The Introverted Crafter

Told you there would be crafting stuff up quick! Today is project 17 from the project book. The original is called Key of the Door and is designed by Dee Paramour. Here is her version As you can see the key part is the whole 'key to the door' thing with turning 21. I don't know anyone who is turning 21, but I decided to use this as a birthday card for my dad, and alter the key slightly. Here is my version I didn't have a damask embossing folder, but I did have this nice Tim Holtz one, which I painted gold, then black, which I wiped the excess off, before dabbing with iced spruce.  I also didn't have any mica flakes or corner plates. Digging through my stash I found these micro beads, which are a perfect substitute. You just use a bit of double sided sticky tape, then pour them on the top. The corner plates are actually a square filigree I had which I cut into quarters.  I love the whole dry brushing technique. This was grungeboard, pai...

I was feeling pretty down the other day. I always tend to around birthday time. I think we all do. It's the feeling that you are another year older and, for me anyway, it's the feeling that I have wasted yet another year. Then I had a thought. Last year was actually pretty good. My depression aside, I actually did more last year than in the previous five years combined. So, here are the highlights of last year for me. Me and my little brother try our best Zoolander faces... Biggest thing of last year; I met the Backstreet Boys! I've been fans of them since time immemorial (ok that's an exaggeration) so meeting them was an absolute pleasure.  I stayed in a Disney hotel. It's not the first time I've been to Florida, though it may be the last. I'm planning a possible trip a little further afield in a couple of years time. At the time I was a little disappointed with the holiday itself, but I will still always love WDW. ...

As promised, here is a small insight into the reasons behind the choice of the protagonist in Lonely As A Cloud. Most books have more than one protagonist, anything from two to dozens. Look at Tolkein for example; he had a veritable plethora of characters. Admittedly the dwarves were very two dimensional in the Hobbit, but the fellowship was far more fleshed out. Anyway, given that I had decided that the human race was going to be whittled down to a single unit, I had to give some careful thought to who exactly they would be. The first dilemma was actually relatively easy to solve; the gender. The reason why it was so simple was the fact that the book was going to be written in the form of a diary, and the large majority of people who keep diaries are female. This ended up working very well for a number of reasons, one of which I will divulge in a later post. So, the gender chosen, I then had to decide what the defining characteristics would be. The minutiae could be fleshed out ov...

I'll be writing two posts this weekend, but one of them will be writing based, as I have hit 75 pre-orders. I've still got a long way to go so if you fancy reading a post-apocalyptic book with a twist, head on down to britainsnextbestseller.co.uk and check out Lonely As A Cloud. This post is craft focused. I've completed another project in the project book, this one called Forever and a day. It was designed by Hels Sheridan. Here is her version Here is mine Im going to start with the things I'm happy with. The layout is good; for once it's straight and clean, an the banner really works. The heart is nice and bright, and I like the alternative to the leaves. It's actually a grungeboard star, inked in peeled paint, sprayed with green lustre spray and cut in half. I think it works better than traditional leaves with the type of flower I chose, plus it illustrates how you can use things in your stash in a completely unusual way. Now for th...

Todays project is Punk Princess, and is designed by Dee Paramour, which is a steampunk style name isn't it! Anyway, here is hers. (Can you tell I've spilt something on this page? Nice and wrinkled isn't it!) The thing that you have to keep in mind when planning your version of a piece is what supplies you have, what lessons you want to take from that particular piece and, above all, who the recipient is. That being said, I decided to bypass the pink and the lady (as the recipient is not a pink person and I don't have any decent lady stamps) and take from this piece the idea of masking, and inking an embossed piece. Here is my version. I like the idea of doing a card that isn't folded exactly in half, so that you can put a little extra on the edge, and some pieces that can overlap. It's also the first time I've used some of the masks I got free with a magazine aaaaages ago. Obviously the theme is completely different from the original,...

I'm an advocate of using up your stash but sometimes I have a small problem in doing so. I will find an item and have no idea whatsoever about what to make with it. Do any of you have the same problem? I can't decide whether the solution is to sell the stuff or hang onto it until inspiration hits. Anyway, first thing I wanted to do today was to update my cross stitch progress. Here is the latest update As you can see, the third page is coming along nicely. I've also been working on making presents this last couple of days, and have another two birthday presents to add to my total. The first is for a friend of mine. I was going to do a collage of photos from when we went to Disney last year, but I just wasn't feeling it, so I dug out one of the wooden boxes I had left. I kept it relatively simple. I had a few ideas for how to do this but the size of the box didn't lend itself to the ideas so I had to change it. That's what crafting i...

Last week I thought I'd have a break from the project book and work on the larger tasks, since I had a week off. This week I'm back at work so it's back tothe project book! Today's is titled Blue For You and was originally designed by Julia Watts. Here is her version. And here is mine. As you can see, mine is far simpler, particularly around the centre. The reason for this is simple. I do not have anything in my stash that is remotely like the dies used in the centre of the original card. The Happy Birthday I used is actually an embossing folder that I got free from a magazine, and you can see I've made use of the bow maker instead of using an actual ribbon. I have plenty of ribbon (none like that) but none that was the right colour and I have uses in mind for the ribbon that I do have.  I like the techniques used in this card, particularly the embossing background and the decorative edges. It's simple to do but lends a touch of elegance to a ...

So today is the day before I'm back to work, and here is the last thing I made this week; my mum's birthday present. A couple of months ago I was walking past a charity shop and I spotted a jewellry box, so I decided to buy it. Here is what it looked like when I bought it. Now I knew that I didn't want to change the inside, as purple is mum's favourite colour. I did however, want to do something with the outside.  I started off by painting it black using acrylic paint, and then sealing it with spray. I then used a versamark ink pad, a script background stamp, and some mica powder, to decorate. I then made some shapes and leaves out of polymer clay, coated them with mica powder, and attached them to the lid of the box. Here you can see the polymer clay shapes on the top, and the script all over the box. I added some flowers from my stash (daisies as I felt I didn't want flowers with too much colour) and stamped a...