A very beady week for me!

A sneak peak!

What a topsy turvey day its been! Firstly I was so engrossed in my book that I didnt get to sleep until 3.30 am....knowing full well that I had to be out of my nest and booted up for 5 am...to grab some much needed add-ons to my Studio Calico kit. Amazingly mission was accomplished - two add-ons 'Alice' and 'Tweedledee', plus 2 lots of extra patterned papers and some clear stamps - a nice haul, and not bad for someone shopping in their sleep! Then it was back to bed and I slithered back out of my nest past lunch time...just in time for a cuppa before the F1 Grand Prix came on - an exciting race full of thrills and spills! Then sis and I dashed out for the last hour of shopping and paid a visit to the 99p store where there were many 'beady' bargains to be had - just the thing for my dotees! Speaking of which - no crafting today so my fifth dotee of the weekend sits waiting to be stitched together....and no time for uploading as Im well ready to return to my nest......but I will leave you with a sneak peak of my latest 'design' lol!

Sue x

.....if you have a problem with the dotee slide show....

Click on the title 'a dotee is born', and it will show properly. Im finding that it often shows only a few slides then runs out.....there are 26 slides!

Sue x

Dotee dolls....how to...

Since I have been showing off my dotee dolls, I have been asked a few times...'where can I find instructions to make them?' Well, essentially - there are no instructions - they are whatever you want them to be - any shape, any size and embellished in any way you like! But I thought it might help if I showed you how I make mine with the following slide-show showing step by step stages of my purple dotee....soon to be going to her new home!

When I first started making them...not so long ago, I drew out a basic shape that I like to work with, but of course - you may prefer a different shape, maybe your dotees would like arms and legs. For more inspiration, visit here: http://dotslifeandart.blogspot.com/ ...this is the lady who inspired me!

I am currently on a dotee marathon....seeing how many I can make over this weekend - 4 so far...plus another from earlier in the week! I will post piccies when the weekend is over. I only hang onto my first dotee...all the others go to live with very special people!

Have a great weekend! Sue x

A dotee doll is born....

My 10 favourite things.....

Creativity Life have a challenge going on this month to make a page of your 10 favourite.....whatevers. So what else would I choose to scrap but my stash lol! The slide show flips by a little fast so Im popping a 'still' on here so that the page can be seen clearly! If you click on it, you can view it in 'big vision'!

*UPDATE* I won the challenge..yay! Waiting for some free stash as a prize now :)

My 10 favourite...things in my craft room!

A dotee for my new buddy June

....another dotee....now I really must get back to some scrapping!

Its a sad day on the stash front....

I never thought the day would come...but the nasty delivery people being in cahoots with the tax people have forced me to cancel my Club Scrap membership. Clubscrap.com have the most amazing quality kits which Ive been lucky enough to enjoy for the last year...but sadly no more - I pressed the 'cancel my membership' button with a tear in my eye and collywobbles in my heart....goodbye Club Scrap...missing you already!

My dotee dolls!

Dotee dolls are my thing right now, so here is a slide show of all the little dolls I have made so far. Only one...the dark green one, lives with me - the others are all destined to leave me and spread some love, happiness and joy which is what dotee's are all about!

Visit Dot's blog to find out more about them: http://dotslifeandart.blogspot.com/

My dotee dolls

Gina's Challenge!

I re-found my slide show skills, so I can now release into the wild the results of Gina's wacky challenge! Gina, my forum buddy, sent to me a small tag book and 6 'creatures' the species of which is debatable...she say's they are bunnies, I say they are kitties.....what would bunnies be doing hugging a fish?!? They just have funny little ears is all!!! Anyway, I was to make something nice and the rule was NO PAPER but I could use anything else. So I dug out a Papermania Christmas embellie kit and some Brenda Pinnick ribbons (yum!)...polished up my poetic skills (mmmm)...and below is the result! Fabulous eh!

Gina thought I would be in a blind panic but I had a lot of fun with this....so she has threatened me with another - harder challenge....eeek!

Thanks for the challenge Gina!

Gina's wacky challenge!

Old School Photo layout

Darn it, I seem to have lost the ability to post a slide show on here, so the wacky challenge I had from my docrafts buddy Gina will have to wait! Meanwhile, again another challenge from Gina....many moons ago as punishment - which thinking about it, I believe it was because I sent a shop bought card for my brothers birthday! Cripes, that makes it way back in March. Anyway, the challenge was to make a layout using an old school photo. So at long last, here it is.....and as you can see, if Im going down, Im taking my sister Carol with me! Im on the right.

Guess what....more buttons lol!

Here is a layout I made using my favourite photos from my little book. Carolines' poem is placed on some hidden journalling which opens up to show a piccie of my little book. I adore these supplies - Blue Awning papers, and of course....my Foof A La buttons.

...sorry, Im not done with buttons yet!

I have to say a very special thank you to Caroline who composed the poem for my button book. Caroline AKA cannycrafter, is wonderfully creative in all that she does...and she writes a mean poem! Check out some of her lovely work on her blog: http://cannycrafter.blogspot.com/

But before you do that...as her poem flips by too fast to read on the slide-show, I am posting it above...if you cant quite read it, Im sure if you click on it, it will get bigger!

Thank you Caroline - you are a star!!!

Sue x

Is it really crazy to make a book about buttons???

I LOVE buttons, and when I received a particularly lovely bag of buttons from the Foof A La range, I was inspired to make an entire album about them! I also wanted to make my first maze book...and I thought buttons would be the perfect topic.
At first I made patterns with them on the table and snapped away, but then we had a sunny day...and I thought, lets go have some fun and chase some buttons around the garden! A perfectly normal thing to do in my view...but my buddies think Im kinda potty! Anyway, I was really happy with how most of the photos turned out and they look so cute in my maze book - made with yummy Blue Awning papers! I'm thinking of doing a homage to ribbons next....ha ha ha!

Another first...I finally figured out how to make a slide-show - so here is my homage to buttons...

A Homage to Buttons

The Beauty of the Dandelion

Okay okay...I know they are not so beautiful when they are sprouting up willy nilly all over the garden....but they do photograph well and make for a nice card lol!

Adapting a card idea shown on the docrafts site, I created this to be used in a 'book of my garden' that I am currently making. For the triangle sections that back the main yellow flower, I used a close-up of the fluffy seed head - I thought this was so effective. Then hidden inside is a little bit of folklore about dandelions, and another photo with a half-blown away seed head (sorry Dad...I had to - in the name of art!)

All the supplies used - papers, ribbons & brads came from the Serengeti kit from Club Scrap.

If you would like to make a card using these techniques, the instructions can be found at: http://docrafts.co.uk/asp/projects/project.asp?id=1805

Sue x

Dotee dolls are about spreading love friendship and joy!

Way back in June, my forum buddy Alma introduced me to dotee dolls by posting a link to this wonderful blog: http://dotslifeandart.blogspot.com/2008/01/dotee-doll-fervour.html.

Loving all things pretty and embellished I set about making one for myself which was such fun as I adore sewing! But the main point of dotee dolls is to share them, so Alma and I made dolls for each other - thank you Alma, I love my little doll and will treasure it always!

I love sewing...and I love scrapping - so what about combining the two! The results were two layouts showing off our dotee dolls, each page created using techniques that were used on the dolls themselves...a little beading, blanket stitch, some chain-stitch swirls and a few lazy daisies. I simply loved making these pages, and havent stopped stitching onto layouts since!

Treat yourself and take a peek at the above blog....and maybe you would like to make a dotee for a friend in your life...or yourself...!

Sue x

COMING SOON: A Homage to Buttons