AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Over the last couple of weeks I've been emptying the blog folder with some of the older projects that I've had in there.  Today is the turn of tags - in 2013 a group of my friends got the chance to meet up for the day at Ally Pally, unfortunately I wasn't one that managed to get there but enjoyed the fact that they got to meet up.  We agreed as part of that meeting to exchange a Tag in our own unique style; these are the ones I received.

First one from Sarah

This one from Sam!

This one from Jo

This one from Susie

This one from Carmen

I also received an 'extra' one from Jo's daughter Hope

In return I sent a bundle off to the girls, what they won't have realised at the time of receiving them is that they all interlocked in design, to represent our closeness despite living far from each other and many of us having never met in person!  These are the individual tags

And here they are together showing the interlocking cogs that make this friendship so strong

REVENGE OF THE KP NUT TIN!

So mission accomplished I conquered the second KP nut tin with vigour - YES!!!

It was a struggle and it almost had me heading down duplicate of first tin but I persevered (yet again) to conquer it and hopefully create a second tin which looks different from the first (please tell me it looks different!)

It started out basically the same colour as the original when it came to the painted background, but then I had to take it off in a different direction!  So out came scraps (yes literally) of papers I've used in a mini book previously, a little bit of hand cutting of the snowmen and the statements on the brown paper at the bottom, I've threaded some ribbon through the lids (with the help of hubby who didn't mind the good old fashioned hammer and setter because my cropadile wouldn't deal with the lip on the lid) and then used up (yes using up old stuff again!) some beads I've had foreverrrrrrrr - that came from a certain children's toy store - that my 9 year old wouldn't be seen in now if I paid him!  The word spelling out the contents of the tin - being gingerbread houses - just in case you don't want to tilt your head sideways! Looky - how pretty does that ribbon look through the top!

 Then the contents - please excuse the circle of white paper in the picture didn't realise it was there!

 The book itself has been threaded with ribbon this time rather than a book ring! 

I've used photos from our gingerbread houses at Christmas last year, for any of those who've followed my blog for a while you'll know that for the last two Christmases we've had a gingerbread house challenge where we build a giant gingerbread building (it was a Church 2008 and a Castle in 2009) with houses for all the family to decorate between main course and dessert on Christmas day!  This last year was no different and we had some great fun doing them so this captures some of the close ups from the day!

Isn't he cute - jelly baby on a sledge outside the castle walls!

Then the marshmallow snowman outside the castle walls

Bates Motel - generated by my Little Brother John - he said the building lent itself to this!

Including an icing massacre! 

Then Bate's Motel in all it's glory

and the jelly baby soldier guarding the draw bridge on the castle

and the jelly baby army guarding the top of the castle

and then there's dear hubby - who puts up with my crazy ideas even when I up the goal every year and he really doesn't mind cooking gingerbread until the late hours in early December and then putting the buildings together! 

I've had a great weekend, bits done around the house, ironing pile conquered!  Time with family, crafting time, blogging time, a bit of geo-caching time and stuck to my slimming world plan it doesn't get much better than this!  I've read my stars for this week and it's indicating disruption - I don't normally read such trivia but the ones in the Times newspaper have been spot on recently - so I'm a little apprehensive as to what this week might bring me!  We'll have to see, I'll let you know if they were a load of non-sense or whether they had a point!

KP NUT TINS - FIRST ONE FINISHED!!!!

Yes you heard right, I've fought and battled but finally the first tin has been wrestled into submission!  And here is the first one finished

And yet again I seem to be following my 'avatar' inspired painting at the minute

Just to remind you it started out as 

I then started with glue and tried sticking some 'unwanted' scrapbook papers on it, but I didn't like them once I'd done that, so I tried to paint over it with dark purple paint - but I didn't like that either - but I stuck with it and repainted it again got hubby to cut me some tags so then I ended up with this and yes that is it's unfinished twin on the right!

Then for adding photos to the tags, I've chosen to used the detailed shots from Chatsworth to go with the altered book I did on this mornings post! 

I used the blue awning papers from K & Company to bring the outside together, and hand painted the writing in white and finished with some distress inks to tone it down a little. 

 A little bit of white faux stitching and eyelets and stitching through some of the tags, finished with a book ring and some more organza ribbon

 I'm so pleased with the finished project 

 The next challenge will be to make the other tin look different even though it's a similar colour - now there's a challenge! 

Thought I'd put this on just to prove you sometimes just need to persevere to make something come good!

FINALLY ABLE TO SHOW THIS

Well I can finally unveil the gift I made recently for my fantastic cousin who has just had her first baby. Having already made a gift for her sister recently who'd also had a baby I didn't want to duplicate the gift, then I came across a box and chipboard book that I already had made up and set to painting it the obligatory blue for a boy (mind you I absolutely adored the paint I was using!). I decorated in black cardstock and bluepaper and added the letters of his name

After the book was complete it came to light that my over enthusiastic embellishments had led to the box not being deep enough to take the book added to which the blue paint was running out so no chance of making a second one! With some consideration I set to with the trusty big shot and some thin chipboard, cutting hearts out and then using an embossing folder to put the dotted design on the same before painting and adhereing to the outside of the box to raise the lid up and give the book a little more space. And so my potential problem was turned into a beautiful addition to the box - I loved it!


Picture of the box with lids on and the hearts stuck underneath - who would have known that it wasn't intentional?

Here is the book folded out, spelling out his first name. The letters were cut out of thin chipboard and covered in paper, embellished with wire and beads with the addition of chipboard hearts.

And the other side with his second name and pockets with tags for his Mum and Dad to add any essential little bits of information they wanted to.

Pocket up close

And again

And again

It was a lovely project to do and I'm assured it arrived safely and was received well! Now for my next project mmmm what to do!