The Introverted Crafter

I've been a bit more productive this week, at least at the beginning. The end of the week has not been great to be honest. Anxiety is high, and the side effects aren't appreciated by everyone. I'm working hard on curbing it though, but whether I am successful or not is another matter. Still, you never know if you don't try do you? I bought a planner for next year, to be a bit more organised than I have this year, and I hope to utilise it to monitor my good days, and my bad. Anyway, on to the crafting. I'll have to apologise for the bad pictures; the lack of lighting at this time of year is a nightmare for bloggers. First of all, the stitching. One thing I have noticed is that the supposed dark blue thread is about a shade darker than the normal blue, when on the picture it's a much darker shade. These are a couple of tealight candle holders. I saw this in a magazine, done with cityscape dies, so I dug my treeline dies out. These were cut out of bl...

Title is a happy accident, given the clocks have gone back this morning which is the final death knell for the summer of 2017. Winter is upon us, especially if next week is going to be as cold as they say. I'm still in the middle of making things, so this will be picture light again. There are a few makes though. This was a simple statement necklace, using frosted shrink plastic. I traced some glasses frames, coloured them with black sharpies, cut them out (carefully) then hole punched and shrunk them. Hobbycraft have some awesome paper mache figures at the moment. I fell in love with the stag heads, but could only order two as they had run out, so I ordered some of these as well. I dug out some decopatch paper I have had for ages for the body, and painted the antlers gold. Progress on the stitch. Realistically I have enough craft stuff to last me forever, yet I keep buying more. I must stop this, which will be my aim next year. I try to learn the perfect da...

Short one today. To be perfectly honest, even though I have had four days off work this week, I have not fancied doing anything until today, and so I have a few in progress projects, but nothing to show on the blog. Apart from the stitching progress. I love it when a stitch starts coming together. I'm still nowhere near complete of course, and it can be frustrating at times, not only for me in terms of actually stitching, but of not being able to put much on this blog at times. Hopefully there will be some more in the next couple of weeks. THIS was the week I thought I was going to chicken out of. Life's vital fluid donated to help others moves from vein to bag So this week was a big one for me. Giving blood. I discussed it with my old boss a while ago, who told me that when he was a young man in London, he would donate blood whenever he was going for a night on the tiles. Made for a cheaper night, but probably not a good thing to do. I do not like need...

not a white Christmas, although that would be lovely. No, the dream thing is something else, which I will touch upon later. Before that, the crafting. I'll start with the update on the stitch. Not much progress on it this week I am afraid. The Earth is starting to take shape, but the slow progress on this, and other stitches, proves to me that I don't need anything else! I've also been making a few other things, mainly cards. I say mainly cards...this is actually an envelope, made using some of my new Tim Holtz dies. One thing I will say - I love distress crayons! Perfect for colouring those graves. One thing to note is that you have to roll the more intricate dies back and forth through your cutting machine a few times in order to get all the intricacies cut properly. This is a simple card, made using a star background I had in my stash, flowers cut out of birthday paper with a pearl in the middle, a cake stamped and coloured, and finally h...

I have not been as productive as I had hoped this week. I've started flitting between things a little again, which I must nip in the bud. I have done some things. A series of bookmarks. These are so easy to do, and make such a lovely gift. Only thing you have to be careful of is to make sure the jump rings are secure (which I have found to my cost) I had a plan to make some spider earrings out of black shrink plastic, so I used my web die. Which didn't cut through at all. So I had a bit of a rethink. I cut out some black shrink plastic in a shape which reminded me of a web, then I used the shatter stencil and a silver pen to make cobwebs. I then shrank them and coated them with UTEE, before adding a head pin with some red and black beads, and a spider charm. Finally I made a pair of scissor earrings. I've had these in my stash for ages, from when I bought the items I needed for the sewing room stitch. I ordered two too many scissors, s...

This week's thing for the week will be picture free, as I don't want to ruin mum's surprise, but there are pictures of what I have made at least. To start with there is a Tando Creative printer tray. I ordered a ton of these, but when I got them they were a bit smaller than I thought they would be (my fault) so I was a bit stumped as to what to do with them. Then I had an idea the other day that I wanted to have a meditative, almost zen-like piece. I painted the tray black, and used a piece of cardstock from the wild at heart range. I used lindy's embossing powder in sheba silver on some cogs and added a metal bird from my stash. Finally I used the Tim Holtz tiny tattered flowers thinlit die to cut loads of flowers, and a branch, which I coloured with distress inks. Finally I inked and added a quote. The combination of grey and purple is really peaceful. I also made a Halloween themed charm bracelet. I did have a different word band in mind for it...

Short one this week, basically as I have nothing interesting to say. Not that that has stopped me before of course. I'm just not feeling it this week. It's strange; first of all I am not feeling like crafting, then I am not feeling like writing on here. If it carries on I won't feel like doing anything at all. I have taken some measures against this slide though. Just a little to-do list every day. I figure if I can make myself a list of achievable things every day, and push myself a little further each time I do, I can stop this. Anyway, that's not what you lot care about. You want to see whether I have made anything this week. Amazingly I have. I saw a focal piece someone had done on-line, so did my own take on it, making it into a necklace. Basically I had a big metal diamond that I didn't like, so I glued on a few other things (flowers, a dragonfly and a spider) before coating it in white gesso, spraying it with Lindy's Sprays and using a li...