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Start of a (hopefully) productive week off!

First day off of a week today (aside from a 3 hour course on Thursday) and the day before payday, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to post a few things I've done and to summarise my spending this month.

First things first, the latest project from the project book. This one is called Kraft Moon and is designed by Sue Wilson. Here is her version


Here is mine. You can see I'm still lacking in straight edges!



This is a simple card to make and is perfect for a sympathy card, or alternatively, for a birthday card for an adult male. The simplicity of it is really effective. I actually used a quarter for the template for the moon, and as I didn't have any trees I dug some plant stamps out instead.


Second thing is another birthday present, this one using a combination of shrink plastic, polymer clay, and jewellry findings.


This one smudged a little, due to me being over zealous with the acrylic sealing spray. Sharpies are supposed to be permanent! Aren't these stamps gorgeous though? They are in the latest Cardmaking and Papercraft mag, so rush out and get one!


Another stamped piece and a metal leaf. And the wrist band to my camera. Whoops!


Closer look at the second stamp.


The third stamp, and my personal favourite. I tried blending for once on the bird, and it worked!


The final stamp. You can see I used the blending technique on here too.


A fox bead. I tried making a polymer clay fox and it failed abysmally, so I dug through my stash and found this.



A polymer clay owl! It's not perfect, my clay is a little dry and I'm not brilliant at sculpting, but it's not bad. 

By the way, this is a cluster keychain! I wanted to do something a little different.

Next, an important update. I've finally finished page two of the cross stitch!


Took me just over a month to do this page, so it gives me hope that this will be finished in a couple of months, although the third page is slightly more confetti-ish than the second page was, so it may still take me longer.

Right! Crafts over and done with (blogging wise, I'm going back to work on some more things later) onto the finances! Over the last week I've been to the supermarket twice, buying snacky stuff (I can see food is a weakness). On 21/1 after my talk (which went well) I went to Asda and got a cottage pie, some packs of cereal bars, some washing liquid, some chocolate milkshake and some Dr Pepper, for a total of £7.78. Then yesterday I bought some sandwich thins, muffins, digestives, cadburys hazelnut chocolate, grapes, french fancies, snickers flapjacks, and Kettle Chips for a total of £13.31. This means that, as today is the day before payday, the grand total I have transferred into my ISA is.....

drum roll please....

£559.74!!!!!

A huge amount. I'm so proud of myself for that. Long may it continue! Considering there was six weeks between paydays, I think I've done really well.

Now for the obligatory task update

1. Starry Night cross stitch (finished page 2)
2. Complete project book (13/21)
3. Complete book plans for 2 and 3 (no progress)
4. Read and review 100 books (20/100)
5. Make 15 christmas presents (no progress)
6. Make 12 birthday presents (2/12)
7. Make calendar and G45 box and tags (made 1.5 tags)
8. Hit minimum savings target (12.9%)
9. Kili cross stitch (no progress)
10. 50,000 words (no progress)

I'm off now to work on another birthday present, and possibly a tag. 

Happy crafting everyone!
Emma x




Comments

  1. Anonymous27 January 2015 at 16:41

    WOW! .... Not just on one thing but on all of them.

    The Key chain is GORGEOUS! I'd want to wear it as a bracelet!

    The Card is really lovely too. I can see you worked hard on that one. As for the straight lines ... the trick is to cut all those top pieces at once. Put them together with paper clips and then cut them on a guillotine. They're all the same length then. Other than that ... add some sort of 'edge' all around the outer edges of the cut pieces. (So four pieces of card stock, or ribbon, sticky border, stickles etc etc etc - top, bottom and two sides) - then you can't see that the edges aren't quite straight. Voila!

    The Cross Stitch is coming on a treat!

    As for the savings .... DOUBLE WOW with a cherry on top! WTG you clever thing! Now ... could I interest you in perhaps showing our government how it's done? I feel they could do with a helping hand. (sigh)
    Love ~ Cobs. x



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ems8428 January 2015 at 00:59

      Thanks Cobs, guess I need to get a guillotine huh? lol
      I'm not sure the government would listen to me, do they actually listen to anyone? I just figured that I need to change my spending ways (the not buying it thread on mse has really helped)
      The tasks have also really helped; it gives me something to focus on. Although whether that will change throughout the year is something I can't really plan for.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous30 January 2015 at 16:43

    Although I still occasionally visit the MSE crafty bit I was finding it a bit 'cliquey', so to speak. If I hadn't posted for a while (illness more often than not) but then joined in a conversation, I found that my post would be totally ignored as if I was invisible. It was a bit off putting, and it made that crafty section there feel really quite unfriendly - so I thought that I'd be better just reading and not participating.

    Re the guillotine ... you're going to hate me for this but ... I had two guillotines, a big one, which I used for 12x12" papers and A4 paper - and a smaller one which is kept out on the side of my desk all the time. When I moved home I just didn't have the space to keep the big guillotine so I offered it on Freecycle, and a lady artist came and picked it up for nothing from me. (eeek - sorry Ems. If I'd have known you could have had it for the price of the postage).

    Keep your eye on Freecycle in your area Ems. Who knows what little gems might turn up. (you could even put a wanted advert on there, and who knows?) ~ Cobs. x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ems8431 January 2015 at 01:10

      Yeah I haven't posted on the crafty bit for a while. I found I was repeating my blog a bit which is redundant to be perfectly honest. Plus I didn't like the whole 'I must complete a set number before buying anything'. It works for some people, it hasn't worked for me. The not buying it thread is good though.

      Thanks for the tip about freecycle - I'll keep my eye out!

      Delete

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