Laura Rumble - Crafter

I didn't think I'd be joining in this weeks smiles.  There has been an awful lot of sleeping and not much smiling.  But yesterday evening I looked out the window and thought, actually, life is pretty beautiful really...   Friday Smiles over at Annie 's is a place to share anything that has made us smile this week...

It's my turn to share a project over at Crafty Ribbons Inspirations today.  I have a large ribbon canvas that I made at the end of last year to match my new duvet cover and curtains. I have used a wooden frame from a bought canvas but knocking up a do it yourself frame from wood would also work well. I had a great big bundle of ribbons to start with.  What I was after was lots of different widths and textures and I wanted a good percentage of the ribbons to be see through.  I hand dyed a few lengths of white ribbon and lace with India Ink to get the right shade of aqua.  Once I had found exactly what I was after I divided them in to two piles and started laying out my warp ribbons - the ones that go up and down. Once I had roughly the right pattern I started stapling them directly on to the back of the wooden frame.  The key is to get them nice and taut.  When they were attached I started working on my weft ribbons - the ones that go from left to right.  

Having said last year I was going to join in every Rudolph Day I failed to join in at all.  Poor performance Laura  *shakes head*  Poor. New year, new ambition... well same ambition actually.  To enter every Rudolph Day .  The the rules have changed - two cards each month AND this is the last year so I must join in, no retakes next year!! So, here they are: Gelli play, stencil cutting play, a bit of added glitter, outlining in pen... So there we go. January *tick* :)

Linking this colourful smile to Annie's Friday Smiles

Happy WOYWW !! I'm a bit late with my desk-y post as the postman brought me a parcel.  I have a pile of floppy disks that have things on - but I have no idea what.  I ordered a USB disk drive and had a peep...  4 disks were readable - nothing of any importance, a few word docs of card prices from my time doing parties and fairs.  3 disks were not readable.  They say they need to be formatted but formatting will wipe the disks.  :(  The disk labelled photos/wedding is in this pile.  I am more than a tad gutted. Hey ho, on with the desk... I'm thinking the wire I pulled out of some wired ribbon looks pretty good woven together as a 'bird's nest' I'm thinking mini album made of the now empty disks :) I'm also thinking finish tidying desk before getting the next project out!! Thanks for visiting, leave me a comment and I'll return the visit :) p.s. DT call looking for talented non-card makers who use ribbon... WOYWW is full of talented cra

I am very fortunate to have found the wonderful Jessica Brogan's card deck swap.  I joined in the latest mini swap with the theme of 'Permission to...'  You can read all about it here . Altering the cards was the easy part for me.  So easy that I got carried away in the creating and forgot to take any photos.  There was paint and there was washi and there was fun :) Then came the journalling and I was struggling (yeah, I know, no surprise there!)  I wanted my 'permissions' to be meaningful to me and not just empty words, and it took a lot of thinking.  Of course here I had lots of time to spare and part way through took a photo... I seem to have deleted my photos of the finished cards... either that or I have "put them somewhere safe"!  Boo!  However they have been sent off to USA, shuffled and sent off around the world.  I can share with you the cards that I received in return... An eclectic mix from all over the world.  Different style

I have a newly acquired Cricut mini.  I'm still not sure how to make it work at it's best (tips welcome!!) but I am enjoying playing.  So far I have found I like using the offcuts just as much as the actual designs I have cut out.  On one of the 'cartridges' that came with the cricut there is a thank you card with a trellis-like pattern.  These shapes are the left overs. And I found sticking them one by one quite therapeutic too. Linking up at The Playground.

I had so many good blogging intentions for the weekend yet mid afternoon on Sunday and nothing... Tut tut!  I had a few parcels arrive recently... One order from Cocoa Daisy's sale, one prize, one swap, one little tiny sale order from Time To Sow and an sale order from Panduro.  Panduro infuriate me!  A big craft company, you would think, would be capable of packaging orders well.  No.  I'd ordered a stack of 12x12 card which arrived damaged because it was bunged in a big box with very little packaging, and rattled it's way to my house.  I complained and they sent another one.  Unfortunately it was packed in the same manner and was not perfect either.  I'm not bothering to complain again, I haven't the will or energy.  It just makes me cross.  Especially when all the other parcels I received from 'little' companies were perfectly packaged. Today I'm going to share the prize I won on Nicole 's blog.  I won this kit and this add on from Scrapta

