Hey cyber buddies hop on over to the new blog www.mjm-thearttart.blogspot.com and see pics of my booth at the stitch and craft show at London's Olympia. I had an absolute ball!!! see you in the new corner of blogdom :)

Love

M x

Are you going to the Olympia stitch and craft show in London 18th- 21st March??? .... see you there, come and say hi and check out my workshops ...... sneak peaks on the new blog www.mjm-thearttart.blogspot.com

Apologies for all of you having problems with the hyper link to my new blog home please copy and paste the above address into your address bar and visit me there .... and while you're there become a follower, leave a comment and win a package of gorgeousness from me just for doing something so shimples LOL

Hope you're well and happy, see you on the blogspot

Love

M x

Hey cyber buddies .... I know I hear you cry 'she's blogged within the week' LOL wonders never cease and miracles do happen!!!

I thought I'd drop by and share this .....

To find out what this is go to my new blog house here .... see you there! Why not become a follower over there too that'd make life easier wouldn't it???

Hope you're well and happy

Love M x

Well I don’t know where the time has gone since our last visit!!!! I just seem to be chasing myself coming back at the moment. BUT I will not complain, all’s good and I am happy (if not a little frayed around the edges LOL) So before I go further I will apologise for yet another epic post from me, I do have the good intentions of little and often but don’t seem able to put that into practice!! Please hop on over to my new blog home here  to catch up on my adventures!!

I'm home for our wonderful holiday to Mexico!!! I have a whistle stop tour of the final part of the holiday and some creativity knocking here  ... Please come and find out more on my new blog!

Love

M x

Want to know more???? then click here  to go to my new blog! see you there

Love M x

Hola Cyber buddies from me in Mexico! Please pop on over to my new blogger blog here , I told you we were moving and with connections over here the time has come as it's quicker and easier for me to blog from there ... see you in a mo!

Oh before you go I have updated my DT web galleries, have a peruse now or pop back after you've been to the blog :)

Love

M x

Hey cyber buddies HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! Sorry I've been cyber AWOL the festivities took over ....as did the snow, visiting family in Devon, having my family for new year (and doing a rather good Nigella impression LOL) and yet more snow!!!!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and a happy and safe New Year. I enjoyed mine but am now looking forward to normal service resuming!!! Well in cyber world at least .... the snow may put pay to a lot!!!!

I have crafted over the festive period and will share when I am more organised! At the moment I am clearing the decks of deadlines ready for my long awaited and much looked forward holiday to Mexico yay me!!! and while we are away we will be taking a trip to CHA and I am soooooo excited about that I can't stand myself! How will a country girl cope with all that crafty gorgeousness????? So if you're there come say Hi I will be on the Purple Cows  booth on Monday 25th morning and Tuesday 26th afternoon (showing off my i-cube panel, Fabby storage, and my Home shopping network project shown 11th -12th of Jan on tv!!) as well as lurking around the Glitz booth !!!!

So what else does 2010 hold for mjm at the moment? Well I will be teaching a workshop at Bee Crafty every month of 2010 get booked! I will be teaching workshops at the Stitch and Craft show at Olympia London in March. I am at the Scrapping Angels retreat April 24th-25th (super exciting!) I have a Crafty Stash workshop March 28th and our first Crafty Stash retreat later in the year!!!! (how Exciting is that??) Aswell as still designing for Purple Cows (talking of which remember that contest???? to win $5000 of goodies? well it's been extended to 17th January DON'T MISS OUT!!!!!!), Glitz designs and Banana Frog . I will also be teaching at the Barncrafters crop and have been invited to guest with the It's a creative world girls for their 2010 project. So busy, busy just the way I like it :) More details of everything will follow!

Stan is doing great, he loves the cold weather and snow and does a great bambi impression on our icy walks! He had his sister Ruby here over the new year and really misses her but will be spending time with her while we jet off to Mexico and then hopefully we will be getting a brother for him in the Spring, hopefully Oliver is on his way :)

The new blogger blog will be ready soon so we will be moving blog houses soon although the website will still be here! My new years resolution is to be a better blogger ..... but don't hold your breath LOL Thanks for stopping by and I wish you all the best of luck, health and happiness for 2010

Until soon Happy crafting

love

M x

Hi Cyber buddies! Glad to have you here, if you visit me regularly and haven't arrived here via the Purple Cows blog hop I suggest you stop right now, click here  and start at the beginning (it's a very good place to start LOL) and go and be inspired by my uber talented fellow cow girls, I'll still be here when you return :) And if you are here via the hop you are most welcome! Please help yourself to a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie while I share with you a couple of quick and easy projects I've made with my fantabulous Purple Cows tools!

I am so honoured to be part of such a wonderful team of talent and thrilled to be able to work with the fantastic company that is Purple Cows and their brilliantly crafty, high quality tools. I'm sure you've had a fab time on the hop and have inspiration coming out of your ears, I hope my little projects may inspire you too, to play along and go running to grab them tools! Of course you know we have an amazing competition going on and I hope you've all entered and if not why not? What better way to start the new year than with $5000 of Purple cows products??? and YES it is an international competition, so come on UK girls don't let me down!!!!

So enough waffling and on with the projects! As always I have left my Christmas cards to the last minute but always feel guilty as a crafter to not make them myself so this year the solution is a Christmassy collage that I will scan, shrink and attach to card blanks ..... only cheating a little bit LOL.

Here it is

My all time favourite Purple Cows tool is the Freestyle mouse, and along with the decorative blades kit it is my constant crafting companion! I love collage and love to be able to build up layers on my work sweeping my mouse across my papers and creating interesting edges as I go, it really is so much fun!!!

Here I cut up some white bazzil using decorative click blades (which are sooooo easy to change in your trimmers and mouse!) #'s 2803, 2805 and 2806. These made my layers of snow with a couple of strips of patterned paper from the Cosmo Cricket Christmas crafting kit thrown in for good measure!

My sky is scrunched up tissue paper stuck to card stock. I then Cut out the stars, backed the holes with silver paper and added a little star cut from newspaper.

The tree was easily cut on the #1060 smart trimmer using decorativer blade #2804 and the 45 degree angle marked on the cutting mat. This was then decorated with sequins and stickles.

I made 2 paper dolls and dressed them in festive red and white doodles.

Cutting out a photo of me and hubby and of course our little dog Stanley completed the festive collage ..... maybe you need to make last minute cards? This is a super fun and easy way to do it and you get a fun festive collage to keep for yourself!

The other project I'd like to share is a Christmas castle

For those of you that have visited before you may see that it is like the haunted castle I made for Halloween, but as I said with different colours and papers it can be made for any season and the Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly papers were perfect for this project which is made so easily with the Purple Cows #1040 combo trimmer, ensuring all the measurements are exact so it all fits together beautifully! Would you like to make one??? Well I have written a set of instructions for you that I would like to give to you as a Christmas gift :) all you have to do is click here  to visit my web site home page (a new window will open so you don't have to leave here just yet as I have the next link on the hop to give you in a mo!) At the top of the list of latest news you will  find my free PDF for you! Enjoy!!! I think I will fill my castle with little presents to give away to my guests over the holidays, but it could be full of sweeties or even some festive pot pourri! .....

Well that is my little contribution to the fabulous blog hop, I hope you enjoyed your visit with me and I hope you'll pop by again! Now to the next cyber home to visit for more inspiration and festive cheer, it will be the last stop on your journey and I know that there will be a special treat in it for you!!! The next person is one of lifes beautiful people, inside and out and talented to boot!! It's our lovely DT co-ordinator and cow girl extra-ordinaire Vennita and you'll find her here  enjoy your visit with her and I'll see you all soon!

Until next time I hope you're all well and happy and happy crafting

Love

M x

Hi all, This will be a flying visit but I wanted to drop in 1) to keep up with my blogging (miracles do happen!!) 2) to make sure you don't miss out on some great chances to win stuff and 3) to wish Stanley Dervish happy birthday!!

So on my last visit I told you I was battling the lurgy, well sad to say I still am and am now even more bored of it!! I just can't give into being ill I am a rubbish patient so I guess I'm not helping myself but heh I'll survive! Unfortunately it has meant that I missed out on the workshop with Crafty Stash and Tracie Hudson today :( I'm sure they had a fab time though and I'll catch up on all the goss, talking of which we have a blog now over at Crafty Stash here,  I'm sure Sue will be posting all the lovely pics on there this week so why not pop on over and visit. I've also been working on a new Crafty Stash kit here's a sneak

Now I mentioned good stuff to win didn't I?? well yep get yourself over to the Glitz blog now and leave a comment for the chance to win this ....

OMG that's Christmas for me right there!!! I cannot tell you how yummy, scrummy the plum crazy range is ... you have til Wednesday to comment don't miss out!

And of course THE PURPLE COWS AMAZING COMPETITION is still on! Entries are coming in and I want to see more from my UK cyber buddies as well as all my other european friends and you guys from the rest of the world! Go to Sadies blog now and the post today is a direct link to ALL the competition details. I would love to see that truck load of goodies

 hitting these shores, please don't miss out!! I've been creating some Christmas goodness for the cows, here's a sneak

and don't forget all the projects published form any of the designers are available as FREE PDF's just follow Sadies links AND they could be used for your competition entry!!

Lovely Bev of Banana Frog will be on Create and Craft again this week, 12 o'clock on the 10th so I've been playing with some of the new stamps making some samples up shhhh don't tell her here's a couple of sneaks :)

A little bit of other news is I am moving cyber homes soon!! My website will still be here but I have decided to go to a blogger blog. It's a little easier, it's easier for you guys to follow and it loads quicker than this blog. I will let you know when and where when it's ready but will continue to post here for a while :)

And finally HAPPY BIRTHDAY STANLEY DERVISH!!! he's 1 today ... where did that year go?? He's been spoilt with cooked breakfast and roast dinner today and has sung happy birthday to his sister Ruby via text (hmmm that doesn't make sense .. heh ho!)

Stanley Dervish when he first came home

Stanley Dervish today

Stanley catching a few zzz's well getting older is tiring LOL

Ok that's me, I need to rest now! Thanks for stopping by and hopefully next time I see you I will be fighting fit!! I hope you're all well and happy, thanks for stopping by and until soon happy crafting

Love

M x

Hi all, sorry to have not been back sooner.... just when I was doing so well at this blogging malarkey but I have been struck with the dreaded lurgy, well one of the cold things that's going around and I am getting extremely bored of it now! A girl's just too busy and christmas is coming eek ... so un organised!!! Anyway here I am, I'll try not to breath on you while I fill you in on my latest crafty happenings!

I am super excited to be the guest designer over at pencil lines this week. I was thrilled when the lovely Anna  invited me to play and had great fun here's my layout for sketch #163

Little flower girl

I love to see all the different versions of the same sketch, pop on over and check out the talented DT's work. I'm also realy excited for Anna as she has just released her new book, see it on the blog , a Christmas list must me thinks!!!

So before I got poorly sick I did get to go to a crop last Saturday and see lots of my lovely friends that I haven't seen for ages. It was the Barncrafters crop and I had a blast, they are near Droitwich and if you have a look in the crop thread on UKS  you will find them, why not come and join in next year? Next crop will be in January and then I will be teaching a class there in February, they're a lovely bunch of people, I can't guarantee you'll scrap a lot but you will laugh a lot!

Last Sunday I got up early to see the lovely Bev of Banana Frog on create and craft. She did some lovely demos and of course I got to see my samples on tv! Here are some of them

Boho Chic jewellery

this was also my last stamping school using the Mastryoshka stamp set

Ready for take off

using the retro space stamps

4 generations

using the Mastryoshka stamp set

Poor mans crackle picture frame

Using the Mastryoshka stamp set and a technique that can be seen here  on the banana frog blog

and finally You're a star box

Using the retro space stamp set. Look out for Bev's next appearance on the 10th December, and I have my mitts on some more of the new stamps to play with to do some more samples ...

On Wednesday I had a fabby day with the lovely girls at Bee Crafty , we have cooked up a whole programme of workshops for next year and I will be doing one a month there from February next year. I am so looking forward to it! They are in the Evesham area so if you're around why not book up to come and play? The shop is fab too and is on such a lovely estate, I would love to have a studio there, it's all converted barns and has got such a lovely feel, I recommend a visit to you all!

I have been working on some Purple cows projects and having fun with my laminator, glitter and fusible fibres, although I did get glitter everywhere and have ended up with sparkly sneezes if you know what I mean LOL I will share when I can but in the meantime DID YOU START YOUR PURPLE COWS COMPETITION ENTRY YET????? Come on get with it, I know you have until midnight on new years eve but wouldn't it be great to do it now so it's done before Christmas?? Don't you WANT to have $5000 to spend on goodies just for you? Do you run a crop? Imagine being able to kit the crop out with all the latest trimmers and tools (and the new UK model of the 13'' laminator being released in January!!) and still have money to spoil yourself too!!! Get together with friends, get one tool, get your pictures taken using it and GET CREATING come on show the cow girls what you're made of!!! Instructions and details can be found on Sadies blog AND while you're there click on the Scribe link, the FREE PDF hosting site and you will find an array of projects you can use FOR FREE what better way to jump start your creativity to enter this MOO-VERLOUS competition!!!!!

Of course hubby has been away busy with Panto rehearsals and all is going well. I met the lovely Kara at the weekend, and she really is a lovely girl. I think it's going to be a GREAT panto, I'll keep you posted!

And so to my and finally! Stan just seems to be in a constant state of muddy at the moment. Rain, mud + long haired fluffy dog not a great combination, he needs to be on stilts LOL (and needs a haircut!)

And he didn't understand me being poorly, Wednesday night I gave in and curled up on the settee with a duvet, what a great source of entertainment for a boy!!! He loved hiding his ball in the covers!!!

Next blog may see some Birthday pics of our Stan ... he's 1 next week I can't believe it!!!!! So until next time my lovely cyber buddies thanks for stopping by, hope you're all well and happy and I'll see you soon

Happy Crafting

Love

M x

..... What a week .... phew crazy madness!

Before I settle in with this blog post I'll announce my competition winner! Thankyou for all your lovely comments here, on facebook and in my other cyber hidey holes!! Now I don't have a fancy random number generator but I do have a husband, a hat and some paper LOL so ... drum roll please ..... my winner is ..... odori san .... congratulations!!! Thankyou to all who entered! I will be in touch Odori to see which DIY project you would like and it will wing it's way to you through cyber space!

