It's a Creative World

Out of control sock yarn

Kel here, much farther down the slippery slope of sock knitting.

In week 2 of my knitting class at The Make Lounge in Islington we learned to turn the heel. 

  

Then in the 3rd week we shaped the toe.

And that is when the trouble started. Somewhere along the way I ordered some Noro Kureyon sock yarn. I have a thing for Noro anyway, so sock yarn was inevitable. I bought some 2.5mm needles to go with it. Then we were buying new bedding in a department store so I popped up to haberdashery (of course!). They had no sock wool, but I bought some stitch holders. I also bought some lovely 4-ply wool blend in a soft blue and 3mm needles to go with it - I was feeling a little intimidated by the uneven texture of the Noro and the super-slim needles.

 If you want to see someone who knows her knitting - check out The Needle and the Damage Done. The photo above is all hers, but I think it's the same wool as I have, or similar at least. 

 

Of course, I didn't stop there, either. At the Quilt UK Show in Malvern on the weekend, I bought a ball of the much praised Regia sock yarn. It's self-patterning, so it should knit up something like this.

Oh dear.

I'm happy to say that I've finished my first pair in red Rowan double-knitting. They may be far from perfect, but cute and mine and undeniably socks! I have started the ribbing on my blue 4 ply pair. The 3mm needles didn't take too much getting used to, and I'm planning to do these ribbed right down to the ankle and try a different patterned heel. Then onto the fancy wool. 

I can't wait! See you soon.

Kel x

Lots of pictures

Hi Joy here,

on my recent trip to New York I took 600+ photographs and even with careful editing I got that down to 300ish! Until recently I have been scrapbooking single photographs on layouts.  That is an awful lot of layouts! I have however been experimenting with multipicture layouts.  At a Scrapbooking Retreat I did a class by Karen Russell - an amazing person and fantastic teacher.  She showed us ways to maximise the amount of pictures that you can get on each page using flaps.  These flaps extend outside of the page protector so that they can be turned.

Here is my take on a flap page with lots of pictures from Camden Market

The front of the flap has lots of small pictures on it.

The flap then opens to reveal even more.  I think I managed to get 25 pictures on this layout!

I have also had a play with pull outs.

Just two pictures on the front........

......pull the ribbon to reveal....

A flip album with more photos....

and a few more photos.

Have a play yourself.  Think about resizing pictures. It is easy to get stuck in a rut of 6x4 or 5x7. Try mini prints or create a collage.  Then be inventive with flaps and pull outs.

I am scrapbooking on Saturday with friends. I am going to get busy with my New York pile.

Joy xxxxxx      

Earring Holder

Hi I wanted to make some small presents as a thank you for some friends.

I came up with these earring holders.

 

Take a picture frame (I used the 3 pack you can buy from IKEA

Cover the front of the frame with a patterned paper and trim to fit.

Paint the edges with acrylic paint, don't worry if some goes onto the paper, it will cover up any uneven bits.

Decorate to suit yours or your recipients taste.

The bird and branch are Maya Road bare chipboard.  The branch has been inked and embossed using dusty concord distress embossing powder.  The bird was stamped using a feather effect stamp.

The mesh is from a car accessories shop, is aluminium and comes in sheets slightly smaller than A4.  (It's for car body repairs, is much cheaper than the craft mesh and can be coloured with alcohol inks as well.)

Use the glass from the frame as a template to cut it to size, it's held in place by the frame catches.

Here are two more I've made.

Thanks for looking

Lynne x

Faux Hipstamatic

Hi all, Michelle here with my first post as an official Creative girl!!

I have loved being a guest for the 2010 simple things project and was thrilled and honoured whn I was invited to play along more with such a talented bunch of creative girls!

And so to the project I would like to share with you today .... something a little retro that should come with a warning to wear sunglasses for those of a nervous disposition LOL

 
Fashion victim?

Now I didn't make that long word in the title of this post up ... honest! A friend recently shared some photos that she had taken with her Hipstamatic app on her i phone. An app that takes classy versions of those 70/80's dodgy photos that we have all worked so hard to repair in our ever so advanced photo programmes. Well I got quite nostalgic and quite jealous as not only do I not have this app but don't have an i phone to put it on LOL then I got to thinking .... surely there was a way to manipulate our digital scans to look like dodgy photos from back in the day so I had a play.

