Alphabet Stamps

LOVE them. Actually, I love all things alpha and have an unhealthy fascination with type. Sad but true. I wanted to study Graphic design after school, a bit of a change for me as my main subjects in school were Biology, Science, Maths and Accountancy .... really!

I was dithering between studying pathology (wanted to be a forensic pathologist .... again ... really!) and Design. Yes, you can see how logical those two choices are together. The mind boggles.

However, because art was lacking in my subjects from school I didn't make the entry requirements for graphic design - weird thing is, I did well enough to apply for a BSc degree - but some rebel inside of me wanted to join the art school, so I settled for Interior Design instead.

We had typography as a subject throughout all 3 years, and I absolutely LOVED it, my favourite subject of all.
 
In this months Craft Stamper magazine I have done a project using Alphabet stamps. 
 
The main project is a scrapbook page, with a step by step on how to make this flower from scratch, here is sneaky peek or two
 

There are also a few cards ...
 

...and a journaling spot below (more for us scrapbookers)
 

 
This all in the March issue, out in shops today.

Not a blogger

It has come to my attention that in fact I am not a craft blogger. Not a very good one at least. I love reading other people's blogs, drooling over their creations and getting inspired by all the loveliness of what they create ... but me ... alas, I don't do nearly enough crafting to have an inspiring blog. A lot of what I do is either for selling, so lots of repetition (read boring), or for magazine work which I cannot share anyway. We are also redecorating our house, which takes up way too much valuable crafting time.

Wish I wasn't so lazy and had heaps of time and energy to do it all, the house, the crafting, the family, the domestic goddess thing ...

I am not throwing the towel in just yet ... but I am not sure this is really my thing. I have another blog for family and friends, and that is about as much as I can keep up with.

We'll see....

... but for now, I am going to share some more South Africa photos. If you don't do holiday photos, shut down ... quick.

So this holiday we went to Graaff Reinet for a week to visit my brother-in-law and his family who live there. Graaff Reinet is one of those quaint little towns in the middle of nowhere, in the heart of the Karoo, a semi desert that goes on forever, or so it feels when you are driving through, trust me. It rminds me of those western movies with the tumbleweeds, dust blowing all over the place and cactus plants looming large over the landscape.

Just gorgeous.

My brother-in-law also owns a little farm just outside of the town.

This is what it doesn't have:
- Electricity,
- Running water on tap (there is plumbing, but water has to come from the borehole and water tank and is not drinkable)
-TV ... as a result of the no electricity thing of course
- Any mod cons (you take your pick, there are none of those)

BUT, this is what it does have:
- Loads of charm, with the most rustic little house you could ever wish for

-A house with a stoep (an afrikaans word meaning veranda). And not just any old stoep, but a pure lazy, you can sit here all day and do nothing kind of stoep.

- And then there is the view from the stoep ... sheer nothingness for as far as the eye can see. If you want to get away from civilization, well then this is your place. Just blissfull.

- And if that is not enough, we also have worms, lovingly known as shongololo's, every kids dream and a throw back to my youth, we used to love playing with these little mini beast.

- And if you are still not in the country mood, how about a quad bike ride with your daddy ....

Oh, and I nearly forgot, if quad bikes aren't your thing we also have puppies that fall asleep on your lap.

Stress .... nah ah ... no stress here. I could have stayed a week, but we only went for the afternoon. An afternoon of getting dirty and dusty, doing nothing, and being in nature with no distractions, no shopping malls, no post delivered to your door, no computers .... holiday bliss.

I say that though, but living out here can have its down side too, there is not a lot to do, and not a lot to do it with. If you are the kind of person that needs more, well then this place will drive you stark raving mad, as it did Helen Martins

Just a stone throw away from our rustic little farm is a place called Nieu Bethesda, and that is where you will find the home of Helen Martins. A woman who could no longer stand her drab surroundings and her life and started sculpting with whatever materials she could lay her hands on, mostly concrete and glass. When that creative urge strikes, well, what's a girl gonna do. Crush glass and cover you walls with it of course. She died in 1941 but her weird little house is still a big tourist attraction.

It is impossible to capture on film just how surreal this place is. The walls and ceilings (the sun above) are covered in crushed coloured glass, there is no nook or cranny that is not decorated or adorned with some sort of weird ornament or large eyed owl sculpture. The garden is filled with camels and ladies and a strange nativity scene ... it is just bizarre, creative, but bizarre.

And we're back

Back to the snow and gloomy days that is, but it doesn't matter, 4 weeks in the South Africa sun was bliss.

Christmas with the family, sunshine galore, food, food and more food - all the ingredients for a great holiday.

This being but a small sampling of the vast amount of calories we consumed. Hmmm, I love holidays!

Actually we have been back for nearly 3 weeks, but it sort of takes me that long just to get back into the swing of things. Call me lazy, but I am always very reluctant to let go of holiday mode.

But ... the real world beckons once again.

My craft room is great, although there are still a few little things to get sorted out, it is pretty much up and running. Having reduced the space I have with adding a bed, everything is now functioning on a reach and grab basis. Standing in the middle of the floor I can almost reach everyhing, yeah, that works for me. I will share some pictures soon.

At the moment I am working on a project using the SU butterfly punch and stamp set for Craft Stamper, am loving that set, but no pictures to share .... however

I am big on finding inspiration all around. Magazines, shop fronts, clothes etc., all potential inspiration of course. South Africa is also so different from the UK, so whenever I go I snap loads of pictures of anything I find vaguely interesting ... you never know when a colour combo will come in handy or when african masks might become trendy ... so into the void of my computer photo album they all go.

Here are some shots from Johannesburg airport - they have such cool little ethnic shops there, check these out.

A bit disturbing, I'll give you that. But his entire face is made of beads - loving those faint red stripes with the yellow and blues.

Some very colourful crockery, and a few cool handbags below.

Love the black and white detail with the ochre on this table runner.

Ahh, always my favourite, beaded creatures. I am not sur what these are, trendy llamas or something, but they were just great.

And lastly these placemats - they have little beaded details sewn into them. Those squares and circles are made of seed beads - so easy to do but so striking and different. I think my IKEA placemats need a make-over.

Do you scrapbook?

Originally I didn't. I started off making cards, not the most brilliant creations, but cards never the less. You know the ones ... flowers, computer generated text, and of course torn handmade or mulberry paper .... giggle, they all HAD TO HAVE that torn paper ... let me see if I can find an example.

Oh yes ... here are some early creations

Eventually I was roped into the world of scrapbooking and that quickly became my number one passion. Scrap scrap scrap! Loved that!

If you cannot read the journaling, fret not, you have not lost your mind, I have altered the text as it is a bit personal.

But those cards ... I did so love making them.

...and then came stamping, yet another thing to get hooked on. Yup, there goes the old budget again.

But see, stamping on cards, well that one is easy, stamps are made for cards, right ... but stamping on scrapbook pages, I found that much harder to get my head around.

But it did seem a waste not to use all those lovely stamps on scrapbooking too, so came hell or high water, I WAS going to use my stamps, and slowly I started to incorporate them more into scrapbooking.

Just recently though, Katy from Craft Stamper asked if I would like to do a masterclass on creating patterned papers using stamps. Uh huh, oh yeah, I surely would.

So, in the latest Craft Stamper magazine (January issue), I have made four different patterned papers using inks and stamps. Resist, masking, kiss stamping and so on. If you are a stamping scrapbooker, go and check it out. Making your own patterned papers for scrapbooking is just the coolest way to get great mileage out of your stamps.

I can show you this sneak peek.

Happy scrapping and stamping!

Ooooh, and I forgot to mention, the cover mount stamp this month is just gorgeous!

Birthdays, cake and still no crafting

We celebrated my daughters 12th birthday on the weekend. Of course that meant cake, and the best kind too, guilt free cake .. because when it is someones birthday you HAVE to eat cake, right? It would be rude not to, obviously.

