ATCs WITH ATTITUDE #41 - NEUTRAL COLOURS

We had some gorgeous entries for our last challenge so choosing the top 3 and the winner was not easy. However, it happened so a great big congratulations to you. Don't forget to take your banners and digis for the winner.
Our theme this fortnight is - Neutral Colours
sponsored by EUREKA

who are offering an amazing 5 digis to the winner.
You will find all the details for this challenge HERE.
I chose the image titled - Best Friends for my ATC but before I started to work with it, I Googled neutral colours and was surprised by the hundreds of gorgeous colours to pick from. Try it, you will be amazed.

The base for my ATC is a piece of vertical blind material. It is not only neutral in colour but provides a subtle texture too. I re-sized and printed the image on to thin card, coloured it with Copics, carefully cut it out and used 3D foam to mount it on the base. Not sure what the little girls are looking at but they are the best of friends for sure.
Please join us for this challenge. We love to see your ATC creations.

I had a very pleasant surprise yesterday which I was honoured and humbled to accept - after a bit of deliberation. Abbie, the owner of this challenge blog asked me to become joint owner with her. Thank you again Abbie. So I can now request that you join Abbie's and MY design team for this fortnight's challenge.
Ooh! that may take a little getting used to. LOL.

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY - ITS WOYWW #208

MANY CONGRATULATIONS to you Julia on this special day. 4 years of running this phenomenon is a massive achievement giving us nosey crafters much fun every Wednesday. So THANK YOU also.

My little space has shown everything I have going on and nothing, which has been the case for a few weeks now. However, this is the state of it this morning:

The eagle-eyed may just spy a WIP but it's concealed by a mass of stuff from out of one of the kitchen base units:

This little (!) lot came out of a 2nd unit. I've moved it to the floor besides me so I could use my computer.
Why the mess. Not my fault at all, it's the washers fault - it broke a week last Monday. You may recall that it is housed in my little room - but no more........ The new one arrived yesterday after much 'discussion' with the store and having measured it there and being assured by the salesman (he told porky pies) that is was the same size as the old one, the delivery men - it took 3 of them!!! - couldn't get it through my work room door way.

So it sat by the front door while hubby and I demolished the kitchen in order to house it there.
At least at some point today I will retrieve the space in my room and be able to wash the bag of manky clothes that have accumulated since it started to rain on Monday.

I can only get one of the base units under my desk, the 15 drawer card/paper cabinet has to go back so I am hoping that all that stuff both on my space and the floor fits into the gap. Pop back next week to see how I get on. In the meantime, have a wonderful birthday WOYWW and week.

MOD CONS

How do we manage without them - mod cons that is.
Last Monday my washer decided it didn't mind washing clothes but it sure as heck wasn't going to spin them any more. As it was getting old - apparently!!!! - for an electrical item ie about 8 yrs old - it was on it's last legs. Throwing about £100 it's way was a waste of money so off hubby and I trundled to find a new one.
It should have been delivered on Saturday straight from the manufacturers place but by yesterday there was no sign of it. As I had a 'poorly' day, hubby went off to find out what had happened.
"It will be delivered on the 31st" said the store.
"Oh no it won't" said hubby
"Yes it will" the store retorted
"Then cancel the order and give me my money back because it should have been delivered last Saturday not next Friday" hubby replied.
"Well let me see what I can do - will tomorrow be ok?" said the now put in their place store.
So there we have it, a great big hole where the old one was waiting for the new one to arrive this afternoon.

Just need a blanking 'something' for the hot water connection as washers today only need a cold supply. Washing by hand is ok when the sun is shining but the heavens opened yesterday and I understand we may have rain at some point all week.
At least I don't have a pile of ironing. Small mercies I suppose!

23 TODAY

Another year has gone by again since this poignant day. It would have been Toby's birthday and he would have been 23yrs old today.
I am now making pages in his oriental scrapbook as the blue awning K & Co book is bulging. The papers for this book are just as ornate and don't really need much embellishing, besides which, that means thinner pages and less bulk.

Three photos taken over the years showing Toby really knew how to stretch out and be comfortable!!!!

Taken in the Arapaho motorhome about 14yrs ago.

More recent, about 7 or 8 years ago in the Hymer that we have now.

This one was taken at home about 16 years ago when we still had a wall separating the porch area from the kitchen. We bought a couple of caravan seats and made an area at one end that caught the sunshine. Didn't take Toby long to find it.

