This May Look ...

... To the untrained eye! But luckily I am dealing with seasoned professionals and all you WOYWWers will instantly recognise that I did n't leave my desk in this mess ... nor would I ... I am a creative soul after all ... and the un-made desk would be pure plagiarism!
No ... the truth be told ... I have been afflicted by a major disaster in the night ... rather remiss of me I know ... but I left my windows open last night after the heat of yesterday ... and the weather turned violently in the night. We were hit ... just us I might add ... not even the neighbours ... by a freak whirlwind ... don't panic ... all humans and canines are all perfectly safe ... but clearly the destruction that occurred on my desk ... oh and the floor is going to take some clearing away!
The whirlwind ... the freak one ... must have come in the window at such a force that it threw my weekend shopping so hard at my desk ... well you can see the mess it left behind in it's wake!
Nothing was spared ... even my shelves look like they have been hit by a bomb ... I mean ...erm ... a whirlwind ... some say it could have been a twister ... so forceful was the ... erm whirl ... that it blew all the life out of my clock battery too!
Clearly I shall have to lay down with a cold face cloth over my eyes ... and eat chocolate trifle and strawberries for my tattered nerves ... apparently that is the best remedy for traumas such as this ... and if one ... or all of you kind people would like to pop around while I rest my weary head and tidy up for me ... that would be very kind ... and if you wish to start up an entire charitable organisation to help with this mammoth task ... well I am sure you will find a list of very eager and very helpful people on Julia's blog right here! And if you want to send a food parcel ... I like the Tesco's family fresh cream chocolate trifle and any strawberries really ... but the redder the better :0)

A Weekend of ArtsyCrafts!

Having attended ArtsyCrafts Autumn 2009 I was thrilled to be asked to help at the second of the May 2010 ArtsyCrafts events. But ... even having attended before ... well NOTHING could have prepared me for the amount of work involved ... and I only turned up on Friday afternoon when all the really hard planning, packing and kitting had been done ... what a lightweight I am!!! 

It was the best fun though ... we worked hard ... laughed a lot ... ate lots of chocolate and met lots of really lovely crafty people.

I got to do my first big demo ... just a metal rose I might add ... but lots of people all the same!

In true blogger spirit I was told I looked just like Julia Roberts ... by more than one person ...so it must be true ... I also got to wash all the Cut n' dry foam ... Oh the glamour! I decided to take it back to my room and wash it in the shower ... I promise I did n't really shower with it ... but when you are cream crackered and it is gone midnight ... well everything seems really funny ... so I posed with camera in hand ... just for you guys!  And if you are sat there thinking ... Oh my goodness ... that woman has no ankles ... trust me ... I had some when I left Cambridge on Friday afternoon ... but they had disappeared by around 10am on Saturday morning! You can rest assured I have ankles again today :0)

A big shout out to all the lovely people I met at the weekend and all the lovely bloggers that I can now put voices to their comments ... it really was a pleasure to meet you all ...

So there you have it ... that is why I have been AWOL ... well that and launching the Summer classes on the LB Craft's web site ...

Only 24 more sleeps now until Distress Ink Utopia ... I had to spell check Utopia twice by the way ... the first time I spelt it soooo badly even the spell checky wotsit could n't recognise the word!

Right ... that is me ... how many of you are coming to LB on Sunday for the fun and frolics that is the B Line Bargain Bonanza???? And does anyone out there know whether the European plug on my hair straighteners will need an adapter in New Jersey????

Laters!

A Day of Ups and Downs!

You guys all know me by now ... I am not one to complain ... like to make the best of everything and today started off wonderfully well! I drove to a little village tea room just outside Cambridge to have a spot of elevenses with my daughter! It was incredibly lovely and sooooo relaxing! Found ourselves talking a little bit posh, we did and even a tad quieter than normal ... the waitress was in bygone clothes and it was just like taking a step back in time ... the perfect remedy for stress! Not that I was stressed ... then anyway ... but you know what I mean. 

