Thursday 28 July 2011

Moving On...

Hello fellow crafters, this is going to be my last blog for a few weeks as I'm moving on Saturday and we're not going to get the phone put in until the 8th August (grr BT!!!) I shall be busy unpacking and making the final preparations for the wedding once I move so I'm not sure when I'll be able to blog again. :..(
Hopefully it won't be too long and I hope to give you a grand tour of my "crudy" (craft/study room) once I've got it organised - I admit that after the bedroom and the kitchen it will be my priority just so I have a little haven to escape to when things get too much. I've lived on my own for nearly 20 years and as much as I love Chris I'm finding the prospect of spending 24/7 with him to be a little daunting. Still have loads to pack and time is getting short, so until we meet again - happy crafting everyone! Big hugs Sarah aka woo woo girl xxx

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Wedding Stuff

Hello fellow Crafters. Its less than 10 weeks to my wedding and there is so much to do! I had a meeting with my lovely friends at church who are sorting out the catering for the reception as our wedding present on Monday and one of the things that came up was name cards for the top table. As we're having a very informal tea party I hadn't even realised we'd need them so hadn't included them in my stationery to do list which is already quite extensive as it is. Luckily there's only 8 to make so using the colour scheme and theme from the other wedding stationery of pale blue, white and silver and butterflies I have come up with the example above. To make the name cards I printed out the roles and names of everyone sitting on the top table on my computer using a font I liked then trimmed them to size, I then cut pale blue card to equal sizes so each name card would be uniform and folded in half. I cut out the silver foiled rings and stuck them onto the strips of paper with Scotch quick dry adhesive then used glue stick to mount the name strips onto the folded card. Using the scraps of leftover pale blue card I punched out 16 butterflies using a Martha Stewart punch and stuck the body of one butterfly onto the body of a second so I had 8 3D butterflies with movable wings - again I used the Scotch glue for this. Once the butterflies had dried which doesn't take very long I applied glue on the bottom parts of the wings and stuck them at an angle on the right hand side of the card then "fluffed" the wings to give them a sense of movement. I'm really quite pleased with how they've turned out but I'm really glad I'm only having to make them for the top table or two! When I've worked out who'll be on the lower top table I'll be making the other place cards but for now I'm quietly contented with the 8 I've made. I hope to share more of my wedding projects as and when I have time to blog about them, so I hope you'll all be patient with me. Happy crafting everyone! Big hugs Sarah aka woo woo girl xxx

Monday 27 June 2011

Manic Monday

You know it's going to be one of those days when it's only 9.15am and you've already screamed twice.... The first is a little indelicate so if you are of a nervous nature I suggest you look away now I'll give you a shout when it's safe to look ;). Anyhoo I was sat on the loo powdering my er nose when I heard this very angry buzzing noise very very close and I froze as well as I could mid powder! As soon as it was appropriate I jumped off the loo cos there's some places you really don't want to be stung - how would you apply ice?? Nervously I looked down into the bowl only to see the usual suspects so I put the lid down. However I could still hear the buzzing and it was getting louder and sounding even more p.o'd. I looked at the back of the toilet - no buzzy creatures there, I looked in the spider plant which is stripey but nothing there either (does need watering though) I looked at the tank that the plant was standing on no surely not.... Well no harm in looking I thought so I lifted spidey up, removed the cystern lid and this HUGE bumble bee flew out cursing me in bee language as she made her way to the open bathroom window. Heart thumping I replaced the lid put spidey back totally forgetting to water it and finally flushed the loo. That was fright number one.

