Shopping therapy and goodies in the post

I had a lovely visit to the Knitting and Stitch show on Sunday with DD2. We had a great girlie day out and both spent 'loads of dosh', as you do! I heard lots of conversations at the end of the day regarding hiding credit card receipts etc., but then it is only once a year.



I thought I'd make quite sure I had enough projects to do for the next year, or 3, so bought some lovely skirt fabric, some superfine woven interfacing, wonderful stuff, a fat quarter from the African fabric stand, for my present project, and lastly this gorgeous hat and hand warmer pattern in the softest alpaca wool.



Last year I was really disappointed not to get a Clover iron and everywhere I went they said they were being discontinued, so I was thrilled to bits when I saw this one for sale on one of the stands.



And lastly I couldn't go to the show and not buy a book, could I, so this year I just had to have 2, well, it would have been rude not to :-)

We both arrived home absolutely exhausted, but had a lovely day, how lucky am I to have DD's who all love working with textiles.



I've had some lovely goodies in the post too, firstly this gorgeous PC from Sandy which was her entry for September Calendar Girls challenge. We had a Hundertwasser painting for inspiration this month.



And this was my interpretation, I went for lollipop flowers instead if trees.



Sandy also very kindly included this gorgeous fat quarter with my PC, I love it.



Finally I was delighted to be the winner of Laura's give-away and received this lovely bag and stamp in the post this morning, thank you so much.

Apologies

Time is taking wings, as usual, and I realised I had been very rude and not shown my last 2 CG PC's

This as my lovely PC from Pat working to our March theme.





And this one is from Carol M who's done an amazing job using techniques that I could only dream about.



And this was the inspiration, yes I know it says September, but it really was our April theme.



And just to show how 'out of it' I am at the moment this lovely PC arrived from Jenny this morning and I had no idea it was for me. It's really beautiful in the flesh.



The theme for this month is Monet's Water Lilies.



Thank you all very much, sorry it's taken so long for me to put yours up Pat.

New Year gift and CG PC's

I just had to show this lovely package that popped through my letter box, on friday, it was a complete surprise from Jo-Anne. I had admired the PC on her blog and had no idea it was winging it's way to me as a New Year gift, together with a gorgeous skein of Australian hand dyed silk and a lovely book mark, thank you Jo.



In the same week I received my January PC from Pippa who is a new member of our Calendar Girls group. It came in this very stylish envelope done in a lovely leather like texture. Both are lovely Pippa, thank you.

Due to pressure of other things I realised I hadn't acknowledged my CG PC's for the past 3 months , so here they are, sorry to be so late , but they were all receieved with delight and made my day.



December was this lovely pretty card from Sandy it's been so cheerful to look at on these horrible grey days we've had lately, thank you Sandy.



November was this amazing 3D painting from Pat, which she very kindly sent with this lovely piece of lace, again a great colourful PC to beat the winter blues, thank you Pat.



And lastly in October I recieved this amazing sculptural PC from Lynda, it's an outsanding 3D piece and I wouldn't even know where to start to create something like it, so it's a constant inspiration on my 'thinking wall', thank you Lynda.

I hope I shall be able to keep up with the CG group a little better this year, otherwise I mught just get drummed out of the gang for poor attendance, and that would be a shame as I've really enjoyed it.

Thanks to all in the group.

Goodies

I've had a really good week this week as far as goodies are concerned, first of all I received my August CG PC from Jenny, which is absolutely lovely, the shrink wrap daisies are superb.



Then I got a real surprise when I received a parcel from Joanna and it contained my September CG PC. I was amazed, not only by the contents, but by her promptness, I hadn't even looked to see who my partner was for September! Imagine my surprise when I took the PC out of the box and found it was a fully working clock, amazing. The face has been manipulated in PS beautifully, and as you will know that's my favourite pass time so I was pretty impressed.



To finish the week off I receive the above award from Sue, for which I was very honoured and flattered.

The rules for this award are as follows:

(1) The winner can put the logo on their blog. (2) Link the person you received your award from. (3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs. (4) Put links of those on yours. (5) Leave a message on the blogs of the girls or boys you’ve nominated.

I've given it a lot of thought as to who I'd like to pass this award onto and decided that I would like to nominate some bloggers that I have recently found and enjoyed visiting and receiving their comments.

So here is my list:
Pippa
Annette
Cait
Dot
Shirley

All these lovely bloggers have given me so much fun and inspiration.

PC and goodies from Dianne

Look what the postman dropped through my letter box this morning. This lovely PC from Dianne as part of the CG swap/challenge.



Not only did I get my PC but Dianne included these lovely swatches and yarn as well, and what about her lovely lable too, brilliant!!

Calendar Girls PC's

I had lovely surprise today when the post man brought this lovely PC from Debbi who's doing the CG swap. The beading is magnificent and the colours are really subtle, I'm so thrilled. As if that wasn't enough Debbi also sent me these gorgeous napkins.



I've had a very productive post holiday day in the studio today playing with all my new stuff and will blog the results as soon as I've had time to develop it further and do the dreaded photos.

In the meantime here's a pic of the CG June PC that I made for Doreen




The inspiration.

I started with a BG created by dipping a folded kitchen towel into several different dyes, the method is in Traci Bautista's book Collage Unleashed. As this months text featured friends lending a helping hand I thought I'd use hands as the subject. I found this pair on Google, and changed the colour. I then backed the towel with interfacing and printed the hands and some text on to it. I finished it off with some beading and some doodles in the TB style. I then added some wadding and stitched the outline of the hands to give it some depth.

Last month I forgot to post up my CG PC here so here's a pic of that too, the method is on the CG blog along with all the other PC's if you've missed them.

Silk paper and post

As I mentioned in my last post I have been busy making silk paper for the forthcoming exhibition. So here's a glimpse of three out of the six I want make.







I'm trying a different form of framing this time, instead of the usual box frame I'm going for acrylic, see what you think, I'm not sure.



The text will be a bit short on the next few posts as I'm trying to teach myself to touch type, of sorts! So fed up with typos!



I received my April PC from Carol T on the CG blog, and it's lovely, really sparkley in the flesh.

All sorts

As the creativity Fairy seems to be on holiday in some wonderful place at the moment and is in no hurry to come home, I thought I'd catch up with a few bit and pieces.

Firstly my lovely Calendar Girl PC arrived from Val yesterday, it really is a beauty ! The colours are so vivid and the contrast against the BG is brilliant, if you want to see how Val constructed this PC just pop along to the CG blog.



In the same post I received my PC from Susan, who is running the Cyber Fyber exhibition. The info and pic of the PC are on here.

The other thing I discovered in my meanderings through the various blogs was the the big list of sewing blogs hosted by Suzi. It's a great idea and lots of fun, but beware there are heaps of great blogs on the list, and you can loose quite a few hours !!!

Lastly, we went to the seaside on Sunday and came across this lovely little craft arcade, which had the most amazing bead shop I've seen in a long time. Bosham is a delightful little village near Chichester on the South Coast.







My final piece for this post is this lovely book on colour that I discovered in the bookshop in the craft arcade, and lucky me it was marked down from £14.99 to £7.99, a bargain way too good to miss!



Who knows, the creative fairy might just want to come home now and see the lovely beads I bought at the bead shop, and read my super new book!