The downs I refer to ... my car tyre ... with a nail in it ... less said about that the better and John has once again jumped to my rescue and changed it!!! I am just glad he was around! Do any of you know how to change a tyre??? I don't!!! And more to the point ... Would you feel safe driving the car after you had changed it??? ... I know I would n't!!! ... if I had ... which I have n't ... but if I did :0) I always find dropping the independent woman bit works at a time like that and yes ... gasp in horror if you must ... but I resort to the helpless little female act whenever it is required and I find the transition ... well .... effortless :0)

As for the tag ... certainly reflects today's weather me thinks. As for those of you on Ranger U watch ... 29 sleeps left ... Woo Hoo! I feel an overwhelming desire to mention Lord Tim of Holtz at this particular juncture too ... you know Tim the man that could pop out in the garden on a hot summers day and build you your own personal ice hotel in your back garden in about 10 minutes with just one fragment and a dollop of Peeled Paint distress stickles while changing your car tyre with his free hand :0)

Have a lovely evening ... See ya's

I Nearly Did n't Play!

Tis true people ... I nearly did n't play with the WOYWW gang this week. Last week was such a trauma for me ... I pride myself on visiting every desk ... every week ... and last week Mr Blogger made it sooooooo difficult ... I only got  round 79 of you! So this week ... I was n't gonna post ... I was just gonna hop. And then reality set in ... I have too much to say not to post ... and I probably would have posted something later today any way and then ... Ya Di Yah ... you get the picture. And if you feel like joining in ... well pop over here and visit our illustrious and dynamic leader ... Julia ... who will enlighten you on the rules etc.,

On my desk this week ... I am very excited ... it feels a bit like show and tell ... is my new Zutter Distrezz-it-all ... it is fabulous ... truly fabulous and it also reminds me that the Zutter warehouse is having a bit of a clear out so covers etc., are on special offer ...

I have included a few more bits of wall art ... just click on the picture for a closer view ... and ... I have also included a sneaky peek of one of the classes that I will be doing over the summer ... this weekend is ArtsyCrafts too ... sooooo much fun ... and then ... get this ...

30 more sleeps :0) Yes ... only 30 ... how quick did the other 30 go!!!

We are going to Ranger U... We are going to Ranger U... EEEEEEIIIIIIIAAAAAAADDDDDDIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOO

WE ARE GOING TO RANGER U!

Laters everyone ... Have a good sunshiney day!

32 More Sleeps!

Sorry peeps ... I promise I have n't been at lunch all that time ... but Mr Blogger was seriously getting on my nerves towards the end of last week. He just would n't let me play ... in the end I stopped trying and went away and made ... erm ... stuff!

As for today ... well this is my second blog post already :0) I have already blogged over on the Bubbly Scrumptious blog and the purple creation in the piccies is what I made! I have shrunk a Paperartsy birdcage and die cut some flowers with Tim's teeny tiny flower from his Tattered Floral die. You know Tim ... the man that can build a scale model of the hidden city in Machu Picchu in his lunch hour while following the Inca trail with just an Idea-ology Washer and an Idea-ology Jump ring. Tim the man that I am going to see in just 32 more sleeps. *Swoon* I know at least one of you out there does n't know yet that I am going to Ranger U ... otherwise known as Distress Ink heaven in precisely 32 sleeps.

Luckily my passport was delivered on Saturday ... so now I am all set to go :0)

Okey Dokey ... that 's me ... see you next time!

A Lady That Lunches!

Well ... it is Wednesday again ... already ... and that can only mean one thing ... drum roll and fanfare ... it is time for WOYWW.

I have a very busy day ahead of me ... today Matthew ... I will be a lady that lunches and then ... wait for it ... I shall be a lady that dines out in the evening too. Bet you did n't realise I was a social butterfly did you??? Huh??? Did you???

