Divided Loyalties - Part 3

Last week I said I had one more set of projects to share using the cut-apart cards from Simple Stories - Homespun collection, and here they are!  

The sentiment on this piece really spoke to me as something we need to remember in this house.  I mounted it onto some pinky-red patterned paper from the collection and then onto one of the larger pieces in the cut-apart cards.  I used an old frame to show it off so that I can use it as a piece of home decor in our new house.  The photo was taken when I was on a retreat in the Cotswolds with some great girls - isn't the garden wonderful!?

I added a sticker to the top left corner directly on the frame for added interest.

 Then I added a branding strip and a couple of pieces of chipboard at the bottom right for balance.  I can't wait to get it on the wall in our new home.  Its such a great message.

Talking of our new home, sadly our vendors still haven't found anything they like so we are still waiting... rather impatiently.  While we were on the retreat, one of the girls gave us all a little gift bag and inside it was a small Moleskine, ideal for keeping in my handbag - thanks Mel!  Initially I had thought about making a mini book with book rings and adding in some note paper but this was perfect.  I needed something to keep with me for keeping track of everything regarding the house move and the Homespun collection has such a lot of lovely homely icons and sentiments that it was a great match.

 I embellished the front cover with one of the cards, a couple of brads from the collection and some chipboard.  I then embellished each section within the book using only stickers and papers because I didn't want to add too much bulk.

Each section has a side tab and the dividers are decorated front and back.  The tabs have been cut from two of the longer thin sections. Here I stitched around the house picture and I love the effect it gives.  I have kept the decor section larger than the others because I have lots of ideas for our new abode! ;-)

This telephone was a perfect match for the contacts page and all of the letter stickers are from the collection too.  I really love the border strip on the "Dates" page which I cut from one of the longer pieces.

 More stickers and stitching.  The kraft labels were a wonderful addition from another lady at the retreat - thanks Jaki!

 Some of the cards were perfect on their own and some needed another element or two or some washi tape.

 Yes, I have a section on Decluttering our current house and yes I have spelled declutter wrong here...

And finally the back few pages of homely comfort.  Some reminders of things to ask and things to remember to tell the new owners.

And the back cover with some chipboard.  I love the way you can see a sneak of the other bits and bobs inside.

So, I hope you've enjoyed this series of ideas for using pocket page collections outside of pocket dividers and I hope that you can see past the sections as they are and consider using them for other projects.  I've still got a fair bit of the collection left in some larger pieces so I can still have more fun with this pretty range.  If you are inspired by something you've seen in these posts then please do let me know in the comments and if you have made something please do share a link so we can have a look too!

With thanks to S J Crafts for supplying such a great collection.

Bye for now
xx

WOYWW198

Good morning Wednesday!  Well who can tell what the weather will do today?  Yesterday we had 4 seasons in one day with tremendous rain and hail and then snow and then sunshine!  I hope its a bit warmer anyway as I really need to get to my desk.  I managed to tidy up after the VERY last minute birthday album which was handed over less embellished that I would like but now its time for the next batch of projects.  I've almost finished a layout from my pile of 19-to-be-completed - you can see that on the left there, its one of Shimelle's 4x6 photo love layouts.  The pile of fabric in the middle is the beginnings of some girly bits for my utility room, (no, not THAT sort of girly bits, you know curtains that don't actually pull and a cushion for a chair we haven't bought yet...  )

The red book is my Creative Writing coursebook and I do really need to get cracking with that because the next assignment is due soon.  The green leaflet on top is for our local leisure centre as I've been trying to fit in some more classes seeing as I love the Body Combat one so much - go me!

I've been meaning to share some new additions to my craft space for a while, so here they are.  This pretty heart shaped bowl from Ikea is perfect for paperclips on my desk.  (Don't panic that there is no tea here as I just went in to take the picture).

This stunning bowl was recently given to me by my Dad.  Apparently it is real gold around the top and it used to belong to my Grandmother and possibly be older than that.  I have no idea why it has been held onto when anything else has long gone but its perfect for my washi tapes and it goes perfectly in my pink and aqua room.

It lives on what looks like a dresser but is actually an old nappy changing station and a door-less bathroom cabinet - both from Ikea, as are the pots underneath the bump cast.  I'm still undecided about what to do with the cast but as I've said before it is safer up on the wall while I think about it and I kinda like it just as it is.  I certainly won't be embellishing it too much I don't think.

So what have you got on the go this week?  Why not share your projects or your space at WOYWW with crafters worldwide - its fun!

