CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration - Case File 155

Hello there.

I was going to post this earlier this week but I got a bit distracted as it was half term so we've been doing all sorts of things - watching DVDs, shopping, working on a needle felted mouse and exploring Skipton Castle (we possibly did a bit more shopping too).

I was lucky enough to be chosen as a Special Deputy for CSI this month and have really enjoyed playing along. Here is my attempt at CSI's challenge 155...

There was a sketch for this one, which I've rotated, I've also used all 5 colours from the scene: Seafoam Green, Lavender, White, Light Sky Blue and Light Taupe.

For my evidence (embellishments) I used a Bicyle accent - both stamp and wooden, buttons as circles, doodling, stamps - typewriter and bicycle, and rub-ons.

The journaling had to be about a stage in life, I also used Life as an inspiration word and chose to list the journaling so I managed to use 3 of the journaling techniques. The journaling follows on from the title - Me right now at 35 - and reads:

1: Still keeping a journal.

2: Still can't cook.

3: Still has childhood bear.

4: Still plays loud music.

5: Still loves to make things.

6: Still very blonde.

7: Still loves to read.

8: Still the eternal optimist.

This challenge closes on 26th Feb and you can find all of the details of the challenge here on CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration.

CSI:Color, Stories, Inspiration. Case 154

Hello there, how's it going?

I'm absolutely thrilled to be back with the CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration team as a Special Deputy. I really enjoyed being a Special Investigator in January and I get to do it all again this month, yay!

Here is what I created for case file 154

I used all 5 colours - Cherry Red, Black, White, Kraft and Olive Green.

For my evidence I used polka dots- lots of them, stripes on the Washi tape, Woodgrain patterned paper behind the photo, a book page (Lord of the Rings, Return of the King, I have one copy for ripping pages out of and one for reading). The red cardstock is Swiss Dot embossed so that's the textured paper and finally a metal key.

The journaling reads: She's a dreamer, a doer, a thinker. She sees possibility everywhere.

It was a quote I found on Pinterest using the words: Wisdom, Possibilities, Go. The author of the quote was unknown.

This case is open until the 28th February and you can find all of the details in more detail (oh dear) over here on CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration.

I'm supposed to be having a major clear out and reorganise in my studio and office and I just can't face it, I think I'll have a cup of tea and a slice of cake and mull it over some more. What are your tips for re-organising your craft space? Please? Help me! lol.

Take care and see you soon.

Claire

xx

Month in Numbers - January 2015

Over the last couple of years I've missed having an ongoing craft project, so I decided that this year I',going to join back in with Julie Kirk and her Month in Numbers, I took part in 2012 and really enjoyed it,  each month I made a 12x12 scrapbook layout to record my numbers.

This year I'm still going to create a little album, but on a smaller scale. I've chosen this 4x4 We R Memory Keepers Mint Instagram Album , and I've got a basic format that I'm going to stick to which will be great for those months I'm short on time. I'll also be adding Instagram photos when I next get them printed out, I'll be buying some extra page protectors and adding them in as I go.

I'm using Kraft cardstock all the way through and I'm going to use die cut patterned paper for my mini layouts. Here's my cover page for the album, if an album has a theme or is a full project I always make a cover page, it's just how I roll. I stamped the banners, used rub-ons for the title and big gold Thickers for the year. I also used up the last few stick on gems from 2 packs - Yay! I am so determined to make a big dent in my stash this year, every little helps.

And here are my actual numbers pages, I've stamped the banner and month, used a mix of number stickers for ...erm, well... my numbers and some  more stick on gems and stars (of which I still have more of). I'm also inking all of the edges of the die cut papers with Pumice Stone Distress ink.

So here are my January numbers:

14 - The number of things I crossed off my to do list in one day. This kind of achievement always makes me very happy.

200 - Envelopes bought from the wholesaler, they're padded and in quite big boxes, which I will have to keep moving around until I can re-organise everything in a couple of weeks. They are constantly in the way in my little storeroom.

