little art and big, huge, cool art.

Little art first, right? Remember Sarah sent the Herma glue last week? Well I did my first layout in nearly a year! I'm a bit (a lot!) rusty.

It's photos of my spouse (who if you remember, has no hair!) dressed as his alter-ego "Big Dave" to go to see Iron Maiden in concert in 2008. This is at about 5/6am and he's wating for friends to pick him up to go to the airport. Heh heh. I thought the Lidl's bag (a discount food store) as his luggage was a nice touch. Enough of that. On to the amazingly cool art.

It's an art-deco Amy Pond!! For those of you who aren't cool like me (and Beth who I think I hear squeeing over there in Ohio!) she is the current Doctor's assistant. Well, one of them. If I hadn't spent fifty quid last night on a fat quarter bundle of Denyse Schmidt's line for JoAnn's I would have bought a print already! The artist is Bill Mudron and I got the heads up from Epbot today. There's always amazing cool stuff getting showcased over there but even the steampunk jewellery hasn't had me so desperate for a spend. Oooh, must resiiiist!

the girlie tomboy

She pretends she's all about the pink, y'know, that Chook of mine. But when it comes down to it? She can be as much of a tomboy as I am.

This is her all prettied up to go to Cool Girl's birthday party on Saturday (the cassette messenger bag was a huge success, thanks all for commenting and swelling my ego!). The dress is her Christmas dress, it was worn then with sparkly black tights and black sequin ballet pumps. I cut the sleeves short and suggested the rolled-up-skinny-jeans-and-gutties look (one of my personal favourite wardrobe choices). Which necessitated the purchase of new shooz and, of course, that flower in her hair. This is her "give me some attitude, Chookie!" pose.

Now, the party was Monster High themed (you remember those dolls, right?) and Frankie Stein wears a tartan dress with a tie. And Chook thought her dress looked like Frankie's - so maybe she could wear her school tie? (which is black and white). I, natch, thought we could do better than that.

Heh heh. This is velcroed round the back so it always sits nicely and the skull on the bottom is the Monster High logo. Just like Frankie's. She was very happy and off she sashayed. Well.

 These are her socks three hours later.

I can't show you her shoes (the new sequined ones!) coz they were put in an emergency bath to try and soak out some of the who-knows-what that they were covered in. Y'see, the party was held at Cool Girl's Uncle's farm. And it was raining. When I arrived? My oh-so-genteel girlie girl (shyeah, right!) was climbing a giant pile of shale stuff laughing her head off and generally having a ball. And that's when I see her like me.

and the winner is...

For those of you who can't wait the 25 seconds to find out or with reaaaally slow dial up (that means you, Dee!) or who can't understand my accent, the winner is








Leanne at She Can Quilt!! Heh heh.

Well done, chickie, I need your home address and you can commence your nurturing of the cushion!

Easter Eggs 2011

Mobile phone photos on account of my camera being full of someones film making endeavours again (there's a story for another day!) and it was 8am so sorry for the crappiness! Easter egg hunting at stupid o'clock this morning (good job the Easter Bunny was on the ball and hid the eggs at 6.45am!) much to the Chook's delight.

 Clever Easter Bunny had even got some Monster High pets! He so smart. *grins*

If you look closely her wee nightie is covered in ponies. It's part of her Easter from my Mum and is an incredibly cute (and incredibly expensive!) Cath Kidston.

We're off in half an hour to my Mum's for some roast pork and family company. Although kid brother and wife have a prior engagement and can't make it (but we've just had a visit so I'm quite happy) and the poor spouse got called out at 10am this morning to work. Pah!

I hope you're all having an awesome Easter Sunday! (giveaway draw happening later!)

stuff in and stuff out.

Busy day here today! Chookie has a birthday party tomorrow (her friend's not her own!) and Chook and friend, Cool Girl, are both mad keen Monster High fans. Here is Chook's doll collection. They are all based on monsters so there's a werewolf, Frankensteinian monster, vampire, mummy and creature from the black lagoon here. My favourite is Frankie Stein in her tartan frock although Lagoona Blue on the far right has the best pet. It's a pink pirhana inside her handbag/bowl!

She's missing a few for the full set and one of them is the more rare Ghoulia Yelps. Here's Ghoulia in all her....er.......ghoulish glory.

Cool Girl is hoping for a Ghoulia and other Monster High related things for her birthday from her folks and we were left in a bit of a spot. We wanted to get her something relating to her obsession but didn't want to risk her receiving doublers. So custom made seemed the logical choice. Do you notice Ghoulia's handbag?

This is the closest approximation we (and when I say we? I obviously mean I!) managed. It's based on this pattern that I've used before and I just jimmied the measurements so it's about 7in square.

I added the tag coz I loved the green skull fabric and didn't have enough for lining.