These are my 'Toby' shelves. You can see his albums at the bottom. His box is on the next shelf containg his remains which will go with his Dadi when his time comes. I have never opened this box, it's far too painful for me and if I saw the contents I would always remember him by what I saw instead of how he was. Something that has always been important to me is to remember how things were because we all know those wonderful memories are just that - memories. The 2 verdi gris cats are posing exactly the way Toby did so I just had to have those. The 3 pottery frames hold another set of special photos. You may recognise the one on the left because that forms the heading to my blog. On the top shelf are 3 little cats that simply took my eye but the wooden cat to the right is special because it was a present from Spain and given to me by a neighbour who no longer is with us.
So there is my birthday tribute to Toby for this year. Still greatly missed but always in our hearts and never forgotten.

IS THIS LOVE?

It happened in that order.
Mr Blackie had a bath then Mrs Blackie drank the same water!!  Now how many of us would do that??!!!!!
What a week this has been. My washer broke on Monday. Well it did the washing, it just wouldn't spin. It did however, allow me to get the washing out which was a relief. So that meant a trip to buy another washer after finding out that the broken one would cost £100 to mend. I don't believe that actually. It seemed a price off the top of the head of the man in the shop who then tried to sell me a washer with a half size drum!! Stupid man probably has never done any washing in his life.
Anyway, I chose another, paid for it - that hurt a lot - and am now washing by hand until either Saturday or Tuesday before the new one is delivered. Not a nice job when after a few days of glorious sunshine we had hail stones this morning.
So, crafting has come to a full stop, see.....

That is my craft mat. However, when the old washer was removed I did find a blending tool that had fallen under it ages ago. Result.
Talking of results, I am still waiting for my skin biopsy results. That's 5 weeks now. I rang the hospital yesterday to be told that they had just come back and were with the doctor as we spoke - yeh! if you believe that you will believe anything. Anyway, I have to wait until the end of next week now before they go to my GP and then goodness knows how long before I hear anything. Good job the soreness has gone so at least it isn't anything nasty.
I have one piece of craft ready for tomorrow that I prepared a couple of weeks ago so if you are interested please pop back then.

CARD MAKING

Not done much crafting for ages but I have kept up to date with my Xmas card schedule. There are so many jobs to do during the - ahem - summer months that time is precious especially as there are trips away to put in the mix too. 

So after the usual shopping trip in the summer rain!!! I set to and made 2 Xmas cards bringing my total to 15 so far.

Distress stain background on the little card over stamped in black archival. I just adore distress colours in all their forms.

Right, off to make tea now.

ATCs WITH ATTITUDE # 40 - FRAME IT

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the last challenge and entered an ATC and a special congratulations to the winner. Don't forget to claim your banners and prize.
This fortnight's challenge is sponsored by
SASSY STUDIO DESIGNS

Sassy is offering 4 digis to the winner
Our Design Team had the choice of 1 of 3 images to work with for our theme - Frame It - I chose Sassy Showgirl:

I re-sized the image to fit the ATC base card and coloured her with Copics. I made a wash of distress ink and forever violet Perfect Pearls spray and roughly painted the background around the image. It may not look like it, but the feathers I used to make the frame are purple and a greeny yellow, they appear to be more blue in the photo. I have to admit to sourcing the feathers to make a frame before I began colouring the image and I used a colour wheel in order to try and use complimentary colours. That was fun.
Please have a go and join us for this challenge. The DT are looking forward to seeing your ATCs.

WOYWW #206

Another week another woyww another empty desk for me - sorry Julia.

My Internet has been down almost reducing me to tears because I have succumbed to the 'techy' life. Couldn't email or even do any banking  - this is really not good. Things have to be better than this. So much for technology eh?

Anyway, I have to give praise and say a massive thanks to our computer guru - Dave - who talked me through the maze of jargon and got my router to behave again. 

Nothing to show you inside so here's a bit of the outdoors instead. 

Anyone for sunshine, come to the north west.......

DON'T DO IT

Don't buy a wireless printer.
I bought a new one last Sunday and completely wrecked my internet connection. Not only did it knock out my laptop, but it wrecked my mobile phone, hubby's laptop, i-phone and i-pad. What a mess.
BUT
Dave the computer whiz to the rescue tonight and all is restored.

THANK YOU

DAVE
x

OUR 24th ANNIVERSARY

Apart from hubby's birthday last Friday, it was also our wedding anniversary.

I just wanted to share this beautiful card we received from my pal Sylvia. I love the colours and Sylvia makes everything she does so neatly.