7- Hours spent in a treehouse, in January. Not as strange as it might sound. I was on a workshop with Rachael from Excel Coaching and some other lovely ladies, and it is held in a treehouse. It was lovely and warm inside, it had been snowing so looked lovely outside. It was a very enjoyable day indeed (I'm looking forward to going back in June).

24 - The number of hours a day I have to wear my wrist splints, thankfully this is only until they operate on my hands, so all should be well in a few months.

0 - The amount of snow in CM that actually stuck here in Blackpool - none, zero, zilch, it just melted as it landed,

£19.95 The cost of the fabric needed to re-cover the conservatory furniture, plus £3.60 for the zips. - not bad at all, you've got to love your local fabric shop, now we just need to make them and get them on there.

If you've never heard of Month in Numbers, pop by Julie Kirk's Blog - Notes on Paper to see what it's all about. Thanks for stopping by to check out my numbers.

Claire

xx

CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration - Special investigator

Whoosh! That was the sound of January whizzing by, I cannot believe it's almost the end of the month already, January normally crawls by painfully slowly, but not this year.

I've got my last 2 layouts from my month as a Special Investigator  (guest designer) on the CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration design team.

This one is my absolute favourite and I love the photo of me, my eyes are open and I'm not mid yawn or pulling some other ridiculous face, honestly, it's like I have some sort of allergy to cameras as soon as one gets pointed in my direction my face starts doing all kinds of strange expressions.

I created a shaped layout and used all of the 5 colours for the scene, blue is also one of my favourite colours, so it came together quite easily. For my evidence I used quite a lot of the embellishments listed in the challenge - Stripes, silver metal, 3 of something, rhinestones, glitter, scallops, stick pins hearts and ribbon.

All of the journaling is on a 6x4 Project Life card in the scalloped envelopes, it's all about 2014 and plans etc for 2015 (and is very lengthy, so I'll spare you the details).

Here are the details of the challenge and although it closes for entries tomorrow it's still worth playing along because it's great mojo booster and stash user-upper (yes, this is a new scrapbooking terminology invented by little old moi)

This next one was my final layout for January, 

here are the challenge details, I love the colours, I'll use this colour palette again...

This one is running until the 2nd of February so there's still time to have a go.

Again I used all 5 colours. From the list of evidence I used a border punch, circles, label shapes and I sprinkled on some sequins, (carefully picked off the ones that didn't agree with my OCD tendencies) and glued the remainder down.

For the journaling I chose to list our top 5 Harry Potter Lego sets:

1, Dumbledore's Office.

2, The Burrow,

3, Hagrid's Hut,

4, Hogwarts,

5, The Hogwarts Express

(We also love all of our other Lego too).

I've loved being one of the team on CSI this month, it's been great fun, I've loved every challenge and I'd like to say a BIG THANK YOU to Debbi Tehrani and the very talented team of investigators for inviting me along. I'm going to carry on playing along throughout 2015 as I do love the challenges and it really is a great way to use up stash, the orangey red & brown papers on the layout above have been in my stash for 5 years, feels great to finally use them.

CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration. Challenge 152 The Tale of the Teapot

Well hello there.

I was lucky enough to be chosen as a special investigator for CSI: Colour Stories Inspiration for the whole of January, and I'm really enjoying playing along, if I'm honest it's worked out really well as I've always enjoyed their case files and one of my goals for this year was to try and complete every case file, so for January I can confidently say I will complete each challenge and I'm off to a great start.

When I saw the scene, evidence & testimony for this challenge I did a little happy dance because I had just the photo and story that I needed to create this layout all about a teapot...

For challenge 152 the five colours you needed to use were Lime Green, Teale, White, Lemony Yellow and Tangerine Orange - normally I'd struggle with these colours but, these were all the colours in the teapot - oh how I love a bit of serendipity. I inked all of the papers with Pumice Stone Distress Ink then layered them up a bit.

For the evidence I used polka dots, ribbons, jewels, scallops, triangles (on the patterned papers) and stars.

One of the topics for the testimony (aka journaling) was "document a gift" - serendipity again, so, here is...