Talking of DIY projects, thankyou so much for all the orders this week ... the wishing house

is the favourite so far, I can't wait to see what you all create with the projects ... please share!!! I will be adding more projects soon. The first DIY projects I did were very much model making projects, however I am so much more into papercraft now that most of them are constructed with ordinary card and paper, to that end I will be re visiting some of my previous projects like the memory theatre and making them paper crafting projects so watch this space!

Last weekend saw the cyber crop onUKS and I had a blast! The theme was The Wizard of Oz and this was my class

The Lollypop guild

made with the fabulous Glitz Olivia paper. (kits available soon at crafty stash ) The entries were FABULOUS!!! I enjoyed every minute I spent in the gallery looking at all the entries and commenting, please check them out! I was astounded at the talent, I laughed and cried at all the stories and loved getting to know some of the UKS'ers a little better..... isn't scrapbooking fabulous! I had to pick a winner and cannot tell you the time I agonised over it but finally these were my top 3

Silverstar, I loved this, it just made me smile

Hysteri-CAL Loved the depth of the layout, the photos are great

and Nic-B, loved the story and the vintage twist.

Really go and have a look , so many great LO's and I would've loved to name them all winners!

Ok so back to the awesome Purple cows competition , I REALLY want you to be in with a chance to win this

$5000 of purple cows goodies, trimmers, laminators and the fabulous i-cube storage system, YOU get to choose what you want AND there are runners up who will win $1000 prizes ... worth a go right? Plus I really want you to show our America cousins what we are made of, so much talent to show off! The details are on Sadies blog but basically you need to create a project, any project and submit it, and all you have to include is a photo of you using a purple cows tool. Now you may not have one so maybe you know someone who has, all purple cows needs is a photo of you using a tool! Alternatively I can't recommend the tools enough they are woth every penny trust me! So why not bag yourself one? DoCraft  are our UK distributors and if you go to their website and put in your postcode you will find your local stockist AND while you are there look at the homepage THEY have a competition to win a fabulous trimmer in the November prize draw ... so get your PC tools (or a friend who has one!) and get creating ... I know you won't let me down! You have until 1 minute to midnight on New years eve to enter! So want inspiration? Go to the website and download some free PDF's from my fellow cow girls, find them under create and look through the designers names to find a project that could be your entry!!!! If you want to enter why not contact me for the free PDF of my spooky town castle? comment here on the blog or email me on mjm@jackson-mogford.freeserve.co.uk You can use any of the cow girls instructions for inspiration Even the instructions for this....... My latest Cows project seen on Sadies blog !

so what are you waiting for???? GO FOR IT!!!!!

This week has seen me being a stamping fool! I have been creating samples for the lovely Bev over at Banana Frog who will be on create and craft TV at 9am on Sunday this weekend (repeated at 8pm) I won't share yet you'll have to watch LOL but soon! In the meantime here is my last colour focus Layout for the Lilly pad...

and my last stamping school ...

Another stamping school coming on the 23rd!

The other madness in my house is .... Panto!

Hubby's  gearing up for rehearsals starting Monday ready for the panto run at the Bristol Hippodrome 11th Dec-Jan 10th. (by the way hubby is on the right. I'm not married to Jo Swash! LOL)

And finally ..... I have been so busy this week that I don't have many photos of Stanley Dervish, although I wish I could have captured a pic of him being blown over in the gales .... Hilarious!!! so I'll leave you with a photo of a cute Stanley!

Ok cyber buddies I'll love you and leave you ... Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you soon, until then Happy Crafting!

Love

M x

Hi cyber buddies, well I have to confess I am a little over excited with this post. I have lots to share and I’m not quite sure where to begin! I have new DIY projects, a way to help you win $5000 of purple cows goodies, a free PDF of that spooky castle to give you and a competition of my very own!

So deep breath here goes, I need to get this in order so it makes sense, oh dear me make sense? I’ll give it a whirl LOL

A year ago this week I was officially announced a Best of British Scrapbooking winner. I can’t believe a year has passed! But what a fabulous year it has been! This also means it has been a year since I launched my website eek! And my first DIY project, A memory theatre which was seen in the December 08 issue of Scrapbook Inspirations magazine. I came up with the idea of DIY projects as a way to share with you full instructions and templates of my projects, a bit like a class that you can do in your own time but without a kit as we all have different styles and tastes and I didn’t want to inflict my paper choices on you. That way you get to use up some of that stash that I know you all have lurking and you also get to create a project that is completely, utterly, uniquely yours! So in celebration

of the art tarts 1^st birthday I have just produced not 1….. not 2 ….but 3 new DIY projects!

All on line and ready, waiting for you in the shop but I’ll share some pics with you now!

The first is … wait for it … the long awaited, much asked for and forever promised by me....

A pirates tale!

This pop up ship was seen in the February 2009 issue of Scrapbook Inspirations magazine and more photos can be seen in my gallery here  .

The second is my version of a piece of home décor of the moment …. A birdhouse but this one has magical powers (no really it has!) I call it…..

The wishing house

And with all the DIY templates you can make the projects any size you want so I made some little houses and call these Christmas wishes. More pics can be seen in my gallery here 

And lastly I bring you some Glitz and Glamour with ….

Putting on the glitz

A Glitzy mini book in a Glamorous handbag! More pics in my gallery here 

So why not check out the shop  , they’d all make great Christmas gifts! But wait ….. would you like the chance to win a DIY project of your choice? I know you all like a competition and for good measure I’m throwing in a freebie for you just for entering! What’s the freebie I hear you cry! It’s the PDF instructions to create your own version of my spooky town castle

Yes I know it’s past Halloween but with the instructions you can make the castle to fit any occasion just by changing the papers! It could be a magical Christmas castle, a pink princess castle, a knights castle, a wedding favour castle or a piece of seasonal home décor that holds pot pourri! The only limit is your imagination so shall I stop waffling and get on with it? …. Ok don’t shout!

Now stay with me here, this is in 2 parts, and this is what you have to do …..

1.    Go on over to Sadie Purple Cows blog here  and become a follower, then you MUST leave a comment in the latest post (which will be a project from yours truly I think!)telling Sadie Michelle sent you. This means you can now enter the moo-verlous competition over there AND I win purple points as we are also having a DT competition at the pasture (you scratch my back I scratch yours right?!) I’ll wait if you want to go now!

I’m hoping you all know about Purple cows tools ….. I talk about them enough! They are just fabulous! Trimmers, laminators, freestyle cutters and the fabulous icube storage system! There are so many options available there is bound to be a tool that is perfect for you and you could have the chance to win the whole kit and caboodle, $5000 worth to be precise, oo so many competitions LOL I want all my UK cyber buddies to have the chance to win and show off your creative talents … come on let’s show our American cousins what talent we have here! I also want all my international pals to do the same of course! The instructions to enter the Purple Cows competition are on the blog … good luck! (Do Crafts are the UK distributor for purple cows, if you enter a post code search on their website, your nearest stockist will come up so you can get your hands on some purple tools!)

2.    Ok so now you’re back, you’re following the Purple Cow and you’ve left a comment there to tell Sadie I sent you NOW leave a comment on THIS blog post to let me know you’ve done it! Please remember to include your email in your comment then I can email you your freebie just for taking part!!! Then all you have to do is decide which DIY project you will pick if you are the winner!

The DIY project competition winner will be announced on Friday 20^th November, a week today, so why not tell your crafty friends and family to come and join in the fun!

Phew! Hope that all makes sense! Now at the risk of making this the longest blog post in the history of blogdom I can’t leave without sharing a little more with you and I definitely can’t leave without mentioning Scrapbook Inspirations magazine which sadly has seen it’s last issue, as we know it, this week. I still can’t believe it!

I had my first project published in the magazine way back in issue 37 October 2007!

The adventures of a superscrapper

which I won the NSD competition with (click on the link to see pics at the bottom of that gallery page) I am honoured to say I was then a regular contributor to the magazine right up until this last issue in which you can see my

Light up Christmas tree

(This may be a DIY project coming soon too!)

I want to thank everyone at the magazine for being so fab to work with and to send them all lots of love. Particular mentions go to Jane Dean who first inspired me to scrap, Cheryl Johnson for selecting my work for the gallery in the early days, Shimelle Laine for all the page calls and of course the lovely Rosie who I am proud to call a friend. Right enough of that, it’s too sad!

Another lovely friend I have made through the magazine is Mary Anne Walters also of UK Scrappers  fame and this weekend is the crazy madness that is a cyber crop! I have a cyber class going on at some point over the weekend, so why not come and join us down the yellow brick road … it’s lot’s of fun and there will be inspiration galore!

And finally … then I’m going honest!

I don’t like this dirty, wet November weather …. But a certain Stanley Dervish does!

In like Flynn and up to his armpits in mud!

But he doesn’t like the hair dryer LOL

Ok, I’m off now. I have a cyber crop to get ready for. See you there? If you haven’t already done it, don’t forget to follow the competition rules above and I look forward to emailing you your freebie soon!

Thanks for stopping by, Hope you’re all well and happy and until soon happy crafting

Love

M x

Welcome to all you cyber visitors from the copy and paste party and of course you’re still welcome if you didn’t arrive here from there but I suggest you hop on over and check out the Christmas workshops on offer

from the very talented girlies Julie  and Kirsty  who have combined to make the fabby inspiration blog copy and paste . They have also very kindly given me a little treat for you if you sign up for the workshop, a bonus download!  Click here and you have access to a free downloadable file to get a taster of the workshops coming, glad you stopped by now aren’t you!  

So, I was invited as a Halloween party guest so let’s get back to the spooky!!

Samhain (pronounced sow-ein) is a pagan celebration which over the years (many, many years) has been hijacked and renamed Halloween from the original meaning all hallows eve. It is in fact the start of the pagan new year, so seasons greetings to all of you!

It is seen as a night to contact the ancestors while the veil between our two worlds is lifted and some of the traditions are to leave a plate of food outside for the souls of the departed, light a candle in the window guiding souls to the lands of eternal summer and offer apples to feed them on their journey. It is a time to feast on corn, apples, nuts, pumpkins and gingerbread and to drink cider and mulled wine to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next … sounds a lot like the harvest thanksgiving we all grew up with doesn’t it!

We still hold on to some of these traditions in our modern Halloween with our pumpkin lanterns (burning candles) feasting on treats, all be it these are now sweeties and apple bobbing.

And so with my little lesson on traditions over I would like to share with you some projects I have done as a DT member for Purple Cows . When all these projects are published on the Purple Cows site you will be able to get a free PDF of the instructions and templates, and all of them can be used for other times of the year, they’re not just for Halloween after a bit of tweaking!

Spooky castle

A great table piece to hold all those sweeties for your guests. It’s made from the Imaginisce spooky town range and is so very easy, imagine it full of Christmas treats or as a pink castle for a little girls party or a knights castle for a little boy!! (A quick digression from the party here, if you feel inclined read down to the bottom of my post from yesterday and you will see how you can win $1000’s of dollars of purple cows products!! Don’t miss out on this moo-verlous oppurtunity)  Now you may ask why my castle isn’t full of treats, it’s because if I did that just for the photograph I would have to eat them as we haven’t had trick or treaters for 10 years!!!  (it’s a very small village!)

The next project is a very simple bat mobile, no not the one that Batman and Robin drive round but a mobile!

A simple spiral cut from a 12x12 and laminated glittery bats hanging of at intervals, again imagine it with other things hanging from it

Next up are some lanterns, those of a certain age may remember making these at school LOL!

The centre in these though is not a toilet roll but a rolled up piece of alcohol inked and glittered laminate, a battery operated tea light in there looks really pretty and the whole project is not as messy or sticky as a pumpkin!

And lastly a door wreath. Can you tell I like my purple cows laminator??

Every autumn I want to capture the colours of autumn in the leaves and this year I finally came up with the answer, laminate the leaves!!! Cut them out and stick them round a circular clear scraps acrylic. Cute, simple and effective!

So there’s my crafty Halloween projects, I hope they inspire you to create and please share if they do!

As for the rest of my Halloween I wish I was in Mexico celebrating Dia de los Muertos. A two day celebration that really would be a spectacle to behold and not a million miles away from the original Pagan celebrations! Their cemeteries are works of art anyway

but over the 2 day celebrations (2^nd– 4^th  November) they decorate them with flowers and candles, burn incense and party with their ancestors, cooking food and sharing happy memories.

I do so love the Mexican style!

Alas I am in Blighty BUT hubby is home so I will be lighting the candles and cooking up a feast of pumpkin and ginger soup, pork in chilli apple sauce and maybe partaking in a glass (or 2) of mulled wine.

How ever you are celebrating your Halloween, have fun and be safe! Thanks for dropping by and I’ll see you at the copy and paste party, thanks to Julie  and Kirsty  for inviting me! Until next time happy crafting and happy new year!!

Love

M x

That’s really what my week has been about! I was getting worried I had sleeping sickness, I have been sooooo tired but I reckon it’s just the to-ing and fro-ing to airports and buses and my crazy life in general catching up, so I have had a quieter few days trying to be kind to myself and catch up …. I love sleep! Mum’s cure all when we were growing up was ‘go sleep you’ll feel better’ and we used to take the mick out of her something awful but do you know what?  …  she was so right (mum’s always are aren’t they but why do we never realise this when we are younger?)  everything looks so much better after sleep and surprisingly I can actually get things done! I think sometimes I get stuck on such a treadmill in my life, I forget to stop and be kind to me, so I’m trying to remedy that!

I thought I hadn't been away that long but it seems the little green men have been around again, stealing a week of my life LOL .. it's my excuse I'm sticking to it!

Well it looks like Autumn has arrived, the temperature has plummeted, the leaves are falling and the nights are drawing in. I don't like the earlier dark nights, which will get even earlier when the clocks change.... is that really next week? But I do like the late afternoon autumn sun ....

and this picture made me laugh, the cows were fascinated by Stan on the way home from our walk

I had a fab Sunday with the girls at the Crafty Stash crop where I was teaching in Wellwyn Garden City. I met the lovely Anne Freeman too and her friend had one of these attached to the table .....

