Retail therapy.

Yesterday I caught the train up to Totnes and met up with my friend Lisa at China Blue.  Anytime is a good time to go there but especially at this time of year when they have all their gorgeous Christmas decorations displayed.  We both picked up a few decorations for our trees, although I could have bought far more decorations for all over the house as there was such a great choice.  We also enjoyed lunch there before going to Dartington and looked around the shops there.  I picked up a new item to display my tags, cards, photos or whatever else I choose to hang from the clips.

I also bought a calender for next year to go in my craft room.  It's called Celestial Journeys and features beautiful artwork by Josephine Wall.  As I looked at it I was also thinking what wonderful cross stitch designs they would make too.  On doing a little more research into the artist I discovered that Heaven and Earth do cross stitch charts by this artist - oh dear my cross stitch want list is now even longer lol.

Stitching progress

I'm fairly close to another page finish which fingers crossed will be by the end of November.   Some of the wording has now made an appearance.  Next decision is whether to continue upwards and finish the wording which would probably be another quick page finish or continue to work on the owls face.

WOYWW #442

It's been absolutely ages since I took part on WOYWW but I found something today and so thought I'd include my find with my desk as it is at the moment.  Remember me looking for a pyramid kit for a workshop I was doing down at Scrapbook Magic?  Well I found it as I knew I would after buying another one lol!  

As you can see my desk is a bit of a mess at the moment as I am working on cards for December's beginners card class.  I've completed one and the paper for the next one is on the table ready to work with.  Beside the card is that elusive pyramid card which I found in one of the kitchen craft cupboards which I hadn't looked in before. Why hadn't I looked there?  Well, the wood flooring for the hallway had been stored out of the way in front of the cupboard and as it was rather heavy I hadn't wanted to move it - serves me right for being lazy.

Beginners card class

As promised last week here is a photo of the cards I made for the beginners workshop I taught at Scrapbook Magic last Monday.

I introduced them to working with Distress Inks, stamping and embossing.  Three of the four ladies had never made any cards before but they managed to replicate with them with a little guidance.  The lady who had done card making before paid me a wonderful compliment saying she had learnt more in my one workshop than she ever had in all the classes she had done before elsewhere.  It certainly boosted my confidence.

Stitching update

Another page completed on It's Only Forever and page four started.  It's the only stitching I managed to do last week as I was also busy prepping for a beginner's card class - more details of that in another post.  Back to the stitching, I'm hoping I can get page four completed before the end of the month and begin working my way across again as then I will be working on the owls face.

Just the finishing touches required

My last workshop at Scrapbook Magic was to make this pyramid box.

This was a class first taken a few years ago when Helen Allen the designer of the pyramid came down and taught the workshop at Scrapbook Magic .  Margaret adapted the design to make it more festive and I have turned my pyramid and decorated it more as a Christmas tree.

There is the addition of lights and texture paste to the base to create a snowy effect and when opened there is a tree inside which also has lights on.

I still need to add some decoration to the inside panels and also add some pages to the mini album which fits into the base of the tree.

Overall I am very happy with how it is looking and it will be a nice addition to this year's Christmas decorations.  I am also hoping to use the album to finally complete a December daily journal - surely this year with a mini album I can keep up with the prompts I get from the Shimelle Laine class Journal your Christmas can't I? 

New craft room additions

I'm a member of the Hobbycraft Club which means I get regular newsletters with their latest offers and details of demonstrations taking place in their stores.  Not often but occasionally there is something that grabs my attention and last month there was an offer on an OttLite lamp which I felt was too good to miss.  Not only does it help with the lighting in my craft room but also has some useful storage.  It also means I don't have to keep bringing my stitching daylight up and down the stairs while crafting.

My other craft room addition was stash enhancement - a couple of die sets from Clearly Besotted.  A frame it die set and a stripped die set.

A couple of stitching updates

I've been working on It's Only Forever quite a bit recently and last Sunday I managed to complete page 2 of 30. A total of 8816 stitches in this section.

Since then I have added quite a few more stitches and page 3 which obviously has far less stitches, 1539 if I've counted correctly.  I have managed to complete just over half of this page and I am hopeful of another page finish by next weekend.

I have also been working on a Secret Santa project for a work colleague.  This design is from Cross Stitch Crazy magazine Issue 235.  I am hopefully going to make it into a little stocking and fill it with a small bottle of wine and some chocolates.  The stitching is all complete and I'm now just outlining it to give me a guide for finishing it as I want to line the stocking before putting the gifts inside.

Current reads

My home reading fiction book is From Rome With Love by Jules Wake.  This book was kindly given to me to read by my friend Chris.  It's a nice light hearted read about a young lady going to Rome to look for her father but in addition there is romance and comedy along the way.  I'm really enjoying this so thank you Chris. 

My magazine reading is called In The Moment Issue 5.  I have bought this magazine from when it first came out.

"In The Moment is a beautiful, practical lifestyle magazine for the modern-thinking creative woman. Enjoy practical creative projects, positive features and stories to inspire, adventures near and far for a healthy body and mind, and ideas embracing every aspect of women’s lives: friends, family, self, work, rest and play! It has a sense of community and fun, and you will be informed and entertained by knowledgeable experts and humorous columnists. With content covering wellbeing, creating, living and escaping, its monthly publication will reflect latest trends and encourage you to make the most of each day by living ‘In the moment’."

I really enjoy this magazine each  month for several reasons.  Firstly, I enjoy quite a lot of the articles as they often give me food for thought. Secondly there is usually a craft related item you can use  - this month there are decorative bookmarks.  You can never have too many bookmarks.

Thirdly, the paper quality is really nice, there are lots of pictures that when I can bear to cut into them would  make great collage pieces so will come in handy for crafting.  The pages are also of good enough quality to make a junk journal out of.

At work I am still reading The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld although I am getting close to finishing that one now.  I only get to read this during my tea break on a Thursday.  It started off quite slowly and I found it difficult to get into at first but as its gone on I have enjoyed it more.  It will soon be time to pick out a new read.

Always something to be thankful for

 

Well here we are in November.  October seemed to fly by in a flash, there was lots going on including a week's holiday in Cornwall,  family stuff, a nasty cold and busy times both at work and home so I gave myself a month's leave from blogging.

Hopefully this month I will have lots to share with you.  One of the projects I started at the end of October was a wide spine journal with the help of this video on You Tube.  I have made the journal and created the hinges although there are more hinges on mine as I wanted more pages.  I ran out of SU's Chocolate Chip cardstock so production came to a bit of a standstill until yesterday when my SU order arrived.  I did manage to decorate the front cover though.

The Dreams of Autumn paper pack from Bo Bunny I am using to decorate the journal with are just gorgeous and so appropriate for this time of year, but I  am sure I will also be able to make them work for the whole of the 12 months of my intended project.  My intention (I always have good intentions) is when it is completed which will hopefully be this month is to use it as a Project Life journal and fingers crossed 2018 will be the year I finally participate in this instead of just talking about it lol. 

My journal has 13 hinges as opposed to the 7 in the video, with the addition of pockets and flaps I should be able to adapt it to hold 52 weeks worth of Project Life type pages.  Everything will just have to be done on a smaller scale than the original Project Life idea.