NOVEMBER 365 (and on time too!!)...

This must be some kind of record on my part...lol...finished this month on time... I think there is about 5 layers of paint on here in my quest for the perfect colour of icy blue...wasn't happy with it but in the end but after scraping on some white paint with an old credit card it looked better...I then had the idea that I wanted to do sequin waste squares for my days but after cutting out a stencil from the Cricut and overlapping it with the sequin waste and daubing all over with my splodging tool and some distress ink this didn't pan out the way I had hoped so instead I cut out squares from a huge sheet of white tissue using my paper cutter (very slow and tedious) and glued them on instead and then I 'stitched' round them with a black pen...you can just still see the inked dots thru the tissue paper...

I added lost of swirls round the edge with Versamark at the top of both pages and embossed them with Kaleidoscope embossing powder but this didn't show up too well with the Versamark..

I used a Tim Holtz stamp on the inside edges and embossed in white and I also stamped and embossed various snowflakes in the same way...

November is stamped using black Stazon and the same kaleidoscope embossing powder and this shows up much more sparkly than with the versamark...I think I may need to get a re-inker for my stazon tho as the powder didn't sick very well to some parts...I borrowed these stamps from Sonja who got them when she visited NYC recently (lucky moo!!!) and I just love them..have been on ebay hoping to get myself some but to no avail...will have to keep looking...

This is a better view of the versamark/kaleidoscope stamping and embossing....as you can see from my squares the children have been very busy this month and I have been very busy running them around...lol...that's November finished then..have started prepping December pages and the question is will I finish them in time for tomorrow...Can't believe there is only one month left of this wonderful year long challenge by Kate over at The Kathryn Wheel...wonder who will carry it on into next year???

SNOW DAYS....

Well it had to come sometime right???...couldn't it have held of another couple of weeks???...just wondering how long it will last???... This is the view from Niamh's bedroom window at 9.42am and there has been a lot more snow since then...

This is our cars in the drive...at the beginning of the year when we had snow for almost 5 weeks one of them didn't even move out of the drive and we were about 3 weeks late in getting it MOTd...
These are the peaks on the conservatory roof at 10.20am...

and these are them at 11.36am...so quite a bit of snow has fallen this morning...

Allan should be on his way back with the kids from school now (they will be delighted - they can go outside and have snow fights til they are so cold they will be coming in begging for hot chocolate!!) as it closed at 12.30pm today...at the moment in Aberdeenshire we have 107 school closures and dancing this afternoon is cancelled as is Morgan's football match tomorrow...The Fyvie School Christmas Fair is also cancelled but she has said that she is going to re-organise it as a Spring Fair so watch this space for further details...so wherever you are in the country I hope you are keeping warm and snug indoors..take care...xxx

WOYWW.....

It's Wednesday again...yayyy...but I do not have anything crafty to show this week...think I am still burnt out from last week's last minute craft fair frenzy....all that is on my desk this week is a few buckshee practice tags, a clear stamp on an block that I have not put away and a pile of notes from school, Brownies and Rainbows that need my attention....Oh there is also another paper wreath like last weeks but using my leftovers from last month's Simply Create DT stash....

Not very impressive I know but what's a girl to do....lol...if you are wondering what the heck I am blethering on about have a jump over to Julia's blog Stamping Ground to find out and have a nosy at desks from around the world....

I have got a couple of sheets of Unity KOTMs to file away in my system of laminated sheets but it is quite time consuming and also quite tricky trying to fit the whole sheet onto an A4 piece of cardstock....So that's it from my desk this Wednesday...hopefully it will be more exciting next week...see ya...xxx

CRAFT FAIRS...

Saturday was the Kintore Primary School Christmas Fair....Susan came along and helped me on the day...On the whole it wasn't too bad and although sales did get of to a slow start they did pick up and I was quite pleased with how much I sold on the day...

I was quite surprised at what sold and what didn't...I sold all of these tag garlands which although simple and effective take quite a lot of time to make...

I sold most of the plaques and hearts that I had but only a few tag sets and none of the mini cards... I did meet the lovely Emma and her Wee Tooties and she gave me some tips on selling on Facebook and have now added a StorminavintageTcup page to my personal page and I will be adding events and updates regularly (I hope!)...

So it will be onto the next one on Saturday which is at Fyvie Primary School from 1-4pm...why not pop along and say hello!!!Tomorrow night if you have nothing planned why not come over to Simply Create in Alford and have a go at making this stunning wreath which I am teaching...very simple and not at all complicated...If you would like give it a whirl please call Jacqui or Anne at Simply Create on 01975564010 to book your place...xx

ANOTHER POST - LIBBY'S BIRTHDAY (JUST FOR MANDY!!)...

