The Introverted Crafter

Ok it's not officially over yet (at time of posting anyway) but it is the last day, so as well as the last of my declutter and the usual crafting stuff, I'm going to review my resolutions that I made at the top of the year, as well as letting you glimpse a sneak peek of next year's. First of all, the last declutter of 2016. Mango and Papaya shower gel. The scent doesn't stay long with this. A bit of a disappointment really. Alphabet strip die. As you can see by the various dents it's past it's best. I've used this a lot, but I've now invested in some thinlit alphanumeric dies, which will remove the need for putting a die through the machine so many times in order to cut a simple phrase. Rusty blades. Only a poundland set so it's not much of a loss. Toothbrush. Don't worry that's not tooth gunk! I've been using it to spatter metallic colour on things, but I was too lazy to wash it and now it's useless. Body butter. ...

Hope you all had a nice Christmas! First of all, here are the decluttered items. I'm stopping doing this at the end of the year, so I can concentrate on next year's resolutions (more on that next time). Here are last weeks items, plus todays. Lindy Bop skirt. I do love Lindy Bop but sometimes they don't suit me. This skirt is a bit too full, so you need a petticoat underneath it or it ends up getting caught between your legs. I've got a Lindy Bop dress that is a similar pattern, so it's going to the charity shop. A sweater vest. I went through a period of wearing stuff like this, but if you've got a bit of a belly it doesn't suit, plus I don't wear trousers much anymore. Charity shop. A black blouse. Not fond of the short sleeves so charity shop. A Forever 21 top. This makes me look a bit frumpy to be honest. Charity shop. Lindy Bop dress. The fabric is what put me off this. I love the cotton ones, hate the shiny polyester ones. Did...

I thought I'd try my hand at a tutorial today. Not a video one, as I hate the sound of my own voice (will have to overcome that one next year) but a few pictures of a work in progress. Before that, decluttering. The first three items were not pictured. More knickers, and an exercise bike. The exercise bike was a simple case of forgetfulness. My friend gave it to me years ago but there isn't any room for it here anymore, so I stuck it outside with a sign saying free, and overnight it disappeared. Multi medium matte. Tub is empty, so it's gone in the bin. A Disney tin. This had peppermint bark in when I bought it in 2011. It's been in my window ever since and, like the pot that had the tree in, it's been bleached by the sun. Bin. The Book Thief. The reason I'm giving this away to charity is because I have two copies! This is what happens when you have too much clutter. More craft magazines. Bin. On to the tutorial. I bought some Tim Holtz stamps...

I've got used to doing posts on a Sunday, but the dwindling daylight hours makes it harder to take decent pictures of my work, and I couldn't take the pics of one piece until Monday. I also made a tag yesterday, which I'm entering into thats crafty flower challenge  , so I decided to wait until today to post everything. So, first of all, the tag. I've had the wing forever, used half for a different project. I started off by inking a tag with frayed burlap and old paper, using the frayed burlap to ink through a numbers stencil, and using mica powder and texture paste through a different stencil in the corner. When that was dry I used tea dye to stamp music notes on it. Background done, I cut out a vintage photo from the Tim Holtz collection and added the wing to it. I then added lace to the bottom, some wooden elements which I embossed with Lindy's embossing powder (cannot get enough of these), and die-cut some flowers from an old leaflet (very old, I found it i...