3D JEAN ALTERED BAG...

Last week while reading the Scattered Scarlett blog I spotted these gorgeous bags and knew immediately that I would like to make one for myself so I hotfooted it over to 3D Jean to get me a kit and here is my finished bag.... It's gorgeous....I think I would have liked the coloured background to be a little brighter... I experimented on some scrap fabric first and thought I had the balance right but I think with all the handling it has faded a little so next time I will do it a little brighter than I would like...

I won't give away any of the technique secrets but if you want a bag as beautiful as this one get yourself over to 3D Jean and order your kit....

I had this little 'help me' ArtGirlz charm for ages and I thought it would look cute in the birds beak....lol

For my bird I used a scrap piece of denim stamped and it with the fab script stamp that I treated myself to on Friday for my birthday from Simply Create....I love how you can use up your scraps for this project and I will definitely be doing more using these techniques in the future!!!!

I think I will look tres chic in Paris next week with this on my arm....what do you think???

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY...

Today it's my birthday...yayyy...another year older...x

FARM HOLIDAY....

As I was looking through Niamh's birthday photos I was reminded of where we were this time two years ago....Quite by accident while lurking about the web I found a site called Featherdown Farms....so after careful consultation with Allan (I told him that's where we were going!!!) I booked us in for the Monday to Friday of Niamh's birthday week to Manor Farm in Hampshire which had the added bonus of being only about 20 miles from Allan's sister Carol-Ann...This is her on her 3rd birthday!!! Ellie making herself comfortable in her cupboard bed....honestly you have to go to one of these farm experiences to believe it - we had such a lot of fun....

This is snowy....there was lots of animals for the kids to get to know including pigs, chickens and these gorgeous wee lambs...

I think for the kids the most exciting thing was getting up in the morning and going to collect the fresh eggs from the chickens and this is where our love of them (chickens that is!!!) began... I even did a LO using these photos....

This is the accommodation for the week - the most spectacular tent you could hope for - 2 bedrooms, a bed in a cupboard, running (cold) water and a flushing toilet!!!...The wood burning stove was brilliant and we had eggs and bacon cooked on this every morning delicious and the whole place lit with gas lamps....all very Enid Blyton...lol

Definitely an experience the kids have never forgotten and I think a repeat visit will be in order maybe next year...0f to Disneyland Paris in just over a week this year....

OK....PHOTO OVERLOAD.....

Feeling more like posting pics of the party from the weekend now... I think I was just so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of photographs that Pete took (Pete is my brother-in-law and he is often the 'official' photographer at family events - I reckon it's just cos he has a big one - camera that is!!!!) These first ones are my efforts.... Top Hats - dontcha love em?!?
Little sour cream pouches filled with Haribo for party bags....

Iced muffins (alas not homemade but I did ice them myself!!!)

The party bags (bags courtesy of Jacqui, thanks honey!!!)

Bunting in the party room, ie my kitchen!! I had to clear my craft desks of all my stuff so I had enough tables for the kids to sit at - there was 18 including Niamh.....we also had to get the chairs down from the loft and borrow from Jen and Pete...

Niamh on her actual birthday with all the presents I didn't let her open the day of her party....

Cake toppers...

the little darlings doing some craft before the magician arrived....

Do you like my Union Jack tablecloth - I was really disappointed when I opened it out to find the Union Jacks were only along the edge and not all over....but I have put this on my craft table now it's back in my craft room.....

In lieu of the Dormouse we had Ratty from Ratatouille....

The magician warming the kids up by making them dance like frogs!!!!

Enjoying some grub...

The 'homemade' muffins in my lovely cake stand that I got from Costco last Christmas for only 13 pounds (Bargain!!)....

Pass the parcel....

It's down to two.....and Stevie won, poor Eden was very disappointed that she didn't win!!!! The next game went down to Niamh and her cousin Blair (they have a real love/hate relationship) and Blair won.....

My house of cards, idea courtesy of SJ's Little Musings, I do have lots of tissue pom pom flowers which are on the Martha Stewart website but there are no photos of them except maybe in the background of the magician ones.....

Finally I would like to thank all my helpers, Jen and Pete (my lovely Sis and Brother-in law, Susan, Kelly and Mrs Rainnie(Niamh's nursery teacher)....and of course Ellie, Libby, Morgan and Finlay... and last but not least Allan from Allan's Magic (there is 2 of them called Allan!!) for a fantastic show!!!!!