The lining matches the cassette fabric really well and I had to use that teeny bit of green skulls for the internal pocket. Chook, of course, now wants one. I see a use for some of that Heather Ross pony fabric!!

And my incoming stuff? I received a fabulous surprise package from Sarah at Chic Quilt Geek yesterday. Sarah own the papercraft shop Sarah's Cards and I had commented on her quilty blog that I had found scrapping stuff during my big clean out a fortnight ago but couldn't scrap coz I had run out of my favourite Herma glue. So she sent me TWO rolls!

Wasn't that amazing of her? I was thrilled to bits and plan to put it to use this weekend!! I hope you're all having a nice long weekend and the weather is as lovely as it's been here today.

a busy long weekend, part 2

So, Saturday morning (after having done all the sneaking about so as not to wake my hard nightshift working spouse and dropping Chookie off at her stables) I headed out to Linlithgow to meet with Jo and Julie at Jo's magnificent small holding. Her husband Jonathan took some time out from planting an extraordinary amount of trees (2 thousand or something mad!) to take this great photo of us. See that chocolate cake? It was made by Julie and was fan-bloody-tastic. True.

We ooh-ed and drooled over Jos awesome quilts (she has been quilting a looong time) and her crochet (on my to-do list!) before having a lovely spot of lunch and then getting down to business.

Jo was giving us a lesson in hand quilting. It was fun! Yeah, I was surprised at how calming it was and it is definitely going to be a new minor obsesson for me. I could have happily sat in her living room all day with Jo's fabulous view, some handwork and the two girls' relaxing company. But do you my want to see my real lightbulb moment and definite obsession?

This is Simon.

He is one of Jo and Jonathan's two Siamese cats and I am quite smitten. Seriously. Which is weird coz I am not a cat person. I mean, I'll stop to clap one on a wall but have never wanted to own one (or two!) until now. Jo's are such characters and having done some research it appears to be a breed trait and not a result of the fine Linlithgow air! Chook is, of course, delighted since she's been desperate for a cat for years. Spouse took one look at that photo, did some googling and was in! (he had a cat when we first started going out) And, yeah, obviously this is a long term project since we have the boys (of the rattus persuasion) and various summer holidays booked. So maybe next year.

Jo also took us shopping to the two fabric shops in the town. I find it weird seeing fabric in the flesh and it always takes me a wee minute to get in on the action! I managed, though (natch) and came home with this pretty pile...



And, oh happy day, when I arrived home this metre of loveliness was waiting for me. All the way from Spoonflower and ordered on March 2nd. I really thought it had gotten lost. Haven't a clue what to do with it but little girls playing with toy ponies? C'mon, that was a shoo-in for purchase, dontchathink? It's Heather Ross, btw. But she's so distinctive I'm sure i don't need to tell you!

And on Sunday I did housework and tidied my wee room. I was telling Jo and Julie how I don't have stash (I have no room!) so took a photo while it was tidy.

Bottom shelf has over-quarter-yards, my fat quarter bundles and scrap boxes (Chook colour sorted them for me, she's such a sweetheart!) and the next one up has a fat quarter pile, 2 boxes of less-than-a-fat-quarter-but-more-than-a-scrap fabrics and the giveaway cushion is sitting on my solids box.  

And that's about it! I'm looking forward to the Easter long weekend now! My boss has been off sick (his kidney troubles have left him open to all sorts of bugs) so I'm running the show again and walking to work (first time for nearly 10 years - I'd forgotten how much I loved it) and I am knackered. Spouse is still doing stupid hours and I saw him for an hour today - the first time since Sunday morning. Roll on Thursday night!

a centenial giveaway!!

So if you look over there ---> where the followers square thingie is? You will see I have hit triple digits! Yep, as of late yesterday evening I have 100 followers! Woop! (although at the time of publishing I have 101. Like buses, followers, I've been waiting ten days for the last two and three come at once!) So in honour of this most auspicious occassion I thought it was about time I had a small giveaway. It is small, don't y'all get too excited now!

The LynzBobSquareKnickers block from a few posts ago has transformed itself into a cool and groovy cushion. You like?

If you DO like and would perhaps like to rehome it then you may leave a comment telling me how wonderful I am (not really! Just hi will do!) No hoop jumping, no extra entries and all that carry on although since it is celebrating followers? It would be nice if you actually were (or have become) one. That being said, if you do the reader/feed thing and aren't in the wee pretty follower box over there I will trust you. Coz I'm nice like that. And basically too lazy to check. *grins* Good luck an' all that jazz, the winner will be picked by random number generator (or a small child. or a rat!) on Sunday evening.

P.S. Part of me hopes you all hate it and no one enters so I can keep it. Don't feel obliged to comment or anything!!

P.P.S. Yeah, international peeps are always welcome, my cosmopolitan chums!