Am writer

It's official! I'm now a pubished writer!  A feature I wrote for Knit Today went on sale last Thursday, and to say I'm a little excited is an understatement.  It's always been a bit of an ambition of mine to get something published so I'm ecstatic to have acheived this.  I know only a feature and not a best-selling novel, but it's so exciting to see your name in print!  It's certainly motivated me to write more.

If you're interested in reading it, it's in issue 66 and on page 28. 

Neglect

Wow, it's been awhile.  Things have been pretty hectic between having to move and the nuisance that is full-time work.  I have several projects I want to blog about, but my desktop has decided to have a hissy fit and won't let me into my user area. So, once that is sorted I will be able to upload some images and actually blog, instead of authoring a dead blog.  I'm a ghost writer in the most literal sense, I guess.

And yes, I have shamelessly copied and pasted this post into both my blogs.  You'd think after months of neglect I could think of something original  to write in both really. You'd think.

Father's day and Christening cards

Below is the card I made for a friend's son's Christening. I used the material from the card kit I had for the 'best wishes' card in the previous post, and I think it came out ok. I find Christening cards quite awkward to do, as I am not religious and think it would be a bit hypocritical to be all 'may God be with you' etc. if you don't really believe the sentiment.

I have found the material in this card kit difficult to work with. I think it's because of the busy background of the card designs.

________________

My Dad is into metal detecting, so I decided to create a card influenced by this. It does look a little odd, but I was trying to break away from the 'stick square here, then add caption there' format I have fallen into (see card above!).

For the base, I stained a card with antiquing stain. Next I dampened a section of cross stitch aida and dripped the same antiquing stain over it to give it an aged appearance. Once dried, I pick at the threads so it had a more worn look.
The embellishments are a couple of coins I had kept from France which I then set into some melted wax, and attached to the aida. I stuck some synthetic mossy material along the edge to give the impression of hidden treasure and finished the card off with some lettering tiles. I also personalised the envelope, as I wasn't convinced the metal detecting theme came across too well!

Cards, bookmarks, and wine.

Here are the cards I said I would blog about a month ago (ahem...)

The first is an anniversary card. It was from one of those build-it-yourself card kits I wanted to try out. It came out ok, but I object a little to the limitations imposed by a kit!

The next card was also from a kit, but I lost the chart so had to wing it a bit. I'm not a huge fan of the design, but as this was for my sister who loves both roses and tea, it seemed an ideal birthday card!

Finally, a cross stitch bookmark I made to accompany my sister's birthday present (a book, funnily enough). Unfortunately, due to poor planning on my part, the border of the bookmark resulted in some last minute chart adjustments as the working area was too narrow for the chart design. I also cut it a little too short hence why the design looks a little bunched at the ends. For the backing, I used the liner of an old jacket I have, which is a velvet-like material. It's called horse skin, but it isn't actually from the hide of an equine!
I like the design on this one, I just wished I'd measured twice and cut once! I blame the wine in the background. Evil vino, leading my crafts astray...

The ugly cake

I tried out a new cake recipe a couple of weeks ago that was reticent about coming out of the cake tin. When it finally did, it did not prove to be the most aesthetic of bakery products. I put some vanilla buttercream between the layers but it still looked pretty damn ugly - even claiming the 'homemade' look was deliberate couldn't really excuse this travesty!

As I had some chocolate couveture that was nearing its date, I melted this over the top. Unfortunately this didn't help matters:

Not wanting to admit defeat, I melted some white chocolate I had and made some cool swirly patterns. I actually think it turned out ok! Looks aside, the cake was very tasty!
Next time I use this recipe though I think I will try and get some proper cocoa powder, and not use hot chocolate powder; the slight anaemic look doesn't help matters!

Birthday card

Below is the birthday card I made for my niece's 5th birthday. I hadn't realised how little children orientated craft stuff I had until I came to make this one. Or pink things. The number 5 on the card was originally blue, but I dabbed it with a pink ink pad and went over it with pink glitter-glue to make it more feminine. The wording was meant to be a purple rub-on, but typically it didn't transfer properly so I went over it with a souffle pen. I don't know why I keep bothering with rub-ons; in my experience they just don't work!

I will be posting a couple more cards soon, just waiting for the recipients to receive them first!

Mother's day cards

A little late, but here are the Mother's day cards I made last month for my mother and mother-in-law:

For the first one I wanted to steer away from the usual aperture opening used for cross stitch cards, so I used torn paper as a border. I also contrasted the bright yellow of the sunflower with a light blue theme, which I think gave the card a much softer feel.

The above polar bear design was initially a bit of a headache as I realised I was missing some thread colour from the kit a bit late. The bear is actually supposed to be beige. Fortunately, my mother-in-law likes polar bears, so it worked out well! I'm a little disappointed with the ribbon border as it is barely staying on (see top left corner), but I made the best with the adhesive I had to hand.

Bit of a medley

My Mum recently kindly gave me her card-making and scrapbooking stash, and I had great fun sorting through it and indulging my slightly scary tendency to categorise and organise stuff. To thank her, I made her a card from some of the items she gave me:

I have also made several cross stitched Christmas cards during the weekly lunchtime craft group at work, but I can't really share these yet as some of the people they are intended for read this blog, So I guess this is a rather pre-emptive heads up about a future post. A bit of a pointless paragraph really.

On an unrelated note, I get the coil removed next Thursday. I'm pretty relieved as I may finally get some energy back once my body's recovered. This last month has been ridiculous; 24 days of bleeding and counting.

Regardless of energy levels, I'm excited about going to Crufts tomorrow (I'm sure that's in part due to having a day off. It feels like ages since I had a day off!)

Wow. This post is a medley of disjointed crap.

An overdue update

Poor neglected blog. Started a couple of years ago with some sporadic posting, only to be superceded by a new blog that actually gets updated regularly. Well, I blame the coil. Since I've had the blasted thing I've been too tired to do anything (drawing cartoons is a pretty sedentary activity, so energy expenditure is kept to a minimum!) Basically, for the last 8 months, Ive spent my time alternating between bleeding for 2-3 weeks, then being so tired and bloated I find motivation difficult. I've not run or done much exercise as movement seems to incur more blood. I'm gradually turning into human jelly.
Crafting and sewing that involves concentrating on not driving a sharp needle over my hand has also been put on a back burner. In short, I've done naff all to blog about, and when I have, I've not had the inclination to write about it!

So, back to the doctors next week to discuss maybe removing the coil. I'm not really sure how much 'settling in' time in it needs, but coming up to three quarters of a year seems enough. If you are of a sadistic nature, you can read about my experience of getting the coil here.

I do have a few posts lined up for this blog though, involving a recent holiday to Deer Park Lodge and the return of the fornicating frogs in our garden. When these will appear here, I don't yet know!