Nice Weather if You're a Duck!

Sorry for being so miserable yesterday and thank you for your support. I am not really much better today but I must pull myself together. So I thought I would share some lovely visitors I have just had to our rented house:-

Don't they look tall when they stretch their necks like that? They have come into the garden here before and I don't know where they have come from as I can't think of any local ponds. Maybe the amount of rain we are having, anywhere will do!

As you can see, they were only about two feet away from me, not at all shy, but very hungry! When they are this close to you, you can actually see the bread going down their gullets. Sorry, I wouldn't make much of a wildlife correspondent, would I? I probably shouldn't admit to being so stupid (I'm a bit of a towny) but I thought that ducks couldn't fly. Colin said they could. Argument ensued. Then he kept saying (this is when we are in France), jump up quickly, there is one flying over there! I have never caught them at it so I still think he is winding me up! So these ducks have obviously waddled from somewhere!

Blog Candy Clasp Bag Draw

Thank you so much for joining in my clasp bag blog candy draw. Well if you know me by now, you will have guessed I wouldn't be able to cope with a random number generator malarkey - way beyond me! But I can cope with writing names on bits of paper and drawing them out of a hat! I have never done a blog candy before (too poor!), and I am now thinking, oooh, I want to give something to everyone who has joined in. Do you feel like that when you do one?

Without further ado, the name pulled out of the hat is:-

Ephemera! And what a wonderful lady she is too. It is a bit 'Coals to Newcastle' to send you a bag, Paula, when mine are such a poor imitation of the gorgeous ones you have made which have so inspired me and given me such pleasure, but hopefully a fitting thank you. I hope you will accept it in the spirit of a gift from a grateful fan, and I hope one day we will get to meet and craft together. Please drop me a line with your address.

Hope everyone is having a good Sunday. I have hit another bad spot in our sagas, not for any one particular reason, just feeling low and that I have run out of steam with the chaos and everything that needs doing. The builders seem to be a good bunch and are cracking on very fast now with our house. I think the adrenaline kept me going for the first couple of months but the whole process has dragged on so long that my health and strength are not holding out and I desperately want some stability and to have my life back. I don't cope well with unheaval and uncertainty. I know I have an awful lot right now that I should be feeling grateful about, especially when I think how grim the outlook was at first, but I am afraid I have just had enough.

Yet Another Collaged Bag - Blog Candy!

As I have had such lovely comments on being a 'bag lady' recently, I thought I would like to offer one as blog candy as a thank you to you lovely people who have stuck by me during my continuing challenging time. I have used Crafty Individuals' stamps as usual as they work so well for this style, and it would be rude not to use the new butterfly and crinoline lady stamps!

There are no special requirements to be in with a chance to win the bag. If you want to become a follower or mention this on your own blog, that would be lovely, but it is not expected. I will draw a winner next Saturday evening. Have a good weekend!

Unruly Paper Arts Wedding Issue - A Wedding Memento Tin

Have you been enjoying the new Unruly Paper Arts Blogozine? The first issue focused on inky techniques and I was sad I had too much going on to participate in it from day 1. Issue number 2 launched yesterday, and the theme is Wedding Wonders. I have my first column up later on this month - something to wear at a wedding! My column will be concentrating on altered art, particularly economizing and upcyling, as that's me!

For yesterday's Reader Art Quest, where we are looking to you to make something with a wedding theme that is anything you like except a card, I have made a heart shaped tin into a wedding themed memento box. This came about as we have been trawling through our flooded loft to see what can be salvaged and came across some chocolate boxes dating back to our marriage in 1984, containing the cards and gift tags we received, together with other memorabilia of the day. There was a smaller box containing the sugarcraft floral spray from the top of our wedding cake which sadly was very soggy. So I thought this tin, with its aperture lid, would be perfect for a preserved wedding bouquet, or perhaps the bride and groom figures from the cake, or a 'something blue' garter. I'm pleased to say the marriage has survived our recent disasters, if not the memorabilia!

For the inside of the tin I drew around the heart shape onto card and inked it up with wrinkle free distress and then added a collage of Crafty Individuals' stamps. I used lace, and pearl trim around the inside edge.

I gessoed the tin then painted it with Fresco Finish paint and stamped with various text stamps from Crafty Individuals, and added pearl trim around the inside edge of the aperture. The large flowers are made from Crafty Individuals' spring background paper, using my clear packaging material technique to give a little dimension, and the leaves are cut from a piece of lace.