So that's it til the next one...it's my birthday on Friday but there won't be no party for that so Libby is the next in November!!!!

MAD HATTER'S TEA PARTY....

Just a small post from the party at the weekend...have far too many photos (294 to be exact and that's not including the ones I took) to decide which ones to use so I decided (since Allan is away and he wanted to see some) to use just a few of Niamh enjoying herself.... Niamh is wearing the same outfit that she wore on her 2nd birthday (which was a present from her Aunty Audrey), 3rd birthday and refused to wear on her 4th birthday....lol...

The magician's assistant - not happy at having to wear this 'magic' hat....if you had only seen the look on her face....

Only a 'small' birthday muffin as I ran out of time to make a cake so what seems to be becoming the traditional birthday custom in this house I went to Costco and got their giant cupcakes!!!! The rest were all wrapped up for the party bags.....

I can honestly say that I don't know why I went to all the time and effort to make all the themed stuff as its totally wasted on kids....from the sandwiches on beautiful vintage cake stands to the lovely handmade pom poms in the conservatory...never mind I enjoyed doing it and at least Niamh appreciated it....Roll on the next birthday!!!!


If I have time later in the week I will post some more photos....

CLAUDINE AND MORE TEA PARTY STUFF....

At the end of last week I, along with Sonja and Jacqui signed up for the @home with Claudine class across at Big Picture Scrapbooking and these are the first things that we have had to do so far, etching into gesso and gesso transfer which is fab....We also had a wee canvas project to do but for the life of me I can't find the 4 mini ones that were sitting on my desk for ages before I re-organised but whilst looking for them I did find this (drat I forgot to take a picture of it before I painted over it but this is another one with an equally hideous image on it!!!). A couple of years ago I think we all but cleaned Au Naturel out of these especially when they went on sale at 50p each...The square measure around 4"x4"....
and this is how it looks now - I am well chuffed with it but the only thing is the 'teacup' word isn't very deeply etched - I found if you put too much gesso on it just all sooked back together but too little and you weren't getting a deep enough etching!!!....Oh well I'm sure practice will make almost perfect...lol

These next little 'things' are shrink plastic keyrings for the party bags on Saturday... I cut the boys ones out using the cricut which worked a treat and then I stamped the Mad Hatter image and the kids' names on the other side....
And voila...little personalised keyrings!!!!
I did the girls ones first using a Stampotique head as I took the first stamp that came to hand to practice with and it wasn't til I was doing the boys ones that I realised I should have been using an Alice in Wonderland image...DUH!!!! Never mind I am sure they will love them....

SLIGHT TECHNICAL HITCH...

Ok...it appears there has been a slight technical hitch on my blog since I changed the name yesterday!!! I had originally changed the URL as well but when I came back in I noticed my bloglists were empty so I reinstated the original URL and they came back however, I didn't notice if the comments had disappeared too at the time but they have now!!! Oops!!! So sorry anyone who has left me a comment over the last 9 months but feel free to re-comment (or not...lol) if you have the time...thank you and my apologies once again...x

CHANGE OF BLOG NAME.....

Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about changing my blog name...I wasn't actually sure if you could without starting a totally new blog - but I have just worried my way around blogger and hey presto I think it's worked!!!!

The name 'Storm in a Vintage Tea Cup' just popped into my head one day...it was originally just Storm in a Tea Cup, I think I read the saying in a newspaper and then with all the vintage gorgeousness (is that a word???) around just now I thot that just made it a wee bit different...

JUNE CALENDAR PAGES...

Sorry bit of a photo overload since I haven't posted for ages!!! These are my calendar pages for June...I only did them at the beginning of the week as the ones I did for this month I wasn't sure about so I thought I would keep them for July!!!
I am trying to keep with the theme of trying a new background technique every month so this month it's masking....I stamped and embossed in red, green and yellow lots of different flowers and then I put the Tim Holtz flourish mask on the page and inked it all up...I must say I think I am definitely improving in the inking stakes....(sorry think the photos are a wee bit dark as I have used the time machine feature from Paint Shop on them)... For the days of the month I used the same technique on a sheet of card and then put it through the Cricut and cut tiny tags so each one had a little piece of masking and then I edged with distress ink!!!

The stamp is a Tim Holtz one and I picked out the 'big' words in red...this was a bit of trial and error so thank goodness I practiced first....

The butterflies and flowers are Stampin Up chipboard pieces which I inked and embossed in various colours - I particularly liked the green verdigris ones..they turned out beautifully!!!