Mother’s Day Card & a dilemma!

Welcome Back

Today I’d like to share a picture of the Mothers Day card I made for my MIL. Its the first card I’ve made in ages.

Mothers Day Card 2013

Created using digikits and Craft Artist v1. Digikit used True Romantics by Angie Hinksman. I’m a big fan of Anna Griffin and this kit reminded me of AG style papers. Especially the roses. The large pearl in the picture isn’t part of the digikit and isn’t on the card, its to cover the photo of DH & his Mum, who aren’t keen on having their photos being on the internet

Links

• Daisy Trail From here you can find out more about Serif Craft Artist and digikits
• Angie Hinksman Digikits available by this designer.
• True Romantics

Hope she likes it

What are you making Mum for Sunday?

A nasty surprise at the bottom of the garden!

When I went out to my studio at the bottom of the garden to collect a rubber stamp, I discovered a nasty shock. Most of my stamps are stored in  metal drawers, inside a cupboard, inside an unheated garage. I have feared the rubber may not like this situation but DH reassured me that given the stamps were inside drawers, inside a cupboard they would be fine.

After seeing Indigo blu on C&C the other day, I decided to hunt out my checkered stamp and off mount it (remove it from the wooden block), so that I could try a technique shown on the demo. I wanted to apply just part of the stamp, rather than the whole image and have been considering ‘offing’ this stamp from its block, for some time. Now the stamp in question is elderly! It was an elderly stamp when I got it in the sale in a shop and has been ignored in the drawer, save for an occasional coating of stamp conditioner to ward off the worst of any issues its dislike of the storage situation might create. I have noticed that very old stamps have a tendency to leave their foam backing and to lift a bit. Having decided to remove this stamp from its block, I dug my nail under the edge of the rubber stamp itself and it lifted off the foam easy as pie. Now in this case, that was a good thing, but I had the idea that perhaps a couple of other stamps may be more useful off their blocks, so I found those too. I was horrified that these newer stamps, also lifted off their foam backing just as easily eeekkkk!!!   :0

Terror set in at this point and I left the studio in shock, afraid to touch any more stamps and risk damaging any of them further. Now the question is, has storing the stamps in these conditions caused the glue in the backing to perish and therefore most of them will be in this condition? Or is it just because it’s winter and very cold, perhaps this happens each winter and they will be ok by the warmer weather. I don’t normally mistreat my stamps by digging at them with my fingernail, and they have been stored like this for about 5 or so years.

Dilema

Have you un-mounted any of your wood mounted stamps? Did you regret it?

• Do I un-mount my precious wood mounted stamps so I can store them in a smaller space and maybe as a result have room to bring them indoors or hope for the best and leave them where they are?
• I haven’t done a great deal of rubber stamping in the last few years, partially due to poor health the digi side of crafting has taken more of my time.
• Think I might use the stamps more if they were unmounted as they would be easier to store and easier to position on a project.
• I’d like to use the stamps in a different way to in the past. I am tempted to use some (OMG am I really going to do this?) maybe even with acrylic paint or mediums. This seems more the way my creativity is going and I’d like to try using them with a brayer, ie rolling a brayer over the stamp so using the stamp flat on the table, would make that easier.

DH just got back and said it could be that the glues often get weaker bonds in the cold weather, it might all be fine when it gets warmer. Given the stamps are over 5 years old it could just be that the glue has come to the end of its natural life.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

Mother’s Day Gift: Hot Water Bottle Cover

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Today I’d like to share a picture of the knitted hot water bottle cover I made for my mother in law for Mothers Day.

Hand knitted hot water bottle cover from ‘The Little Knitting Company’ kit.

The project was from a kit I saw on C&C, lucky I bought it a while ago as it took ages to work out what I was doing. Luckily after getting in touch with the company, there was a revision in the pattern which helped it make more sence and they also linked to a tutorial for how to do the tie for the top,which I got a bit stuck on.

Sure hope she likes it, I seem to have an allergy to wool and sneezed like I had a cold throughout the project. No more wool for me! The yarn was called Geko and is 85% wool, 15% alpaca. It shed a lot of fibres as I knitted it, so maybe that’s what made me sneeze so much.

Have since found some more hot water bottle cover designs on Ravelry so I’d make MIL another one, but out of different yarn MIL is never far from a hot water bottle cover and these covers look like a much more cozy option to cuddle up to.

My fave hot water bottle cover pattern (design-wise I haven’t tried it yet!) is; All you Need – a classic.

Make Mum smile, make her something special with time and love. You know she will treasure it, and prob show all her friends too

Thoughts and prayers for everyone (like me) whose Mothers are no longer with them.

Links

• The Little Knitting Company
• Hot Water bottle Kit

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

March Challenge 2013

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This month’s Challenge theme is:

Good Thing’s Happen.

Inspired by a journal prompt in a newsletter from Somerset Studios, this month’s challenge is to record the good things that happen in your life. We all get fed up during the LONG dark winter but then you see a little flower battling through and opening to the briefest watery sunshine.

Capture the moments that make you smile; in a photo, a piece of art, a scrap-book page, a digital project perhaps. Be inspired to create because of the colour you just saw, but notice it and make a note of it. The when the winter blues hit, you will have a box of happy events to look back through and inspire you. It’s the little things in life that make us smile, sometimes they are so brief we all too quickly forget them, lets celebrate the little things in life that we enjoy.

