Returning to my crafting roots

When it comes to playing with paper and scissors I started out as a card maker. The move into scrapbooking wasn’t a huge leap because I had many of the supplies to start with. I recently made a batch of cards in preparation for Christmas.

These snowflake cards were heavily inspired by a very old blog post (2011) by Alisa Burke that I found on pinterest recently.

I love my white ink pen.

The light blue background paper for this one is the inside of a security envelope. Not much gets wasted at Ruth’s Place.

Two different colours of blue. I raided the blue scrap bin to find small pieces I could use.

Not sure this works all that well. Snowflakes on a water colour background.

I freehand drew a Christmas tree and then found some Christmas paper in the red scrap bin.

A very long time ago I had a wonderful diary which had great pictures of old maps. When the year (2006) was over I tore out all the pictures and have been using them up slowly.

I made a whole series of these, but won’t inflict all of them on you. It was good to use up some scraps and stash. Unfortunately you can’t see much of a dent. I guess that’s what I get for saving all the little pieces.

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Misleading

So, I have to confess that this scrapbook page is misleading.

Gorgeous Girl does not like visiting Santa/Father Christmas. She has to be cajoled into it by me, because I really like having a photo each year to see how much she has grown. There are a few years missing because she refused to participate at all. Last year she agreed to see Santa, but refused to get closer than this. 🙂

I dyed the chipboard using DIY mist (food colouring and water) and my new watercolour wax crayons.

I made a card as well.

I’ve been wanting a large woven basket for a while. Gorgeous Man found one at the market today.

It’s certainly large.

It’s now housing Gorgeous Girl’s collection of soft toys.

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Scissor fob – Christmas ornament?

Recently Karen at Faeries and Fibres posted about the scissor fobs she makes. (She has a really great tutorial here). If you haven’t checked out her blog you really should, she does amazing things with hexagons.

Anyway, I asked a question about her process and Karen very generously offered to send me some beading cord – beading cord being (as yet) unfound by me in PNG. The envelope arrived today and not only did she send me some beading cord, but she also popped a few bits of fabric into the  envelope as well. Thank you so much Karen.

Since I had emailed off a draft of my thesis to one of my advisors in the morning I felt justified in taking the afternoon off to play with fabric and beads.

I used the fabrics that Karen sent because they were so darn cute and the beads came from the bead stash.

This is the back.

Gorgeous Man was very impressed (when he thought it was a Christmas ornament). Actually, that’s not a bad idea and if I find some free time after the thesis is finished and the Christmas gifts are made I may whip up a few for that purpose.

I say whip up a few because really this only took an hour or so to make, the longest part was sewing the beads around the edges. Nothing like instant gratification and another Christmas gift done off the Christmas list.

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Fishing

I used the November Week 2 sketch at Let’s Get Sketchy as my inspiration for this layout.

Here is the sketch provided.

My photos were a little larger than the ones in the sketch and I wanted to add journalling, so I modified it a little, but I think it still follows the sketch’s original intention. Once again I’m scrapping the backlog.

Please excuse the afternoon sun’s reflection on the photos.

On my trip to Hong Kong I found a little stationery store selling lots of cute things from Japan. I picked up this little alphabet set and I can see that it’s going to be put to use a lot in my pages. I try to stock up with things that have multiple uses. I can see myself getting a cutting system one day – but not while I live in a place where metal rusts if you look sideways at it 😀

I used distress ink to age some of the embellishments.

Thanks for looking.

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A little sleeping cat

I’m trying to make as many Christmas gifts as I can this year, but I’m also recognising that it won’t be the end of the world if my plans don’t come to fruition, given everything else I have going on…but the first gift is done.

I hope the recipient likes him.

I just realised that I forgot to stuff his muzzle.

But that’s OK. I like him like that. Yarn was dyed using Kool Aid by Gorgeous Girl and myself.

Gorgeous Girl has requested one for herself. I’ve told her she needs to wait until after Christmas. Perhaps it can be a holiday project when we are in Australia.

Made a very quick and simple birthday card this week. Thanks to Kate for the backing paper.

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Under instruction

Gorgeous Girl had a “teacher only” day at school today. Since I refused to let her watch TV all morning she’s done some scrapbooking and gave me strict instructions to blog about it.

Here’s her page:

She took the photo herself. I love seeing her creativity develop.

One thing I enjoy most about soft toy making is seeing the personality of the piece appear. Yesterday I sent over 40 000 words to my thesis supervisor to review and comment on and to celebrate I gave myself the evening off and sat down to put this little girl together.