I say social butterfly ... this is probably the only time this decade I shall do both in the same day :0)

I feel compelled to tell you all three things ... firstly I have just had about 6 feet of hair chopped off at the hair dressers this morning ...

Second ... the whole two bottles of Glossy Accents opened on my desk at the same time thing ... well ... It disturbs me ... for some unknown and terribly odd reason ... that you can think that. I meticulously use every last drop of a bottle of Glossy Accents before opening a new one ... so the two bottles you can see are Glossy Accents and Crackle Accents :0) Blimey ... sharing that ... has been cathartic.

Third ... Don't worry about the small amount of re-inkers visible on my desk ... I have drawers and shelves full of them ... I even photographed me favourites ... just to reassure you that I was n't lacking :0)

Well that is me ... another couple of pieces of PINNED UP wall art close ups ... I can shout that out loud now he knows :0) and a day of eating ahead ... Don't you worry though ... I shall still find the time to pop around to each and everyone of you again this week ... I just LOVE this WOYWW gig ... and if you have no idea what it is ... drop in on Julia ... she will tell all!

Edit: Numpty Alert ... Got myself all dolled up ... went to meet my lunch buddies ... thought I had been stood up ... only it's official ... I am a numpty ... coz we are n't doing lunch until the 13th :0) DOH! I am definitely still a lady what dines out though :0) And I managed to console myself by buying a new outfit :0)

39 Sleeps!

Did you think I had stopped counting? Huh? Did you? And if you don't know what I am counting down to ... Where have you been???

Oh yes people ... only 39 more sleeps and I am off to Distress ink heaven where Lord Tim of Holtz will be waiting to teach me everything he knows :0) You know Tim ... the man who would need no coalition to form a government as 100% of the UK population would have voted for him without a manifesto ... just a pot each of white and black enamel accents! Talking of which ... I picked mine up Saturday ... Yum Yum!

Right ... down to business ... I have my tickets and my hotel reservation and I have paid to attend Ranger U ... but I don't have a passport ... well technically I do ... but it is out of date. So ... anyways ... last week ... I put my Julia Roberts looky likey make up on and went to the local supermarket ... sat in the little photo booth and tried about a kerzillion times to get a decent photo but ended up with 4 passport sized pictures of an axe murderer. Anyways ... it took about 920 million hours to get that far so they would have to do ... popped into the Building Society where I used to work and got my old mate Roy to sign them and the forms ... Blah Blah and so on!

I then drive to the next village and walk into the little Post Office. Now UK Post Offices are not best known for their friendly service but this one was quite the exception. I was greeted by a lovely man and lady ... the lovely man checked the forms ... told me he had a camera and in future he would be happy to take the photo ... told me my eyes were a standard width apart ... and that should be some small compensation for the fact that I did n't look like Julia Roberts in the pictures ... yes he actually said that ... out loud!!! Which also begs the question ... What do you do if your eyes are not a standard width apart??? I mean you can't move your eyes closer together just for the passport office now can you??? Anyways he then asked me when I would be travelling ... when I told him "42 more sleeps" he and his lovely lady assistant fell about laughing ... when they composed themselves he assured me that my new passport should be with me in plenty of time ... Phew! They were lovely but they had no idea what Ranger U is!!!

Okey Dokey ... the chip hangy thing in the pictures is what I blogged on the Bubbly Scrumptious blog earlier today and a list of the ingredients and the how to's etc can all be found here.

I also have news of a fab new scrapping and mini book site which is run by the uber talented Isa Norris ... I thought I may give it a go ... Why don't you join me??? You can find it here.

And that my friends as they say ... is that!

Have a wonderful evening and wrap up warm ... apparently it is going to be a very cold night! Oh and if you are the owner of non standard width eyes perhaps you could tell me how you get around that problem when applying for your passport :0)

Oh Man!