*SHOUTS* okay you can look now - so I was just washing my hands when Jinx my cat jumped in through the bathroom window and meowed at me. I looked at him and screamed, now before you start thinking what a cruel mum I am this isn't the usual way I greet him. When I looked at him what I saw was a pair of twig like legs sticking out of his mouth and a few feathers the rest of the bird was inside his mouth - how he managed to meow round it I don't know. I have a slight bird phobia and I'm sure Jinx knows this very well and last night as it was so hot I shut him downstairs rather then have him all over me upstairs (ok I am a cruel mum!) so the bird was either a punishment for not letting him sleep with me last night or a "present" to try and make me let him sleep upstairs tonight..... hmmmm wonder if I could get Chris to do the same but with craft goodies instead of bird corpses...... (just kidding - damn tempting though! ;D)

Well that all my news for now - I'm hoping the rest of the day improves as I'm getting a sore throat from screaming so much. Happy crafting everyone! Big hugs Sarah aka woo woo girl xxx

Saturday 18 June 2011

The continuing adventures of the fat controller and his wife....




Hello fellow crafters and welcome to my crafting corner! I took Mr & Mrs F Controller to a meeting and was told by a "friend" that they looked like the wooden tops!!! I've chosen to ignore this and have now mounted them onto 3 card circles ready to be put on top of the cake in 12 weeks time - I'd chew my nails nervously at this point but I've got stop and grow on them and they taste gross which is the point I suppose. I've had to crack on with the cake topper because of some rather good news Chris and I had early this week - we've been offered a two bedroom flat in Bridlington which we've accepted! This means that as well as getting all the things ready for the wedding and there is still a lot to do,  I've also got to pack my current flat up, help decorate the new flat and  move within the next month lol I'm beginning to wish I hadn't decided to stop biting my nails this week!

Back to Mr & Mrs F C - as you can see from the photos at the top of this blog I have mounted them onto a central 3" circle of patterned silver card and then overlapped that onto two 3" circles of pale blue card. I edged the silver card with self adhesive pale blue crystals approximately a cm apart. I punched out 7 small butterflies using a woodware punch and after folding the wings up fixed one onto the groom's hat. I then took 8 silver ribbon mini roses and snipped off their stems before fixing them onto the edges of the pale blue circles at a regular interval using hot glue I then curled the stems of a further two silver roses and fixed them near the back of the circles again using hot glue. I tucked the ends of the curled stems under the silver card and on the top of the curls I glued 3 punched out butterflies onto each stem using PVA glue. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out and I think it'll be an unusual and unique wedding cake topper.

Well thank you for taking the time to read this blog, I hope you've enjoyed reading about what I've been up to       and I hope to share more of my crafty adventures with you soon. Happy crafting! Big hugs Sarah aka woo woo girl xxx

Saturday 11 June 2011

The Fat Controller and wife!



Hello fellow crafters welcome to my crafting corner. As requested I'd like to introduce you all to two very special friends of mine who will be playing a huge part in my forthcoming wedding (gulp only 13 weeks tomorrow!!!) As you can see the groom is still rather rotund but is now made from black card rather than the original blue. The bride is wearing a woo original in white and is holding a charming bouquet of sequin fairy flowers inspired by jennings644 at least I think that's the right number. it could be jennings466 nah sure its the first one. Anyway back to the toppers, you can't really see in the photos but the bride has small sequin flowers    in her hair which unlike mine is blue and curly. I'm probably going to mount them onto a card circle before they go onto the Wedding Cake mainly because I have plans for them after the wedding. I'm going to leave that as a surprise until after the 11th September  and the honeymoon *swoons*.

Crafting wise not done much apart from a Father's Day Card for Chris's dad and a birthday card for his Auntie Roxie which I'll probably post pics of later. Well that's all from me for now. Keep crafting! Big hugs Sarah aka woo woo girl xxx

Monday 30 May 2011

The Fat Controller....

Hello fellow crafters and welcome to my crafting corner! I hope you are all well and enjoyed the bank holiday weekend. Now before anyone gets excited and thinks I'm promoting a new diet aid, let me introduce you all to what was going to be the groom topper for my wedding cake. *Drum roll please* "Ladies and Gentlemen, woo woo productions is proud to present 'the Fat Controller' from the popular children's television programme, "Thomas the Tank Engine and friends" or if you squint the amazing Bertie Bassett much loved licquorice figure."