 

This is a scan of moi as a wee girl sporting my favourite outfit of 1973 and looking through my files I realised what a good job the ever so sophisticated scanners do of repairing those dodgy photos. So I set about undoing all the good work of the technology in another photo programme. I used Picassa which is a FREE photo programme from Google. If you haven't heard of it or tried it please download it and have a play I LOVE it! I added Saturation from the effects library, then a film grain, a bit of glow, a yellow tint and a little soft glow for good measure and voila

Dodgy photo restored LOL

Once I printed it off I got down to the human side of undoing technology to give it a touchy feely quality. I sanded it with my trusty nail file (I have all the latest gadgets me :)) adding scratches to the surface and destroying the perfect edges of the picture.

I then distressed the edges with the blades of my scissors held at a 90 degree angle to the side of the photo to give it a tattered feel

And finally I creased the corners and followed this with a light inking with my distress inks.

The result, a photo returned to it's former dodgy gloriousness! Not quite the effect the i phone app gives but it was free and fun to play :)

 

I then added lots of retro colours with some Cosmo Cricket papers cut into wavy lines and squares with lots of distressing to lift the pieces and a bit of texture stamping in white with a Glitz designs texture stamp. I love the clashing colours of the tartan ribbon too, pleated and stapled into place.

I enjoyed this little photo 'regression' project, why not dig out some old photos and see if you can restore them to their former dodgy gloriousness!!

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to come back often to be inspired by the creative girls.See you at the weekend for the Simple Things project. Until then Happy Crafting

Love

M x

Do you ever wish?

Hiya Claire here

So do you ever wish? I do usually as I'm drooling over stash in an online scrapbook store... Oooh I wish I had one of those... or in the case of Glimmer Mists.... Ooooh I wish I had all of those. So I vow to save for it, whilst still checking out various other items too, which I'm also saving for. The problem occurs when I have the saved up pennies & can't remember what I wanted, so I have a nose about & buy something else to then remember what I wanted & having no pennies so I came up with a plan... involving one of these...

 

this empty crateboard tin has been sat in my box of things to alter for ages, so its about time I used it.

I took the large C off the rope & sanded it down...

 
& sprayed it with Vintage Pink Glimmer Mist.

I covered the tin in some Bo Bunny paper...

And added some beaded edging ribbon from Dunelm Mill around the top...

Then I stamped my desired words onto some Blue Bo Bunny paper & attached it to the front of the tin.. 

 I stamped this little lady from Stampotique onto some canvas fabric...

then attached her to the tin...

finally I reattached the C..

And here it is my very own scrapbooking tools & stash wish jar...

The idea is that when I see something I want, I write it down on a piece of paper (with price & shop details) put it in the jar, then when I get the chance, I can pick one out & I can treat myself, not only that, come Christmas I'll be handing this around to the family, just so I don't get 14 bottles of bubble bath & some socks again (yep, that happened one year).

Thanks for stopping by & see you later on this month

Claire

xx

  

Lets get DIGITAL!!

Okay, let me say that I am a total 'I just don't get digital' gal. I don't understand the appeal, or the concept. I like touchy feely pages and actual stash. But when I look at pages created by the lovely Kate Hadfield I am in AWE! Totally blown away amazed at how cool it looks.

But, and this is where I fail, it's all created on the pc! I have NO IDEA where to begin. But........

Sometime in February our own lovely Maria asked on the creative world forum (just a little place we keep our bits), if anyone knew of any cool house digi doodles. Of course the equally lovely Jakey said of course you need to visit LilyPad, as Kate has some gorgeous ones.

So with Maria happily scouring the site for House Doodles (see how she used them further down the post!), I asked for a very basic description of what to do with this little 'kit' once you've bought it.

Hi, it's Maria and I am a complete *digi doofus* but I managed to make these simple cards using Kate's doodles.

I downloaded a free trial of PSE7 and I have to say that I found it much easier to transfer the digi bits to the page.

Firstly, a card to let our friends and family know our new address. 

 

And, a card from Charlotte to thank people for her birthday presents.  I've printed the message here but she will write her own thank you on her cards.  Here I've used the Make a wish doodles.

 

They are both very simple designs but this is the first time I've attempted doing it digi and not ended up throwing the computer out of the window.

