Hello Wednesday bloggers.

Best buy this week…a trolley from Hobbycraft, ideal for taking to crops etc. It is very lightweight, making it easy to carry upstairs. Our art group meets upstairs in a community centre with no lift. The best thing about it is that it folds up, so it can be hidden away the rest of the month. I have used trolley/rolling tool boxes before, and they are great, hold tons of stuff...but they are rigid and take up so much space in my craft room. The past few months I have ended up taking 2-3 bags, not ideal, I end up taking far too much…cos let’s face it, we neeeeed to take everything but the kitchen sink. Now with this folding crate I am going to force myself to only take what will fit inside….with maybe a small bag on the side hahahaha




Oh and it was half price.

Best download this week…..a tape measure height chart, how cool is this. No kiddywinks in this house but when I saw it was a tape measure I couldn’t resist. I printed it out on 7 sheets of paper, taped them together and pinned it up on the wall. I also rubbed a little clear wax over it so it looks a little less like paper. Love it…makes me smile. Visit this blog to get yours.



Sunday was my friend Hannahs birthday. She has many loves, Barbie, Scottie dogs, Hello Kitty, Flamingos and generally all things pink. I tried for a couple of weeks to get some Barbie fabric to make a bag, even had my lovely friend Pam over in the U.S looking for me. In the end I gave up and ordered some vintage Flamingo fabric. It arrived on Saturday morning, just in time for me to make a bag before the celebrations on Sunday.




It was only 1 fat quarter, so I needed to rummage in my fabric boxes for some coordinating fabrics. These are just 4 of errrrmmm, lets just say ' many ' fabric boxes, all colour sorted lol


These are the ones I thought might do….





And these are the ones I chose…




Here is the finished bag; I had a tiny bit of flamingo fabric left, so I made a small wallet/purse to match. I am very pleased with the two of them, even though working with so much pink fabric made me a little queasy…I really don’t do pink.

Next I made a card. I drew a couple of flamingos, outlined them in black and then coloured them firstly with promarkers and then I went over them with prisma pencils. I cut them out and stuck them over a piece of BG paper on a square card. Finished off with a bit of ribbon.

Lastly I needed a gift tag. I get asked about colouring in the lines, well I don’t even try! I just go ahead and colour. Then I cut it out and voila all mistakes are gone. Seriously I don’t have the patience to worry about going over the lines. I never, ever draw direct onto the finished project; I always draw and cut out.

So here is my drawn flamingo, shaded with promarkers.

Next I go over it with prisma pencils and cut it out.

and glue down onto the final surface, in this case a sizzix cut file folder on a small tag.


This is the finished tag.

There is nothing on my desk today, but this is my desk the other night...and me. OH snuck up and took this of me while I was making Hannah’s bag.

The eagle eyed among you might have spotted one of my tattoos peeking out,I had it done about 4 years ago, it says 'Ephemera' and is done in 'Ransom' font....how's that for dedication to crafting hahahaha

Have a great day, thanks for stopping by.

Call back on Friday for a really pretty,decorated £1 calico bag.

This past week has been quite busy, baking, cleaning and bag making… I thought I would show you my nice tidy craft room, won’t stay like this for long lol

Wall 1. Here are 6 large drawers filled with stuff, on top you can see printer, big shot, TV, virgin TV box and dish drainer….rescued from the kitchen and now filled with jars of ribbons and buttons. The box on the left contains card blanks and the tin on the right is Banana Frog stamps. Up above are two shelves, one storage and the top one is display. Some of the bits on the top shelf were made by my friend Effie, and she was throwing them out!! lol so I rescued them and gave them a home.



On the left of the drawers are some Perspex shelves on the wall, they hold my sizzix dies, on the floor is my sewing machine and my recycle box.



On the right of the drawers is another wall mounted board with hooks in it for templates and cricut cutting mats.



Wall 2. Here is my table, and another display shelf. On either side of the table is a single wardrobe.

The left wardrobe contains paper and cardstock; it also has 2 green Ikea boxes on the top.

The right wardrobe is full of boxes of fabric, stuffing, Vilene, threads, bubble wrap, wrapping paper and punches. It also has 2 green Ikea boxes up top.

Under the table are 2 sets of drawers, they roll out on wheels they are all full of wood mounted stamps.

This week I have sorted most of my unmounted stamps out, they used to be in 3 huge boxes, now most of them are in cd cases, I just need a couple of Ikea cd racks to keep them in.

Wall 3. Here is the single bed for my son when he is home, it’s also where I sit while I type this and watch TV. Under the bed are 2 enormous Ikea under bed boxes, they are both full of wool, knitting accessories, yarns and seed beads.

Above the curtain rail is a nylon cord on which I have hung tags that I have received in swaps.

To the left of the window are some more Perspex shelves with sizzix alphas on them, guarded by a menagerie of small toy animals lol

Wall 4. Here is the bookcase, it has 12 cubed sections, the bottom 4 are hidden by the bed, but I can assure you they are just as full as the ones you can see. There are approx 280 art/craft related books in there. Next to this is my cd rack, with real music cds not stamps lol

Finally what used to be the airing cupboard and water tank cupboard, we now have a small boiler in the attic so the tanks were taken out and I quickly filled up the cupboard lol. The top section is full of bedding; the main section is full of Ikea boxes. One of the boxes is still full of unmounted stamps, the rest have magazine clippings for journaling, and stickers,rub ons,chipboard etc.

In front of the cupboard is a rolling set of drawers, on top sits my cricut and ipod dock. ..and so back to the beginning, you can see there is no door….We took the bedroom doors off when we started to renovate, about 4 years ago and it would see they are going to be the last things to go back on. The black flowers you can see are giant stickers from Ikea on my bedroom wall.

So, all nice and tidy, took me 2 whole days to get it looking like this hahahaha but I did have time to spend a day at my friend’s house making bags. We both made this super cute bow bag…for a change I am actually keeping this one.

Yesterday I made this bag, for my niece for her birthday. If I can find a zipper I will make a little coin purse to match it.

So what is actually on my desk??? Well it’s a dragon, not a really real dragon, that would be silly, and no doubt expensive to feed… this is a wooden dragon model, belonging to my son. It has kicked around for years, gradually having more and more appendages broken off. I had the foresight to save most of them, so now he is glued back together. I am painting him white then I will decorate him with patterned paper.

Have a great day, thanks for looking.