This "lovely" quilled figure was my first attempt at quilling a 3D character but somehow I ended up with the Fat Controller and not the handsome groom I was hoping for... Still that's marriage for you ;o) ( joking I adore my lovely Chris)

Well this is just a very quick blog for now.... If you can bear the sight of my second attempt then I'll post it later.  Stay crafty everyone. Big hugs Sarah aka woo woo girl xxx

Saturday 7 May 2011

plodding along....

Hello crafters and welcome to my crafting corner! I'm still without my own lappy so apologies for the lack of photos to go with this blog. Not done a great deal crafting wise apart from making 30 or so Wedding Invitations and writing them. I also knocked up a quick card for my nephew's birthday next week but totally forgot to take any photos. I've also do a sample Order of Service but not the inserts as I need to find out what needs to go in it. The final thing I've made is a silver exploding box which only has two layers to it which is fine as I'm planning on making a 3D quilled cat in it to give to my mum on my wedding day, I'm making Chris's mum a gold one with a cute 3D quilled mouse in its centre. I know it's traditional to give the mothers flowers but firstly I need to the cost of the wedding as low as possible and secondly flowers are lovely but they quickly fade and then get thrown away, I'm hoping that the exploding boxes will be a keepsake for our mums. Hopefully by the time I get round to making them - and here I must stress that I've never made a 3D quilled anything so they may turn out to be total pants  - I shall hopefully have my own laptop back so will be able to upload photos or not if they are hideously misformed lol. Still I've always liked a crafting challenge and I've certainly set myself one with my wedding! I'm also hoping to make 3D bride and groom cake toppers.

Oh just remembered! I had a pleasant surprise the other day, I was flicking through "Papercraft Essentials" magazine and suddenly spotted my name on one of the pages and when I looked carefully I found to my delight that a card I'd sent in to a comp months ago was featured in the Readers' Gallery *big happy smile*. I should be getting a prize and possibly a free copy of the mag so I'll keep you all posted.

Well that's about all my news for now. Hope all are well and ever if you have any questions, comments etc leave them below. Happy Crafting! Big hugs Sarah aka woo woo girl xxxxx

Thursday 28 April 2011

a bit of news....

Hello fellow crafters, welcome to my craft corner! I haven't been able to blog for almost a month for a couple of reasons. The first is I dropped my laptop and it wont charge now *cries*. The second reason is I've been in Hull Royal Infirmary for a week of tests which included a MRI brain scan (very scary like being inside a coffin and astonishingly noisy!) and a lumbar puncture which wasn't as painful as I was lead to believe at the time but was agonising afterwards when I was told to drink a litre of water but not to lift my head up for at least three hours - I have NEVER wanted the loo so badly in my life!!!! The upshot of these tests is hard to say really, I've just received a new appointment to see my nuerologist on the 24th May so may know a bit more then. All I've been told is that the MRI showed a slight narrowing of the veins going into my brain which has caused or was caused by a build up of fluid. The lumbar puncture was to relieve some of the pressure in my brain and I've got to say I've only had one bad headache since I got back home as opposed to a constant headache which I've been suffering from for the last six months or so. I'm now on yet another tablet which is meant to get rid of excess fluid - not sure if it's working but it does have rather unpleasant side-effects the worst one being pins and needles and numbness. Now your probably thinking what's so bad about pins and needles and before I went on Acetazolamide I would have agreed with you however they don't last a few minutes but up to an hour at a time and they can effect any part of my body - this morning I was woken up at 5.30am with pins and needles in my ELBOW!!! I didn't even know you could get them there! Admittedly they are usually in my hands and feet but it is the oddest sensation the nearest way to describe the feeling is its like being softly whipped by stinging nettles, I just wish I could find a giant dock leaf to get rid of the sting lol.

I would like to have uploaded some photos of recent projects but I'm writing this blog on my best friend's laptop *waves at Kate* and I'm not sure she'd appreciate me adding software to her lappy. Kate has been an absolute star, as always. She lent me her laptop so I could submit my Open University essay electronically after I discovered I don't actually have my tutor's address and when I went in to hospital with very little warning (I saw Dr Achmid on the Friday and was admitted on the Monday!) she very kindly looked after my cat Jinx and even bought him a couple of pouches to cheer him up. I don't know what I would have done without her especially the laptop loan. Anyway when I've got some spare money I'm going to get my laptop mended - hopefully it wont cost too much.