BIT of a different challenge, but lets give it a go.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

Seth Apter’s The Pulse 5: Chapter 8; Tell All

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Last year I took part in Seth Apter’s online artists survey; The Pulse. This week you can hear me; Tell All, over on his blog.

The Artists Pulse v5 Chapter 8; Tell All

Would you like to be involved in The Pulse of Mixed Media? There’s an open call for artists, which if you are quick, you still have time to enter. More details on Seth’s Blog.

Links

• The Pulse 5th Edition: Chapter 8; Tell All. Here me tell all over on Seth’s blog.
• The Pulse 6th Edition: Open call for artists. Closing date 3 march 2013, hurry if you would like a chance to be involved with the next edition of The Pulse.
• The Altered Page

Many thanks Seth, for including me in your creative project and for putting this blog on your Art Blog directory. Seth’s work is amazing, whenever I visit his blog, he kicks starts my creativity in new directions. Rush there now, to find out more.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

Product Review: Tulip; Etimo Crochet Hook

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In today’s post I will be reviewing; Tulip Etimo Crochet hook

Tulip; Etimo Crochet Hook

Product Details

• Manufacturer/Brand; Tulip; Etimo
• Item number:
• RRP at time of writing: Price varies depending where you get them I paid £7.95 on Ebay

Reason For Buying

I have dexterity problems caused by RSI, wanted to try crochet and needed something with a thicker handle as my grip isn’t very good.

Pros/Cons

Tulip; Etimo Crochet Hook

Pros

• Soft Handle
• Thicker handle which is great for smaller diameter hooks
• Warm in the hand
• The rubberised surface gives you better control of the hook
• Metal hook means it glides effortlessly through yarns
• Handle dimensions seem to be the same across the size ranges, although the very fine lace hooks have blue handles and look a little different in size.

Cons

• The handles are a little on the short side for me, as I use the knife style grip. Shouldn’t be a problem if you use the pencil grip.

Tulip; Etimo Crochet Hook, showing the flatter section of the handle

Build Quality

Excellent, the material used on the hook are and handle are fantastic. Both are comfortable to use and work well with a variety of yarns.

Value for Money

My hook came from a seller on Ebay, at just under £8 it was expensive but the build quality makes them very good. I also saw these on Amazon at just under £13, even if they had been perfect for me, unless I only wanted one or two hooks that would have been more than I’d have wanted to spend. That said the quality is fantastic and if this is your main hobby its worth the investment in top quality.

Would I buy it Again?

At this stage no. But that is only because it didn’t solve the dexterity issue I had. If this had been the right shape for me then I would have gone for these in a heartbeat.

Side view of Tulip; Etimo Crochet Hook. Close up

Summing up

These hooks are fantastic and well worth all the positive hype they get. If my hands had worked or managed crochet then these would have been the hooks for me. The are available singly or in sets, the sets I have seen even include storage bags for the hooks and if you have a loved one who is into crochet they would make a wonderful gift.

If you are a fan of very fine crochet but find the hooks hard to hold there are also some blue handled hooks in the range that go down to much smaller sizes.

The reason I’m not buying more of these is because my RSI kicked off and complained loudly when I tried crochet, so I think it will be something I may not be able to do. Also the length of this hook, when I was holding it with the knife style grip I use hit just between the knuckles on the inside of my palm between my little and next finger. This caused me a problem as last year I managed to almost dislocate these bones so they are quite tender to pressure. I have Hyper-flexion, which means my tendons flex further than they should, this leaves me prone to RSI type injuries like this, so for me this hook was a bit short.

If gripping itself doesn’t cause you pain and your issue is more about having enough handle to get hold of then give these a try. The grippy material on the handle makes a big difference to this and makes them easy to hold. The material is also warm in the hand, so if you find metal makes your hands lock up because it’s so cold, but bamboo or plastic hooks create too much drag on yarn, then again give these a try. These are the best of both worlds with the warm handles but metal hook for better glide through a variety of yarns.

Links

Here is a link to the maker’s website, so you can find out more about these hooks, their size ranges and other options in the range.

• Tulip Etimo

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

Pencil sketch; Poinsettia in graphite

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This Christmas DH came home with a poinsettia for us. Regular viewers will have noticed that since it didn’t expire too quickly, I have been making the most of the subject and sketching it. Here is my latest drawing of the Poinsettia, this time in graphite pencil.

Poinsettia sketch on graphite pencil.

I used my Kohl Noir Progresso pencils for this sketch. I love those pencils as they are all graphite without any wood casing so you can get quite expressive with them before they wear down too much. DO give them a try if you can get hold of some.

The picture is a little dark, that’s winter for you Just for comparison, the reason I don’t always brighten my pictures with the computer, is because doing so also alters the look of the shading. The picture below was brightened, its brighter but the tones in the shading have altered too much from the original image. Hope we get some brighter weather soon, I’d like to get more drawing practice in.

Poinsettia sketch on graphite pencil.

Hope you like it, how about you, what have you been drawing this year?

Best wishes and thanks for reading see you soon

Billie

Happy Valentine’s Day

Hi All

Yes I know it was yesterday, but just wanted to share a picture of the first chocolate that I made for DH.

Say it with Chocolate

I’ll be sharing the details about my adventures with chocolate next month, but this is a sneaky peek.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie