Hi Everyone.

Sorry I've been a bit quiet on here the last few days, I have been busy crafting,and using the cricut, but as the projects I've been working on are for future Tuesday Taggers Challenges, so I can't show you what I've been up to yet...... and that feels quite strange..... but I am sure I will get used to it, besides it is unusual for everything I make to be geared around TT challenges. The reason that I am getting a bit ahead of myself at the moment is because I am off on holiday in a few weeks to Brittany, and want to have made my pieces for the challenges that are on whilst I am away, before I go.

There is one exception though, that I can share with you.......
This 12" x 12" Canvas which I have made for this weeks Tuesday Taggers "Recycled Wall Hanging" Challenge.



The canvas background has been painted with Claudine Hellmuth Studio Colours and a baby wipe, one of my favourite get messy techniques...lol...learnt from Dylan at Art From The Heart.

The main piece consists of some open weave hessian mounted onto grey chipboard and sprayed with glimmer mist "Suede" through a lovely swirly glimmer mask, although this doesn't show up very well in the photo..

The corugated cardboard was coloured first with distress inks and then with Distress Crackle Paint in Weathered Wood and Aged Mahogany.

The Crafty Individuals swirly mini frame was also coloured with distress inks before being given a liberal coat of Weathered Wood Distress Crackle Paint.

The photo, in the frame, is one of my own, but was taken on a dull day so I have used distress inks in Tattered Rose and Broken China to give a sunset feel to the picture.

The words on the corrugated cardboard and Frame have been stamped onto tissue paper and then applied with PVA glue.

The individual words mounted on the hessian were from my computer and then coloured and mounted on card.

I have finished the piece off with some jewellery twine and glass beads, a couple of tags and a bit of Idea-ology metal (pin and sentiment tag).

I hope you like it.
Bee xx

Some Exciting News !!

Hi Everyone,
I have some exciting news that I have been wanting to share with you all since yesterday. Those fab ladies over at Tuesday Taggers have invited me to join their Design Team!... YAY !!
I am so excited that I am almost lost for words, it means sooooo much to me, and I am really looking forward to the challenge.

For those of you who haven't come across Tuesday Taggers (TT) yet, it is a very friendly weekly challenge blogg site, aimed at ALL crafters, whatever their interests ie: ATC's, Tags, Inchies, Cards, Altered Art etc.
As well as the weekly challenges, there are regular tutorials, introducing different techniques etc, and sometimes there are goodies up for grabs. Participants in the challenges may also get the chance to feature as a TT guest designer.

Tuesday Taggers is fortunate to have received Sponsorship from the following companies, The Craft Barn, The Craft Emporium and The Stamp Man.

There is a link button to Tuesday Taggers in the side bar of this blogg if you want to come see what the fun is about and hopefully join in with our weekly challenges.

Bee xx

Quick Catch Up

Hi everyone.

This is just a quick catch up tonight, no piccys I'm afraid, mainly because I haven't made anything apart from my Tag for Tuesday Taggers so far this week, I have however been having a crafty play with my new Cricut Expression Machine which arrived on Tuesday and it was up and running inside 5 mins...lol.. so far I have finished off one scrap page that has been waiting for a title for about 18months, cut some leaf motifs that may form part of an altered mirror frame and generally had a good time just finding out what it can do.

This evening Kate and I went to see Harry Potter 6, which like the book is much darker than the previous films, I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but the special effects are as good if not better than ever, I thought it was worth going to see and just wonder how long we will have to wait for HP7. I will of course have to reread HP6 now to see what they left out of the film.

The other thing I have done today is to start to twitter, but its a bit quiet and lonely twittering to myself ( ok so there is nothing new in me talking to myself, I do it all the time, I just think I am actually trying to converse with my OH and DD....LOL) so if any one cares to join me on twitter I would love the company.

Bye for now

Bee xx

Another Tag for Tuesday Taggers.

Hi everyone. I've just finished making a tag!!.. although it could be masquerading as a bookmark.. for this week's challenge over at Tuesday Taggers. The theme this week is Swirls and Curls.

I even managed to use a few techniques that I didn't use on my Key Tag.


The tag is double layered, the bottom layer is a matt coated card stock and the top layer is acetate. I have used a versamark resist technique and brayer to stamp the coated card with the "Swirly Bird" stamp from Dimension Fourth, I also made a mask of the bird and then overstamped some swirly corners.

The Swirly Bird was also Stamped onto the acetate using stayzon, and a few of the design elements highlighted by using a clear glue and fine glitter on the reverse side.

Top Tip..... do not cut your acetate to match your backing card until you have positioned the image on the acetate directly over the image on the base card, secure in place with low tack tape and then trim.

The heart lace strip has been punched out of cream card using a Martha Stewart Edging punch, and adhered to the card layer, some buttons and a few of the small hearts from the punched design have been glued on top of the acetate to add dimension.

The two layers are held together by an eyelet which has then had some fibres tied through it (including some curly ones). Job done. I hope you like it.

I'll be back later.

Bee xx

A Tag for Tuesday Taggers.

Sunday's are the days when I get the most uninterupted time to play in my craftroom. Apart from cooking Sunday Dinner, which I can do on automatic pilot now, the rest of the day generally is mine!! Today I was sitting with this little lot in front of me, thinking about this week's Tuesday Taggers Challenge of "Texture". I have already entered a Handbag charm made with inchies, so I don't know if I can enter anything else, but I thought it was time I actually made a tag......

So I used the textured Grunge board and distress inks to make a Key Tag !
I started by cutting out a shape from the grunge board, threading a key ring onto it and colouring it using distress inks with cut and dry foam.



Then I added a metal sentiment tag, an inchie, some grunge paper flowers,and ribbons.



A few more buttons, a curtain ring, some stamping with Stayzon Ink, tissue paper, a skeleton leaf, and yet more ribbon.....

Then I folded the tag in half using very strong adhesive between the two faces.

Then diamond glaze and crackle glaze to stop the ink moving if the tag got wet. ......and to hold the embellishments securely.

Finally I punched some holes on two diagonally opposite corners using my cropodile and used yet more ribbon to sew through one set of holes, and used eyelets in the opposite corner, this was done partly to ensure that the tag does not split open and partly just because .......they were sitting on my desk....lol.

Finished at last.....Pheeew !!!




Have we had a challenge yet to see how many techniques etc we can get into one project ?



All that's left to do is to see if I can enter it into this weeks challenge..... and decide who might end up owning this little treasure.

Bye for now

Bee xx

My Goodies from The Craft Emporium Arrived.

Hi Everyone.

I just thought I would post a piccy of the lovely papers and embellishments from October Afternoon's Road Map Collection, that I recieved from The Craft Emporium yesterday.
this was the prize that I won in the Tuesday Taggers random draw on Tuesday for last week's challenge.

As well as thanking the girls at TT I must say a big thankyou to Lyn at The Craft Emporium, the parcel was well wrapped and arrived so quickly.

I am looking forward to using these papers, probably in connection with our Summer Holiday to Brittany in a few weeks as we always travel to Brittany by car. This year we have 2 cars going down to Portsmouth from Lincolnshire to get the overnight ferry to St Malo, so I reckon that counts as a road trip....lol.

I must confess that I probably wouldn't have bought this collection of papers for myself but having looked at them, I can really see the possibilities.

See you all later,
Bee xx

Happy Thursday

Hi Everyone, Had a busy day on Tuesday seeing my NVQ candidates and spent most of yesterday psyching myself up to get the write ups done, it was quite a difficult job as there were plenty of distractions, firstly there were two men out in my garden all day erecting a new fence, secondly I was still on a high about my win over on Tuesday Taggers, finally it is always hard to get going when I have two lengthy reports to write up and I want to do justice the the excellent work I have observed. However I finally got one completed yesterday and finished the other one this morning before I put my "posh suit" on to go to my daughter's prize giving at school this lunchtime. So this afternoon with all my jobs done ( and changed back into play clothes) I decided I deserved a bit of playtime in my crafty shed. This weeks challenge at Tuesday Taggers is "Texture", having done my altered box last week I decided to use inchies this week, but as is usually the case, my project ended up being quite different to what I anticipated. 2 inchies, a couple of charms, a few beads, distress inks, embossing powder, grunge paper, tissue paper and a stamp, a brad, gold leaf and some jewelery findings = one textured hand bag charm. One inchie had opposing corners cut off to form a lozenge shape, then both inchies were inked with a mixture of broken china, mustard seed and spiced marmalade distress ink on both sides, one side of each was triple embossed and small glass beads embedded in the utee on one and gold leaf on the other, a small flower was punched out of grunge paper and coloured with the same inks, a metalic spacer was used in the centre of the flower and the whole lot held together with a turquoise brad. An image was stamped onto tissue paper and adhered to the unglazed side of the square inchie with diamond glaze, which was also used to adhere the grunge paper flower. Diamond glaze was used to adhere a small piece of a skeleton leaf to the unglazed side of the lozenge shape and also to adhere the metal flower charm. The bag charm was made up with textured heart shaped beads on header pins between the two "inchie" elements and a "made with love" charm suspended from the bottom. The heat embossing changed the colour of the inks on that surface of the inchies making the ink dark and aged looking, whilst the diamond glazed sides look more vibrant.

Enjoy.

Bee xx

Yipeee!!!

I can't believe my luck, I won the October Afternoon goodies on the Tuesday Taggers blogg this week.
The prize was donated by the Craft Emporium and consists of products from the Road Map Collection.

I am suprised and delighted as I never usually win anything in raffles or draws etc. and I am looking forward to my goodies arriving.

The Tuesday Taggers Challenges are great fun to join in with, and there are some great themes, this week it is "Texture" so plenty of scope to play around with.

I should also like to thank the people who have commented on my Venezia Canvas and my altered box, your comments are most appreciated.

Bee xx

Finally Caught Up I Think !!

Third Blogg posting of the day it must be a record for me.....Altered Box completed, ready to submit to Tuesday Taggers....before the midnight deadline. I don't have work in progress photos for this I'm afraid, but it was one of those boxes that expensive but horrible christmas toiletries come in. It was originally a bright emerald green so I painted it over with a couple of coats of white gesso some while back and then left it until my mojo told me it was time to get on with it. Well my creative juices were shaken and stirred at the weekend, courtesy of Clarky J, Midnight Crafter, Emma etc etc....and the resulting box is inspired by something they were playing with. I decided to ink over the gesso with brushed corduroy distress ink, which made the box look like a wooden box....that was just waiting to be altered ...lol...and then created the piece of artwork for the lid using corrugated card, distress inks, shimmer spray, a dreamweaver stencil and texture paste, a lovely sentiment about friends, some hand coloured paper and a couple of Idea-ology metal pieces. Job done !!! I hope it passes muster. Bee xx

Claxby Crafty Retreat

Hi again folks.

Well the Claxby Crafty Retreat finally arrived this weekend, it seems such a long while since Kate and I met up with our Crafty Friends for a weekend of Crafting and Laughter. The last time we got together was in March, up in Grassington, when Michelle and Janet (ClarkyJ) were the hostesses for the weekend. We have been meeting up as a group for about 4 years now, having first met at a craft retreat at Malham Tarn Field Studies Centre, this time there were 11 of us spending the weekend together. From Skipton, Catterick, Grantham and Market Rasen.

This time we had decided to meet up here in Lincolnshire and it fell to Kate and I to organise the venue etc. for us all.

In a bid to keep costs down, we hired The Viking Centre www.thevivkingcentre.org.uk a local hostel about 4 miles from where I live for a Do it ourselves self catering weekend. Kate and I did the main shopping etc as we live locally but everyone made a contribution by way of gorgeous soups and scrummy cakes etc. and everyone mucked in with cooking washing up etc.

From Friday afternoon until everyone reluctantly set off home at 6:00 pm on Sunday, we crafted, laughed, crafted, ate, crafted....occasionally slept and crafted...... well you get the picture... or rather you don't....I can't put the photos I took on my blogg as most people were still in their pyjamas when I took them ......crafting in pyjamas.....just shows what good friends we have all become, you can't do that in front of strangers can you.

There were people who we would have liked to be there, but who couldn't make it this time, so lets hope they can get to our next get together at Malham Tarn again in October.

I never get as much crafting done on these weekends as I hope to do, I so much enjoy looking at what everyone else is creating, altering, or just experimenting with, everyone has a different style and different talents, and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly we can turn a clean and tidy space into a scene of creative chaos...lol

The caretaker for the Viking centre popped in to see us on Saturday evening, as she has recently started card making, and we had invited her to join us for a while, and looked quite visibly shaken and taken aback at the state of the place (not one horizontal surface visible) hopefully she was relieved when she saw that it had returned to normality be the time we all left.

I did manage to crack open my Claudine Hellmuth Studio paints and create a canvas inspired by my recent trip to Venice. The dew drops scattered across the canvas remind me of Venetian Glass and catch the light really nicely, the flower at the bottom left corner has been made with grunge paper.

Hope you like it.

Bee xx

Mega Catch Up !!!

Hi Everyone.

I can't believe it is more than 3 weeks since I last posted anything on here. I have been mega busy, see, and the time has flown by.

When I last posted on here Kate and I were just off to Venice for a three day City Break, I am pleased to report that we had a really good time, the weather was kinder than the forecast and Venice it self exceeded our expectations. We walked miles, made good use of the waterbuses, visiting the Islands of Murano and Burano as well as Venice it-self, and took hundreds of photos, which now need scrapping, and I have the journal I started before we went, to finish.

As we had booked an evening flight, our first views of Venice were at Sunset (From the plane) as we flew into Marco Polo Airport. It was getting quite dark by the time we had retrieved our luggage and were ready to leave the airport.

Before we left the airport we purchased 2 day tourist tickets for the Buses and Waterbuses and asked directions for getting to "Arsenale" the area of Venice where our hotel was located. We were told to get a bus to Plaza De Roma and then to get the Waterbus to Arsenale. This resulted in our first proper views of Venice being as we travelled down the Grand Canal by night. It was magical as all the buildings and waterfront Restaurants etc were lit up. We later discovered that we could have taken a different waterbus, direct from the airport to Arsenale, which would have been quicker but we would have missed out on "Venice by Night". Unfortunately my camera was still packed away......

Next day, we got down to some serious sightseeing.

As well as such famous Venetian Landmarks as St Marks Square, The Rialto Bridge and The Doges Palace, we visited the Island of Murano which is famous for it's Venetian Glass

and Burano, famous for it's Lace Industry and the colourful cottages which line the Canals.

The three days flew by, and Wednesday night saw us flying back into East Midlands Airport..... and already planning our next trip.

Thursday 24th of June saw us at the Lincolnshire County Show on a scorching hot day, supporting my youngest daughter, who was riding in her riding club team for the first time at such a huge event. The team were knocked out in the first round, but Emily really enjoyed the experience and is hoping to get into the team again next year.

Friday and Saturday saw Kate and I at our local Scrapbooking Shop Running With Scissors helping out as tea girls and shop assistants, as well as scrapping and cropping, because Tracey's Dad who normally helps out when she is teaching, was away on a cruise for 2 weeks.

We had a house full at the weekend too, Lucy, Emily's best friend at school, came for a sleepover Friday night and my eldest daughter, Ashlea and her partner Dan also came to stay for the weekend. They took Emily and Lucy to Lightwater Valley for the day on the Saturday and they all had a great time.

On the Monday I finally found time to unpack and have a sort out....before work on Tuesday and Wednesday, how on earth I ever used to work full time, I just don't know.

A quietish day on Thursday was followed by two more days combining the joys of scrapping with being a tea girl and shop assistant....it really has been good fun helping out...and more visitors at the weekend.

Monday was catch up day once again, followed by working with my NVQ Candidates on Tuesday and writing up my observations on Wednesday, combined with writing lists of things to buy and equipment to pack for our long awaited Craft Retreat with friends at The Viking Centre Claxby.......more of which in my next post.

I'm exhausted just thinking about the last two weeks....lol..... think I need another holiday

See you all later

Bee xx