68 sleeps

9 weeks and 5 days or 50 sleeps until the grand adventure begins

edited to say - when I say 9 weeks and 5 days = 50 sleeps, I was taking into account the sleepless nights (from excitement).

Or I could have got my sums wrong ;)

Stitch Cloth Shimmer & Shine

I was waiting to see the book before I decided whether I needed it on my shelf, funds being what they are.  But I couldn't wait any longer and treated myself to an early birthday present.  It came today and I am sat here with tears in my eyes and a huge lump in my throat. 
The book is a must have for anyone who likes playing around with mixed media stuff, or textiles, or stitching or even who likes to look at great artwork beautifully photographed and with close ups.  Sarah never held back with information and this is no exception.  The inside book cover has a picture of Sarah, with her lovely smile.  
I was talking with some friends recently, and we were laughing about the stuff we have in our cupboards that Sarah 'made' us buy.  Her enthusiam was infective but her creativity was awesome.

round robin

Do you remember this ?  Real life issues meant that it has taken longer than we planned to send the circles round but we have now quartered them and the first stitching is done.
I got quite attached to mine, did some simple stitching but I wanted to do more and more.  I had to confiscate it and seal it into the envelope ready for posting, but the temptation to take it back out and do more is pretty strong. 

I can do straight stitches, and french knots, you wouldn't believe how self disciplined I had to be not to put knots in the centre of those six pronged thingies. 

sunshine on a roll

I know, masking tape is masking tape and it doesn't matter what colour it is, (although I usually buy the blue stuff) but who could resist lovely bright yellow tape - not me :)  For anyone interested I got mine in B & Q and they also have green.  And yes, I did buy a roll of that too. 

9 x 9

Over at clothpaperstudio we are having an atc swap, nine of us took a number from 1 to 9 and made a stamp.  I bagged the number 9 or IX if you like Roman Numerals.
I sprayed creative colour spray from craftynotions onto watercolour paper, then stamped using a copper stamp pad, my own carved rubber stamp.  Then I made 8 more.
Come back to see what the other atc's look like

Once Upon A Time paper bag album

A while ago I was making paper bags so that I could make a paper bag album like the one from Kathy Orta
My album has a hard backed cover and 5 pages inside.  Each page has a pop in book and lots of space for photographs.  I added lots of bling as C is a happy ex-Essex girl :)
More pics on Flickr

 A second album for E is well on it's way to completion, I may even make one of these for myself..

Brooch

This little brooch is one of a few I have made to use as part of a workshop.  The felt background is hand made and has some hand stitching.  The copper frame has been blanket stitched and then the thread woven through a bead.  The hardest thing about this piece was finding a bead with a hole big enough to get the needle and multiple strands of thread through.