I have been busy

How can it be that it was February the last time I posted?  Where does the time go??  I haven't been scrapping as much as I would like but I have been doing 'scrap' orientated things...wait for it...I am opening a Scrapbooking Shop...Yah!!

Stay tuned.. more info to come shortly.

Jilly :)

Who Killed Dave? by Linda Cockburn

I’m passionate about books, but I don’t want to be reading (or writing something) that results in a negative impact on the environment. If I’m going to keep publishing books, it has to be done right.

Books are a great way to sequester carbon, they can last hundreds of years on your bookshelf. Produced sustainably they can be a carbon sink, not a carbon stink.

Linda Cockburn

 
 
Linda was kind enough to send me a copy so I, in return am more than happy to give a review.
 
I intitialy asked for a copy of "Who Killed Dave?" for my 15 year old daughter.  I gave it to Jenna soon after receiving it.  Several times I would hear a chuckle coming from the lounge and only to be told "you'll just have to read it" when I asked for details.
 
So when Jenna was finished I was determinded to make it my last book of 2009. A few pages into it I was blushing, recalling the chuckles I had heard from Jenna.  I really enjoyed the journey, getting to know all the characters.  The style of Linda's writing was very familiar, it was as if she was just telling me the story over a cup of home made Chai. And yes, I turned to the hand written note inside the front cover referring to "incompetence pants" when I read that section of the book and finally got the joke LOL
 
Despite not reading a book since being pregnant with my 3 year old I found myself not being able to put it down.  It was really easy to develop a like or a dislike of the characters as if they were my own neighbours. 
 
I look forward to reading more from Linda.  I was also really impressed with the quality of the paper and printing.
Well done - a great, sometimes raunchy, almost always funny, easy read. http://www.togetherpress.com/WKD.html

Scraps of Us - February Card Challenge

I was introduced this weekend to a new Blog/forum - Scraps of Us.
Chloe says "the criteria is simple - a technique and a colour:

*scallops and *green! (you can use small amounts of other colours like I have done)"

Here is what I played with tonight

The story behind this ~

I made this card for Jesse my eldest son.  His favourite colour is green so it was perfect.

Growing up away at boarding school meant lots of endings to phone calls where I expect to hear a "Love You". Now teenage boys being as they are a "Love You" was hard to come by especially within ear shot of mates.  So we compromised and it has stuck.

Now the amaxing thing is that as soon as Jess hit 18 he has told me "Love You" at the end of every call.  It doesn't matter who hears and he can even give me a hug and kiss in front of his mates.

Gosh I Love that boy!!

Jilly xx

Stevie's Card for her BFF

Stevie ~ "I think it went pretty well for my first card, it's gorgeous and I hope she likes it"

"I can't wait till Jilly starts her classes"

I think she has done a wonderful job...don't you agree??

Jilly xx

On a Card Making Roll

Last night Stevie, my friend's 13yold daughter, stayed with me. She is really interested in craft and had asked me to help her make a card.  She watched me use my cricut and stamps and put it all together.  This morning she looked through some ideas books, and sketched her design.  We worked with colours, changed a few things around and discussed techniques.  It has been awesome.
I made a few cards too.  I did some hand stitching which I have been wanting to do for ages.

Here are my newest additions.

For a Boy

For a Girl

Jilly xx

Tonight's Card

My Grand mother is recovering in hospital after a successful knee operation so I decided to make her a card.

I alwas use scraps for my cards and these are scraps from my new card organiser I made this week.

I used the swirls embossing folder and my cricut for the 'Get Well Soon' and the 'Daisy' flower.  Click on the words for the links to the SVG's.

Jilly xx

Happy Blogger Birthday

Lisa over at Our Little Slice of Paradise has just celebrated 12 months of blogging, sharing all of her precious moments.

To celebrate she is giving away some terrific blog candy.  Go have a look for yourself  - you might just win it!!

Jilly xx

The blog candy keeps flowing

Here is another blog candy site I came across today - they have the cutest handmade buttons for sale and the blog candy is awesome.

L'il Red Rocket Buttons

Jilly xx

A few more cards

I just can't bring myself to buy another Birthday card. A. they are so expensive B. they just aren't that nice and C. I love to make them myself.

Here is the Birthday Card I made for Amity

Here's Leesa's - All of a week early, I got the dates wrong...silly me!!

I have been really busy this week with work so every spare moment at home I have been working on my card organiser.  I have it all together except the front cover.  I am wanting to put some wonderful saying on the front...like a gift of a card is a gift from my heart...or something like that but I am no good at writing that stuff and I have searched for quotes but just can't find the right one.  I had less trouble naming my three children I can tell you !!