12 TAGS OF 2013 - MAY

I always used to try and make my Tim tag the same day he blogged it, but I find I have less and less of the items he uses, probably because there are so many now that I can't buy them all any more.
Some thought had to go into making this month's tag because the main feature are rub ons which I've never even seen in the UK. I found a sheet of Lettraset letters and numbers which I must have had for 20 years (just shows that it pays to keep stuff) plus a sheet of rub on keys, locks etc. So I used those plus my Paris Component stamp and set to making this:

The rub on technique is quite appealing and one I will use again. I love the colour combination and the way the stamps just seem to fade into the stains. The little charm is one my hubby turned for me before he sold his lathe. Wish I had dozens of them.
Tfhank you Tim for another array of techniques. I enjoyed this one very much.

HAPPY CELEBRATIONS

It's my hubby's birthday today and our 24th wedding anniversary.

We've just had a lovely lunch after coming back from yet another guitar shop!!!!

Thankfully he came out of this one empty handed.

WOYWW #205

I LOVE this weather. My door and windows are wide open allowing me to see, feel and breathe the fresh, warm air. Nothing, for me, is better than sunshine because I suffer badly when the days are short and the outside is cold and uninviting.
I wonder if all the woywwers are enjoying the same? How about you Julia, our leader of the desk hop, do you have sunshine streaming in through those doors in front of your craft space? It's just wonderful - but -
I haven't been on my computer since last Friday and I certainly haven't done any crafting, unless this counts:

Well, gardening is a craft, isn't it??
We had a lovely, really lovely few days away last week. So nice we stayed longer than originally planned. Glorious weather which as I've said, has continued (due to disappear by Thursday though - boo!) allowing a bit of the aforementioned gardening. However, I am still waiting for the skin biopsy result - 3 weeks on Friday - and I am continuing to monitor and hopefully, conquer my 'on the verge of' high BP. This Friday is my 24th wedding anniversary and my hubby's ***@@@%"" birthday, and the conniving rotter has managed yet another guitar out of the goodness of my heart. He now has 5!!!!

The latest is the white Strat bottom left.
I have to apologise to Julia for this woyww post becoming one of my usual blog posts, but as time is precious at the moment, I'm not sure when I will manage another.
Happy woyww everyone.

ATCs WITH ATTITUDE #39 - THINGS WITH WINGS

On this beautiful sunny day, we at ATCs with Attitude are again challenging you to make an ATC and join us for a chance to win 5 digi images of your choice from one of our sponsors:
QKR Stampede

and
Robyn's Fetish

My image is called Honeybee, from QKR and I had such fun 'playing' with it.

Firstly I re-sized this cheeky little critter to ATC size (2.5" x 3.5") and printed it off on plain card, blue spotty paper and yellow paper. The card print was then cut precisely to ATC size and I used this as my base. I cut the wings from the blue paper and used them as a mask so I could stamp the wire mesh stamp over the whole card - looks like honeycomb. I then cut out the yellow bee and the blue shoes and gloves and assembled the bee. I then used the wing mask to cut out some acetate wings which I gently heated and shaped before using Cosmic Shimmer glue to attach them to the bee.
The words were stamped in Archival from tiny single alphabet stamps and using 3D foam, attached to the card.
So come on then let's see what you come up with. So long as you make an ATC to the theme for this fortnight's challenge, you will be entered into the pot to win those digis of your choice.

CRAFTING BEACHED WHALE!!!!!

Yes, that's me today.
My dear hubby decided to do what he always does - ignore what I say - and put the loungers back in the motorhome. Needless to say, we have had the most glorious weather and not been able to sit out at all.
Whilst he was having an afternoon kip I decided to go outside and craft. I took a throw and put it on the grass, sat on a cushion and set to making more paper roses.
When he woke I asked him to take a photo so I could post on my blog but the photos just show a beached whale wearing glasses making flower after flower -

See what I mean..................

WOYWW #204

Just a quick 'hello' today to Julia and all the 'woywwers' around the world. I am away in the camper for a few days enjoying the sunshine, lovely area, shopping and relaxing.

I die cut several paper flowers before we left home with the intention of making some roses during any spare moments. so far I've managed to make 1 large and 3 small ones. Most of yesterday was taken up with shopping as you can see by the lack of crafting space I now have -

Apart from a new Kipling bag and set of professional kitchen knives, I actually found a wooden cigar box for £5 so I can now contemplate making one of the Armoires that Laura Carson has created. A look around the Works bookshop found me 12 mini glass bottles, another palette and 3 new palette knives.

I'm pleased with the flowers and may use my melt pot to dip them in UTEE or wax when I get home.
Right, better get this day going then. Happy woyww.