Thursday 29 October 2009

Taking stock

Looking back it's been a weird couple of weeks, 'flat' is probably the best description. I've had a complete dis-interest in anything, and as a result I've let a lot of things slip. I've managed to get one or two things done, but it's been because I had to, rather than because I could.
Last night I got together with a group for a spot of meditation and relaxation and the penny dropped- I've been too isolated. After a week down south, in a concrete block where everybody is totally focused on work, I got back up here to find out that there were only two other people in work, and they're not the most outgoing people. Last night was good, there was some laughter but more importantly people who managed to string more than two words together. It's also made me realise (because I've not seen them for the past couple of weeks) that there are a couple of people who I'm lucky to be able to call friends.
Today my mojo seems to be back on the up, so it's been a day for some serious baking. Tomorrow I'm heading up to Scotland to celebrate Samhain with friends, and I now have a huge batch of baked goodies to take with me; apple & hazelnut, pear & almond and ginger cake. I have no doubt that by time I get back on Sunday night my batteries will be fully charged and ready to go for some serious crafting.

In the meantime I'll leave you with something that I've made tonight. It's the latest challenge for the Fat Basted Chicken Club. The current book is Fragment by Warren Fahy, and the challenge is to make a bookmark including a peg; we vetoed the suggestion of a bookmark featuring a papier-mache dinosaur! If you're wondering where the peg is, it's on the other end of the ribbon so I can fasten it to the book cover.

Have a good weekend and enjoy your Samhain/Hallowe'en celebrations.


Sunday 25 October 2009

Samhain Arch


This is my entry for the latest Gothic Arches challenge. The theme was Orange & Black and a lot seem to be a take on Hallowe'en (I wonder why).
I figured that as I'm heading north for Samhain I'd kill two birds with one stone, a challenge and a thank you card rolled into one.

Saturday 24 October 2009

Risque

I've been down south all week. I was called down to check out the latest system upgrade to see if it fitted what we needed, only to discover that it wasn't quite ready. By the end of the week we'd put together something which works; it's not pretty but it works. The hotel was excellent; comfortable room, good food, etc; and net access at £7.50 a night! I don't think so. I tried my mobile broadband but there was no signal :( As a result I spent most nights reworking the Cubby Hole website. You can see the results here.

I arrived back last night and realised I needed a 40th birthday card for today. Fortunately there was a template challenge on Crafts by Carolyn so I managed to kill two birds with one stone.

I've also managed to get the latest Gothic Arch done. I missed the last one as I had a mojo failure, so was determined not to miss this one as well. The theme is Risque, and I had this image lurking in a folder of old sepia photos. Hopefully I've not missed the deadline.

Thursday 15 October 2009

Light and dark

There should really be three items on display here but sadly one didn't make it. Monday was book club night and time to discuss "Twilight" - the latest vampire craze doing the rounds. It receive good reviews all round the table, until it reached me. It wasn't bad, just boring. If they'd cut the first 300 pages down to about 50 it would have made a good short story (and nobody would have missed the other 250 pages). The crafty challenge was to create an 8x8 layout inspired by the book. After 3 weeks of trying I was still looking at a blank page and waiting for inspiration to strike. Ah well, you can't win them all.

Now to the two items I have managed to produce.
First up is a Silver anniversary card. This is a commission from a friend. I was a little bit worried that I might have to do something cute, but she wanted something simple and elegant, so it was time to go back to basics again.
The rose is painted with silver acrylics, mounted on silver card and then onto heavyweight linen card. Unfortunately the scanner doesn't pick up shine very well so the silver looks grey.

The other offering is my contribution for the latest swap at the Cubby Hole. The challenge is to make a Hallowe'en card. Initially I tried to avoid using the ubiquitous orange & black theme, but somewhere along the way they crept in so I gave up the fight and went with the flow. I have managed to avoid pumpkins though :)

Wednesday 7 October 2009

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

This is my entry for the latest challenge over on Gothic Arches. The theme for this week is inventors, and there can't be any better than Mr Isambard Kingdom Brunel - Inventor, Engineer and recently voted the second greatest Briton ever (Churchill was first).

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

100 Greatest Britons

Sunday 4 October 2009

More spidery stuff

This is a page for a circle journal. The theme is Old Wives Tales. I'd originally started looking at bird sayings, but somehow finished up with spiders again.
Of course, I couldn't do a spider page without Boris making an appearance :)

If you want to live and thrive, let the spider run alive.

Saturday 3 October 2009

Love like you've never been hurt

It's been one of those weeks. No time to sit down, constantly busy and wondering where the week has gone. And what have I achieved? Nothing. In fact it's more like the square root of nothing.
It should have been a good week at work, no poison dwarf and not much work. Except that what work there was went the way of the pear. Cue lots of irate phone calls and unresponsive suppliers. Oh well, there's always crafty stuff to help get over it - yeah, right! Monday was crop shop at the Cubby Hole and I decided I'd crack on with the 12 questions journal.
I wouldn't say I'm behind with it, but this is May's question, "What is your favourite quote?" I spent all evening working on it, came home and binned it. I think at that point my mojo took a sulk and left.
Fortunately today has been more creative and I've managed to finish it. I had started with:
"It's better to be thought a fool than open your mouth and prove it" but although it fits me well, I couldn't scrap it, so went for "Love like you've never been hurt". A quick Google came up with the full quote, which was printed out on the two pages. I wanted it in the background so it was covered with a coat of Gesso and then coloured with distress inks, blended with a baby wipe to give a muted colour. After that the four main lines I wanted were added in a variety of ways. The pic for 'Sing like nobody is listening' is the little 'un and me singing along to a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band. Needless to say, the song is Freebird :)

I've also managed a card for my grandaughter's birthday. It's also my entry for a challenge on the CBC forum. It's a recipe card: 2 papers, 2 ribbons/cords, a button and mostly pink.
Right I'm now off to research spiders for a journal page, whilst enjoying a nice glass of red and some Pink Floyd.