I think it is a thing of beauty and one of the most practical things I've got my hands on for ages, luckily Anne had bought herself one and was sweet enough to give it up for me ... hope you got another one hun! And look the ring is to hold a rubbish bag

 ... no more Stan raids in my crafty bin LOL

The lovely Anna Bowkis also dropped into shop in the midst of her 3rd Birthday bash over at pencil lines ... and did you hear her news? There is a new book coming out at the beginning of December, details on the blog, now there's something to add to the Christmas list!!!!

So while still talking Crafty Stash here's a layout I've just done with a kit that is available in the shop

websters pages and lace, maybe not something you would associate with me but I really enjoyed creating this layout. The pic is of a lovely Dutch girl we met on holiday in Corfu 'talking' to one of the locals in a beautiful lost in time village we discovered.

Ok now I'm on to my Craftyness here's a couple of my Glitz  layouts

'Daydream believer' uses the Plum crazy line ... I'm so in love with it!!! Pics are of my lovely niece in a rare unposed moment!

'You' uses the Detour line, such gorgeous colours! A celebration of 10 years happily married to my wonderful man !

The Glitz  papers and embellies are soooo easy to work with I adore them and am busy cooking up some more projects with them!

I've also been busy creating for Purple cows again, I will share when I can, in the meantime my laminated suncatchers were on the blog last week

and if you hop over there not only can you get the free PDF download instructions to make your own suncatchers BUT you will also get the chance to win this ......

I know OMG right? That's what I said when I saw the pic..... at the moment we are awaiting further details to pass on to tell you how you can get your hands on this stash of purple gorgeousness, as soon as I know I will tell you BUT I do know that step one is to go to the purple cows blog and become a follower, leave a comment and tell them Michelle sent you ..... go on, you know you want to ... I'll wait!

Done? great ... there will also be a facebook fan page to join, I'll let you know when and where soon!

I actually saw hubby this weekend too! for all of 2 days LOL we had a lovely afternoon walking Stan along the river in Stratford-Upon-Avon and I did cook a rather scrumptious roast ... even though I say so myself!! Stan was happy to see him and pinned him down at every oppurtunity, which brings me to

And finally .... You're not going anywhere!

Bathtime ..... a regular occurence with the wet weather!

I was just helping you recycle the cardboard!!

Ok lovely cyber buddies, that's me for this post ... I'm off to finish my Banana Frog stamping school which goes live on Friday! Thanks for stopping by, I hope you're all well and happy and I'll *see you* soon until then Happy Crafting!

Love

M x

I know, I know you must all be wondering if this is really me or have I been abducted by aliens and some strange blog obsessed Michelle has replaced me, I can hear the cries 'What another blog post already!!!'  Well it is true and it is really me (no little green men involved LOL) I just HAD to post tonight to share my latest news it's official ... I'M A GLITZY GIRL

sorry didn't mean to shout but I am so excited not just because I can finally tell you (The lovely Laura invited me to join a month ago I was just waiting until she announced it officially on the Glitz blog !) not just because all my teamies are super talented and I'm so excited to work with them, especially the lovely and uber talented Jeni Boisvert who I met on the Bad Girls site but because I LOVE their product and I get to play with it!!!

I discovered Glitz recently when I did some Layouts with their papers for crafty stash and fell in love with them.

I think their papers are so funky, new and fresh and the colours are just edible, their stamps are yummy and the rub ons and embellies delicious. So thankyou to the lovely Laura and glitzy girls for inviting me along to join you all and you know the best thing cyber pals? I have the most lovely box of glitzy goodness to play with so for the next few days I will be mostly lost in that LOL

Talking of new and funky product, I got my inky mitts on a set of the new Retro Christmas stamps from banana frog and have just posted a Christmassy stamping school

as always the step by steps are on the blog and while you're there visit this post and leave a comment for your chance to win not only this set but 5 of the other sets of brand new froggylicious designs.

Yesterday I taught at the Crafty Stash Tempsford crop and had the most BRILLIANT day. Thanks ladies for making me feel so welcome and for all the laughs. I loved seeing what everyone did with my designs, that part of teaching is always so inspiring, big waves to all that were there and I will be doing it all again next Sunday at the Welwyn Garden City crop ... can't wait!

I did have to get up rather early to leave for the crop yesterday, now for those that know me I'm not really a morning person, well I love the early mornings when I get up to see them, it just doesn't happen often LOL Yesterday morning was quite spectacular with the early morning mist sitting over the village, this is what I saw on the walk back to the house with Stan who wondered what he was doing out walking so early LOL

and that brings me to my and finally ... ah tired little boy after he got all his toys out!

Ok that's me done, off to have a tot of Disaronno, a hug in a bottle!!! Hope you're well and happy, thanks for stopping by and letting me share my news! Until soon happy crafting

Love

M x

Don't faint, tis me blogging within a week of my last post! I have a couple of bits to share so thought I'd pop in and say hi!

We've been having the jungle tamed this week lots of hedge trimming and brutal tree chopping but it looks so much better! It's even got me out there pottering about! Now I feel more in control of the garden everything else seems to be falling into place and I'm feeling super productive yay! Improved even more so by catching up on my sleep not having to drive back and forth from airports! Hubby's on a ship now for a while, all right for some heh! I also had a fabulous weekend! On Saturday I went out to lunch with friends I haven't seen for ages, we laughed so much I was exhausted and it was just the tonic I needed then I had a lovely time at the Artisan show on Sunday. It's a new craft show and was held at the Warwick exhibition centre, half an hour from my front door! I did a workshop with paper artsy, bought some stash and met some lovely people. It was nice to potter around for the afternoon absorbing all the inspiration .... maybe that's also boosted my creativity!!

And so to the creativity! I blogged over at the pasture yesterday and shared a project I did for the Purple Cows. Remember that laminated organiser I made myself with the gorgeous purple laminator? well this project was an extension of that idea for a family all made with lovely Cosmo Cricket papers

I've added inspirational words

decorated each panel with my own doodles for each member of the family

and even added detachable lists for more organisation!

I love the organiser I have made for myself and wouldn't be without it! And if you go over to the ranch , click on create you will find me and the free downloadable PDF file to make one of your own! I will add the PDF into my purple cows gallery soon but in the meantime you can get it from purple cows direct! I've been creating another project for the cows with a spooky theme, I've had so much fun and will share one sneak peek of a little bit of it!

Talking of spooky this is a layout I did for this months colour focus challenge over at Banana Frog

That photo of my niece just had to be scrapped! I love the Banana frog alphas and have used bensfolk ad budmo jiggler on this layout.

The white titling is stamped into wet acrylic paint. The embellishments are made from it's all about arrows and greenwich park. Talking of BF stamps the lovely Bev sent me a set of the new Retro Christmas stamps aren't I lucky!! and I'm playing nice with them for my next stamping school on Sunday ... watch out for it! oh and if you flip over to the frog blog to check out the goings on don't forget to leave a comment here  to win all 6 brand new sets of stamps .. you really don't want to miss out on that!

Tomorrow as well as finishing off my stamp school and doing a layout or two I will be prepping for my Crafty Stash class in Tempsford on Saturday, I'm looking forward to seeing the ladies there and any of you if you're around!

Well that's it from me for now except to say ... and finally!

Stan decided he would help in the garden by bringing the branches inside!

Tiring work gardening, I'll have a lay down!

OO what's under this rug????

Oh all the yoghurts gone!

Ok my crafty cyber buddies I'll be off . I will be back soon, you never know I might make it back within the week again ..... but I wouldn't hold your breath LOL!

Hope you're all well and happy, thanks for stopping by and until next time Happy Crafting!

Love

M x

.... Ok so the only part of that title that is anyway relevant to this post is the planes bit .... just couldn't think of a 'witty' title again ... sorry! The last 2 weeks of my life have certainly revolved around planes though as in when they take off and land and to which airport I have to drive to next at silly o'clock to collect hubby .... I really should write that book on airports this past fortnight has taken me to Birmingham, Bristol and Gatwick not in that order and more than once in some instances!! He has been a whirlwind in and out the house and it plays havoc with my routine and my creativity, but he is working very hard so who am I to complain!

There is another part of my life connected to planes too in a round about way. My friends son Ollie came to stay with us this week. He qualified as a pilot recently and finally has a posting to go and be a proper grown up pilot and fly people around (and it only seems 5 minutes since he was a little boy in his batman pyjamas ... sorry Ollie LOL)

We are very proud of him and he is such a lovely young man, however the road to get his licence (or should I stick to the theme and say runway??) has not been easy for him or his family and all it entailed certainly was an eye opener for me. I will not go into details but tell you to go here and read all about it and sign the petition. Ollies mum my lovely friend and crafty cow (name of her website I'm not being rude LOL) is campaigning tirelessly to put things right for student pilots and if anyone can do it she can, go girl and go my lovely cyber buddies and show her your support!

And one more plane (ish) link when walking Stan the other day I could hear what sounded like very small plane engines that were very close, looking up this is what I saw

motorised hang gliders! I'm sure the views are amazing but rather them than me LOL

Ok I think that's all the tenuous plane links and so to some crafty stuff .... leading me nicely to Crafty Stash (see what I did there?!) I am teaching at both the Crafty Stash crops this month, Tempsford on the 10th and Welwyn Garden City on the 18th, so if you're free why not book up on the website and come and play?

I have been going Purple Cows crazy this month too, having way too much fun with my laminator, alcohol inks, glitter and trimmers (especially my freestyle mouse how did I live without it?) My projects will be published on the blog soon .... ok one sneak peek

Go and check out the goings on at the ranch, the DT have come up with some lovely projects and Pinky's latest cube is such a fun idea. Did you see Purple Cows products on QVC this week? Also I believe the Range is selling the trimmers, and remember if you have some purple goodness (and even if you don't, but want to know more!) Go to the website , click on create then the designers name and the projects will pop up in PDF format so you can download them for free and play along with us!

Another Banana Frog stamp school went up since my last post

Step by step pictures and instructions are here  as always. I LOVE triple embossing, especially using more than one colour powder and have to confess the tree is my favourite.

Talking of trees and stamps did you see the new stamps yet??? Quick go check them out .... win some!!...I'll wait while you post a comment! ... welcome back, aren't they delicious with a capital D! (and how cute is Bev's glamorous assisstant?)

I have been having lots of fun making projects recently but am missing scrapping at the moment,but, never fear that will be remedied soon especially as I now have got my hands on some more new lines from

To add to my Plum Crazy gorgeousness I now have Detour and Olivia so .... watch this space!

I had a lovely evening out on Sunday too and got to meet one of my UKS teamies and cyber friend Sonja . It's so nice to meet Cyber buddies in real life and we had such fun. Hubby was my chauffeur for a change so I could have a glass of wine (or two!) and on the way to the bar he spotted the cricket on in another bar, apparently it's interesting?! so he took himself off to watch that, not just because it was 'exciting' but it saved him from the crafty chat LOL

Talking of hubby again he is the one responsible for signing me up to facebook, now he is responsible for signing me up to you tube. He has loaded 2 video portfolios he created for me and hi jacked my face book page to tell everyone! The wonders of modern technology it makes me dizzy! He'll want paying next as my PR person LOL! But I think he did a lovely job, go and check out his handy work (and mine I suppose LOL) here  and here  and if nothing else have a dance to the jolly mexican music LOL

And so all that remains for me to say is ....

And finally ... The Dervish boy turned accountant this week as he 'helped' me with the tax!

He also turned demolition expert, the 'hotdog' is now dead!

and he turned into a very hansome Stanley Dervish after a trip to the groomers!

Well that's all from me for now, I'm away to create some spooky decor for Purple Cows and get on with some other crafty projects which I may be able to share with you next time. I hope you're all well and happy, thanks for stopping by and until soon Happy Crafting!

Love

M x

....Rubbish!!!! I could ask who stole a week of my life, I could tell you the sob story about losing my internet last week, I could tell you I've been a (very confused) headless chicken running around fetching and dropping off hubby, I could even tell you porkie pies and say I had been on holiday or visiting a sick relative but I think the only thing to do is hold my hands up and say I am officially rubbish at this blog malarkey!!! Ok, Ok you don't have to agree so readily LOL!!!

So where on earth have I been? Well all of the above happened except the holiday/visiting a sick relative thing, and yes I saw the little green men in their space ship steal a week of my life... honest! I have been a busy bee with life and creating, however when getting my pics together for this post I realise that most of the things I have done the past couple of weeks I'm not allowed to share yet, I won't give cryptic clues or sneak peeks, one because cryptic clues annoy me somewhat and two I don't have any pics to sneak peek with LOL!

What I can show you are some glorious photos I took the other day in the village on one of our walks. Autumn is my all time favourite season. Blue skies and a crispness to the air and fingers crossed this year we won't bypass the glorious colour changes (we went from soggy summer to winter last year!!!)

View down the field to the next village

The wonderfully coloured virginia creeper turning on the side of the house

I can also share a piccie of my latest stamping school over at Banana Frog,

check it out on the BF blog for step by step details and also if you're going to Ally Pally this weekend look out for the lovely Beverley Fletcher BF owner, stamp designer and lovely lady, I know she has some yummy froginess to share!! (tell her I said hi!)

I can also share a piccie of my latest Scrapbook Inspirations article which hit the shelves today. My altered haunted book with pop up castle.

I will add better pics to the gallery when I get the book back and if you like it and would like to make your own head on over to the shop , the castle is exactly the same castle that is in my Princess Fairy tale book , it's just made with different papers, so really your castle can be whatever you want it to be, so go and check out the DIY project. And talking of SI  congrats to the new additions to the design team!

I can tell you to check out the new paper ranges from Glitz ,

I've just got my sticky mitts on the new plum crazy range and oh my word it's edible!!!!

I can let you know I spent a fabulous day with Sue from Crafty Stash this week, working on the DT stuff so look out for new kits soon, did you know apart from the crop kits you can also subscribe to a monthly kit and buy page kits in the shop??!! Go have a look

And finally .....

I can share some pics of the little furball called Stan

Mummy where did all the crops go???

Me and my Dad (and proof the ever elusive hubby exists!!)

Too Cute!!!

And I'm not really sleeping on the bed!