Last Thursday (11th November) it was Libby's birthday...now Libby being Libby couldn't decide what she wanted til the last minute so she still hasn't got her main present of a bike which is sitting at Tesco waiting to be collected and I can't go for it as I have to wait in today (between the hours of 8am and 6pm, don't these delivery people know we have lives to lead!!!) for some new furniture for her bedroom to be delivered.... Here she is first thing in the morning...
her new watch...

a little birthday treat for breakfast...

her birthday cake (excuse the mess of the tablecloth, they had tacos for dinner!)...

blowing out the candles...

On Saturday I took some of her friends to Simply Create in Alford for a crafting birthday party, would thoroughly recommend this as they had great fun and all came home with the book they had produced...

Here is Jacqui in action showing them how to peel the back of double-sided sticky tape...

Another birthday cake...

and last but not least the gorgeous (huge) scrapbooking kit she got from her friends Dasha and Alina...she got lots of lovely stuff from all her friends but I think this was her favourite...and no doubt I will the queen of double-sided sticky tape soon...lol...xxx

WOYWW.....

What's this all about I hear you ask...pop over here to the Stamping Ground and find out....

I have been following other bloggers that I know doing this for a while now so thought I would join in this week....I have been working on this wreath since last night following a tutorial from The Little Blue House...I made it bigger than they suggested making each of my squares (cones) 10cm and I am not sure if you notice the compass on the bottom right...my Cricut is playing up and not cutting true shapes so went back to the old fashioned method for this...although the snowflake seemed to be okay shape wise so maybe it's sorted itself...

I also have a couple of pages laid aside for November's 365 Calendar Challenge which I hope to get started this week...and a music tuition form that I need to fill in for Libby now she has taken up the violin at school....

Swing round to my other desk and there is my Cricut, my box of glitters and some tags in the corner waiting to be buttoned and ribboned for my Etsy Shop...there is also a home magazine open at a page with some gorgeous wallpaper that I am coveting for the living room...that's me for today...thanks for looking....xx

OCTOBER CALENDAR PAGES (AT LAST!!!)...

Well here we are more than half way through November and I am just finishing my October 365 Calendar pages...check out the challenge over here on Kate's blog.....can't believe there are only 2 months left...wonder how many from the original list are still keeping up and will finish at the end of the year!!! I started out with them at the 'beginning' of October (honest!) but I just couldn't get into the groove with them....I have re-painted and re-inked these so many times that I just ended up going for what was on the page yesterday after Sonja beat me to posting hers!!! I tried to use stencils and masks but nothing seemed to work...I splatted and sprayed with Dyan's new Dylusions Inks....

I cut and distressed the little squares and then skooshed with some ink (orange hands to contrast with the green that was still there from Sunday's outing to Simply Create, but that's another story!) and then used all the Halloween stamps I had and stamped each one with an image in Spiced Marmalade distress ink....

This is what it looks like before writing and the images show up really well....

The images are from Lisa's Altered Art which were downloaded last year, some of which I added crackle accents to (I am really liking this at the moment)...

The little witch is also from Lisa's Altered Images but I thought she looked a little lost sitting in mid air and then I remembered Judy had used Tim Holtz's wall stamp on one of her her cards the other week which works a treat-it's amazing what you have that you forget about til someone else uses it!!!....the bird frame is a Unity and I did the date with the Dymo label maker....Not my favourite one but still quite please with how it turned out...

Now I wonder if I have time to start November's pages or should I just get going with some more stuff for the craft fair at the weekend....Kintore Primary School, Kintore - 10-12.30pm...come along if you live in the area...it promises to be a busy event!!!!

NEW STOCK

I have come to the conclusion that if I tidy up my desks every time I finish a project and don't have 2 or 3 different projects on my desk at the same time I am far more productive.... I did these tags yesterday for the craft fairs coming up...I should really put them in the Etsy store but have become a little discouraged as nothing is selling!!! Not sure what the answer is...

And today I made these mini cards using ancient Hero Arts Graphic Lines Trees and my new Inktense watercolour pencils which I love...they are so nice to use...Am also loving my Dreamkutz and my Stamp-a-ma-jig!!! Only problem I had was once I had finished the cards didn't fit in the envelopes...I assumed the little kraft ones were for the half A4/halved again size cards but no, I had to then go back and trim each one to fit the envelope so all that time I save using the Dreamkutz to cut the card was wasted...lol...

I tied each little bundle with some gold ribbon (which I seem to have a 50metre roll of for some reason!) rather than put them in cello bags as I thought it was prettier!

That's it for me today - am now of to help set up the book fair at school ready for the kids tomorrow...then it's dancing and shopping and more dancing and tea....enjoy the rest of your day whatever you are up to!!!