This Is What Happens........

......if you use this, some sort of silver electrical tape that I rescued from my sons bedroom waste paper basket.............grungepaper is slightly thinner than grungeboard.......
....yay for Tim Holtz.....
.....die cut some shapes......
.....emboss said shapes......
....smudge some of this on them....
.....put it all together.....
......and you get this.
Worthy of my Artfire shop?
If you love gorgeous hand made pendants and would like the chance to win one head over to Tish's blog for your chance to win one. She's having a giveaway.

Visions and Vampires

Lying in bed the other night and trying to get images of vampire babies and werewolves out of my head (I'm reading the Twilight series). So the next best thing to think about was jewelry and I had a vision. I could see this necklace draped around the slender neck of someone tall and willowy. That's not me by the way, I'm short and wallowing in my own flubby fat!
Now the thing about visions is this.....the vision and the reality are sometimes two different things and turning the vision into reality is something else again.
Out came the trusty cuttlebug.
I cut out 28 small, medium and large grungeboard discs.
Then I cut out 56 small, medium and large wall paper discs. Ok, this is taking a bit longer than I anticipated.

Edged all 84 pieces with a brown sharpie. No white edges, thank you Kelsey, you taught me well.

Glued the wall paper to the grungeboard on both sides. By this stage I'm getting a over the whole 'vision'.
Out came the cropadile. What a lifesaver that thing is. Proceeded to set 56 eyelets.

Then slowly worked out the design. Had to add some other elements to it to give it some weight.
Antique gold chain and some embelishments.
And here you have the finished piece. I started this on Saturday afternoon and finished it today, 4 days later.
I didn't end up using all the discs, if I had, the necklace would be about knee length, but that's ok because the leftovers can be used for other things.
Next time I have a vision I think I'll mull it over for quite some time before I decide to give it a go.

Lend Me Your Ears

I've had an earring weekend. Long weekend here with strange weather. Sunday was beautiful weather, a warm spring day. Then yesterday was cold and today is freezing.

These earrings are grungeboard and wallpaper. It's a bit hard to tell but it's a really nice lemony lime colour.More wallpaper and GB.
Wallpaper, GB and beads.

These are my favourites even though I don't wear gold. Erin and Brighita loved them too, so they each got a pair. Very blingy and retro.
I cut all the discs out with my cuttlebug. I was bit worried about the GB being too thick for the dies but they just went through it like butter.
I have a million ideas using GB and wallpaper, and it's fantastic for earings because they are so light. So making big bold designs isn't a problem as they won't drag down your earlobe to the top of your shoulder.
Until next time.......enjoy your week and happy creating.

The Postie is my New Best Friend

Friday morning I received another package in the mail. This time from Susan. I was lucky enough to win a prize on her blog and she has sent me the most amazing ATC's, lots of fabulous bits and bobs ephemera and a uniball white pen which I forgot to photograph, it writes like a dream. I fell in love with this diptych ATC and in one of Susans earlier posts I had admired the Lips Atc. And look........ she included it in my parcel of goodies.

Lots of cool stuff to add to ATC's etc. and some beautiful subtle background papers. How Lucky am I. thanks Susan I'll treasure the ATC's and they are getting their own special display spot on my desk.

Now my great friend Brenda, who is morphing into my mother in law, every time I visit I never leave emptied handed. My mother in law always gives me food and Brenda always gives me lots of little bits and pieces of arty stuff. It's a toss up who wins.......food......arty stuff. I'll take 'em both. Anyway, Brenda ( who also makes me spend money at the scrapbook store and takes me for little impromptu image transfer tutorials from the lovely Bec) sent me this youtube link a few days ago and this is my take on it. Grungeboard, cuttlebug embossing, paints, rub n buff, and a fastener.

Cuff bracelets. Below is a close up of the the fastener.

Here's a close up of the pattern

And the other one.

What a fantastic idea. A great project for kids as it's quick, easy, very little materials required and the idea could be extended to all sorts of possibilties. Add some eyelets and thread ribbon through them, punch out designs with dies, glue stuff on, flowers, beads etc.

If you come up with any ideas or make one yourself let me know. I'd love to see it.