Well my cyber buddies that's it from me, hmmmm not sure it was worth the wait but at least you know I am still alive! I will not make promises to be back soon and all that but I will promise to try harder LOL

Hope you're all well and happy thanks for stopping by and until soon (ish!) happy crafting

Love

MJM x

Hi all! Well I'm back from my rather long trip orbiting cyber space, thanks for being patient with me those who have seen my website off line for a few days!! I've FINALLY got round to a much needed update, I WILL NOT leave it so long next time I am sick of sitting at this blimin machine LOL! Anyhoo lots of new pretty pictures to see in my galleries so after you've read through my waffle here why not go and check it all out??!! I also have added a blog roll  to share with you all my teamies blogs and further links will be added.

So, the last time I was here I said that my nieces had been staying and I was recovering ... it took a while LOL but I had such a lovely time with them I thought I would share some pics ... the rest are filed away for scrapping!!

We packed so much into a week, witches, castles, safari, fun fair, swimming, picnics and shopping and we also managed a bit of crafting!

This is the result, Megans princess hat to wear to the castle

and Lilly's cool trilby of feathers and buttons

My two lovely girls at Warwick castle, jesters, jousting and a princess tower.

The girls on 'that' roller coaster, I laughed so much at them my face was aching!

The rest of the girls photos will be at the end of the post with my and finally .... Stan loved them and really missed them when they went home!

What else have I been up to? well it's been a funny couple of weeks on the rollercoaster of my life but I won't bore you with all that and get on with the crafty stuff instead LOL. Did you see Shimelles post on her blog last week? It made me laugh and nod lots and gave me the kick up the you know what I needed at the time, I am always tooting on about time being my nemesis well now it's time to gain control! The arrival of my latest piece of purple loveliness couldn't have come at a better time and the challenge the DT were set to use it. I had a fab Purple Cows laminator arrive last week, not just any laminator but a 13'' laminator and so many hot pockets to use with it including 12x12 pockets how cool is that??!! Our challenge was to get organised, how fitting! so I made this wipe clean monthly organiser

I've tried so many systems of calenders and notice boards and finally think I've invented a sensible system .... well it seems sensible to me LOL! Now to take a deep breath and fill it in for this month! While I'm talking Purple cows did you know that EVERY project one of the moo crew comes up with is available as a FREE download to anyone who wants it? Pretty cool eh! I've added my pdf files so far into my Purple Cows gallery here  and if you pop on over to the blog  or website  you can get more from the other cow girls!

This month has seen another LO from me in Scrapbook Inspirations September issue

I Love this LO, a very simple gel medium transfer onto calico, a bit of extra hessian and lace, the simple but yummy sultane paper and the photo does the rest of the work I think! (look out for a spooky offering from me next month too!)

Of course I've had 2 more stamping schools over at Banana Frog that I don't think I've shared here

Heartfelt blooms (step by step here )

and Age of elegance (step by step here )

and check out the last months colour focus , I love how all the froglets interpret the same thing in so many different ways!

There's some exciting goings on over at Crafty Stash too, we're hoping to start a blog and we've been joined by Heidi Kelley from the States (check out my blog roll for links) the rest I'll let you know as it happens in the meantime here's piccies of the latest kit I did available here

Glitz Sparrow My perfect paradise

Glitz sparrow Gal Pals

I'll be teaching at the Welwyn garden city crop and the Tempsford crop in October so hope to see you there!

Hubby's been home for a couple of days ... I know shock horror more than 24 hours! He's off again tonight for a few days then is home for a couple of weeks, so I might actually get the garage tidied, the garden sorted and we have plans afoot to do some filming for some you tube vids so the art tart maybe on a computer screen near you soon LOL!

Well I must be off now, Touch down back to earth and a couple of days off from cyber space me thinks! oh but before I go my and finally ......

Stan loved his girls, Meg was just the right size

He adored Lilly and sat crying for her at the bottom of the stairs for days when she went!

Stan and his girls, he loved his picnic time in the garden

Thanks for stopping by and for being patient with me recently ... I will do better, I promise .... the new organised time plenty person that I am LOL

*see you* soon until then happy crafting

Love

M x

... do you have that song in your head now??? Bet you do I have so I thought I'd share the pain LOL

This is a very very quick one from me, I'm rubbish! It's been soooooo long again since I've been here and I'm sorry if you've been lurking with the cry of where the hell are you! I had my nieces to stay last week, we had a fab time and I will share pics in my next more civilised leisurely post!!! needless to say though it was busy, busy, busy!! and I've spent the last week recovering and trying to catch up with myself and deadlines, however I am gaining some sense of control (???) and cyber world once again gets a look in. So while I'm catching up in my little cyber universe I thought I'd drop in ever so quickly throw a big wave at you all, grovel on my knees to beg forgiveness for neglecting you and let you know I'm stil alive!

I will be back soon with pretty pictures and stuff and I hope you are all well and happy!!! Thanks for stopping by, and for being patient with me ... as ever LOL

Speak soon, til then happy crafting

Love

M x

Ok so I've just sat here for ten minutes and brain will not click into gear and think of a witty title so I gave up LOL!!! Well times flown again! It's been a soggy old week here, and I was in danger of breaking out the scuba gear yesterday, thank goodness the sun (kind of) shone today .... emigrating was becoming a serious option ... please can we have some summer now???

This week hubby has been to and fro again and my life just seems to be constant trips to airports, train stations and coach stops. I should really do a scrapbook about all the airports, with handy hints on parking and where to get the best coffee LOL. At the moment he's sailing home and touches dry land tomorrow morning, home for a few hours, unpack, repack then flying again early hours of Sunday to pick up another ship in Corfu, nice work if you can get it! I would consider hiding in his suitcase this time (though I think there would be an excess baggage charge!!) but my nieces also arrive tomorrow for a week, so putting on my best Aunty hat as we speak LOL

This week we discovered a mahoosive wasps nest in the garden so had a man out to sort it, twice unfortunately, and then I saw ants everywhere on the back path and doorstep, including flying ones so ant powder was applied liberally and fingers crossed it's done the trick. They say things come in 3's so what's next? Locust?? LOL

Life seems to be picking up speed again at the moment and the ever growing to do list is just getting longer. One of my UKS  teamies, Amanda, gave me a link the other day that made me howl the freakin never ending to do list  I'm so glad I'm not the only one then!!! I think they're cool and will be printing off several ... hundred to help organise my life LOL

I gate crashed the party over at shimelle.com last weekend, did I see you there? It was lovely to see some froglets there and friends I know IRL and in cyber space. The party theme was to use your printer in your craftiness and lots of lovely projects were offered up. I use my printer and photocopier a lot but it made me realise how easy digi kits are to download and use in the same way you would use any jpeg images in most cases, no fancy programme needed, word can cope with a lot of it so I will definitely look at more digi kits from now on and it may even spur me to load (let alone learn how to use!) the photoshop programme I have sitting on my computer desk!

And so to some creativity, I have lots cooking at the moment including a stamping school for Banana Frog on the 11th August, can't share all but will share some stuff and some sneaks that I can! At the end of July I visited It's a creative world for my last guest spot of the month, I had a lovely time with the creative girls and pop in often for inspiration. This is what I shared over there and if you go on over, there are instructions

I do love my little shrine, I've wanted to make one for ages, and my memory was jogged after a fabulous lunchtime visit with the lovely Mary Anne Walters when I got to look through some of her crafty books and magazines.

If you make one please share, the beauty of these is they can be about anything, be personal to you, as crazy as you want and be any colour, go on give it a go!

In my last post I mentioned the amazing deal at craft superstore for the Purple Cows trimmer, well it was snapped up quick (not surprised) so sorry if you missed out but if you pop on over to creative expressions you can feast your eyes on even more purple cows deliciousness and find a supplier through them using their great postcode finder. Look at all the amazing tools, at the moment I am waiting for my 13'' laminator to wing it's way over to these shores ..... exciting! and have lots of projects good to go with it! Talking of purple cows projects did you know that every time one of the moo crew come up with a project you can download the instructions for free from the blog here  or here , how cool is that??? There's been some lovely projects go and check it out and don't forget to share your creations! Here's 2 thankyou cards I made for 2 of our generous product partners over in the pasture, we have so many wonderful partners (and a big box of stash that I am working my way through!!) the lovely companies I got to thank were

Core'dinations

and Dove of the East

And the last bit of creativity to share is the latest kit I've just completed for Crafty Stash available in the shop soon with full destructions to make the 2 LO's using the scrumptious Glitz  Sparrow collection ... and I'll let you in on a secret Sue and I have been chatting about a new Glitz kit she's cooking up, using one of the new lines plum crazy ... it is so delicious, glamorous and scrumptious and I can't wait to play with it (and see your faces when you see the fabulous kit we've come up with) ... watch this space!!!

here are 2 sneak peeks for you ....

pop by the shop soon to pick up a kit!

I had 2 lovely visitors last night, 2 of my croydon boys (I worked with them in the theatre there) They're in a field up the road organising a weekend function and came over last night to eat fajitas and drink red wine, just what the doctor ordered!!! Needless to say Stanley Dervish was thrilled to have visitors which leads me to my and finally!!...

Stan and Uncle adrian, mutual love

Stan and Uncle Jim, my dog is so embarrassing pulling visitors socks off!

And Stan has decided he likes raiding my craft bin doh!!!

Well time for me to have a sneaky glass of red and wend my way up the wooden hill, hope you're all well and happy, thanks for stopping by and hope to *see you* soon until then happy crafting

Love

M x

Hi all, Well, I am ashamed of myself!! In the last post an eon ago I said I would post as a 39 year old, well as you can see I didn't make it LOL I did try and post over my birthday weekend, honest governor, but there was a technical hitch on my site and I couldn't , that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!! So here I am posting as a fully fledged 40 year old!!!

Still not sure how I feel about it!!! But I did have the best birthday ever and probably one of the longest! So let's go on a catch up in the Mogford household, go on you know you want to. On the lead up to my birthday life well and truly caught up on me, I was sooooo tired but did manage a bit of creativity which I will share with you in a mo. But first to my fab day. I travelled up to London in the morning (after dropping Dervish boy at Aunty Carols where he had the best time) and hubby travelled to London from Southampton when he finally got off his ship. We met up and travelled out to the apartment he had booked. We knew it was close to the gig venue but didn't realise how close until we realised we could see it from the front room window ... perfect! The apartment was gorgeous, all shiny new and posh, shame it was only for one night really!! We stocked the fridge with pink champagne and headed back into town. The weather was perfect for a change phew! and we made our way to leicester square to eat and stumbled upon a mexican restaurant .... perfect again! We drank a litre of passion fruit marguerita ....

and had the best fajitas I have ever tasted!!

We then wandered through Trafalgar Square

hubby was very excited, he's never actually stood in the square before! Then we headed down to an art shop in Charring Cross where I spent lots of money on some yummy acrylic paints, lots of gel medium and texture paste and stuff (good job they were having an 85% off sale!!!) Then it was time to head back to the apartment, change and drink pink champagne ....

It did rain at this point but as we were so close to the gig venue, The Troxy , a fantabulous 1930's building, we were able to watch the doors open and the ques go down then we just wandered over and straight in how cool! We got a prime position behind the lighting guy (old habits die hard LOL) and had an un obstructed view of the main man...

Morrissey and he was awesome!!!! The band were amazing too. I think he's like a fine wine, only improves with age. I was excited to be going to the gig but when he walked out I squealed like a school girl and spent a happy 2 hours re living my teenage years!

After the gig it was naughty fried chicken and chips for supper and a yummy cake (and of course more pink champers!!) and a lovely call from my family in America. A perfect day, hubby did good!!!!

The next day off we trundled home then hubby went off to Madeira and I went to Yorkshire, phase 2 of the B'day celebrations, to see Mum and Dad and my bezzies.

It was so lovely to see my family and great to catch up with the girlies, we laughed and laughed and the motto was 'we can because we're 40' The only thing is I realise I don't go home nearly enough and miss everyone lots!

I did have an experience at one of my girlies houses, her son, the no longer little Bill had a tortoise for his birthday, I've never held a tortoise ...

and certainly never seen one that little! He's called Steve LOL

And in amongst all this I had 2 stamping schools over at Banana Frog

an acetate overlay and embellishments

and a crackled effect stamp off layout. Pop on over to the Lily pad for step by step instructions and also check out the colour focus, I love how we all come up with such different interpretations from the same inspiration!

I also had another guest spot over at It's a creative world . A funky family portrait ....

there's a step by step on the blog and also my last guest spot goes live tomorrow, a little project that I love even if I say so myself!!!

Also I have to share this amazing deal with you that I found go on over to craft superstore , they are selling a purple cow trimmer AND papers for £24.99!!!! the package is worth £90!!! Don't miss out go and grab one of those fabby trimmers of purple gloriousness while they have them!

Back to 'life' now. I came home from Yorkshire on Thursday, warning to anyone doing that trip roadworks south of Nottingham to past Sheffield both sides, piggin nightmare!!! With the intention of picking hubby up from Gatwick Friday night, but his plane was delayed and delayed due to the emergency landing, so he decided he would get a train in the morning, then we lost phone contact! Anyhoo he did eventually get home and the sun shone on Saturday, miracle!!! So we set to on the jungle and I wielded my hedge trimmer, I felt like Lara Croft LOL!!! Tired but pleased to have made head way we decided to have a barbeque, unfortunately we then went to wine o'clock a bit early LOL!!

But we put the comfy chairs out and sat in the garden playing name that tune with VH1 80's hits. A perfect end to a perfect birthday week!!!! So now normal life resumes (whatever normal life is??!!) Hubby went off to the Dominican Republic last night and I'm slowly catching up with myself today. I have lots of creations in my head so now it's time to put them into reality!!

And Finally with a trip to Yorkshire came the first meeting of Stanley and his sister Ruby since they were 9 weeks old .... it can only be described as mayhem!! They adore each other and have missed each other since, they were just so cute together!!

I know you ..... I think

Mummy she keeps stealing my chewy

What? Me and sis are sleeping leave us alone!!

Phew what a post, I will now get back to sensible posts .... I hope LOL!