 "The tale of the Teapot" 

"Mum spotted this Beatrix Potter teapot at a craft fair we were at, she spent ages looking at it and admiring it and then she walked away! So, I got Hermione to keep her busy whilst I bought it for her, she was quite upset when she saw it had gone and had no idea that I had it hidden in my bag for her Christmas present"

I'm happy to say that Mum was thrilled with her teapot (which she now stores her teabags in - as you do) and she is now looking for a matching milk jug and sugar bowl.

All of the details of this case file are below, why not play along?

You can find a more detailed explanation of  Case 152 over here on CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by and see you soon.

Claire xx

New Year, New Start & Lots of Crafty Goodness

Well hello there, how are you? A very happy new year to you all.

Wow, it's dusty in here, hand on a tic ***grabs hoover, quickly dusts & removes cobwebs from blog*** That's better. Sorry for my absence towards the end of 2014 but the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome was making life pretty awkward & I was banned from typing for a while back there, but I'm a lot better now, my hands are still a bit twingy so I can cope with that.

I have rather a lot of plans of for 2015 and seeing as I totally did what set out to do in 2014 I know I can achieve what I want to in 2015, I'm so looking forward to sharing my journey with you.

This year got off to a cracking start back in December when I received an email from the ever so lovely Debbi Tehrani at CSI: Colour, Stories, Inspiration asking me if I'd be a Special Investigator for January 2015, well, of course I said yes, I love the CSI challenges and had already decided to do as many as I can in 2015 to help reduce the mountain of patterned papers and embellishments that I own.

So the  first challenge went live last night and here is what I created....

I used the sketch provided for this challenge and tweaked it slightly, for the scene I used all 5 colours required. For the Evidence I used a cream frame with a stamped image of a cupcake inside, I used 2 banner die cuts for the date, I doodled stitching around the border and used patterned paper with triangles printed on it.

For my journaling I used the inspiration word "Grumpy" and hand wrote it too. The journaling reads: "Oh dear, why does Grampa look so grumpy in this photo? Was it because we didn't put all 65 candles on his birthday cake? Who knows"

Here are all the details for the case file if you'd like to play along, this challenge is open until 31/1/15 so you've got plenty of time to play along, If you've never tried a CSI challenge I can highly recommend it.

I've got plenty of other things to share with you in the near future and promise I will be blogging more regularly throughout 2015.

Just before I go we're having our Winter Sale over in our Crafty Alchemy.com shop and the Crafty Alchemy Etsy shop, with 25% off selected items. In the Etsy shop all, yes, ALL, of our Elements and Embellishment kits are 25% off. Just thought you'd like to know.

So once again Happy 2015 to you all.

Take care & see you soon.

C xx

Number 4 Privet Drive

Well hello there, how are you today?

I've been off work this week for half term and my goodness has it been a busy one, I've cleaned the house from top to bottom, sorted through my wardrobe (and H's) 8 bags of clothes later... we've crafted, baked, carved pumpkins. Then I launched the new Crafty Alchemy website and some new felt packs (you can check them out here), on top of that I'm preparing for The Best Little Network Christmas Market in a couple of weeks.... I think I need another week off to recover :)

I've been slightly hampered by a rather fetching pair of wrist splints which I now have to wear as I've been diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome - oh what fun! 

I've got another layout from our Summer break to St Albans today, as I'm sure you know, we went to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Leavesden, Hertfordshire, and the picture on this layout was kind of a "must take" photo, the very famous Number 4 Privet Drive....

The Dursley's weren't home, just in case you were wondering :) We realised after we'd left that we hadn't had our photo taken next to the Privet Drive road sign - Fail! 

I bet Petunia Dursley wouldn't be too happy about the the shabby chic wallpaper patterned paper that I used for the background.

I also added a random scattering of sequins (anyone who has ever added a random scattering of sequins will know that I really sat there positioning every sequin then gluing them down one by one).

Well that's all from me for today, H and I have decided to watch a Harry Potter film this afternoon (no surprise there then) then I'll probably be working on Crafty Alchemy things until the wee small hours, I just don't seem to be able to stop, I'm absolutely loving it, I've got so many things planned for next year that I don't know if I can fit it all in yet, but no worries, there's always 2016 :D

Have a lovely afternoon.

Claire xx