Jilly xx

More Blog Candy

Here is another link to a great site. Amanda has lots of great, Free files and loads of info. So go visit and join in on the Blog Candy Hunt.
http://amkscrap.blogspot.com/2010/01/winter-mini-blog-candy.html

Cheers Jilly xx

Blog Candy - Cricut Style

Now this could be fun! I found this site today that is offering a cricut cartridge as blog candy. Woo hoo! Amy has some really cute things on her blog too if you'd like to go take a look.
Her address is: http://scrappinstyle.blogspot.com/
Today is the last day to enter so hop to it!
Jilly x x

My Scraproom - Before & After

My scraproom... how do I finish this statement?  This was the room I had dreamt of for 10 years.  I had it all planned...benchtops, cupboards galore, pleanty of room to store stuff and be productive and creative.  The room was always going to double as a craft room and my business office.  Now, without going into details let me say the building of this room was not executed to my liking.  The builder cut corners, used materials I had requested he didn't and my beautiful glass brick windows are smaller than I asked for.  He got the room to lock up stage but I let him go before he did too much more damage to my already shattered dream. 

I built the cupboards and put them in myself.  The room is not finished, she still needs skirting boards in places, corner strips where huge gaps were left and obviously she is not yet painted.  Now that all my gear is in there it is very hard to finish off.  I do plan to finish it sometime next year but it will be when I have full hands on deck at home to help me!!  I do my best to not see her flaws, heck none of us are perfect!!

None the less it is my space. And the aircon is so good I have often thought of sleeping down there.
I posted a pic of my desk to the 123Scrapbook forum on the weekend.  It was such a mess that I was determined to get it cleaned up and a little more organised.  I thought I better get some photographic evidence as proof that it can be tidy, if only as a reminder to myself about how good it feels LOL

My main bench before

and after

  

My Sewing cabinet before

My Sewing cabinet after

Jerremy even has his little space where he is currently learning to use scissors!!

I also spent some time today building another two sets of these cool wire shelves.

I got the squares from Vinneys a few months ago for a couple of dollars.  You are supposed to build them with these inaffective platstic brackets, but a good handful of white zip ties did the trick.

These handy little racks, of which there are 3, I found at Crazy Clarks in the hardware section.  They are supposed to hold screws and small bits and pieces but I thought they were just perfect for small scrapping bits and pieces.  They stack well on top of each other and I have them foam taped to the wall so they are a little more stable.

This is how I hang my ribbon I need on hand.  I designed a ribbon tag to cut on the cricut and they all hang together neatly on a metal ring.  I have boxes of ribbon in the cupboard so eventually I will get them all hung up like this.  I love being able to see what I have and have it so accessible.

And finally a pic of my two favourite toys.  It is hard to believe that just 12 months ago I had bearly turned on my Cricut.  Now I use it every day I am in the scrap room.  I have had a little time getting to know Gypsy and can't wait to load some more carts on and start designing on it.

I do though keep hearing this voice in my head saying "a tidy desk is the desk of an idle person"!!

We'll see how long it stays this way - at least I have proof that it can be this tidy.

Jilly :) xx

Glass Christmas Blocks

Well I have been wanting to do this little craft ever since I first saw it on one of my yahoo groups.

I think these little beauties would be a talking piece on anyones Christmas table.  I am even thinking about making them as night lights for a childs room, personalise them with their name and a design.

Lights Off - Beautiful

Lights On - Gorgeous

Ingredients

• Glass bricks - I used the wave pattern here but anything you like will do. I also have the diamond ones to try next.  As the pattern is on the inside it doesnt really matter.
• Glass and tile drill bit - 8mm
• LOADS of patience or a drill press
• Battery operated LED's - you could use 240v ones but I wanted mine to be portable without the hassle of cords.  LED's are a lot cooler than ordinary bulds as well
• Vinyl - I have used gold and silver
• Cricut - if you have one
• Transfer tape
• Wire edged ribbon
• and of course - batteries

The longest and hardest part would be drilling the holes.  TAKE YOUR TIME and let the drill do the work.  I did find it beneficial to cool my bit down in a cup of water several times towards the end of the hole.

I also found it kept it cooler if I cleared away the glass dust.

Note to self: DO Not run cold water over the brick imediately after drilling is complete - wait at least 10 minutes for the glass to cool.

It takes about 10minutes to drill one hole and 2 seconds to wreck a brick...you do the math LOL

Once the brick has cooled down I rinsed them out as dust does settle inside.  Remove the water straight away as the powder is next to impossible to remove once it had dried.  I also found that adding a little metho to the water helped with the drying process.