Byeee.

Using your scraps of ribbon.

When I went away with friends we went to a local craft shop. At Bee Crafty I saw circles cut out with ribbons and decided to make my own version.

I used a fiskars circle cutter to cut out a large circle and started laying pieces of ribbon around the circle. I used scallop edge scissors to cut strips of paper in corresponding colours.

 

Each strip was stuck on the inside and stapled on the outside edge.

The strip without the staple is cut from paper.

I made the background on the card stock using a circle template. The title is cut from canvas, and I used the negative canvas image to  ink smile and laugh as a very subtle border along the page.

Debbie x

May in the garden!

What's going on in the garden in May...

Well I seem to be over run by weeds!

 

And some places are a little jungle like...

 

The window sill nursery is in dire need of some attention and planting on,

 

  

 But the buds are showing,

 

  

the beans and peas are reaching for the sky,

 

 

there are flowers on the strawberries,

   

and the birds are nesting in our little house! 

 

All is well when the garden comes to life :)

Hopefully by June's garden time post I will have everything planted out in the veggie patch!

Thanks for stopping by :)
Caz
xx 

MARK MY WORDS

A book or book token is an easy, welcome gift for a book-lover, and to make it a bit more special you can stitch up a quick bookmark to enclose with it.

I used some fabric from a Moda jelly roll, which is 2.5 inch strips from a whole range of a designer fabric, ideal for collage, bookmarks, crazy patchwork, applique, and quilts of course.

I cut strips about 9 inches long:

Pieces of stiff iron-on interfacing 2 inches x 8 inches (but a piece of cardboard would do, with some bondaweb, or a length of the iron-on cheat's hemming tape):

Ironed on and trimmed:

Placed onto another strip of fabric, wrong sides together (make one at a time, or four at a time):

 

Stitch all the way around, straight stitch or fancy:

 

Trim excess fabric, neaten thread ends, and you've finished.

Now are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Cheerio.

Eeek, those colours don't go!

Ever had a photo like that? The sort that makes you think "Why didn't I-he-she think how that was going to look against that background-with those clothes-beside that piece of furniture ...?" Unworthy as it was of me, that's exactly what I thought when DS sent me this picture of our DGS (and this is with half the distractions already cropped out!):

I have no idea what made the white shiny flash across my DGS's lower legs, and the colours neither contrasted nor blended well, but his expression had a certain something which really grabbed me. My first thought was: try black and white - that'll sort out the colour problem. It did, but it looked, frankly, drab.

However, it drew attention to his lovely eyes, which are a rich brown in reality. Then I remembered that some time ago, I had purchased some 'actions' - ever tried these? Nifty mini-programs that, with a click, allow you to alter a photo. After swizzling through a few and discarding them, one called Antique Colour produced this:

Ah, now we were getting somewhere! The browns and soft coppers had depth and pleasing shades, and my DGS's eyes looked very much as they do in reality. A quick crop, and I ended up with this:

Being a simple scrapper - minimal is closer to the mark! - I wanted a clean and uncluttered layout which would really draw attention to the photo. Journalling is usually very important to me, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to say. I ran through various perspectives in my head:

• something about his characteristics at this age?
• a story about which features he has from his Mum and which from his Dad?
• my memories of his Dad at a similar age?
• musings on how he has changed in the few months since I last saw him?
• sharing how hard I find it being such a long way away?

None of them seemed to quite fit. Then I thought: these are all from my perspective. What might it be like to turn it round and imaginatively look out at the world through HIS eyes? What might he be seeing, feeling, or - were he able to verbalise - thinking? Something crystallized, and there it was: just a very short sentence. Next, the design ... Contrast is a tool I often find helpful. Big photo + small piece of journalling. Large bold photo + plenty of white space. Busy patterns + uncluttered background. Pick out details of the photo to replicate in the rest of the layout: a colour, stitching, a buckle, a texture ... And here's how it turned out.

 

 

Since my printer is on the blink (arrgh!), this is a digital version, but it will be easy to do with card, a tag, and a stapler once my printer is fixed. I know there may be too much white space for some of you! but I'm hoping there will have been something useful for you in your own scrapping here today. Oh, and pop back to see us all tomorrow ...

Enjoy being creative, somewhere, somehow, today! Warm good wishes, Alexa.