As you can see here, I used the brand new butterflies stamp from Crafty Individuals which I love! I also used an old stamp of theirs, the lady with the butterfly covering her bottom, which says Forever in my Heart, just for a touch of wedding romance.

Another Crafty Individuals' Collaged Bag!

I'm still sticking with what I know, and not pushing myself to try anything new as I still don't have my confidence back after the recent upheaval to my life. I enjoyed making this bag though. The Crafty Individuals' stamps I have used are too numerous to mention but the good thing is, any of their stamps work well for this style. This time I didn't add lots of colour and I feel I might actually use this bag on a night out - if I ever go anywhere!

I am entering this for the Stamp Man challenge, which is shabby chic, my first challenge in quite a while!

Another Bag - with a Crafty Individuals' Collage

I'm being a bit feast or famine with my blog postings and maybe should have held this one back but I finished it at midnight last night and was much happier with it than the previous one, so I wanted to blog it straight away. Although I adore the Sheherazade stamps, there were so many flaws of my making in the bag so I wasn't really happy with it, and I am still trying to get myself organized enough to be able to craft - you know how it is, if something isn't working out normally you have a product or a tool to hand to remedy it but I still can't find anything! Also my patience and concentration are not very good so I give up at the first hurdle!

As I have mentioned before, I have been totally inspired by Paula of Ephemera's Attic's beautiful work in making these bags. She has such a wonderful sense of colour and design.

This bag has two sides to it and I collaged together a selection of stamps and parts of stamps from Crafty Individuals. As it was then quite 'busy', I kept the trim fairly simple. The thing I am pleased with is I love a bargain and I got the base bag from the 99p shop (am I going back there? you bet I am!). They are nothing like as easy to work with as the lovely ones I normally get from Happy Daze as they are black and kind of snakeskin so you have to cover up the colour and the texture before you can do anything else, and they are less elegant as they don't have the chain handle. But for me at the moment having a cheap base item I can mess up if needbe gives me more confidence. And I found it satisfying as I was with my friend, Elaine, when I bought it and she thought it was hideous and wondered 'where is she going with this?', so it was rewarding to turn it into something pretty.

I started to feel a bit more like my old self as I crafted at midnight last night. People often talk about losing their Mojo and to be honest that hadn't happened to me before. That is not to say that I make good stuff or have good ideas all the time - far from it - but I had always felt I was in the mood to craft and I never felt I was sat in the craft room staring at a blank desk for long, I just get stuck in and make something even if it is rubbish. But these past few weeks I have had no desire to craft and not a single idea in my head, and I wondered if I would ever feel creative again. When I gave up my job a few years ago I wondered why I had never wanted to craft before and now I realize that the stress I was under at work didn't leave any space in my head. And that is what has happened again since our disaster - the stress has been so enormous I haven't been able to think about or concentrate on anything except house stuff and worry. So I'm hoping the worst is over now ......

On that note, I am hoping to soon be able to get stuck into writing a column for the new Blogozine, Unruly Paper Arts as I had to put my involvement on hold. Have you seen it yet? It is looking great! My contribution, I hope, is going to be a column on altered art with the emphasis on using things that are inexpensive either as a substrate or as a product, as that is what I find the most rewarding. Hope you will drop by and see what everyone is up to so far!

One final thing (crikey, I am going on a bit today, I told you it was feast or famine with me!) you may remember a while ago I ran an on-line course on making your own moulds which went really well. This perfume bottle was one of the items I showed you how to make:-

If you would like to take this class and didn't have the chance before, I am running it again before I start on a new one. The cost is £7.50, $12 US dollars. Please drop me an e mail at lucy@cedmondson.net if you would be interested.

Clasp Bag - Sheherazade

Still struggling a bit with crafting but I thought I would fall back on an old favourite: a clasp bag! Do you remember the story of Sheherazade? These gorgeous stamps are by Katzelkraft from the Craft Barn and I love working with them. They are red rubber and you get a lovely selection on the plate, to depict the story.

Here's a closer shot. The bag blanks are of course from Happy Daze, one of my favourite on-line shops along with the Craft Barn.

Closer still, to show you Sheherazade with her beautiful downcast eyes. I shaded in a bit of a decolletage as I'm sure the King was charmed by more than just her story telling!

The diamante along the top is a whole bracelet, opened out, and I added pearl trim, and some ribbon which picked out the colours I had used.