For those of you who don't know me, I have two daughters. They are great .. for the most part at least. There are of course times when I would happily give them away to charity, and I challenge any parent who does not occasionaly get the same urge.

Thinking back I am quite shocked that my mother still speaks to me - I was a ... shall we say ... headstrong little girl. I remember for at least 5 years when I was about 8 to13, I refused to kiss anyone. NEVER EVER, nope, not on your life. Not hello, not good night, not ever. Even before that at 2 I refused to get out of the car when we went to see anyone for about a year. My mother used to put a little camping seat and some toys in the back of the car (we had a kind of pick up truck with a canopy on, so I could sit there in the back and play) and just leave me. She would always come and check on me and keep me within her sight somehow, but it was easier than trying to deal with the backlash of forcing me out of the car. There was mention of a child psychologist, but before they could get that far I outgrew that little phase. There was nothing wrong with me, apart from the fact that I was a little control freak.

I guess what I am saying is that in comparison my children are a walk in the park, and my mother is a saint.

So, in a nutshell, we have been celebrating, we have been finishing off my craft room, we have been shopping, we have been doing everthing but crafting. I am really stretching myself to think what to put up on here, as essentially this is a crafting blog, but if I am not crafting ... well, that is a bit of a dilemma then.

Here are the rest of the 9 for 5 cards I mentioned in the previous post - old photos are better than no photos I guess.

So there you have have it - see what you can do with simple string, patterned paper and bottletops. Crafting does not have to break the bank.

Something old

Is the craft room done yet?

No, not, nada, not at all. Un-blinking-believable.

I know, it is hard to fathom how it could possibly take so long, but there have been so many glitches along the way I have stopped counting. The last being the floor, my beautiful wooden floor which now has to be my old carpet put back and simply cleaned floor. The guy who built our house did not posess a spirit level, the floor dipped by more than 8mm on the one side and after much deliberation and many a tear shed we decided it would just not work. The floor has to be level or the wood might crack and there was no way we could prop it up properly, believe me we thought of many ways. Of course we found this out AFTER we had completely prepped the floor, scraped off the yukky carpet tape, bought the wooden flooring strips and underlay, opened the pack ... you know, spent a whole day getting it all ready, just to pack it all back in the car and pray that B&Q would give us a refund.

I did get a brand new VAX carpet cleaner out of the deal as a consolation prize, so it is not all bad. We cleaned that old carpet to within an inch of it's life last night. It is sparkling and fresh all ready for me to drop paint and ink on it. Of course the inevitable fate of a clean carpet.

By now I am suffering from a bit of crafting withdrawal. Every now and then I just open up an inkpad or a box of stamps and give it a good whiff. I gently run my fingers through the packs of papers stacked on my lounge floor and if I am feeling particularly in need of a fix I grab punch or two and attack my paper bin.

Thing is, once I am moved in and ready to craft again, I am off to South Africa for a month, so there is going to be no crafting in this neck of the woods until January.

I will just have to go with the inkpad sniffing for now.

And then we get to the something old - some old projects, which I am sure you probably don't want to see, but I am afraid it is all I got, unless you want to join me in some ink sniffing :)

One of my favourite projects for Practical Crafts magazine used to be the 9 for 5 feature. I loved that. Make 9 cards with just £5.

My materials for these were a sheet of pattern paper, some sheets of coloured cardstock, bottle tops and string. I used my pc to print the greetings and a paper piercer to add detail.

Here are three of the nine cards, I will post the others in the next few days.

Bottletops are so inexpensive, I love to use them for cheap decoration. These were bought from Wilkinsons for something like 79p for a whole bag full. Flatten them with a rubber mallet and voila. The little flowers are cut from the patterned paper and the row of holes was made with my dress makers tracing wheel and every second hole enlarged with a paper piercer. Cheap and cheerful!

