Thursday 19 April 2018

a Right Mix Up

Hi Crafty Friends
Long time no blog!

Most visitors to this blog already know, but for those of you that don't, I'm sorry to have to tell you that the worst thing that can happen in craft land has happened to me - my craft room caught fire!!

The room was completely wrecked and the rest of the house has suffered extensive soot and smoke damage. I am now in rented accommodation, and likely to be here for some time, given the glacial speed of the insurance company. Here we are, 2 months after the fire and they are commissioning another report on what need to be done (i.e. is there anything they can get out of doing!)

Sadly I have not been crafting - no stash and too much other stuff to do. However, I did manage to reconvene the club last week (at my temporary place) but crafting with the random stuff which escaped has proved trying to say the least. It was lovely to see all those who could make it, though.
A massive THANK YOU to all who have helped (cleaned stuff, donated stuff, brought cake etc). Huge, huge thanks to Wendy without whom and without whose trailer nothing would have been possible. I hoping to have the club meet again this week, fingers crossed.

Before the fire we were experimenting in mixed media
Now as you know, this isn't really my forte, but I do like the look and it's fun, so we embarked on another project - this time a book cover. I chose to do a diary but everyone chose what sort of book they wanted and brought it in. The first week we just covered them with scrunched up paper and gessoed them black, ready for the fun the following week.

Here's mine



I used a mixture of die-cuts and metal embellishments. I think you can see quite a lot of Tim Holtz in evidence. It's mostly coloured by dry brushing with metallic paints, plus a bit of gilding wax. The trouble with this mixed media malarkey is that you need quite a few media to mix, and I (currently) don't have many. Still I was pleased with the effect.

We all had a grand and fairly messy time
Here's Kath, very busy

And here are some of the finished projects

Inga's. I just love the pencils (and everything else about it, come to that)

Joan's super address book



Ann C's album - a fab upscaling of a kraft album from The Works


Jackie's gorgeous notebook. I do believe there are more in the pipeline. The bug has definitely bitten!


Glyn's brilliant garden book (what a great idea) and I love the ladybird. 


And Margaret's book for her 7yr old granddaughter. Her granddaughter loves it and has already started filling it with drawings and journalling. what a lovely keepsake it will be.


There are loads more fabulous makes, but I haven't managed to snag any pics. But hasn't everyone done well!

I'm delighted too say, it was very popular and quite a few people have made several more books. It seems once someone in the family gets one, everyone else wants one too. I did start another one, but I found its charred remains in the debris. Speaking of which, I thought you might like to take note of what a faulty heat gun can do!




Hope to be back with brighter news next time
happy crafting
Jx

2 comments:

  1. OMW!!! cannot believe what you must be going through! What a mess and no home.
    Well you and your ladies have made fantastic books.
    Hope you get sorted soon.
    Take care Pam xx

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  2. I LOVE what you've done with your projects in all the pix except the last one - thank heavens you weren't hurt. It's so distressing to have lost so much of your home and contents but (most) things may be replaced. I HOPE that your insurers will pull their finger out and crack on so you can start getting back to some semblance of normality Jan.

    Wishing you all the VERY best

    Kathyk

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