Bye for now
xx

WOYWW 197

Good morning, good yawning!  Plenty going on in this here house today for today's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday.

My desk - I'm making an album for my sort of brother-in-law's 60th birthday on Saturday, just decided on it - no pressure then.  Don't worry that there's no cup of tea here, I wasn't working here last.

This is the pile of pages so far for this album.

This is the finished pebble picture from last week, just waiting to go up on the wall.  The hot glue worked a treat as long as I worked quickly enough that the glue didn't cool even slightly.

Another work-in-progress.  This is a canvas that I'm gradually building up the layers on and will eventually become a lost sock department.  I've got some little heart shaped pegs and any time there is a sock left over in the wash it will go on the board until the other turns up.  Just an excuse to make a cute project for my new utility room really ;-)

And here is where I've spent much of today, at the kitchen table with my girl doing our colouring.  We're really working on fine motor skills with both children at the moment in order to help their handwriting without them practising their letters ;-)  Please note, the full cup of tea - phew!

 Both children are desperate to get their hands on my promarkers but NOBODY touches my pens...  I can understand them wanting to use them though, they flow so well.  *sigh

Bye for now
xx

WOYWW 196

Good morning, good yawning!  I'm still very tired after my retreat at the weekend but we had such a fab time (more on that later!)  I tried to do the pebble pictures that I talked about last week and that's what you can see on progress in my utility room here.  

The random paints and putty etc are from the current DIY projects and the bottles of liquid are actually washing liquids for the laundry!  

So using the glue gun... its messy and fun and the black heavy stones stuck well.  The heart shaped picture of little stones that I did first are to go in an 8x8 box frame.  When I stood it up to show my boy, several of them fell off.  Clearly I haven't done these ones right so its back to the glue gun for me but first I need to kick some backside in my Body Combat class.

Don't forget to join in with the desk share over at Julia's for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday.

Bye for now

xx

Pick Your Precious

This year, Sian's Story Telling Sundays is taking the form of "Pick You Precious".  This is my first story of the year so I had to think hard about what my first "precious" would be.  These items would be the things that we might rush to save from a fire and I think that my instinct would be to grab my lap top!  It contains my photos, my coursework, my friends, my life!  I can find all those things elsewhere in the house of course but if the house went then I would definitely want my lap top to be saved.

But that's a bit naff really isn't it?

So I had another think.  Maybe I would go room by room and find something in each place that ideally I would love to save above almost everything else.  Yes, that's it, I decided.  But where to start?

Well, after all the small scale upheaval over the last few months, I thought I might as well start in the bathroom which is finished aside from my pebble pictures.   I know, I know, you are wondering what on earth I might want to save from our bathroom.  Well have a look-see here at my little display of bits and bobs.

So many little bits and so many memories attached.  The vase is filled with shiny pebbles from an old arrangement of some sort, then a layer of shells from various beaches including Newport in Pembrokeshire and Lee-On-Solent in Hampshire.  The next layer is driftwood lovingly collected by the children from Newport, then a few tiny bits of sponge from Kos, then black slate from Newport, lovely shells from all over and topped with a lobster claw from a meal in Newport.

Further along you can see an arrangement on the window ledge and this little grouping is like a potted history of our lives together.

The brown shell and the corals were from Fiji which was one of the stops on our Round The World trip.  We were young and married but otherwise free to travel and explore and talk about what the future might bring.

The large sponge is from Kos like the little bits in the vase.  That was our last foreign holiday before we had the children and it was a last minute thing as it was just after we lost our first baby.  Some Greek women helped me to perform a ritual around an allegedly sacred fountain to ensure save passage for our next babies and we visited the Asklepieion, the healing temple of Hippocrates, to feel the power of the great doctors, basically anything to help us move towards our dreams of a family - dreams which had seemed so easy and straightforward from a bar in Cambodia.

The driftwood from the beach at our family holiday home in Wales was again collected by the children.  That beach has been such a constant through most of our lives together.  We visited Wales as our first weekend away together and so we were really happy when the In-Laws bought the cottage a few years later.  It was where we decided to go backpacking, where we decided to change careers, where I did lots of my study for my first degree, where we planned for the future and where we ran to when it all collapsed and where we've taken our children every year since they were born.

The fossils came from our most recent family holiday, from a beach that was new to the 4 of us, that we explored together, the 4 of us.  We've had our ups and downs when it has come to the challenge of parenting but I'm really proud of where we are right now.

Bye for now
xx