Gorgeous Girl giggled with glee when she saw him – pity he’s not for her…

He still needs legs, a tail and facial features but I’m really pleased with how he’s turned out. Hopefully the recipient will like him. (Christmas making)…

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Really stepping outside of my comfort zone

I honestly don’t remember the last time I drew something more than a basic doodle. In Year 12 I opted to take ceramics for art for the entire year because I didn’t want to do any drawing or painting. But I’ve had this idea kicking around in my head for a while, and my SIL gave me a new art journal to play in. This was the result.

The waves were inspired by an old Chinese woodblock print I saw recently in the Chinese History Museum in Hong Kong. (Well worth a visit if you are in the city). I used my new water colour crayons that I picked up in a book store in Hong Kong – I didn’t make it to any markets while I was in Hong Kong, but I did go to the bookstore three times 😀 The subject matter is born out of my abiding rage and sorrow at some of my country’s current policies.

Gorgeous Girl was off school today and so I let her look at pinterest for a while and then handed over craft supplies.

I think her flowers are pretty cute.

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More scrapbooking

I managed to scrape out a little time to play with paper and ink recently. I’m very lucky to have copies of the professional photos which were taken of the wedding which Gorgeous Girl was part of last year. When I saw the sketch at Stuck?! I thought it would be perfect for a couple of them.

Here’s my take on it.

I misted the background with some DIY mist made using my new water colour crayons. The string is recycled, it was part of the wrapping on my birthday art journal. Striped paper is from Stampin’ Up. Purple paper in the foreground (banner) is from DCWV Stack 7 (Which is no longer available. I bought this stack on a visit to the USA in 2010 and I’m about 60% of the way through it) the purple card behind the photos is a DCWV solids stack.

Living in a place without craft stores, stacks work well for me as they allow me to have a variety of papers on hand for different projects and are cost effective. Butterflies and the shaped paper comes from a Kaisercraft 6 1/2″ Paper Pad Violet Crush. I got this for my birthday last month and have used it a lot!

A close-up. Gorgeous Girl is the flower girl facing the camera.

Thanks for looking.

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Returned

I got back from Hong Kong on Wednesday night. Both my meeting in Australia (at uni) and the conference in Hong Kong went well and my paper was well received.

I did a little bit of crocheting on the plane and turned this

into this

The blue crochet is a wee little creature that just needs ears and stuffing to bring him to life.

I didn’t get as much done as I expected to because on the way over the lady across the aisle from me was fascinated by the crocheting. In the end she came and sat in the spare seat next to me and I taught her to crochet, between her very limited English and my very limited Mandarin and a Chinese-English dictionary we got by. She was so impressed with herself that she hung her bit of crocheting over the seat in front of her and took a picture. I was impressed at how quickly she picked it up.

The flight home was a night flight and because I am super-speedy I was able to snag a row to myself once the seatbelt sign went off and managed to lie down and sleep for 4 or 5 hours. One advantage of being vertically challenged is that I can stretch out on a row of seats on a plane and not bang my head or my feet.

Sock knitting happened in the down time in the evenings. One sock down and one to go.

For my two nights in Australia I stayed with my SIL and her family. SIL gave me my birthday present and then helped me create my first page in it. A big art journal.

Close ups:

Not bad for a first attempt. Of course I had lots of help and many more tools to play with than I will here at home.

I also picked up a prize that I won in one of the online scrapbooking challenges recently which I had delivered to her place. Loads of lovely chipboard. Unfortunately on unpacking my suitcase it is nowhere to be found. I’m really hoping that it is at SIL’s place and not feeling lonely in a Hong Kong hotel…

Getting home was a bit of a marathon. Because I flew from Hong Kong to Australia with Qantas and then from Australia to PNG with Virgin, Qantas refused to check my bags the whole way through. I asked if they could deliver the bag to the international transfer desk and I could pick it up from there, but that was also refused. They insisted that I clear immigration in Australia, pick up my bag and clear customs and then go to the departure area in Brisbane Airport and immediately check myself back in with Virgin for my flight to PNG. On hearing this I stood at the check in counter and cried. I was sure that there was no way I was going to make my connecting flight. Qantas then upgraded my checked baggage to business class (I didn’t get an upgrade…) so that it would come off the plane first and they moved me from the rear of the plane to the front of economy so that I could get off the plane first. Fortunately our plane landed a little bit early and I was able to make my connection, but it was a very negative and stressful experience and I’m grateful that I am familiar with Brisbane airport, which certainly made the whole process much easier.

I have to say I was very unimpressed with the Qantas ground staff in Hong Kong.

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