Design your cricut piece.  Here is a link to the ones I used.  Both in .scut and SVG (Still to come)

 

Merry Christmas.svg            Merry Christmas.scut

Peace.svg                          Peace.scut

Cut your vinyl, being careful to have your settings right so you don't go through the backing paper.

Weed out the parts you do not want on your design.

Apply the transfer tape and carfully transfer you design to the tape.

After checking that your glass surface is perfectly clean and dry apply the vinyl being careful to smooth down the best you can as you are going.

If you do happen to get a few small bubbles don't panic you can pop them with a pin and push down to stick.

Feed the lights into the brick.  I made my hole on the bottom (when the brick is upright) and to the right.  That way the cord runs out the side and I keep the batteries behind.

Wrap the ribbon around the brick and knot.  I made my bow seperately and glued on using a strong fabric glue.

Good luck with yours

Jilly xx :)

Advent Calendar

Tonight I am sharing with you photos of the Advent Calendar I have just finished for Jerremy.
I just LOVE it!!  I found so many good ideas on the net.  Too many to list so if you want some good ideas just do a search on 'muffin tin advent calendar'

Ingredients

• Muffin/patty cake tin, one that has the 'cup' flush with the tin' otherwise the magnet will not adhere very well
• Gold spray paint
• Magnets large enough to cover the hole
• Patterned paper - mine was some a random kit (nearly all gone now, thankfully)
• Chipboard - trusty cereal boxes
• Versa Colour cube - Gold
• Creative Memories gold number minis
• Ribbon
• Piece of Fancy Pants - Happy Holidays Strips
• Jolee's Boutique® Christmas Cookies Stickers
• Double sided tape
• UHU glue
• Foam tape
• Crop-a-dile BIG bite (yeah if I had one!!)

 I purpose bought a muffin tin only to find the 'cups' were too raised above the actual tray.  Also it was telfon and from everything I had read I would not have been able to paint it without a lot of preparation.  So I dug through my baking drawer and found this shallow cupcake tray.  It was a silver one, so had a bit of rust and residual grease on it so I just scrubbed it up and got all the bits off it and took it outside and spray painted it!!

My ideal pan would have been the 24 mini muffin pan but I could not get one in town.  I will be keeping my eye out for these as I would love to teach this as a class next year.

My magnets came courtesy of my lovely friend Sue.  They were actually magnetic picture frames with a solid, removable inside.  I only used the inside as the frames are still on my fridge.

I simply measured each hole and cut 12 x 7cm squares from the magnet.  Did the same with the Patterned Paper.  The magnets actually had a glossy picture on them so I tore this off leaving a rough white papery surface.  I thought this would be better to adhere to.

I uhu'd the paper to the magents and sanded off the edges.  I then used my corner rounder to round the corners.  I inked the edges with my gold cube (I just do this to everything at the moment - LOL)

I cut circles out of my cereal boxes and paper off cuts.  Actually, this whole project was made with off cuts.

I glued the circles together, sanded and gold inked the edges.

I then did something I would not ordinarily do.  Without a great deal of thought I started to attach the stickers. The embellishments are a really cute Jolee's pack - Jolee's Boutique® Christmas Cookies Stickers.  I think they are simply adorable and just 'make' this.  I popped the circles with foam tape and stuck on the numbers.

For the top and bottom I cut two strips of cereal box twice as wide as I needed.  I then scored it through the middle so it actually overlaps the edge.  I have also cut a slit along the score line to thread the ribbon through.

This is stuck down very insecurely with double sided tape and foam tape.  Now, if I had a Big Bite....I would have put a couple of eyelets in it to keep it all secure.

I have wrapped some sheer red ribbon around the top and bottom to finish off.

The final step is to fill with your treats.  I chose M&M's but you could put in stickers, tasks or toys.

I think when I make these again I will put a picture inside the muffin hole, maybe counting down or write a Christmas task on it.

I hope this inspires you to make one of these.  If you do I would love to see it.  Now to keep Jerremy away from it till the 12th!!

Jilly :) xx

A few thankyou cards

Well today was our final Mainly Music of the year much to the disappointment of Jerremy and his friends.  I think a few Mum's will miss our Friday get togethers as well!!

Here are a few of the cards I made for the ladies who lovingly give up their time, every week, to make Mainly Music possible for us.

Jenny's Card

Sonja's Card

Judy's Card

Michele's Card

Michelle's Card

All made based on a sketch from Scrapbooking Memories Forum - November Sketch Challenge

Hope you like

Jilly xx