Another floral smile for Annie's Friday Smiles :)

Sharing at Friday Smiles   :)

A lot of crafters are doing 'word of the year' type projects at the moment.  I thought about picking a word but I don't think the time is right (because of the M.E.) so I'm keeping it in mind for next year.  I do keep thinking of the word listen though.  It keeps popping in to my mind.  I thought I would do an art journal page using 'listen' but I had an urge to scrap.  I had in my head that the two wouldn't mix so I decided just to scrap.  I chose a sketch to follow... ...and started looking through photos to find one that would work.  I came across this photo and thought that the two (listen and scrapping) would in fact work together. I've had these white frame stickers hanging around for years - they needed to be used.  I used some red buttons for CR .  I used some loads of thread (still can't get the hang of sticking it down with matte medium!)  A few brads and foam stickers. And some brand new stamps.  Love the

Happy Wednesday!  Happy WOYWW ! Yesterdays 'desk stuff' shoved to the side because... the postie loves me!  Crafty Ribbons sale parcel arrived today.  [I wouldn't bother going to the link... we bought everything ;D  Just kidding!!  We left a few bits for you...]  The parcel was meant to be Mum's but she is too nice so I got some too. We haven't even opened the ribbons yet as we got totally sidetracked by the yummy buttons that look like sweeties :) Thank you for your WOYWW visits and thank you to Julia as always... See you at your desk... x

It's my turn over at Crafty Ribbons Inspirations today... One of the cracker gifts that I have saved from the Christmas festivities is a metal bookmark.  I wanted to pretty it up with ribbons.  I also received a chocolate cook book as a gift so I thought why not use the chocolate ribbons and make it matching... It was simple to personalise... just pick your ribbons, tie them on, et voilà! Of course I had to test it in the chocolate cook book which meant drooling over several recipes to find the right page to photograph it on ;) You can find the chocolate ribbon collection here and the book here and the chocolate... well, that's long gone!!

Celine Navarro was part of the brilliant team that did 213 in 2013 videos for 2 Peas .  She has an amazing giveaway going on... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I've got 3 gorgeous prizes for my dear blog readers and followers! Every single year, I've been so motivated to clean up my scraproom, organize, throw away, give to friends, recycle or set aside. This year, I've made THREE awesome prizes to giveaway here, perfect to get started on Project Life. They are all different but contain the same amount and kind of products. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You know those magnets you get with the witty or sentimental sayings in them?  I had a couple spare.  I'd got all I was going to get out of them so I put them in the charity pile.  Then I thought, well hang on, I can reuse them instead.  The 'lid' pops out and there is just a square of paper inside.  I did some experimenting with gelli printing on the perspex 'lid'.  I used the paper square as a template and cut a piece of silver mirri to have behind the neon print.  (Note to Self:  Next experiment with printing straight on to mirri... surely that would be a cool effect too...) On the front I added 'bright' in Amy Tan stickers and had some neon crocheted lace made by my pet crocheter (er, not sure what my Mum will make of that new nickname!) which was the perfect embellishment. Entering at avenue 613 (not using the optional twist... had enough of winter and needed something brighter!!) I love it, it is ridiculously bright  :)

Sharing this beautiful smile at Friday Smiles

Last year I was quite low in November and when I saw Carmen was running a Secret Santa I wanted to join in.   I had a look at posts from the previous years and decided I needed to join in.   So I did.   When the swap came through I discovered I was buying for the boss!   Well, you can’t get much scarier than that!   I did some gentle stalking and made a list (I do like a list!)   Here is what Santa parcelled up and sent off to Carmen: In return Ally was my Secret Santa.   I can’t say thank you enough to Ally .   I appear to have forgotten to take a before photo…   I unpacked the parcel and found beautifully wrapped presents.   10 !   Thank you Ally!   I put them under my tiny tree - here is the tree minus the presents… On Christmas Day I opened a few and as the day wore on and the ME started biting I put the others aside and opened them on Boxing Day. Here is what I was lucky enough to receive: A candle. Cute little tapes