I hope you are all well and happy, this week for me is crafty projects, DIY project writing (oooo!) catching up in cyber space and possibly even a much needed website update (but don't hold your breath!! LOL)

So until soon (honest!) Happy crafting thanks for stopping by and baring with me in my disappearing act!!

Love

M x

Hey there! Well another week another blog!!!

Different kind of week as I said hubby has been home for most of it! I went to collect him from the airport on Sunday and his plane was delayed, then his bags, by the time I had nearly lost the will it was 2am!! So we landed home about 4.30am and I've been on catch up since!

Anyway it's been nice having him around for a change although our planned week of gardening was thwarted by the blimin weather! I knew I would jinx it by planning to tackle the jungle!! We've had thunderstorms and torrential rain although I did manage 1 day in the garden in a comedy fashion. I felt like one of those weather vains out when the sun was shining in when it rained again! Although as it was a mad dash to achieve as much as possible when I could get out I guess I probably did more than I would have IYKWIM!!!

The other thing is due to the wet weather I felt I needed to achieve something else so .... drum roll please..... the studio and spare room got sorted, so finally I have a completely (sort of!) tidy house LOL. I just wish we could get icubes over here, Purple cows have them and they are moovilicious!!! check out the extreme makeover on the blog !!!

And so to some creativity, yep I squeezed some of that in!! The first thing was my guest spot over at it's a creative world on the 8th July. A layout done on card that looks like metal

His Pride and Joy

Go on over and check out the step by step destructions and all the other fab projects on the blog

The second thing was my next stamping school over at Banana Frog which will be live tomorrow, here's a sneak peek!

Talking of frogs, we have been swamped by baby frogs, it happened 2 years ago in the floods, although not as many (literally hundreds last time) walks with stan down the lane have been hairy to say the least!! here's a piccy of one of the little fellas, can you spot him??? so cute!

Yesterday we took a trip to Devon so another long day!! We went to see the grandchildren (my step grandkids she says hastily, I know I'm 40 next week but I don't feel like a granny!)

This is Sophie ... so cheeky, such a character!

This is Dylan ... he won't look at the camera!!

This is grandad and the kids dancing to Michael Jackson... who's bad??

and this is Stan making new friends, they couldn't get the name Stanley Dervish! Dylans version was Stanley Rubbish and Sophie's was Stanley Irish!! Oh they make me laugh! Stan's slept most of today, he finally found people who have more energy than him LOL!!

And so to my and finally ......

This is Stan watching one of our torrential downpours

and this is Stan the soggy aftermath!!

And this made me howl this morning, Stan's impression of Hannibal Lector LOL!!

Hubby's packed and ready for the off again tomorrow, a cruise this time so not leaving til a very civilised 8.15am to take him to the train station ..... luxury! I have a pile of crafty projects to get through and will share them next blog while I am still 39 hopefully!!!

Thanks for dropping by nice to *see* you, until next time stay safe and happy crafting

Love

M x

Hi all! Well another week bites the dust and hasn't it been glorious weather (well in amongst the inevitable thunderstorms!!) So here I am, still managing a blog a week woo hoo, to fill you in on the comings and goings of the mjm household LOL!

On Sunday I went to the Crafty Stash workshop in Exhall, although I was late (arrived just in time for a yummy lunch actually LOL cooked by the lovely Claire  and Tracie !) due to a late night run to Gatwick to pick hubby up! Anyway I digress, it was a great day and the lady teaching was the lovely Tracie Hudson and fellow Banana Frog teamie. It was great to meet up IRL, her work is fabby and she knows how to use those sassafrass lass and prima products!!

Me, Sharon (Shaznay) and Tracie

Ofcourse Sue had her lovely shop there tempting everyone and talking of Crafty Stash she has invited me to join the DT officially yay me! This is the latest kit I worked on, all the product is from Glitz and the kits now available in the shop ! Here's the full pics of the LO's following the sneak peeks in the last post.

Nature

Watch the Birdie

After recovering from that I then spent the next few days preparing for my trip to the Hitchin Arts festival (and delivering hubby to the bus station late night again!)  I had a blast and met some lovely ladies who made me feel so welcome, thankyou girls! (if any of you have any questions you've since thought of please email me here !)

We kicked the afternoon off with a sit down chat with the gorgeous Martha Ross (the lady behind those 2 famous Ross brothers and all her other very talented children!) and we did laugh!

We then had a lovely afternoon tea, yummy cake! and it gave me the chance to chat to everyone and for them to look at my work

Then we finished off with a demonstration with a little mini book, never done anything live like that before eek! But I survived and so did the ladies LOL, The mini book I demonstrated was the book in my little box of bliss project in my gallery and available in the shop .

Oh yes I forgot! I told you my friend was coming for lunch, and the owl canvas had to be finished!

Well it was... (at last! LOL)

....and she loved it!!! (phew!)

Things are moving on a pace over in the pasture at Purple Cows, if you go over to the website  you can meet my fellow cow girls and we have a brand new blog to moo on so why not pop on over at say hi to Sadie! I also think I've sourced somewhere in the UK where you can get your hands on more purple cows products, Im going to investigate later and will let you know!!!

And finally ... last blog I told you Stan would be getting national recognition, well he has, in this months issue of Scrapbook Inspirations

He's also struggled with the heat this week and I snapped this the other day, he thought he could build a den and hide from the heat I think .... bless!! this one I like to call...

Mummy I'm hot!!!

Well that's about it from me, I'm off to clear the decks of some crafty projects, Hubby  is home again (silly o'clock) on Sunday and he'll be here til Saturday (miracle!) so I want to spend time with him and make way for another trip into the jungle (aka my garden!)

Hope the sun keeps shining on you all, and hope you're all well and happy! Oh and Happy 4th of July to all my American friends!!! Happy Crafting till next time

Thanks for dropping by and *see you* soon

Love

M x

Hi all!

And the prize for the spelling mistake on the last post goes to my mum! Doh! its faint not feint Michelle!! Anyhoo I'm here again and demand a recount on the last 10 days since my last post! Where did they go? I promised you pictures this time round and I have a fair phew to share so depending on the time of day you're visiting I'll wait a minute and let you grab a cuppa or a glass of something alcofrolic!! ... go on then......

Right sitting comfy now? Here we go ... as I said in the last post I was doing some cleaning, well I did force myself and have now managed to spring clean the whole house EXCEPT the studio and spare room (that is half full of the rest of my studio LOL) Those will have to wait until I can build up enough oomph to tackle them!! I then caught up on some bits and pieces of life and loose ends and on Saturday went to Bedford to teach my class for Crafty Stash so now I can share the LO's the lovely ladies worked on ...

The kit was Cosmo Cricket Snorkel and my 1st Layout was an interactive one

Pull the tabs and the mermaids swim

I was so proud of the ladies that met the challenge head on and was also thrilled to see so many variations on what I thought would be quite a 'set in stone' layout, peoples creativity never ceases to amaze and delight me ...

Here are some of the lovelies working away at Welwyn Garden City and go and check out sandi's blog here , she was in Bedford and produced a lovely layout which she has posted there, and her comments made me laugh out loud!!!

The second layout I made with the kit is quite a simple one for me, but I really love it and enjoyed the discipline of simple for a change!

At the Bedford crop I also met a fellow design team member for Willow Tree Crafts Karen, so that was a lovely surprise and great to see her lovely album of work.

I believe Sue has a few kits left which you can snag in the Crafty Stash shop , I've also been working on another kit for them, this one uses some delicious Glitz papers, The kit will be on sale soon but here's a couple of sneak peeks..

In amongst all this I did my first official froglet duties for Banana Frog , My first stamping school ....

This is a really simple but effective project. I did make myself laugh while I was preparing the project, I made sure I got all my step by step photos done in daylight and completed the project early evening, I took all the jars outside and hung them in my tree and then realised it was too light to take the photos, so I waited and I waited and kept trying. Eventually my Mum text me and said Dad had asked if I realised it was the longest day of the year Doh!! only I could set up photos to take that need to be done in twilight on a night that hardly gets dark!!! Anyway hop on over to the Lilly pad and check out the step by step instructions and give it a go, especially as the sun actually has been shining!!! I'll be there with a stamping school on the 11th and 23rd of the month so see you there for register!!

Talking of animal related design teams (hubby is getting so confused LOL) My (very large) box of stash has arrived fromPurple Cows , I'm at stroking stage at the moment, they have some fabulous partners and I can't wait to get creating. You may notice above the lovely Sue playing with my purple cow smart trimmer and freestyle mouse at the crop, all the ladies had loads of fun with it! I know there are still a few problems in the pasture with the blog, please bare with Sadie and friends while they get it all sorted and in the meantime follow Sadie on Face book, twitter and Scrapbook.com, all the links are on the blog! I showed you some sneak peeks of my 1st assignment for them, here are the full pics ...

This is an interactive card, the flower travels round the card

This opens out into a mini scrapbook for photos and memorabilia of the day

and this one opens up leaving space for a photo and some journalling.

OO Don't forget I will be at theHitchin festival on the 2nd July with 'The art of scrapbooking' I will be having a chat with the lovely Martha Ross to start with (yes the wonderful lady behind the Ross boys!) then we will have afternoon tea, love it so British, and then I will do a little demonstration. I will also have some of my work there for you to see in real life. I hope to see you there!!!

I mentioned the invite from 'It's a creative World' in the last post and have the dates now, I will guest with them on 8th, 14th and 29th of July and I am really looking forward to it.

Hubby has been and gone since the last post too. We actually tackled the jungle that is our garden on Tuesday, with all the wet and now the sunshine it really is turning into the day of the triffids out there!!! And while hacking my way through the grass (aided by my trusty brush cutter I hasten to add!) a blimin horse fly got me on the leg .... and it hurts! So swollen but I'll live. We felt quite good about all our efforts until we stopped and looked and realised it was such a small dent in all that needs to be done, but at least it is a dent LOL! And my heart was lifted as I realised my many pots of geraniums had started to flower...

love these colours!!

And finally .... Stan will be making his debut in July's issue of Scrapbook Inspirations magazine tomorrow when it hits the shelves!! and I can't go without a couple of pics of him ....

'Mummy I'm scared of the hoover' or spot the Dervish

I got Mail ( a present from Ruby his sister, hours of fun with that envelope!!)

I wish my dog would relax more LOL

OK I'm done, hurrah I hear you cry!! I'll leave you in peace now. I will be updating my website soon, when I can find time so watch out for new gallery stuff and DIY projects and while I'm on about finding time, especially cyber time, how do you all do it? answers on a postcard please!

Until soon, hope you're all happy and well, thanks for dropping by and happy crafting

Love

M x

ps for those of you that have been with me since the beginning of my blogdom, remember that owl canvas?? well I HAVE to finish it tonight, the friend who I was making it for is coming for lunch tomorrow LOL

I know  a post so soon??? but it is a quickie. My second guest spot is up over at Banana Frog  today and I am thrilled skinny to tell you that Bev has invited me to join the design team on a permanent basis woo hoo! Pop on over and check out my latest offering!

I had a great time teaching yesterday at the welwyn Garden city crop for Crafty Stash . All the ladies made me feel so welcome and survived my class producing some great work!! Can't show the LO's yet as Sue has asked me to teach it at her new crop in Bedford next Saturday ... see you there?

The lovely Caz over at It's a creative world has asked me to guest design in July, what a lovely invite and I'm honoured to be asked, pop on over and check out the lovely blog, and I'll give you more details about my appearances soon!

I am soooooo tired today, hence the quick post! It was a busy old weekend with picking hubby up, cramming everything into a weekend and dropping him off at the coach station again at 1.30am phew! So day off today (well bit of cleaning inbetween coffee and staring at telly LOL) especially as I was up at silly o'clock to take the Dervish boy to the groomers, but he does look smart!!

Sorry there's no pretty pictures this post, but I will return with some soon! Hope you're all well and happy and staying dry! Thunder and showers here today ...... for a change!

*see you* soon and until then Happy Crafting!!!

Love

M x

.... yes they are!!! as I hear you all sing liar liar at me! When I said in my last post I would be back tomorrow with pretty pictures, I didn't specify which tomorrow .... lame I know but that's my get out clause LOL! The naughty Gremlins have there fingers firmly pressed on the fast forward button on the little chaos that is my life at the moment and are not letting up! I know it is a frequent cry of mine but where does the time go??? My friend Cleo at Bellaboo  commented on face book recently that she wants more hours in a day and a cleaning fairy (if anyone has one of those stashed away please send her on to my house LOL) and fellow cow girl Paula Nelson-Hart says in her Purple Cows intro that she wishes fo 48 hour days, if only! However it's not going to happen so I will continue to just keep going while the garden grows around me, my house looks like world war 3 and the deadlines keep coming LOL .... you know I love it!

So what have I been up to? where to start? I've completed 3 more projects for Banana Frog for my second guest spot, they will be on line on the 15th but here are a couple of sneaks!

The response to my first guest spot has been fantastic and I would like to thankyou all for your kind words, it was an easy job with such fab product, thanks for the invite Bev!

My 1st assignment for Purple Cows came in this week too, I've had a great time really getting to grips with my 2 in 1 combo trimmer and my smart trimmer and I am loving the freestyle mouse even more! here's a couple of sneak peeks

I know that the web over at the pasture is being worked on at the moment but all tool info is on there so go and check out the product, they are worthwhile investments!! Some more of my cow girls have been introduced, I will post links to them all soon while we wait for the pasture to get up to speed, there is a lot of talent on this team!

I popped down to the Scrapbook Inspirations offices on Tuesday to pick up some of my bigger projects (don't trust the post!) and of course to grab a coffee with the lovely Rosie! So now I have my pirate tale back I will be finishing up the DIY project very soon and will let you know when it is in the shop! Talking of SI I promised some pics of my article in this months issue, it was for the 'just the thing' article and it is about making embellishments from recycled stuff and all those bits we collect and hoard .... go on admit it us crafters are all magpies and we all have at least one box of 'one day' bits and pieces!!! Go on get them out and get creative with them and share your results with me. Here are a couple of bits from the mag

This embellie is made form game pieces from xmas crackers and games collected in mexico

This one is scraps of material, beads and shells and a mexican card

This one is scraps of materials, chains from xmas crackers and lettering from magazines

And this is the LO using the Rock Chic embellie, my niece Lilly

I've also been preparing my classes for Crafty Stash  on Sunday in Welwyn Garden City , see you there? here's a couple of sneaks

I had a lovely mention on Dyan of Blonde moments blog the other day that really made me smile!

