A little bit of useless information about me

I am trained and qualified to build one of these:

And to operate and use one of these:

Me and my little gang

L>R  Nick.  Jules.  Debs.  Me.  Thomas [No.1 son]



Waxy Workshop

I went to a workshop on Saturday just gone at Pickleberry Crafts in Faversham.  Bees wax, a melting pot, paper, lace, stamps, coffee, cakes and choccies.  What more could a girl ask for?

Met up with the lovely Sparkles from the DoCrafts forum and the fun teacher Jenni Boxall.

The project was supposed to be an accordian booklet of techniques, but mine kept sticking together when I folded it, so now it is a wall hanging.

Some of the wax techniques we learnt were:

1] Waxing over stamped images

2] Paper flowers and lace

3] Stamping into melted poured wax

4] Paper Napkins

5] Heat embossing into wax

6] Decoupage with wax

7] Applying perfect pearls onto warm wax

8] Stamping into brushed melted wax

I just couldn't get the hang of number 3 .  My stamping into melted poured wax ended up looking like a blob of melted cheese, not nice as I don't like cheese.

So, when I got home I scraped that bit off, remelted the wax and dunked a big blue flower into it, sprinkled the wet waxy flower with fine glitter, a quick brush of blue and gold perfect pearls.  I like it a lot better.

All of the six chipboard squares were covered with Tim Holtz papers before we worked on them.

Stamped images with Distress Inks, then painted melted wax over the top and smoothed out with heat tool

Paper flowers and lace dipped into melted bees wax.

This is the board that had a re-do at home.  Large paper flower, dunked in melted wax and a liberal amount of fine glitter was sprinkled onto wet wax then perfect pearls while the wax had set but was still warm.

This was a paper napkin that had been stuck with wax over the top of some ledger paper.  Bits of the left over napkin was used to add some texture at the bottom.

Wax painted over some backing paper, heated a little with a heat gun then stamped into with a music score stamp.  Then the corner was heated and stamped with a butterfly stamp.  An old gold colour of perfect pearls was dusted over the music stamp and a blue colour was put over the butterfly.

Melted wzx was applied to the base.  The butterflies were cut from a paper napkin and put on top of the hot wax.  Heat gently with a heat gun and the butterflies 'sink' into the wax.

I then stamped into the warm wax with a butterfly stamp and some gold leaf flakes rubbed into a few areas of still warm wax.

I think thats about it.

All in all it was a fun day.  Looking forward to the next workshop.

Happy Sunshine Day

What a beautiful day in Kent.  Hope it's the same over the UK.

Did I mention that I like books?  Well I do, a lot.  I have just found out how much.  Sometime this year we have to have our house re-roofed [is that actually a real word?], anyway, the loft space needs clearing.  I have started to do it gradually.  It's going to be a mission with a purpose though, because when it's done, the loft space will be converted and I will have my very own space. 

It's amazing how much stuff gets shoved in the loft over 30 years of marriage.

Empty boxes, gone.  Old childrens toys, sorted and gone [well kept some to be honest].  Old childrens clothes, sorted and gone.  Then we get to the books.  Oh dear, I never realised how many books I had.  I couldn't pack the boxes and bring them down the ladder, they were too heavy.  So, I had to get them down a pile at a time and then pack them.  DS2 did help for a while, but his attention span is about the same as a goldfish.

So, now the boxes of books are in the shed [which I had to clear out before I could get my books in].  Twenty four boxes and crates with an average of 30 books in each.  I have approximately 720 books !!.  Now, these are just hardback books, no novels etc., all non fiction, history, reference, pictures etc., 

This is my pile

I really think that when the roof and loft is sorted, I need to have fit some shelves and have my own library.

Happy Mothers Day Ladies !!

I hope you have all a lovely day and been treated like Princesses.

It's been very quiet here at home.  OH has gone off to a Motor Bike Boot Sale [I didn't know Motor Bikes had boots, but then what do I know].  DD came back from Hastings this afternoon and has now gone off to work to get all the unsold Mothers Day Cards off the shelves and reload with Easter Cards.  Just had a conversation with DS1 [who is at Uni in Wales] and he's feeling pretty glum.  Struggling with the academic side of Uni.  Unfortunately he takes after me, learns better with hands on and not text books.  DS2 is glued to his computer games.  So, all in all a very quiet day in the Matty household.  Even the cats have disappeared for the day.

I toodled off to Mums this morning with her Mummys day flowers and her prezzie for her birthday, which is tomorrow.  I made her a mini album, with baby photos, from when I was a baby with my Great Grandmother through to mum and dad being first time Grandparents etc.,  Each photo has a hidden tag behind it with info such as who, what where and when on it.  I also put a condensed family tree inside the front cover and a couple of poems dotted on a couple of spare pages. Hope she likes it.

I used Basic Greys June Bug papers.  Made the little lace flowers and punched all the little paper flowers.  The roses came from Hobbycraft.

Going to try and post a video slide show of it, so fingers crossed.