Well that's my news, nothing exciting or particularly crafty this time. I hope you are all well and stay crafty! Big hugs Sarah aka woowoo girl xxxx

Thursday 31 March 2011

Hello fellow crafters, welcome to my crafty corner! Today was the final session of the craft course I've been doing and we made a mosiac. I really enjoyed making mine and at times it felt like doing a jigsaw puzzle trying to slot the pieces of broken tile in to the spaces.


As you can see I've still to grout it before it's finished but it needs 24 hours drying time for the PVA glue before I can tackle the grouting. I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out even in it's unfinished state. The photo doesn't do the colours justice as some of the tile pieces has glitter embedded in them or a shimmer to them. Because it's made with cut glass tiles I've even included some mirror and clear pieces to it which I think gives it a different look to just using opaque tiles.


It's Mother's Day here in the UK on Sunday so I've made a couple of cards that I'd like to share. The first is a birthday card for my future Mother in law, it's her birthday on Saturday. I thought she'd like this rather cute bear easel card. The bears come naked! lol and I dressed her in a pink sailor costume and hat as my future MIL lives near the sea, I would have liked to have made her a card with mice on as she collects ones similar to Joanna Sheen's House Mouse but unfortunately I haven't anything mouse themed in my stash and now that Riverside Craft has closed there's nowhere in Goole that sells J.S. products (big sigh). Anyway back to the card.... The bears have matching sentiments so I used a pink spotted Happy Birthday as the stopper for the easel card. I covered the card base with blue paper then fringed some green paper to make the grass, I ruckled it up with my finger to give it a bit of dimension then added the dressed bear. A simple card but I think Denise will like it.

This next card is also for Denise but it's a Mother's day card. I found some funky dory decoupage flowers which I made up using foam pads then I put it on a pearlised card base and added a purple ribbon tied in a bow - it looks like the ribbon is tied round the stems which I like. I finished the card off with a silver Dovecraft peel off.

well that's all the crafting I've done so far - I'm going to make a Mother's card for my own mum which I'll try and post tomorrow. I hope you've enjoyed reading about my latest projects and if you have any questions or comments then pls leave me a message.

Happy crafting! Sarah aka woo woo girl xxxx

Thursday 24 March 2011

a bit of this and a bit of that....

Hello fellow crafters! Hope everyone's enjoying this lovely spring weather. I've not done a lot of crafting but I thought I'd share some of the things I've done in the past few weeks at my craft course. It's the final session next week and I'm going to miss have a few hours of dedicated crafting every week, somehow I rarely get round to it at home!


The first thing I'd like to share is a weaving I did last week, I won't go into details because it's something that needs to be seen rather than described - however I would like to highlight the beading which took ages to weave into the piece as they wouldn't go through the weaving needle thing (lol that's not the technical name for it!). The piece is very tactile and I found myself stroking it quite a few times, not sure what I'll do with  it but I was thinking of backing it with calico fabric and maybe patching it onto a bag or something.




The next thing I'd like to share is the card I made this morning, about half of the class hadn't finished their weaving last session so Julie the tutor gave those that had a bouquet flower card to make. This hasn't been my favourite project mainly because I would have preferred to have been able to create my own card not have one prescribed to me, although mine is different to the one Julie demoed I don't think it's got my usual flair and it's not one I'd be prepared to give away or sell. Basically I layered a piece of cream card stock onto some patterned paper before mounting it onto a white card blank. I cut a circle out of green card (next time I will use a yellow piece) then punched out enough daisy flower shapes to cover the circle in co-ordinating shades of yellow. I stuck these on using PVA glue starting on the outside edge and working my way to the centre. I finished off the flower head by using an orangey-yellow cardstock then dabbed orange stickles in as many flower centres as I could. The very centre flower is a pale yellow flower which I highlighted with a stick on gem thing (not sure what they are called but they are from Paperchase and very lush in real life). I cut a stem and two leaves freehand then stuck them onto the card. I finished off the card with a bow, some more paperchase gems and an Anita's dimensional dragonfly which I had to stick on with a bit of glue once I got home as it had fallen off in my bag. I love the Anita's dimensional stickers but the glue they use on them is rubbish and the embellishments end up loose or lost unless you stick them down with your own glue.