In my last post I said hubby was home form Cyprus early, well he went to Rhodes on Tuesday after a panto photo shoot ( I know how wrong in June??!!) and then  was home for a grand total of 22 hours on Saturday/Sunday, which involved a trip to Gatwick for me to pick him up, due to public transport being so rubbish and stopping 10 minutes before his plane landed, same again tomorrow night too harumph!!!!

Remember a couple of posts ago I told you I had a cyber crop night with my teamies over at UKS ? well I thought I'd share my photo swap LO's with you, the one that I did and the one I recieved

This is the one I did for Amanda , check out her website for hand made goodies! It is sassafrass lass papers and sultane and some bits and bobs

And this is the one that my lovely teamie Sonja  made for me, check out her lovely blog. I really love it and hubby wants to get a frame to put it on the wall, Sonja your work will make it up on my wall before mine does LOL

I found Sonjas LO all the more interesting as I scrapped the same photo of me and hubby on new years eve and the 2 looks are so different, and I'm amazed at how right Sonja got the moment!

And finally!!! Of course our little Stanley Dervish had his operation so he needed a lot of my attention, especially as he couldn't work out how to lie down for a couple of days, bless him!

He did sleep a lot, sometimes in the most peculiar positions LOL

However he is well and truly better now and terrorising me more than ever! At this moment he his dragging the rather large rug I just put at the back door round the living room!!! This is a pic of one of his terrorising moments when I was working on my purple cows assignment, he wanted in on the act, so he nicked the box that my decorative blades set came in .... well it kept him quiet for a while!!

Ok lovely people I've bombarded you enough so I will leave you in peace, and I need to go and rescue my rug!!! I'll make no promises this time about when I will be back, but it will be soon! Until then hope you're all well and happy and Happy Crafting

Love

Mx

Hi all just a quickie from me tonight! I just had to let you all know I am on the Banana Frog Blog as the guest designer for June, This is the first spot and there will be another one that I am cooking up for the 15th. I had a blast playing with the superb stamps the lovely Bev sent me and I am still a stamping fool enjoying playing!! I never realised how much fun stamps can be, especially ones of such high quality! I have so many but never really used them, until now! so please go on over and check it out and hopefully you will be inspired to dig out those banana frog stamps and get inky!!!!!

It's been a busy old week in the household, hubby came back from Cyprus earlier than expected so it's been great having him around for a few days (and the grass got cut LOL) I've been sorting out my Banana Frog spot and working on the next one aswell as working on my classes for Crafty Stash for the 14th of June, sneak peeks in the shop gallery and I will post some of my own tomorrow! I had a great time at the crop in Exhall yesterday as a regular cropper! And I've also been working on some other bits, I will have pretty pictures tomorrow I promise!

Purple Cows  is now rounding us up and we have assignments coming up, mine will be here real soon! In the meantime go on over and meet some more of my fellow cowgirls, and I soooooooo need one (or 2 or 3) of those i cubes!!! I will try and track down a UK supplier and let you know!!! (and if you're reading this in Tampa get a wriggle on and get your DT subs in!!!)

Have you seen this months Scrapbook Inspirations magazine ?I am thrilled with my article for just the thing, go on raid your bits and bobs box and show me your recycled embellishments!  I will post more pics tomorrow (so much to post tomorrow LOL)

And finaly the reason for a quick post is our Dervish boy had an operation today, to say I've been an emotional wreck and exhausted myself is an under statement!!! He is fine a bit bewidered and disorientated but soooooo much better than I thought he would be!!!

So until tomorrow when I hope to be a bit more compus mentus and have some pretty pictures to share I will say nite and enjoy your trip over to Banana Frog to see my projects.

Hope you're all well and enjoying the sun! Happy Crafting

*see* you soon

Love

M x

Well it's been a week since I was here last and what a whirlwind it has been! I've been busy beavering away on deadlines and projects. Hubby came home for about 72 hours (a whirlwind on it's own!) I've moved out of the studio temporarily and had a great cyber night with my ninja teamies over on UKS  .... hysterical!

So why the move out of the studio? It's been difficult to settle up there with Stanley Dervish when hubby's away, although he has a great time with bits of stash he can steal, (Stanley that is not hubby LOL) he gets bored after a while and I guess I feel guilty aswell so I've decided to pretend I'm on a permanent crop and have moved into the front room on the dining table and am actually quite enjoying it! I've also managed to be productive so everyones happy ( although not sure hubby is impressed when he comes home LOL) although I am now spreading to the conservatory and kitchen!!! And the studio? well it does need a tidy out to be honest so another reason to move.... can't work in chaos!!

I'm loving the design kits that we have been offered by Willow Tree crafts , although it means I have to make a decision LOL!!! Think I've made it and can't wait to get it and share it with you! Go and check out the deals they have at the moment and the new stuff that has just gone into the shop!

I've been meeting some of my fellow cow girls on the moo crew too in cyber space! go and check them out, lots of talent and wondering where to lay your hands on the purple gorgeousness in the UK? well try craft superstore , Design Objectives are the official UK partner to Purple cows so you will find their trimmers under DoCrafts trimmers, well worth the investment for a truly udderly remarkable tool! Can't wait for them to announce their new partners and get my hands on the stash to show you some great purple cows projects!

I've also been working on my Crafty Stash class, although it's no hardship the kit is just gorgeous, sneak peaks soon, in the meantime go and check out the new arrivals over there especially sultane, it's all so different and yummy (I should know I have most of it LOL)

The greatest share of my time has gone to banana frog this week, I have had way too much fun playing with my stamps!

They stamp so brilliantly and believe me you can do almost anything to them and they still give a perfect image! Want a sneak peek of a couple of my projects??? I'm sure Bev won't mind?! .... ok here you are..

You'll have to tune into the banana frog blog  on the 1st and 15th of June to see the full pictures and the rest of my projects! 

And one more sneak peek I made an altered book this week and am thrilled with it, you'll have to wait for Scrapbook Inspirations  later in the year to see the full picture though!

Now I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of the family ..... Fifi

My new (to me!) grown up car ... I love her!

Well it's been a wet soggy old week but in amongst the downpours there has been some glorious blue skies and I snapped a couple of pics when I walked Stanley during one of those moments .... my spirits were high!

moments like this I realise how lucky I am to live where I do! My house is just out of shot top right

The lane walking down to 'Stanleys field' (the same view as used on my autumn walk layout)

The view I see walking down 'Stanleys field' most lunch times.... life aint so bad!!

Talking of the Dervish Boy I have 2 'and finally' pics to share with you! The first one I like to call 'Little dog on the Prairie' Stanley racing down his field

And this one I like to call 'OMG where have you been ????????'

It rained after we got back and Stanley found a swimming pool underneath the water butt! Funny to watch but not so funny when it landed in doors!!!!

Well that's the end of my epic post LOL To all my friends in blighty have a great bank holiday weekend, to everyone else have a great weekend too!!!!

*see* you all soon happy crafting

Love

M x

Just a quicky from me to say it's official!! I can now share with you the news that I mentioned in the last post! I have been invited to join the Willow Tree crafts design team, and they have officially announced the team on the blog here , it sounds like a great mix of scrappers and I can't wait to get to know the other girls aswell as to get started on the creating!!!

My Banana frog stamps arrived this week aswell for me to play with for my guest design spot next month, so I'm busy playing with them and getting inky, nothing quite like it!!! I've also been playing with my purple cow goodies and am loving that freestyle mouse!! I'm also thrilled to be asked to teach at the wellwyn garden city crop for crafty stash on the 14th and the kit arrived yesterday, all I can say is it's yumsville and right up my street!!

No pretty pictures this post I'm afraid although I have been creating, will share soon. Wish the sun would come back it's been cold and grey all day and reckon we may see thunder later.

Ok back to playing with my stamps, just wanted to share my happy news, hope you're all well and happy crafting!

*see* you soon

Love M x

Well the toothache got worse! I've been fighting an abscess it's just a good job I had a lot to cheer me up this week! Not least the arrival of my purple cow trimmers and WOW! They are blinkin fab. I knew they would be good products but they are even better than I could have imagined!

The Big combo trimmer (1040) is super strength and 12x12! And I am loving that guillotine it has one of those very satisfying cutting noises when you use it, you know that noise from being allowed to use the grown up guillotine when you had to mount your work for your art exam at school???

And I love that it comes apart and has a handy flip out measurer on the trimmer!

I was also lucky enough to get the smart trimmer too, (1060) perfect for cropping as it folds up in a really cool way and still has a 'swooshy' guillotine on it aswell as the trimmer and my new best friend the freestyle mouse..... ooo purple cuteness! ( as is the tote that it all fits perfectly into!)

And if that wasn't enough I got the complete set of 12 blades that fit both trimmers and are sooooo ridiculously easy to change!!! There's a straight edge, wavy edge, stamp edge ..... ok you get the picture!!

I know that scrapbook.com have been having a super deal on purple cow stuff over in the states, why not grab a bargain and if you want to find it in the UK check out the stockists here . I can honestly truly promise you that you will not be disappointed (and I'm not just saying that! I've waited years for the ultimate trimmer!!!) And while you're hopping about looking for the products to snag for yourself why not Mosey on over to the pasture and check the purple cow blog out to see what my fellow cow girls and I are cooking up with our goodies!

So what else has been cheering me up? The scrap a jack retreat !!!! I just had a blast, all the girls are FAB and I met some lovely new people and boy did we laugh!!!! watch out for the announcement of the 2010 retreat!!!

I gotta get me a pinnie!!!!

completely bonkers!!!

Hubby came home on Friday so that cheered me up, but we're off to the coach station tonight and he's off again ya boo sucks!!! I spring cleaned the front room this week too, regretted starting it but now it's done I'm happy!! And I got to play with yet another new toy, my carpet cleaner... oh I know how to live LOL!

Looks like I'll be at the Crafty Stash  crop in Welwyn Garden City on 14th June teaching, really looking forward to that and meeting you there!

I had some great news this week but can't share yet..... but soon!!!!

Creatively I have some things cooking but nothing finished at the minute but hope to have some pretty pictures next post LOL

Well all in all it's been a bit of a pleasure/pain week but reading this back glad to see more pleasure than pain!!!

Oh and I do have an and finally for you tonight! Stan didn't much care for the carpet cleaner today, he doesn't like machine noise, and at the same time hubby was mowing the grass, what's a poor boy to do??? eventually he collapsed exhausted in the garden ... bless him!

Ok that's all from me for now! Hope you're all well and happy and hope to *see* you all soon!

Happy crafting

M x

Ok so I wanted to blog this on Saturday to wish you all happy international scrapbook day but I ran out of steam! Hubby came home for a few hours on friday night and went again early hours of saturday morning and as I had to take him to get the coach to the airport it involved very few hours sleep! Gradually getting back on track now so thought I'd make a belated happy INSD!

2 years ago I entered a competition that scrapbook inspirations ran for INSD, the brief to create a LO, mini book or altered item about an ordinary day in your life, well as most of my days seem to be anything but ordinary I decided to make an adventure comic mini book of my day, and the day didn't let me down in it's content for my book!!! See the inside pages here  and full description here . I am happy to say I was one of the winners and was thrilled to bits. That started the fantastic relationship I have had with the magazine for the last 2 years. So Saturday was a double celebration for me really! The bit I liked most about my project was the front cover .....

and it still makes me smile today! ... If only I looked like that LOL!

This year I celebrated making those mini books for the Scrap a Jack retreat and tried to play along with the bad girls , the mini books got done but I failed miserably at keeping up with the bad girls but have collected all the lovely classes to play with soon, there was some awesome work popping up that night! The other reason I failed to keep up is that I had to pack for the crafty stash crop and now I can reveal the LO's I taught for my class

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

What ya Doin?

I had a blast at the crop all the ladies were lovely and it was great to finaly meet up with Clare  and Tracie  in real life after chatting for so long on UKS Sue who owns Crafty Stash brought a fabby shop with her, too many nice goodies and some new papers I've never seen before! The kit is available from Crafty Stash and comes complete with instructions for the LO's The kit I worked with was the Exhall crop. I'll post pics of all the girls beavering away when I down load them!

Thought I'd share some pics of 2 recent LO's that were in scrapbook inspirations . The first one our model niece was 'my favourite LO' in last months magazine

This was one of my earlier LO and I experimented making my own paper for this. It's a technique I've used a lot since in my work. I doodled and splattered the background and then Papier mached over the top with white tissue paper, doodling and splatteringit again when it was dry! I love the photo of my niece and the story allowed me to use the other wise dodgy photos at the top. I also like the hidden photo of her being typically her and the journalling that I made into a mini CV

And the second Beach Babe was in this months issue for the woodgrain challenge.

I made a piece of driftwood for this with corrugated cardboard and papier mache. The photo I scanned but printed it to look like a 70's polaroid and I loved adding all the embellishments to look like the flotsom and jetsom that the sea has washed up!

Well I think that's all I have to share for tonight, there are no and finally pics of Stan I'm afraid!! I will remedy that next time. I'm off now to replenish the vodka and nurse a toothache! To all those in the UK I hope you all had a fabby bank holiday weekend and I wish you all happy crafting until I *see* you again!

Love

M x

Ok I swear it has only been a couple of days since I last blogged!!! The purple time eater is on the loose! erm .... sorry bout that, lost the plot, maybe it's this bag on my head, phase one of return to the pink hair, think the bleach is getting to me LOL!

So where have I been? Well I've had more new toys to play with in the garden, pruning has never been so much fun, and while the sun was shining I took advantage and continued my mission to tame the ever growing jungle! I've also had a HUGE amount of basic grey papers to admire, stroke and play with....

.....Basic Heaven!

I made out like a bandit in the DoCraft sale and bought loads of papers to make kits up for my upcoming appearance at the Hitchin Festival 2nd July 'The art of scrapbooking' Chat, afternoon tea and a demo, it's going to be so much fun..... see you there?

Of course a 'few' extras fell into the basket!! and I just had to play!

detail of 'cute as a {ella bella) button' using the urban prairie range

more detail!

