Lets have a Catch-up

 

 

The sun is shining in the sky, there ain't a cloud in sight..... Bet that's got you all singing, I know I am.

 

Good day to everyone, I hope you are all keeping well. Thought its about  time we had a good ole catch up. Go and get yourself a cuppa and lets chat. Be warned this is quite a long post, feel free to skim it or just look a the pics, I wont be offended.

There are a number of reasons that I've not posted for a while, the main being I've gone back to work, I mean a proper full time job, not just doing my craft fairs. I'm now a deputy manager/senior nursery nurse at a lovely little pre- school not far from home. It feels great to be working with children again and they're even younger this time, they really lift the spirits and make me feel young again. I can dance around and sing like a 'gud un' and they love it and when a little child comes over and grabs my hand saying "Come and play Sue"  well my heart just melts. Can you tell that I Love my job.

Earlier this year me and a co worker did a reverse bungee in aid of Christie's cancer charity. After losing my brother just over 12 months ago to this horrible disease, I try and fund raise as much as possible. We were thrilled to raise over £200 and had a brilliant experience in the process.

Ok ! here goes, its our turn next.

5,4,3,2,1, blast off

Aaaarrrrrgh!! Oh look you can see my house from here!



No one warned us that it spun round as well as catapulting us into space.
Oh dear bet I look a lovely shade of green.

Ready to come back down to terra firma.

Well apart from looking a bit windswept, we don't look too bad.
Infact can we go again? that was great fun. 

 

 

I am still doing regular craft fairs and that's probably another reason for not blogging, not through lack of time just that I hadn't really got anything new or different to show you.

Here's a couple of photos of my craft stall at various venues. 

 

Walton gardens in Warrington

 

 

Created in WA - Mothers Day craft fair held in Warrington's indoor market.

 

 

Other side of stall at Mothers Day fair

 

 

 Over the past couple of months I have started to play with different craft mediums and I'm adding new things to my craft stall

 

An old favourite of mine.
Large framed mirror hand painted with wild
 flowers and a butterfly using matt acrylic paint.



A new twist.
Large framed mirror hand painted with fantasy florals
using special irridescent paint and over laid with acetate flowers

 









 

Wall hangings and hanging heart baskets.
The heart baskets contain 4 scented tealights.
 People kept asking me for scented candles, but I don't like to paint on scented candles as the scented oil can affect the paint and after a while the design can look a mess.
 

The wall hangings are painted using an assortment of mediums, Distress inks, Luminarte range of twinkling H2O's, sprays, daubers, pourables and various acrylic paints, along with Sheena Douglass' range of stamps and various background techniques. 

Vases painted with a fab new paint called Fantasy Prisme and Fantasy Moon by Pebeo.
 

These coasters and panel are created using the Fantasy paints again, along with rubber stamps by Sheena.
These are great sellers as the effect created by the paint is wonderful and very unusual.

Lastly, ... I hear you sigh with relief, if you've stuck with me so far, Thank you, now give yourself a pat on the back, we're nearly at the end.

I'd like to show you a couple of custom orders, not my usual style, but fun to make.

A birthday card for a Doctor Who fan.

The verse inside
"Fezzes are red,
the Tardis is blue,
Bowties are cool,
Happy 18th Birthday
to you."
 

A Princess Castle nappy cake.
This was a present for my friend at work who has just had a baby girl, a few weeks earlier than planned,
 but beautiful and perfect and oh so cute.
Welcome to the world 'Matilda'.
 

 

There you have it, that's what I've been up to lately. A quick review of the last few months, ok,ok, a not so quick review.

Anyhoo whats new with you?.....

 

Flower Fairies and fusion painting

Hi all, here's a couple of candles I made recently.

 I found a sheet of Flower fairy rub ons in my stash and thought I would use them on candles.

I looked each image up on the internet to see which flower fairy they were, this first one is a red clover fairy. So I used a painting technique to paint some red clover around her and a little bumble bee friend. Lastly I added glitter to the fairy's wings to give them a nice twinkle. Here's a couple of pics going around the candle.

  

 

 



 

The second one is a sweet pea fairy image, so using Sheena's Fusion technique, I painted sweet pea flowers and foliage around the candle, and not forgetting the glitter to the wings.  Here's a few pics around this candle.

 

I'm linking up with  this weeks Handmade Monday #83 . Its been a while since I joined in, but I have good intentions that I'm going to be a better blogger from now on.  

I'll be back later to catch up with the other lovely crafters and find out what they've been up to.

Thanks for looking.

Hugs Sue x



Handmade Monday #63

Good morning, I cant believe that Monday has come round again, already, I dont know where the last week has gone.

But that means its time for Handmade Monday 63, if you are unfamiliar with this weekly link party, then just pop over to Wendy's 1st Unique Gifts Blog and read all about it and then you too can join in.

So what have I been up to this week?
Well I've been mad busy, but not all of it craft related.

Every thing seems to have broken this week, car, computer, sons mobile phone, speaker system, printer, scanner, so I have been rushing round, trying to get them fixed or dropping them off or picking them up, or buying new, only to get them home and find another fault, and have to take them back again.
My car actually went in for its MOT 4 weeks ago and a faulty valve was found, not bad I hear you say, only this particular part cannot be found anywhere in this country. As its an imported car, the Mitsubishi dealer has to order it from abroad and I was told it would take upto 2 weeks to get here, not only that but it is the most expensive valve I have ever heard of, think it must be made of gold or something, a whopping £460 + vat. Nearly a month later and I still have no car. I have been using my hubby's car to run round in, luckily he works nights so I have the car in the day.