Well I hope you've enjoyed the projects I've shared with you, as ever feel free to msg me with any questions and please comment below - I love feedback!! Happy crafting everyone. Big hugs Sarah aka woo woo girl xxxx

Thursday 10 March 2011

Better late then never.....

Hmmm not doing too well on this blogging thing, was hoping to at least blog weekly but somehow I've never seem to find a spare half hour to sit down and just write, so a big sorry to all my loyal readers out there and also a wave or two to my secret followers lol.  Sometime soon I'm going to blog about the closure of my favourite shop in Goole - Riverside Crafts (Shanda you are missed already) but today I just want to leave a quick blog on a card I made today at a craft course I've been doing since January.

The above photo is of  a twisted easel card and it is really simple to make. First of all I cut some card down to 14cm by 28cm then scored it in half to make a square card blank then I scored one half diagonally to make a triangle shape - this forms the twisted mechanism. With a second piece of card I made the easel upright part by cutting it to a 14cm by 14cm square which I stuck to the triangle shaped folded card making sure it was on the right way (it's hard to explain in words but there are tutorial videos on YouTube) I then cut some striped pattern paper approximately 5mm smaller than my blank (13.5cm by 13.5cm) and fixed this to the card front using double sided tape. I then cut another card square this time in blue which measures approximately 12.5cm by 12.5cm and decorated it using peel offs in gold I placed a butterfly "foamie" in the centre of the peel offs and foiled it in gold then mounted the entire piece centrally on the stripey paper. I then added smaller butterfly "foamies" and foiled those also in gold. To make the easel stopper I punched out 3 hearts from card, covered them in ink and embossing powder then heat set them before mounting them with foam pads upon the base. To finish the card I added another large butterfly "foamie" to the bottom right-hand corner and foiled it in gold. Like all easel cards this one folds flat for posting.

I really enjoyed making this card and will probably make a couple more for Mothering Sunday (3rd April). I hope you've found this blog interesting and as always if you have any questions just leave a comment below. Happy crafting - and I'll try not to leave it so long between blogs! Sarah aka woo woo girl xxxx

Saturday 15 January 2011

Happy New Year! I'm not late - I'm early for the Chinese New Year *big grin*

Hello fellow crafters, welcome to my crafting corner! I've been experiencing some Internet problems which is why I've not blogged for a while. I spent a lovely Christmas in Bridlington *big sigh* and got some wonderful presents from my future in-laws! Chris got me some DVDs and a gift voucher for the craft shop in Bridlington which I've yet to spend, he also got me the video camera which I've had for a while now.

I've not got any new pics to show you just yet but that's because I haven't saved them from the camera however I wanted to come say hi so you all know I've not forgotten you.

I had an essay due in on the 7th January (got an amazing 84% for my second one!) and as usual I left everything until the last minute and ended up submitting it 15 minutes past the 12 noon deadline, I don't know if I'll be marked down as a result but it's been the wake up call I've been in desperate need of, so I've decided to turn over a new leaf and start taking my studies seriously. I've also decided to tackle my clutter problem including (drum roll please) The Room of Doom aka the study/craft room. I'm thinking about setting up a blog exclusively dealing with my journey towards organisation (and yes it is a journey - I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a lost tribe or two in The Room of Doom!) So if you're looking for helpful tips or just a laugh as I explore my way in that undiscovered country we call Organisation then keep an eye out for "The Procrastinating Princess's Journey to Enlightenment and Organisation" or some such Blog.

Well that's all for now, hope you are all ok and keep crafting! Big hugs Sarah AKA woowoogirl xx