I have spend the last week sculpting several doors and making several moulds.  Quite a few moulds have come and gone in this process.  As it stands I currently have three different moulds that I feel are useable although I am still not 100% happy with them, but will I ever be?

I have also spent the longest time trying to get the paint finish right on the doors, but I think I might be there now.  Sadly I don’t have a brown paint just now so am only making coloured doors but if this resin thing is a goer then I will just have to buy some more paint!

I am going to ask for a couple of opinions on the finished resin doors and then if it is positive enough for me I will go into production - woot!

I have a craft fair this weekend at The Corinthian Bar, Glasgow so this might be your last chance to buy wooden doors.  I have worked so hard on the resin ones I am not sure if I want to go back to all the cutting and sanding now.

x

Edited to add a rubbish quick photo of my moulds!

This is a second pumpkin that I carved. The boys wanted a Mario one so here it is:

I have to put in a disclaimer here: it was late and I totally rushed this so I feel it could have been done better but hey there is always next year!

We let of some fireworks last night. We usually get a box of assorted fireworks and some rockets. This year Stu accidentally managed to buy HUGE rockets. From the picture they looked the same as the ones we had last year but they weren’t - these, were enormous, the kind that part your hair when they go off. They looked great though

I am still no further forward with photographs. I have been feeling a bit off for a couple of days and due to space constraints I have had to pack away all the photo stuff again. So it is all very frustrating.

I have a Craft Fair at The Corinthian Bar, Ingram Street, this Saturday, might see you there?

x

I think the problem stems from the fact that fairy doors are relatively easy to photograph and have a definate hard edge to them but the others can have hairy edges adn so many ‘poses’ I never found one I was happy with, and even when I had the pose right I wasn’t happy with the lighting and then I had issues with the photo processing software.  So I ended up spending a frustrating morning with no nice shots to post here when I thought I would be triumphant.  Oh well tomorrow is another day (’cept I am busy tommorow so no photography for me!)

Keep warm. x

This is our Pukin’ Pumkin that we made for middle munchkins Cub Halloween party.  He was over the moon because it won first prize

I love this kind of pumpkin carving as it is really quick and easy but oh, so effective AND it gives you a use for the pumpkin innards other than the compost bin!  We still have another pumpkin that we are going to carve for actual Halloween because I am not sure if pukin’ Peter will last that long, think he might have wilted by Friday.

It has worked out that so far I have only had two longs days, yesterday and today.  Yesterday I got all my receipts up to date and wrote a list of things to do. I designed some new fairy door labels because I am nearly out of the older ones, and put in my order for them so that is exciting. Did a few boring domestic things too!

Today I am working on my to do list and I have nearly finished it! I am making a few new doors for my craft fair on Saturday although I am not sure if I will have my new labels by then or not - might have to improvise. I have looked out some Christmas cards too (sshh)

Bit of excitement -  I have been playing around with moulding compound again and made a new fairy door mould the other week.  Today I cast a door in resin, it looks good. I am going to experiment painting it next as I am not sure that colouring the resin before casting it is going to work, I am worried it will not cure properly.  I will post a photo if it actually works (promises, promises)

I did a craft fair this weekend and it was actually brilliant for me which was great.  It was the Merchant City Festival which meant there was a lot of footfall and I had lots of sales, so that has put a spring in my step.  My cards continue to sell well at the Cafe and I have had a few web orders in lately so I feel things are looking up.

I managed to make a new mold for my fairy doors from the latex stuff I have.  I have still to make a cast and see what the result of that is.

Smallest munchkin starts school full time from tomorrow so I will hopefully have more time to get photos and stock etc. sorted out. I am looking forward to actually being able to achieve things without being interrupted by the school run every hour and a half!

I still haven’t got my lavender off the stalks and I need to sort out cheques etc from Saturday and I need to finish off web orders so that is today.

It is better to be busy than be bored.  Oh and I am in the middle of changing broadband suppliers so I am sure there are plenty of *fun* times ahaead with that too.

Not much crafting is getting done just now, life is too busy.  Hoping to get on with some photos for my new website after next week so hopefully that can come another step closer.

My lavendar is drying nicely I think I will remove it from the stalks over the weekend.  I am still not convinced it is actually going to smell like lavendar at he end and not just like sticks but we will see.

Sorry for the brief post, sounds like world war three is breaking out upstairs, the munchkins need to go to bed! night all!

Yesterday I updated my books so i now have no ominous pile of receipts hanging over my head, that feels good.

Have a good weekend peeps - stay dry

I ordered a little needle felting kit from Ebay and while I wait (impatiently) for this to arrive I have been looking at a few needle felted creations.  If I was a good blogger I would have loads of links to show you but I am sorry I am a rubbish blogger and therefore have none.

Came across a new (to me) thing today.  I used to use loads of crafty forums and always knew the latest things but I dropped out a lot of them as I was spending way too much time reading about crafts and very little time actually doing, anyway, I digress. I came across “Tear Bears” they seems to be very popular in the US and popular with scrapbookers.  Basically you use thick Mulberry paper (the handmade heavy type not the thin stuff) and tear out paper piecing shapes and make them into cute little bears and other animals.  After finding many people selling the bears and kits and CDs I found this generous lady who actually has put online patterns and instructions on how to make your own so I thought I would post a linky

I have also been looking at Post It note holders, keyrings and Tic Tac holders! I thought these would be great teachers gifts so might get a head start before Christmas

Off now to stop my eyes and head spinning from all my hours of surfing oh and I need to get the munchkins to bed sometime soon.

x

Well I have been there and done that, an Alcraft craft fair at our new venue at The Corinthian Bar, Ingram Street.  It was a bit of a weird experience with all the people and wares being so familiar but the venue, location, layout and general atmosphere was completeley different, but not in a bad way!

I still did well and I spoke to some people who had gone to Merchant Square first and then made effort to come along to Ingram Street, thank you. It is a beautiful building and a lovely setting.

I haven’t done much craft wise since the fair, I have repacked my boxes because I had tidied up a bit too fast for comfort.I am trying to clear out our ’spare’ room just now, I have a vauge notion that once the room is all tidy I will be able to craft like a dream but I think it is just procrastinating really.

On the gardening front I picked loads of our lavender.  We planted this last year and it has now gone completley crazy, last year I just let it wilt but this year I am going to try and do something with it.  I am not sure if I have left it too late but I picked a huge bunch on Sunday and have it hanging to dry, after a couple of weeks I will try and remove all the bits and I may even make a lavender bag or two!