The LO in the Basic Grey gallery

And I've also been playing with one of the new ranges Marrakech... yumsville!

Now I NEED to get my hands on the new Lime Rickey range, It is just edible!

I'm also up to my neck in chipboard dust, making some mjm wibbly wobbly mixed up mini books for my lovely friends Jak  and Deb for the Scrap-a-Jack retreat next week, soooo looking forward to catching up with everyone there!

And as promised some pics from another customer who did the DIY project a little box of bliss in her own way, I love it and love seeing peoples interpretations of my ideas. These pics come from the lovely Amanda and you can find her on her fab website here , check out her handmade goodies! I like the fact that Amanda made her own kind of mini book to go inside the box and I love the colours she's used!

And finally ... I can see a pattern emerging here from the last post LOL ....Stan had his first haircut! It's wierd looking at him as he looks like a different dog, but he is even more ridiculously cute! (well I think so!)

Well thanks for stopping by, I think it's time to take the bag of my head and deploy phase two of return to pink hair, plus stan needs supper! (and my wine glass is empty!)

I will be back very soon with pics of my LO in this months Scrapbook Inspirations magazine on the shelves tomorrow! I can't quite believe I did a LO of me in a bikini .... and before you panic I was only 3 LOL!

Hope you're all well and happy and life is being good to you, happy crafting and *see* you soon

Love

Mx

...and class sneak peeks!!!

Don't feint I'm here again!! I have to share some exciting news, some pics of an upcoming class I'm so looking forward to teaching and a pic of one of my lovely customers work! So go on grab a cuppa, or if like me right now a glass of red! I'll wait! .........

.......ok sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. First my news and the reason for Moo-ing a happy dance! I had a call from America yesterday from lovely Gary at Purple Cow inviting me to be a member of their Design team YEE HAW! I am soooooo excited and can't wait to play with all their lovely tools.

Thanks to all at Purple Cow I am honoured to be a new Purple Cow Girl!!

And now to what I have been cooking up for the Crafty Stash  crop May 3rd in Exhall. I have had so much fun playing with the lovely kit, gorgeous colours and cuteness! Here's some sneak peeks......

This is the first Layout

and this is the second

The kit is so generous that you can easily get 2 layouts from it and I think I might make a card and gift tag with the remainder of it! I'm looking forward to meeting the girls from Crafty Stash, we've spoken on line for so long it'll be great to meet them in real life and hopefully I'll see some of you there too!

And next on the list is to show you a picture that a lovely customer in America linked me to today. Diane bought A DIY project - A memory theatre and I absolutely LOVE her take on the project. She tells me it is smaller than the templates I have given which is great and exactly what the projects are about .... to make them your own!

Go and check out the rest of Diane's Flickr gallery , I'm loving her dolls! And remember if you have bought a DIY project please link me to your work or email me a piccy so I can share your work on here! ... talking of which I have a little box of Bliss to share with you made by another talented customer .... I'll save that for next time!

And finally .... (ooh I sound like a news reader LOL!) The latest Stanley saga! He is getting used to settling upstairs when I'm working in the studio, but he is getting braver and braver at exploring (I won't go into details of the things he drags round the landing LOL) A couple of days ago after he'd been quiet for a while I heard a rustling so I went to investigate ..... I found him in the bathroom .....

.... Doing an impression of an andrex puppy!!! Well at least he was laying off my stash for a while!!!

Ok my glass of red is now empty so I will close for tonight. Thanks for stopping by and hope to *see you* soon

Love

Mx

Blimey oh Riley can't believe it's so long since my last post!!! Life sure has been busy so where do I start???

Well Hubbies play went really well, I will post some production shots as soon as I have them so you can see my stage set which really was like scrapping on a grand scale LOL. The day after we finished that we got home in the morning then by 8pm he was off up to manchester airport to jet off to the dominican republic.... alright for some heh! (it was work!) Then he went onto Egypt from there arriving home easter sunday and while he was away I finished putting my first real life class together for the Barncrafters crop and my niece came to stay followed by my other niece and my sis, in amongst all that there has been numerous bits and bobs going on aswell, and only now am I starting to put my life into some assemblance of order .... I would say normality but I don't know what that is really LOL! So anyway here's some piccies!

Do you remember I posted some sneak peaks of the class I was going to teach at the Barncrafters crop? The pop up fairy castle? ... oh you do good! well It is now online in my gallery so you can see more pics of it here  and it is also available as a DIY project in the shop here . I had an absolute blast doing it and all my nerves were banished by all the lovely ladies who put me at ease teaching my first real life class!

The Lovely Debbie and Jakki , yep Jakki more cutting out!

Lovely Sal  who has finished her project and bowled me over with it! I hope to share pics of it with you if she'll let me! (she has put pics on her blog click her name!)

Two lovely ladies Annie  and Sally  beavering away!

and finally the lovely Sue and Dot!

Thanks for a great time ladies and I can't wait to catch up with you all at the Scrap-a-Jack retreat  in a few weeks!

It hasn't all been hard work though over the past couple of weeks though! Yesterday me and hubby had way too much fun weeding the paths round the house with our new toy ... the pressure washer!!! .....

The water and consequently the mud went everywhere!!!!

I don't think an inch of me didn't get covered!!!

But it's a job well done and hilarious I recommend it!

Even Stan got in on the act ..... euwww!!!

And of course I can't leave the piccy posting without posting a pic of my 2 beautiful nieces! Meg is wearing her easter dress ready for the easter bunny! This was just pre the easter egg hunt where Aunty Michelle oops no I meant the Easter Bunny was particularly cunning with the clues!!! Well I have to annoy Lilly somehow LOL!

And just to prove Stan can still look cute here he is pretending he's the easter bunny I think, sitting in my primroses!!

Blimey my blog posts are like buses, you wait forever and then they all come at once!!! I'll quickly fill in a bit more news before I go.

I'm on FaceBook now, yep the inevitable had to happen I guess and there I am so please feel free to search me out. I'm there under my real name Michelle Jackson-Mogford so I guess I won't be too hard to find LOL!

Have you seen Joanna Campbell Slan's new crafty blog here ? Go check it out it's dedicated to craftiness, this woman amazes me with all the blogs she has, writing books, giving advice, doing PA's the list goes on! I don't think she ever sleeps! And I am thrilled and honoured she has asked me to be a guest on her new blog..... I'll let you know when!

Lovely Beverley Fletcher of BananaFrog contacted me today, she's getting things ready for my guest design spot which will be in June, I have to say I am a bit nervous there's some fabby work over there on the blog !!!

NSD is coming up .... where will you be? I am going to play along with the Badgirls  for some of it, They have a 12hour cybercrop going on, and although the time for us UK people will be 5pm til 5am It will be a blast .....

.....though I can't stay for all of it as I am guest designing for the Crafty Stash  crop in Exhall the next day. I have to say the kit they sent me is yummy and I'm nearly done creating with it now (sneak peaks later!!!)

I'll be updating my gallery soon aswell, lots of stuff to share and things that have been published that I can put on now so I'll let you know when! Talking of published did you see the latest copy of Scrapbook Inspirations ? issue 52, the spring issue, it's full of scrappy goodness and I'm in the back with my favourite LO! It's gonna be a good few months for seeing my work in print, keep your eyes peeled!

Well I'll stop waffling now! I'm exhausted LOL! Thanks for stopping by and I hope to *see* you real soon (I will NOT leave it so long next time .... honest!)

Love

M x

.... on a crest of a wave? Well not so sure about the wave but on a mad tidal wave of theatrical madness being deep in rehearsals and production week for hubbies  one man play which opens on Sunday!

However I have grabbed a little time and escaped to the relative sanity of my studio to post this and share some photos of my lovely Day at Olympia on Sunday at the stitch and craft show where I was thrilled to see my work on display in the Best of British scrapbooking gallery along with the other talented winners work.

I also got to meet two of the other winners, both lovely ladies, Sarah Bond  and Jo- Anne Cavanagh  aswell as have a good old catch up with the lovely Rosie Waddicor, Scrapbook Inspirations  Deputy Editor. What a whizz she was on those tills and that apron is so fetching LOL! 

I had chats with some lovely people that were at the show too (including a UKS  teamie big waves cassandra!) and thankyou for all your kind words, I'm glad that I have inspired you! I had a long chat with a lovely lady (Tanya I think?!) about my hand drawn embellishments and she has inspired me to finally get around to doing some files that will be for sale in the shop  soon so you can all play with them!

The lovely Anne Parry from Scrapbbok Inspirations was there too, and it was a pleasure to chat with her, unfortunately I don't have a pic to share as hubby had lost the will by then and ensconced himself in the coffee shop with his script and as he ended up being designated photographer I missed out on that photo. But he did re-appear just after the lovely Shimelle  turned up (with a most splendid cake) and managed to snap a pic of us with Rosie ... I really must get one of those aprons LOL

So a great day was had! I loved seeing my work on display and it was a lovely reminder of how honoured and thrilled I am to be a BoB winner!

Right now I'm off to play with some A2 photos of comedians for the set for the play, so I guess it is a bit like scrapping on a grand scale LOL I'll report in next week sometime when I've recovered from my theatrical antics and put the stage managers hat firmly away in the cupboard again!

Thanks for stopping by and hope you're all well and happy

*see you* soon

Love

M x

.... well that's not bad for me is it??

Yep life and stuff got in the way, oh and creating! I've actually managed quite a bit of studio time woo hoo so taken advantage while I could! So as promised here's the more colourful post!

1st the canvas that I made for my friend ......

We first met when we went to ballet together at the age of 7 and have been best friends ever since how 40 has happened I don't know! recount I think!!!

I wanted to have pictures of us growing up and when I searched my memory boxes I realised how few I have of us, oh how I wish we'd had mobile phones and digital cameras then!!! But with a bit of computer trickery I managed to salvage a few of us together. The programme is from our first ballet show together! The last picture is of my wedding and my chief bridesmaid, we grew up near the sea and the wedding was sea themed hence the shells!

The 7 gypsies friends paper was perfect for this project, with a basic grey swirl and buttons, a we are memory keepers tag and brad and some prima flowers.

I Papier mached the canvas with the trusty loo roll and pva and painted it in acrylics. The 2 canvases are hinged in the middle with a hook and eye from a habadashery shop.

And the good news is she loved it!

And so to my latest creation, a fabric challenge for Basic Grey  tied in with another Bad girls Project 52 !

Silent sea, inspired by the KT Tunstall song. It reminds me of Mexico and all the fabric is from mexican material shops (see all those magpie moments are worth it!) and is sewn onto some hessian to add texture and that sea feel. The paper is Basic Grey marrakesh and two scoops and the fibres at the bottom are Hang 10. The shells are from my vast hoard and the anchor is mei flower.

I really enjoyed dusting off the sewing machine for this one!

And finally a sneak peak at my class! More to be revealed once the crop girls have seen it! And of course it will be in the shop  as a Project!

The front cover is 6''x12'' then it pops up into this 12x12!!!!

Well that's all the pretty pictures I have for this post! Hubby's rehearsals have started now so most of my creating until the end of the month will be theatrical. I will try and keep you posted of what's going on. Does a theatre set count as scrapping on a grand scale???

Thanks for stopping by and I will *see you* as soon as I can!

Take care

Love M x

........ where does it go??????????

My life seems to be in a permanent state of fast forward at the moment!!! I can't believe it is so long since I've been here! I've had to limit computer time, do you find it eats up your days? I do once I get surfing I seem to enter into a black hole LOL.

So what have I been up to? Well Stanley has been taking up a lot of time, finally he is allowed out which involves a lot of sitting in the middle of the road staring at his lead in mass confusion, good job we live in a little village without a busy road LOL and also I have introduced him to the studio, brave aren't I??? Not too much damage so far although the contents of my scrap box has been emptied and chewed BUT I have been able to get down to some creating Hallelujiah! and we seem to be reaching an understanding about my work time!

I made a lovely canvas for my dear friend who turned 40 last week, the first of the terrible trio to get there and I will post pics tomorrow ..... no really I will! It was inspired by a bad girls project 52 project, check out the blog it really gets the mojo rattling!

I've been doing some other stuff that I can't show at the moment but will keep you posted and I've been designing my first class, maybe a sneak peak soon, just think pop ups and fairy castles.

I was absolutely thrilled skinny (which is good as I'm trying to get rid of the lingering excess baggage from my hols LOL) to be accepted as an ideas designer for Basic Grey, I just love their papers and can't wait to get my hands on the new collections, I have plans for the Marrakech collection and am eagerly awaiting the launch of Lime Rickey which is shipped in April!

Last week we also had a production meeting for hubbies  one man play coming up at the end of the month so that was wierd donning the old theatre cap again, but I have a great bunch of friends pitching in on the production side phew!

Sorry no pics in this post, not very colourful is it, I will rectify this tomorrow! My list of things to do seems to be ever growing, not least to complete the DIY project for the pirate adventure and get it on line .... soon!!!! So my wish at the moment is an extra few hours in my days or to someone please take your finger off the fast forward button of the time space continuim thingy!!!

Thanks for stopping by and I will *see you* again soon ...... honest!

Love M x

... Stanley Dervish of the Wolds

He's here and who would have thought one bundle of fur could be so tiring and time consuming!! LOL! He had two days at our house with his sister Ruby before she took the long trip back to Yorkshire with my mum and dad.

This is them on their 1st night sharing my slipper! (I will post another pic of them together when I get it off my phone!)

He was fine after a while when Ruby went and is terrorising us and the house daily!! He's made his first trip up to my studio this afternoon, he's playing havoc with my scrapping time! But don't worry the stash is safe so far as he was too busy barking at the bath and throwing his water bowl around the bathroom .... odd little thing!

He loves the garden aswell and I think I may leave the pruning to him LOL

So gradually we're trying to get into a routine made ever complicated by hubbies comings and goings, he's in Mexico at the moment!! Life's been busy and tomorrow at 10.45am I am on BBC Radio Northampton talking about scrapbooking with the lovely Bernie Keith! During the week we also went to Hitchin to see the venue hubby will be performing his one man play at the end of March, I'm having to don the old cap for that one as I am designing and stage managing it, well I spose I have to come out of retirement for him, but it's a one off!!!