Anyway rant over, back to my crafty news. I did a Vintage fair on Saturday, it was the first one by these new organisers and I had a lovely day, sold plenty and saw lots of familiar faces, so had a good catch up also.

Here's some pics of this weeks makes

 Wooden heart magnets

Daisy tissue box holder

Cherry mirror and candle

 I've just noticed over on Wendy blog that shes booked in for the weekend event at Kenyon Hall Farm, I've just booked in for this one, so I'll see you there.

If anyone wants to know which craft events I'll be attending, you can check out my Events page. I try to update it regularly, so please keep checking back, it would be great to see you.  

Hugs Sue x

Painted Olive Oil Bottle

I would like to share a quick post with you today.

I bought myself a new bottle to use for extra virgin olive oil and decided to paint it with olives (obviously), but I only had acrylic paints, and although I am happy with the result, I am going to have to remove it and paint it again using proper glass paints, as it won't stay on once in use. I did try to seal it with some sealer, but this too just comes off when rubbed or gets wet.

I have been out and bought some permanent glass paints, I just hope I can get the same effect with these new paints. I might have a new item to sell at craft fairs, if it does.

Thanks for looking

Hugs Sue x

Handmade Monday 61

Good morning everyone, I hope you are all enjoying a nice Easter break and have not eaten too much chocolate (not sure how much is too much though). Although I've had a nice week with the children, we've not been able to go anywhere as my car went in for its MOT and unfortunately needed a few things repairing. This wouldn't have been too bad, but one of the parts it needs, apart from costing an arm and a leg, is also not stocked in this country and can take upto 2 weeks to get. So I am without a car for the foreseeable future. Luckily I was able to use my hubby's car for a craft fair on Saturday, but its only small so had to take the back seat out completely in order to fit all my stuff in.

My daughter came with me as it was a local fair and my friend who usually comes with me drove up in her own car.

I have been having a go at decoupage this week, I love trying out new techniques.

These are done with tissue napkins.

This one has a tissue top and then handpainted rose buds on the sides.

I also painted some wooden cupcake shapes and made them into fridge magnets

I'm out this afternoon visiting my mum and dad. They've got my sis in law, daughters and great niece coming round for a visit, so we can have a nice family get together.

I'll be checking out all the other participants to Handmade Monday later this evening.

Thanks for looking

Hugs Sue x

Love hearts

Good morning all my wonderful crafty friends, I hope the sun is shining for you.

I would like to show you a few things I made for Valentine's Day, but forgot to blog about.

I am going to enter them into this months Joanna Sheen Challenge - Love is in the air.

This first one is a wooden heart, painted with a crackle background with a pretty painted butterfly, over embossed with a hologram embossing powder. Finished with a hand written cute sentiment.

I added 3 small magnets to the back and it now lives on my fridge door. 

The next two are wall hangings, which are layered up on both sides with lots of layered hearts. The pattern paper ruffle, on the top heart, was stamped and tinted on the reverse before using my edgeabilities to cut a fancy edge. They both look good which ever way around they hang.

After taking the photos I added another heart to the largest hearts with the wording 'Be mine', but you'll just have to imagine that. lol.

I really enjoyed making these two little heart hanging baskets, they are both filled with small handmade heart shaped soaps.

I used my nesties again to cut the heart shapes.

The edges of the black and white paper had black soot Distress ink applied to them.

Some paper flowers and roses were used to embellish the pink one. And I added a little glitter to the soaps, to give them a little more sparkle. You know how I love a bit of bling.

I thought that my daughter could give the pink one to my mum on Mothers Day.

I might do a tutorial on these if anyone is interested, they are really quick and easy, but look so cute.

I would like to enter these heart hangers into Scrappy frogs - die cut challenge

Thats it from me for now, catch up with you all soon.

Hugs Sue x

New Paint Fusion transfers

Good evening all. I thought that I would share tonight what I've been up to yesterday as

I probably wont get time to do any blogging or crafting tomorrow as my mum, daughter and I are going to the theatre to see 'Oliver', I'm really looking forward to it.

Yesterday I received my new Paint Fusion goodies and couldn't wait to start playing.

Here's a couple of things I made. Sorry but the photos aren't very good, it was very dull when I took them. 

This was one of the transfers, applied to a mountboard circle. I don't think I did it properly because as I rubbed the paper away alot of the design also rubbed away, mainly around the edge but also 2 large areas in the centre and on the petals. I managed to colour in with Promarkers to hide the blank spaces on the sunflower and inked the edges with Distress inks and embossing powder. Think I disguised it ok.

I used a poppy design transfer on a mountboard tag for my second try. This turned out a bit better, but still had some missed bits on the edges, again disguised with inks and embossing powder. It looked a bit dull so I embossed a few swirls in gold.

Next I decided to make a couple on wall hangings, this first one I did on mountboard hearts, in the usual paint fusion way, painted by hand.

For the second one I used the fusion transfer designs, again they went a bit patchy so I disguised the blank bit with Distress inks and embossed swirls and edges.  

Here a pic of the two together. I can't decide which I like best, I like them both.

Which one do you like best?

Thanks for looking, enjoy the rest of your evening.