The Introverted Crafter

I had another one of those poundland photo frames, so decided to do something to inspire me when I have writer's block (which is often unfortunately). So I started by looking around to find an inspirational quote, and found this one by William H Gass. I started off by painting the frame with black gesso, then with brown distress paint. With the inside I found some of my motif paper with kraft resist script writing, which I distress inked with a variety of browns and blacks. I stamped the quote, cut it out, inked the edges and glued it onto the kraft resist paper.     The outside has a few flowers from my stash, some swirls and ferns which I inked and then distress powdered, and some butterflies.   Here is a close up of one of the butterflies. I wanted to tie them into the writing theme, so I die cut them out of the same script paper, inked them with blue and red ink. I was going to use distress powder on the edges, but instead I dug out some Tim Holtz pen ...

Today I thought I'd do a little update on how my resolutions are going. I'll take them one at a time.   1. No fizzy drinks - for the first two weeks this was easy. Then I had a sleepless night due to some inconsiderate people blasting music all night, which meant that I really craved some Dr P, which I have used before to get me through a shift. So I went out to the shop and I bought....some celery, and carrots. Go me! The next day I had an ocular migraine which led to an almost all day headache, which could possibly be attributed to the sugar drop, but again I resisted. I have been drinking tea, water, and squash only.   2. Walk/Cycle/Weights every day. Not only have I been doing this, I have actually been doing two types a day. Every morning I have been using my 10kg kettle bell, and when the weather has been too bad to walk on my days off I have been on the exercise bike. I can't wait for the weather to improve.   As a side note, I am doing this for two re...

You'll remember that I bought a couple of white plastic picture frames from Poundland a while ago. Well, the other day I decided to work on one. I started off by painting it with black gesso (two coats to make sure the whole thing is covered) before using Iced Spruce distress paint. That was only one coat as something interesting happened - it came out looking like stone. Iced spruce has an almost minty green tinge but it came out a cold grey. I then dry brushed a little gold distress paint on the textured parts, and dripped a little green alcohol ink to age it a little. Once the frame was done I looked for a picture to put in it, and found this one of my grandparents on their 40th anniversary. It was a little too small for the frame so I backed it onto some craft paper. I then found grungeboard letters to spell true love, which I painted gold and dabbed iced spruce on. The hearts were both grungeboard, inked in red and pink ink and lined with black soot. Finally I added a couple ...

I had a look through my Beadhaul box the other day, with the view to making some jewellery and trying a new technique. By new technique, I mean of course, new for me. It's a tried and tested technique amongst jewellery makers. Before I start with that, I decided to make some earrings. As a writer myself, I wanted to use the pair of 'true story' charms, but I didn't want to use beads with them. Just adding the charms to a pair of fish hook earrings was quite boring in all honesty, so I had a look through the box and came up with the ceramic stars.   Obviously you have to have matching stars. I was lucky enough to have quite a few pairs, and settled on some blue/purple (more purple than they are in the picture anyway) and some grey ones. I used eyehooks to thread them on, so that I could put the book charm on the bottom. Don't be put off using the stars as earrings as they are surprisingly light.   A closer look. One thing you have to make sure is that...