Talking of Hitchin I will be there sometime in July at the Hitchin festival doing a scrapbooking talk and a demo, I'll let you know the date! And also I am thrilled to announce I will be teaching at the Barncrafters crop  in Droitwich 11th April and thrilled to have been invited to be guest designer at the Crafty Stash crop 3rd May. So I have my work cut out at the moment!!!

I have managed to get the mojo in gear finally, post holiday and running around trying to get back to normality and managed to play along with project 52  the badgirls  art inspiration blog. They've come up with some great ideas and it's great to play and think outside of the box!

This is my take on challenge 5

An inspirational swag, I used the Souza poem

Dance as though no-one is watching you, love as though you have never been hurt before, sing as though no-one can hear you, live as though heaven is on earth.

The large letters of the beginning of each section are triple embossed with something different powders and stamped with a Tim Holtz paisley stamp, the small letters are basic grey.

The shapes I carved from polystyrene (packing from something) then papier mached, painting them with acrylics and lumiere paints and some mica powder, adorning them with charms and embellies and a stripe of gesso which I added some handwriting to.

The rest of each poem section I printed from the computer and added this onto some distressed corrugated cardboard pieces.

I enjoyed letting loose on this project and hope to tackle the next one in amongst the mountain of other stuff I'm trying to do (aswell as finish that owl LOL)

Well I will love you and leave you, our furry friend is hungry! Thanks for stopping by and I hope to *see* you soon!

Love M x

Well I'm back and what a shock to the system the weathers been!! My life being what it is my return could not be normal of course!! we flew home Monday evening and we were diverted form Birmingham to Manchester because of snow, we were then all herded on to coaches to return to Birmingham where happily we'd paid for meet and greet so the car was waiting for us all warmed up good to go, it was by this time 3am. The drive to Banbury was ok, however the council being what they are round here had not gritted the main road out to our village so there was much gripping of steering wheel and mutterings under the breath until we turned onto our lanes ...... 5ft snow drifts eek! So we soldiered on as far as we could getting stuck on a hill, skidding and coming to rest against a hedge. So there was nothing for it but to get out and walk the last 2 miles through the snow at 5 am and a husband who has never really walked through deep snow, although at least that was entertainment on the way home!! I soooo wish I had photographed it but found myself not quite in the mood funnily enough! Anyway we made it home although the previous morning sitting on the beach became a distant memory very quickly!

Then once again never to have a dull moment, hubby had to fly to Egypt on Thursday morning for work and just as I was getting straight the snow came again on Wednesday afternoon so we made a mad dash for an airport hotel having an impromptu night away at luton airport, how glamorous!! Anyway all seems to be calming down and the snow is finallly receeding phew!!

And so to my Pirate ship. I was absolutely thrilled with the pictures of it in Scrapbook Inspirations Magazine  although it was weird to see it again as I made it last autumn and ended up taking it down to the lovely Rosie straight away so it was like seeing a long lost friend! The original project was going to be a simple pop up but it took on a life of it's own and became the full blown model pop up it is and oh boy I enjoyed making it! One of those projects that just fell in to place! here are some pics....

The book closed and standing up with my nieces as pirates, the inspiration for the project!

The Book open with the ship from one side

And the other side

The ship with the figures so it becomes an interactive piece of scrapping art

The journalling written as a fairy tale about Princess Pirate Megs adventures at Aunty Michelle's, with small pics included of the week that the girls spent with me

I will post more pics in my gallery when I get time with more info of the making and of course The DIY project will be on line soon so you can make your own pirate adventure!!!

Well, tomorrow, weather permitting will bring a new adition to my household, a cute little shih tzu puppy called Stanley and I can't wait!!! No doubt I will be sharing pics of him with you, or should that be boring you with pics of him LOL!!! Oh and that owl???? He will get finished very, very soon!

Until then thankyou so much for stopping by and hope to *see you* soon

Love M x

Here I am sun,sea, sand and scissorless! Enjoying the break but itching to get back into the studio!!! Lanzarote is certainly warmer than home in blighty at the moment but we have had storms!!!

Today my mum text me to say she had recieved her sub copy of SI and my pirate ship project is in there, so frustrating having to wait to see it!!! I will post more about it when I get home and add pics and of course the DIY project, but as connections are not great here I will stop blogging for now before I lose everything again!! Such a shame I had all sorts to share, never mind it'll wait til Tuesday!

Hope you're all well and thanks for stopping by, for some inspiration go and check out the banana frog blog, some lovely new stamps and work there (and I get to play with them in June for my guest spot yay!) and check out the bad girls blog, project 52, it rocks!!!

Catch you all soon

Love M x

Hi all!

Sorry for being AWOL and neglecting my little corner of blogdom! There are many reasons for this .... not excuses .... reasons LOL.

1. I've had the dreaded cold lurgy that's been doing the rounds so feeling an ickle bit sorry for myself (no please put the violins away!)

2. We've had my Hubbies children visiting and the grand children, oh boy that was exhausting especially with a 4th birthday party in the midst of it! I had grand ideas of being able to steal time to at least jump on the computer, how wrong I was I forget how much attention little people need!!!

3. I've been getting lost in cyber space with all the yummy new things coming out for the CHA and really getting into this blog world, so as I said before I'm going to post some links to the places I'm stalking at the moment!!!

I've finally taken the plunge and joined the BAD GIRLS  Foum, oh my word there is so much talent and inspiration there. I have been covetting their kits for a long time but always stumble on the delicious add ons to the main kit... you see a girl would have to have it all!!!! Go check them out and also the new blog Project 52  a truly artsy fartsy inspiring blog to really rattle those little grey cells and it just shouts give it a go DON'T BE AFRAID!!! I can't wait to play on here, not be afraid to get dirty, not worry about 'rules' and be kind to that artist within!

Another company I'm stalking is BELLA BOULEVARD , their 2 new lines being released at the moment are DIVINE The colours are so yummy I could just eat them up! I am itching to get my fingers on them to play and the labels are too cute! Check out their glorious sneak peeks.

BANANA FROG  of course is regularly on my blog roll now and the new DT are coming up with some great projects of the day. I'm so looking forward to my guest spot with them!

SCRAPPERIE  is another forum I've been playing on, the kits here are great and all the girls have been so friendly, I've only just discovered them and love that you can get kits as and when you want them and they are yummy!

TIM HOLTZ   is coming up with yet more fantastic must have goodies, I don't think I need to say anymore about the lovely 'sir' Tim just go and check him out and be inspired!

I discovered a brilliant blog on my trawling it's a real mix of everything scrappy and I just LOVED the piece on making your own 12 x 12 paper, how awesome is that why not pay them a visit! SCRAP SCENE

Another paper range that I am covetting at the moment is PIGGY TALES  these papers are so much fun and the colours are just GORGEOUS!!! Look at the new releases I want them now!!!

Now this list could go on and on but I will leave you with these links for now! I have just reclaimed my studio after it had to be used as a spare room for my step daughter and I am so in need of doing something creative so I'm off to play! .... oh and the owl? he will be finished soon .... honest!!!

Thanks for stopping by

*see you* soon

M x

.... and go green! That's what I'm into at the moment. Following on from my recent post about leaving stash in plain view so I use it I'm really enjoying getting through some stuff I've been hoarding ... it really works.... try it! I also figure it's quite a green thing to do and that's got me thinking about other projects, infact my head is so full of them I had a really rubbish nights sleep last night I just wish I could magic up more hours in a day so I could find the time to complete everything, I don't know about you but when an idea pops into my head it has to come out or it haunts me and drives me round the bend!!

I'm also trying to use up stash as I am coveting a lot of the new lines that are appearing with the CHA coming up, there's some lovely stuff out there! I'll post some links to some of the collections I have seen later.

Today I have been doing the canvas for my friend I talked about and it has been an exercise in using stash, it's not quite finished yet but here are some work in progress pics...

This will be another inspirational piece of art and we have a running thing about owls! I sketched it out and then cut the sections from some brown card. The branch is a bit of trusted corrugated cardboard inked...

I covered each section of card with scraps of paper to make the feathers, paper includes Basic Grey, 7 gypsies, cosmo cricket and crafty secrets to name a few, while I was doing this the canvas was drying in the airing cupboard! He is now assembled and is on the canvas, and now I'm putting together the inspirational bits to add so will leave the finished pic until tomorrow. I think he looks quite cute!!

Thanks for dropping by hope to *see you* tomorrow

Mx

.... to you all hope you have a great week! So things are not going that well in blog land for me I just typed a big post step by step pictures and everything and suddenly it all disappeared, maybe I pressed the wrong button??? So I will endeavour to start again .... wish me luck!

As promised I am going to share my finished canvas project with you. It's scrappy but one of those off the page projects I really enjoy. I also thought it would be fun to share some step by step piccies with you incase you get the urge to raid your bits and bobs box (anyone out there old enough to remember playschool?)

Step 1. I used papier mache to add tissue paper over the areas that wouldn't be covered by anything else.......

... I used pva (white school glue) to do this, mixing 2 part glue to 1 part water then I ripped and scrunched tissue paper, gluing it in place, you can get some really great texture using this method. I also took the tissue paper over the edges of the canvas to make it a 'whole' piece. While the glue was still wet I brushed some blue/green mica powder over the top corner of the right hand canvas and then sprinkled some silver perfect pearls over it to create 'stars'. The mica powder sets happily in the drying glue. While all this was drying (in the ever so handy airing cupboard) I ripped the edges of the book cover I printed from a found image on the internet and inked it down, doing the same to the photocopied sheet music and also inked down the paper doily (Hmmm not sure about that spelling!)

Step 2. once the canvas was dry (and retrieved from the airing cupboard) I applied my base images ....

.... I used my pva mix to do this. I applied a thin layer of it to the canvas where the pieces would lie, applied the paper then painted a thin layer over the top paying special attention to the edges making sure they were stuck. I used my fingers to smooth the paper into place and a heat gun to make sure the paper stretched with the wet canvas. With the doily (must look that word up!) I layed it down and applied glue over the top, I'd also cut this big enough to go over the edges of the canvas for added interest.

Step 3. with silicon glue syringe in hand I assembled all my ribbons, flowers, photos, charms etc in to place ....

... the word believe is triple embossed onto chipboard using some gorgeous blonde moments  embossing powder and an invoke arts stamp. I added bells so everytime the piece is touched or moved the bells ring (and a fairy gets her wings!) and also an acorn from our oak tree for some added interest.

Step 4. I hunted high and low for hinges ... to no avail..... harumph! Never one to be thwarted in mid flow of a project I had a re think and started searching the stash boxes......

.... et voila! I found a box of hook and eyes that I had bought in a habadashery shop, shopping spree a while ago that yes I had forgotten about (you see it all needs to be in plain sight for me to use it, sieve brain here!) and they were even better than hinges 1. they are more interesting 2. they lend to the victoriana look and 3. I didn't have to find a screw driver LOL! I positioned them across the join using the trusty silicon glue again and adding the heads of some mini brads to look like screws (I cut the legs off them with a pair of tin snips)

Step 5 I stood it up and admired my handy work!

Now I must get round to wrapping it up,  I hope Louisa likes it!

Hope you enjoyed my little project and if you're inspired to have a go please share it, I'd love to see! Right I'm still in a canvassy type mood so I think I'll actually make a start on a canvas for another friend that I promised her months ago (hangs head in shame!)

Thanks for dropping by and *see* you soon

M x

.....it will wear off LOL!

Ok so it's a new toy and I wanted to post again, 1. to see what will happen 2 to see if I can remember how to do it! and 3. to share the beginnings of the project I'm working on for Louisa.

I think it's the bit I like best about the creative process, collecting together all the bits and pieces that I might use and then piecing them all together into some kind of coherent gathering!

I'm making a double canvas, each one being about 17cmx13cm that I will hinge down the middle so it stands up. I want it to be inspirational aswell as remind Louisa of her run in Peter Pan so bells and stars abound!! I'm also loving getting a chance to play with some of my lovely winning stash from the Best of British competition, this project using my fancy pants ribbons courtesy of creative expressions and Prima flowers  courtesy of craft superstore . I'm so useless at remembering to use stash that I've bought myself usually so I have decided to leave all this prize stash in plain view in my studio so I remember I've got it and do you know what? it's working I'm actually using it, so I think it could be a plan I will stick to and gradually put in plain view all the other goodies I have, you never know I may just use that packet of rubons I bought a year ago LOL

I'll be back with the finished piece!

*see you* soon

M x

..... that has been the question I've been asking myself since launching my website, and here I am after much cajoling from friends not least by the lovely Rosie Waddicor from ScrapBook Inspirations , Rosie this is all your fault!

I have been on a grand Blog hopping tour all weekend and boy there's some fab ones out there, although where I am going to find the hours in a day to keep up I don't know!!   So finally I have thought to myself if you can't beat   'em join 'em and here I am. I will add links as I go to some of my faves. In my little space I hope to share with you projects I am working on and some of my techniques aswell as any of my life chat that I think anybody maybe vaguely interested in.

I hope you all enjoyed your festivities over the last month, though I am sure they are a distant memory now to most. I get stuck in a time warp at this time of year as hubby is still in Panto in Milton Keynes so at least for the next week I will continue to live my odd little life, trying to move on with the new year but being pulled back to a continued kind of xmas! I thought I escaped that after leaving theatre but I guess that's what I get for being married to a comic!! At this point I must tell you though that he is in Panto with Henry Winkler, yep the Fonz! and he is one of the worlds beautiful people, as in deep down genuine and lovely. For Christmas   hubby asked me to make Henry one of my memory theatres , somehow I managed to fit that little project into my festive preperations and here it is

Peter Pan Memory theatre empty stage......

.... with Cast ....

... With Henry!!!

Sorry this picture is a bit blurred, I really need to teach hubby to keep the camera still!! The moment was a great thrill if not a little surreal and even more surreal is the fact that my theatre is now packed up to wing it's way back to America when Henry finishes the panto!

Now I need to go and finish the project I have started for the lovely Louisa who plays Peter Pan, a little after the event of xmas but time ran away from me so it'll just have to be an end of run pressie!!!

I will try and keep up my posts and hope you pop back soon to check out my ramblings!! Now I'm going to press the submit button and see if this has actually worked LOL!

*see you* soon M x