For this card I printed the letters onto the back of patterned paper (mirroring them first) and then cut out. The rest of the message is printed. Simple simple simple – just the way I like it, again adding some detail with the little holes.

And lastly, the little flower stem is normal stock standard cheap string that you can buy anywhere. I pricked holes and used a large embroidery needle to sew the stem. It is a bit bulky on the back, so the panel with the flower is attached to the tag with 3D pads.

You would think ...

You would think that by now I would be done painting and moving.

You would think that our house would be waterproof.

You would think I would be grateful that I have a whole room, albeit the box room, all to myself to use as a craft space and not be envious of other people's crafting do-overs ... but look at all that fabulous space. I want to be Donna Downey.

Talking about Donna Downey, I LOVE these new stamps she has designed.

But, back to business.

The reason it has taken me so very long to get to the painting bit is all down to a recent strange developement in our household. It seems we are very successfully attracting water. Good if you are thirsty, not so good when it is invading your house.

First, when we uncovered the one corner of wallpaper we also uncovered a large black patch of, what I assume has been years of water damage. GREAT!

For some inexplicable reason the water was running down the interior beam on the gable end of the house and trickling straight down the wall. We had just recently had the fascias and gutters replaced too ... so it is a bit of a mystery. No amount of detective work could solve the puzzle of where exactly the water was getting in, so we went for the next best thing ... silicone everything.

On Sunday, Matthew and I got up onto the flat roof of the garage, very long ladder in hand, and siliconed every possible crack and crevice that could be letting in water. There is no tile damage either ... we are truly stumped.

So now the drywall had to be fixed, plastered, sanded ... see that unpainted patch of plaster still drying out. I have one very proud of himself husband as he has never done any plastering before. I know it is only a little spot, but heck, I wouldn’t be able to do it.

We got up on Monday morning, very happy indeed that our plaster seems to be staying dry and that I could finally paint. BUT THEN, just like a really bad B-grade movie, we had scene 2 of the water saga.

This time downstairs, around the kitchen counter.

As Matthew was about to leave for work, he reached to pick up his iPod in it's lovely little iPod sock, only to find a soggy watery mess and a lovely damp patch of ceiling dripping merrily and steadily. NOW WHAT!

First thought of course was the radiator pipes, but after ripping up the floor ... yet again ... they seemed perfectly intact.

Someone was having a laugh.

We could see the water pooled under the floor on the downstairs ceiling, but had no clue where it was coming from. There is only a small portion of the passage way floor that can be lifted for inspection, and that was just not enough,  so out comes the circular saw. Now we have a substantially larger portion of the floor that can be lifted.

Nothing a good old circular saw cannot solve hey!

Eventually Matthew figured out that the water was dripping down the wall from above. Upon closer inspection he noticed that the pipe to the water tank in the attic had worked it's way loose and was steadily emptying itself onto the ceiling, down the wall, onto the downstairs ceiling, and onto his iPod which was lying on the kitchen counter.

So we fixed all of that, correction, Matthew fixed all of that while I made encouraging noises. We have had the upstairs floor open for two days to try and dry out the downstairs ceiling and now we are wondering why we seem to be a conduit in the universe for spontaneous water leakage.

Talk about having a Monday morning. Garfield eat your heart out.

Having now dealt with our collective bad water karma, I could finally get down to actually painting.

One wall.

One is a start. Tomorrow I shall do one more, I don't want to exert myself now do I?

(Oh, the blue tape will be removed ... it is not part of the plan, only there to keep me painting inside the lines)

It is a green wall, and oh my, green it is. Amazing how it looks so much more green when it covers the entire wall as opposed to only a swatch.

I like it though, and it will be mostly obscured my my new NEXT curtain ... woohoo, I am getting new curtains. I am only painting one wall green, the others will be natural calico (technically just off-white, but natural calico sounds so much more posh).

The spare bed will also go here, with a matching duvet cover ... woohoo, I am getting a new duvet cover.

Then I will squash and squeeze all the rest of the bits into the remaining itsy bitsy space that is left over.