I shall set the scene ... late on a Sunday morning ... still in my jammies ... nice and relaxed watching "Something for the weekend" while slurping my third or fourth coffee of the day ... when John Says "Have you made a card for my Dad?". "Not yet" I replied calmly ... then wondered why he was asking a week early ... when he usually leaves it until the day before and I often grin smugly to myself that if I ever left it that late ... well all our cards would be shop bought quite frankly ... so curiosity got the better of me "Why?" ... "Because I thought I would drop it round on my way to work tonight so he has it to open in the morning!!!!"

Get the picture ... some fast moving required on my part ... John's Mum keeps an album with all the cards I make for them in it ... I needed to get up stairs and start crafting pronto! A shop bought card just would never do!

Sadly ... I was short on creative energy today and everything I touched pretty much turned to that proverbial waste product delivered in small parcels by our canine pets on the lawn ... then I saw the Sunday Stamper challenge was gold and I thought ... just smother it in gold and all will be fine. So the Grid stamped background was laid into a Walnut glimmer misted craft mat and dried. The Tim Holtz die cut Grungepaper heart was plastered in Gold Dabber and embossed with Gold powder for good measure and the card ... well ... trust me ... it looks a lot better than it did :0) I shall probably smuggle it back out of the album at some point in the future though!

Evening all!

Pingate!

I am well aware that only the WOYWW crew are likely to know what I am on about ... so I will set the scene. A few months back after waiting for an entire three hours for John to put a wood plinth up in my craft room I took matters into my own hands. I hung my up-cycled beer mats on my craft room wall with pins. Now the pins are not straight ... nor are they similar widths apart ... but the job was completed in five minutes and I was happy!

Now John is an aircraft engineer ... he likes straight lines and jobs that get finished to a high standard ... he was NOT going to like my prettied up wall ... trust me! Anyways ... I shared my secret on my blog (he never reads it) and managed ... successfully ... I might add to keep John out of my craft room for the last eight weeks or so! I am on the third floor and on the couple of occasions I have heard him venture up the stairs I have successfully managed to tiptoe rapidly across the room and start walking downstairs in the opposite direction ... at which point he always turned around with me.

Now I have the attic room ... which has low ceilings and a flush light fitting. The light fitting is a circular thing with like a halo wotsit around it ... and it is a nightmare when changing a bulb. Well the bulb only went and blew late Tuesday night ... I bought a new bulb on Wednesday and smuggled it past John ... bless ... he is a helpful soul and would have offered to do the job for me ... which I clearly could n't allow for afore mentioned reasons. Well after struggling for about 20 minutes ... I gave up ... called John and decided to face the music. I waited with baited breath for the teeth sucking and the huffing ... but do you know ... his vein did n't even pulse in the side of his head ... no sign of anxious beads of sweat or nothing ... just ... well ... silence. Now I know he saw the pins ... their unevenness and the thirty something of them in the plasterboard wall ... that he will have to fill in the future ... but nothing ... nada .... zilch! Here we are entering into the weekend ... and still no word ... very strange ... so there you have it ... Pingate ... all's well that ends well!

I have just blogged the card for Creativity Boutique ... and I am now off to up-cycle more beer mats ... well ... in for a penny ... in for a pound :0)

Have a good weekend y'all.

Happy 10th Birthday Craft Stamper

I don't know if you know ... but Craft Stamper celebrates ten years in print with the June 2010 issue ... which goes on sale in the shops tomorrow.

The Design Team were all asked if they would like to design a card for the celebrations ... so I thought I would share mine with you now and if you click here ... you will be magically transported to a gallery where all the other cards are on display ... no need to get up or nothing :0)

The June 2010 issue is a bumper celebratory issue with eight extra pages of projects to enjoy and a  special birthday competition with £1200 worth of prizes up for grabs. There is a fab retrospective feature looking back on ten years of the magazine and the web site has been given a new look with a new interactive gallery so you can upload your work ... How cool??? So what are you waiting for ... Go see!

