Dies from Di! And tidying up at last....

My cry for die cut shapes has been generously met by Di, of Pixie's Crafty Workshop fame!
LOOK what arrived yesterday!!!
Oh wow!

(I am a little worried she may have hurt her wrist, die-cutting all these. I do hope not!!)

She also made me this lovely card, although Bob has now claimed it because it is all done in green, gold and white, the colours on his Irish nose. What with the friendly Bear and balloon, he says it clearly was made with him in mind:

THANKs SO MUCH, DI!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have popped something in the post to you! -Just a few odds and sods I found, whilst tidying up the craft room.

WHAT the?
Did she say TIDYING UP THE CRAFT ROOM???
No, I don't think Hell has frozen over. But we did see a meteor shoot by the other day :)

Well! Look what Luvbug bought me!

We went into The Range to look at lighting, and came out with this. HORRAY! It's wonderful. And it came all-in-one, too, no putting together and turning the air blue. It was £99 though, and that was half price.

I labelled each draw to help me be organised.

I used plain white tags, rubbed over with cut-and-foam dunked on ink pads. Then I added flowers made by stamping flower shapes onto newspaper print and tinting with promarkers and blenders to make fainter, and attached with assorted brads.

Now the rest of the room is coming along, too.....

This case houses some books and underneath, my stamps, acrylic in one box and wooden in the other...

desk isn't looking too bad....

Oh no! You had to pan right, didn't you! Here's the mess still to sort! LOL!

This little room runs alongside the kitchen. It's very narrow; if I stand in the middle and stretch my arms out, I can almost touch each wall with my fingertips. We wonder if the builder's intention was to make this a utility room. The people who lived here before us used it mostly for storage of the wine their company imported/exported. It hasn't been successful as a craft space before because it got so cold. But we have heating now, since November 2009!- and now I finally have some time to sort it out. It will be nice to nip in here for an hour in the morning or while the evening meal is cooking. I'll have to set the alarm though. I burnt the potatoes by absconding in here the other day.

The walls are plain and I want to display things on them, especially the art that other people send me. I thought of sticking cork tiles on the wall, although this would be quite ugly. Then I spotted these dense foam boards at Hobbycraft:

They are £3.99 each and are A1 size. But at the moment you can have 10 for £25. I think this offer is only for another week or so, if you're after some. So anyway, I've ordered them!!!! I shall too many for the wall, but they say they are easily cut for craftwork, so I'm looking forward to experimenting. 

:)

The muse may be sneaking back....

 I bought two extra craft mags this month (gulps; feels slightly guilty).
The first is 'Simply Homemade', which is only in its 4th issue. I'm afraid I bought it solely for the free stamps!!!!
I uhmed and erred about it, put it back, then went back to WH Smith a few days later and bought it anyway... because as well as a tree and a bird, one of the stamps is a large ladybird, and I know someone who LOVES ladybirds...... so I made these for her-

 instead of attaching the toppers to blank cards, I folded some cotton paper in 4 to make a 'notelet' and attached them to these;

(Some of these photo's are a tad blurred- sorry about that, the light was poor, that's my excuse- )

 the stamp included the antennae but I used chain stitch in double cotton thread instead :)

I packed them up with envelopes and a homemade label:

 and a notecard:

and off they went to the Netherlands. Ssshhh! I think it's ok to say. She doesn't really pop in to this blog, she's usually around Bob's place ;)

OK next!!!!

This is a new magazine, called Mollie Makes.

You can look inside the first issue here.

I signed up for the first three issues for £5. The advert for this offer was in my papercraft magazine-

....so in the absence of a detailed contents list, I assumed it would have lots of papercraft in it. Not so! It is very inspiring, though, with interviews with crafters and lots of photo's etc., but mostly for sewing, knitting and crochet, home design, that sort of thing. So I've cancelled any further issues after my initial 3. I would recommend you have a look at it though, if you spot it. It really is something different, and very lovely. But for me it would be a sort of coffee table book- inspirational but not entirely useful!

Anyway, enough waffle.
This mag comes with a kit each issue. This first one comes with a kit to make a mobile phone holder:

 Here is the holder I made with the kit, and my phone.

Incidentally, it isn't as flash as it looks, my phone. Although I do enjoy it. It's newish, see, I've only had it a month or so. It comes with a built in pointy stick for you to type with on that touch screen. Cute ;) No, it's not an I phone! It was £34.99 at Tesco (no affiliation blah blah blah though my Bear loves Tesco cos he gets to ride in the trolley, which you can't do in Waitrose, as they give you funny looks in there if you let your Bear ride in the trolley.)

 

 The other side.

Now, that brown felt was my own. All the other felt came in the kit. The felt they supplied was VERY thin and stiff, more like a kind of handmade paper. I took the grey felt that they supplied for the main part of the case and used for a lining:

Next month's issue comes with a kit to make a felt flower. Hmmm. I wonder if the felt will be of any better quality. Never mind, you still get the pattern!

I really enjoyed making this as it was something I needed. It works well and my phone doesn't slip out of it at all so the screen is protected at last from all the junk in my bag.

Hope you enjoyed browsing!

NEXT I need to clear out the 'craft room'
For 'craft room', read-

'Small room between the kitchen and the back door, near the piles of recyclable plastic and paper that are awaiting the right collection day. Listed as bedroom 4 by the estate agent but used as an office by previous owner. Now contains 2 large shelf units, 1 small bookcase, 2 computer desks, 3 shelves filled to bursting. And boxes. Boxes in stacks. '

I thought if I spend just 15 minutes a day trying to clear it out, that's nearly 2 hours after a week. It HAS to look different after then, doesn't it? Bought this in The Range today. It's a 'Really Useful' tray. It wasn't too pricey (just under a fiver). I thought I'd have it on a desk, with pens in one bit, then scissors in another, then paper scaps, then stapler, etc etc. Then when I want more room I can just lift it all off in one go. We'll see!