Tuesday 24 July 2012

Real Life Catching Up With Surreal Blogging.

Every so often Steve and I have to spend a weekend at home instead of going up to The Lakes to do running repairs on the RL house,otherwise, when we can't go up for six weeks, out of season, it is all too much! So this weekend we decided to stay at home, bad move because it looked as though the Summer had arrived,Sod's Law. Steve spent the weekend re-painting the hallway, stairs and landing and I spent it washing the suite covers which meant having the washer on 8 times yesterday and then fighting with the covers to put them back.Why the frenzy to have everything nice? because somebody I encountered on a Forum (now de-funct ) about 5 years ago, and who I have kept in touch with is, coming over to the UK from Canada to attend her partners, daughters wedding and she wants to meet!! This no mean feat on her part as it means driving from Sussex? I think that's where it is but I'm hope less with Geography. I can't wait!
So today I was determined to make it a mini day and a made a needle felted teddy bear, he's not perfect but not bad for a first attempt and I love him, despite many stabbed fingers, I can't do this without stabbing my fingers.




His mouth looks too high but that is bad camera angle and he looks blue when he is actually green, low light level in my workshop caused that problem, and I think his paw pads would be better a bit nearer the end of his arms.


One of the ladies in my swap group had a birthday last week so I can finally show you what I made for her. This one was a challenge for me as it was a wood working project and I haven't done a lot of work with wood but I needed to use my newly acquired scroll saw to make something. 


It looks like a settle chair.




But then the back flips down to make it into a table.




I hope it arrived in one piece.

You may have noticed my pictures have a frame round them, that's because I found this web site that will edit your photos for you. It's not as complicated as Photoshop but it will allow you to add text, effects and touch up your photos and best of all it's free and user friendly.

Picmonkey


See you later.....



Saturday 21 July 2012

Lost Christmas Tree.

My Swap partner with the Christmas tree kindly made another one and surprise, surprise Royal Mail actually   delivered it!


Isn't it funky!


See you later....

Sunday 8 July 2012

Time Traveller.

Writing my Blog has become a bit of a surreal experience at the moment, here I am on a sunny Monday morning in May, yes May, writing a Blog post when I know that you will be reading this in July and even more surreal is I am talking Christmas, well Christmas trees to be exact. It's all to do with the swap group I belong to, I can't immediately show you what I am currently working on as it's not fair to the recipient of the swap as it spoils the surprise. July's swap was a Christmas tree in July. I decided to make a tree from scratch with floral foam and chunky, chenille stems. First I cut the foam into a cone shape.




And then I stuck a stick in it for the trunk. Next came the tedious and boring bit of inserting the chenille stems.


I must admit I did get bored half way through and went off and did something else, which actually was just as boring but needed doing. I sorted out my DH magazines and put tutorials into a ring binder and got rid of the mags, a lot less clutter.


(Sorry about the lousy photo)

Then I got the miniaturist's equivalent of writer's block, just as a writer knows they need to write I knew all I needed to do was attach the rest of the branches but could I? could I heck! It sat on the windowsill staring at me (well it would have stared if it had eyes). for nearly 2 weeks.Then Steve had to go down to Coventry for a couple of days on a course for work and I was determined, while I had the peace and quiet, to finish the darned thing, or if not entirely finish, at least get the rest of the branches on. It was 12.50am when I went to bed but I did it!


The following day it didn't take me long to decorate it and make the pot.


Unfortunately the tree I was meant to receive went missing in the post. :-(

See you later....