Now if you squint at the cover ... second box down on the left ... I made that ... I did :0) It is part of my very first Masterclass article ... a whole four pages showing lots of tips and tricks and stuff to help you use your Bind-It-All! Am I excited??? You bet I am :0)

That's me for today ... I have the whole Pingate saga to tell you about ... but it is getting late and that will just have to wait until tomorrow ... See yas!

The Post With No Name!

Okay ... so that promise did n't last long ... you know the one ... I made on Monday ... that I will blog every day at the same time!

I am keeping up with my promise to give some more close ups of my upcycled beer mats though ... for those of you that missed them the first time around ... click on picture for a closer view ... and for those of you that did n't ... well I have included a little wish book and case ... this is my second version of the same thing ... I say the same thing ... I was never really happy with the finish on the first one and I used book rings ... which I was never really happy with either.

The hardware on the cover of the book is lifted from Lord Tim of Holtz ... you know Tim ... the man that is going to make sure that there is no sign of any volcanic ash clouds when I set off for Ranger U in June ... Can you imagine??? ... NO! ... Let's not even go there! Did I mention I was going to Ranger U ... you know Distress ink heaven in ... erm ... 43 more sleeps :0)

Talking of sleep ... I did n't get much last night ... I had a really fun evening of craft in Olney with the Wonderful Lin and the Lovely Karen ... we had medium fish and chips ... when I say medium ... you probably think that was irrelevant and unnecessary ... but the medium fish was 20 metres long and there was enough chips to feed the whole of Olney in one portion ... I cannot imagine what the large Fish and chips would have looked like. Anyways the lack of sleep came about because I was driving along and then someone had closed the road. I mean just closed it ... now when you have a complete lack of any sense of direction like me and Valerie your Sat Nav just does n't recognise road closures ... well let us just say that I got in about 12.45am and I came home via John O Groats!!!

Righty ho ... back to the case. This is one of my May submissions for the Zutter design team ... I used the Bind it all ... some ATCs and a few bits of chip to make the book along with some Idea-ology ... but just look at the cute little case ... that is a Zutter product too ... I just adore it.

Finally back to the job in hand ... it's Wednesday ... and that means it is once again time for WOYWW ... not much to see I am afraid ... just the same old same old ... I must see if I can get a picture mid creative flow next week ... you know jazz the whole thing up a bit. If you need explanation of the acronym WOYWW ... just click here and you will be magically transported to our leader ... who will divulge all!

I am off for a day of crafting and desk hopping ... bit like any other day really ... Have a good one people!

Monday Monday!

I bet you have all noticed that I am getting a bit lazy with this whole blogging lark just lately! And it simply won't do ... so here we are ... the first day of the week and I am blogging nice and early and will continue to blog daily for the whole of this week ... well ... that's the plan anyway!

I have just finished blogging this chip piece for the Bubbly Scrumptious blog and thought I would share it with you guys too! You are looking at Maya Road Chip; Fired Brick ... Peeled Paint ... Brushed Corduroy ... Fired Brick and Spiced Marmalade Distress inks and lots of Grungepaper. Clearly I have also used oodles of Wendy Vecchi stamps and a few bits of Idea-ology from Lord Tim ... the man that can name all the stars and planets in English as well as Latin while walking on water with just a curio knob and a sheet of paper from the Lost and Found stack. Oh yes people ... I got the Curio knobs and the Lost and Found stack yesterday ... to say I LOVE LOVE LOVE them would be an understatement of mahousive proportions!

While we are on the subject of yesterday ... can you believe it was my last class ... already ... well take a lookie at what three of my lovely ladies created yesterday ... meet Mel ... Debz and Chris ... they did a fab job and we had such a good time! It was only a small class ... I think word got out that I may sing ... but it really was good fun! My new classes should be going on sale on the 29th May ... I cannot wait :0) I should apologise to Debz for being out of focus ... she was n't on the day ... out of focus ... so it must have been my bad photography skills ... sorry Debz!

Well ... that's me then ... Have a fab Monday whatever you are doing and I will hopefully see you ... erm ... about the same time tomorrow!