In the middle of

This was a Christmas present for me-
isn't he just the cutest thing?! Although it
annoys me that he was made in Thailand - British people
can make them but hey, I can't choose where friends
and family do their shopping :-)

Hello there

Alot of people's blogs at the minute are all about what their highlights of 2013 were. I'm not big into that as it can lead to thinking about regrets; I'd rather think about what's ahead. What's ahead is daunting; I have SOOOO many ideas floating around in this head of mine, that it's almost stressful. My daughter looked at my latest 'Love Patchwork & quilting' magazine yesterday and said " how on earth can they find enough to talk about just quilting?" She clearly doesn't get it at all but I do! The magazine has tonnes of ideas in every month but barely scrapes the surface of possibilities. I have a hobby to last a lifetime. My 'to-do' list is a joke really, as I don't put half the things on there that I'd like to do; those are really the 'must-do's'; mostly because they're things I've been meaning to do for months/years or they're things I've been inspired with lately and they're hot on my mind, so to speak.




Actually I'm even getting distracted from writing this post by making up an order on The Cotton Patch for some fabric called Henna by Makower which was on their Facebook page recently on a fabric face-off. Henna won hands down - go have a look why or maybe you disagree.

Now, where was I?

Oh yes, I was telling you about my crazy head full of ideas for sewing but actually I'm here to wish you all a happy New Year of course and also just to quickly show you a papercraft project I'm in the middle of. It's the yearly family planner calendar project. I don't really enjoy this that much but it is a lovely thing to have in the kitchen and to help us remember good things from the year before. The reason I don't enjoy it is because I hate doing the calendar bit on MS Word. I've hunted high and low for years but can never find a template for a family calendar, so I have to create my own, which is mega boring. This year though, I've cheated and bought a calendar from a supermarket once they'd gone on sale (£2.15 isn't expensive) and I've ripped off the photos on the top section and replaced them with my scrapbook type photo pages. Much easier and quicker and less of the boring.

There's just a few months to show you the type of thing I mean, although if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you'll know this as I show it regularly but for those of you slackos who haven't read my blog for a long time, here's some posts I did about last years' :-)
http://diwarli.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/im-complete-jumpstart.html

http://diwarli.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/ive-had-right-good-kick.html

N.B I decided not to do Creative Jumpstart this year, as I'm sewing more these days and I just physically can't fit anymore crafting in; unless I lock myself in my room for months on end and don't eat or get any fresh air or meet any people ;-)

Anyway, I'd best get back to doing more calendar pages and nag Chris into choosing his photos for his month, which is May.

Take care out there

I've had a right good kick

Hello there

As some of you may know (if you read my last post), I'm taking part in a project which intends to give crafters a creative jumpstart this month. I'm also in the middle of doing this year's calendar still. Today, the two events combined, along with a third event. The third event was a shopping trip to Crabapplecrafts, which is a local craft shop, where I spent some Christmas money. One of the things I bought was an IndigoBlu stamp set, as it includes the saying about dancing as if no one is watching, which I love.

The technique is presented in the second video on the site; Heidi Swapp does this one. In a nutshell, Heidi shows us an idea to use her Color Magic mists (I don't have any, so made up my own with SU reinker, alcohol and water). It simply involves misting over a stencil which has been covered with a mask and then stamping over the mask. I really like the effect Heidi created.

I'm also happy with my result because I enjoyed playing around with my new toy and technique and also chatting on the computer with some crafty friends about a catch up date we've organised for tomorrow night.

It's been a good day, as it has definitely helped to give me a kickstart with creating things in 2013.

Take care out there

p.s
I case you're wondering; the calendar section goes on a separate sheet of card below this photo page but I'm pretty certain that none of you want to see a family planner calendar page :-)

p.s.s
This post is a day late being published, courtesy of Blogger on the ipad as well as their app not being effective for inserting photos. Grumble, grumble, moan, moan but the upside is that my crafty friends get together isn't tomorrow night, it's tonight!! Yay!!

a 'ta dah' moment

Hello there

The calendar is done. The main thing about doing the calendar is always the boring bit i.e the template for the writing section. I've looked via Google; I've looked through Microsofts templates and nothing. I look every year, incase I missed something the year before but still nothing. I can't even get functions on Excel to make life easier. It's a family planner calendar and the way Excel displays dates of different kinds, just isn't the day/date style that I like. If you have the same problem, I will send you a blank copy of this year's template to save you hours!
The fun bit is the pictures section, which I put at the top. The pictures I'm using this year are scrapbook pages basically, which I created in 2011 as part of the 12 little words challenge I did with Big Picture Classes. There being 12 just seemed to me to shout out 'calendar', so I listened! Last night I put some finishing touches to the pages; basically some background papers and the month words. I cut the words on my Cricut with Plantin School book - the shadow function made them thicker so making them easier to manipulate. I cut them at 2cm. The papers I used were a mixture of magazine freebies, My Mind's Eye- totally girl collection and 'Best of Kand Co too'.
I'll only show a few of the months or you'll know more about what we're up to than my family who don't use it often enough :-)

Take care out there