Homes Under the Domes 2 ~ THE SEQUEL!

Hello . . .  tis I,  Cobs.  . . .  I have returned,  –  with a complaint  …  IT’S TOO DARN HOT!  People are on the beaches supposedly sunning themselves and getting a tan!  They’re really not.  Not in this heat.  They’re actually frizzling up like crispy-cooked bacon!  I can smell them. sizzle, sizzle, sizzle.

Joking aside … I’m not a Summer lover.  I love the flowers that the summer brings; the birds, the butterflies, the bees,  and love the overall happiness which Summer packs in its little suitcase and brings with it,  . . .  but I don’t like how the heat of Summer affects my body.  It’s been making me feel proper poorly. (Hence the reason I haven’t been around). 

My body is a talking package of broken rubbish,  and for some reason warm weather seems to put this package of rubbish under a microscope and blow it up to  M.E.G.A.  proportions.  It’s been the hottest day today, (Sunday evening as I type this), here  in the South of England,  and they are predicting that this weather is going to go on for some weeks to come.  I do hope not.  (crosses fingers)   We need a few days of cooler temperatures and refreshing breezes …. and some rain for the land.

So… if you happen to be reading this God, could you please turn the heating down a few notches, and turn on the rain for a few nights.  You don’t have to make it rain during the day … I don’t want to be a party pooper to holiday makers who are here having grand fun, but I would like to see the wildlife and the ground get a few nights of rain, every now and again.  Thank you, in advance.  😀  ~  me.  xxx

Aanyhooooo.…  let’s talk about crafts and  …

Homes under the Dome – The Sequel!

I’ve been able to craft on the odd day here and there (with two fans going in the craft room, and only before the sun comes round and tries to cook me at Gas mark 8!).  I wanted to make some more Homes under the Dome, and also make a Bottle of Magic.

I was asked about how to make Fairy Domes on my last post, and because I know that the Domes can be a little difficult to get hold of, I suggested that perhaps a glass bottle would be an easy project, and so I thought it would be a good idea to actually make one so that you could see what I meant.

But that will be in a few minutes … first … let’s do some Domes, shall we?

These are the Home under the Dome projects I’ve been able to make.  The numbers in the hearts, with arrows pointing to each dome, are there so that I can show you each dome closer up and you’ll know which dome you’re looking at!  Clever eh?

You can see a much closer up view like this, and still refer to the original photo to see the dome from (kind of) arms length.

Now I’m going to miss out number 3 just for a moment and go straight on to number 4….

This Home under the Dome does have a home,  it’s on the other side, but I wanted to show you the teeny tiny REAL clam shell with the bright shining pearly bead inside it.

Ok …  let’s ‘do’  the missing number three Dome, shall we? . . .

The reason I left number 3 till now is because it’s not a Home Under the Dome, but instead it’s a Gnome Under the Dome.  Look carefully and you can see his little face – his nose, eyes and a little grin going on there too!

Finally …  I made a Magic Bottle.  Blogger Susie Shy was asking about making the Domes, and since I’d suggested a bottle I thought perhaps I’d better make a bottle so that she could see what I was actually going on about. So here’s a Fairy home in a bottle.  The Fairy Home and all the Mushrooms were freshly gathered from Freckled Mushroom Wood just a few days ago  ….

As you can see, it’s  100% Pure Magic.   You won’t find purer!  Let me show you the back of this Magic Jar…

Both inside the jar, and on the wax seal around the corked top, there is evidence of Fairy Dust.  There is also evidence of Fairy Dust on my desk, on the floor of my craft room and …  even in my bathroom!  Heaven only knows what on earth the Fairies were doing in there, but my goodness, the place twinkles like stardust has been spread around freely!

Well that’s me done and dusted, craft-wise.

I’m sat here in the living room, with my little lap top, tapping away at the keyboard, and I have the ceiling fan on ‘fast and furious’  ….  a tall standard fan on ‘Blow your Brains Out’,  and  a 16″ desk fan on the floor manfully struggling on, trying to blow cold air, but actually blowing warm air around – but its trying and for that I appreciate it’s every effort.

I also have my water spray bottle from my craft room, over to my right, and every now and again I give my face a little mist from it.  It feels lovely and I highly recommend this idea to all who suffer in the heat.  (I take mine to bed with me, filled with really cold water from the fridge, and use it whenever the need arises.  It helps).

Thank you so much for coming and sharing each Home Under the Dome with me over a cup of coffee.   Hope you like them and that they gave you a smile.

Have a truly lovely Monday.  Make it amazing,  and don’t settle for anything less!

Sending many squidges and much love ~

 

 

 

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A special Thank You [Tag] Card

My last post told you about how a bad week was turned about by a token of incredible wonderfulness from an amazing fellow blogger, Mrs.Craft.  (If you missed the post you can find it HERE – it will open in another window for you).

I wanted to make something to say ‘Thank You’ – but something a bit different from just a normal thank you card.  I’d been working on an idea of making a post about Tag Art,  and suddenly a little Fairy sparkle of an idea grabbed me and spurred me on to make a Tag Art card for Mrs.Craft.  But I needed a theme.  hmmmm

Something popped into my mind.  Mrs.Craft is the maker of some extraordinary show stopping slippers….  knitted slippers.  BUT STOP…  don’t think of ‘knitted slippers’, instead think Fairy Boots.

Mrs. Craft calls her creations Crocodile stitch slippers.  What kind of name is that for something which belongs in the land of the Fairies??  It says nothing about the absolute fabulousness of those magical slippers.   I mean to say … look at these Boots …

CreditL Mrs.Craft.

Credit: Mrs.Craft

All photographs of the boots belong to Mrs.Craft.

Every time Mrs.Craft posted about her ‘Crocodile stitch Boots’, I told her in a comment that she really should consider calling them something more wonderful.  Fairy Boots.  Unicorn Rider Boots.  Elfin Creepers.  That sort of thing.  Of course … Green creations could be called Crocodile Creepers.  But not these fantastical wonders!

When I was a child I can remember not wanting to wear my slippers which my mom had bought me.  But had they been given a magical name such as ‘Samantha’s Slippers’ or ‘Bewitched bootees’  (both after the TV series Bewitched – which I adored to as a child),  then I doubt very much that you’d have ever got them off my feet!

So with a nod to the Fairy vibe  I decided to theme the Thank You Tag card around Fairy Land, and I share the resulting card with you here…

(. . . and to borrow the words of Willy Wonka himself . . .)

“Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination . . .”

 

A Card for Mrs. Craft

The large red balloon was made by cutting out the same shape over and over, and then glueing them to each other so that the ‘half round’ shape for the balloon was achieved.

Oooo, yes please …  ‘Admit One to Wonderland’   I’m all for that!

….and … of course, there had to be Fairy Dust, after all …  we were in Wonderland!

What better place to allow your thoughts to take flight than when you’re DREAMING!

The Scroll on the front, to the right of the balloon reads:  “How does one become a butterfly?”  she asked.  “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a CATERPILLAR”.

All the butterflies you see on the front are hand-made from card, but with a mix of embossing powders on them, and heated over and over, in order to make them look enamelled.  There are a couple of hidden ‘smiles’ on the front of the card, but I couldn’t photograph those as they were tucked away and pretty impossible to try to get a photo of.

Shall we go inside?…

A peep into the middle…

The centre is a tad less decorated … because well… one has to have a place to write!  But it still has charm …

The ‘DREAM’ which you saw peeping over the top of the front of the card is actually a Bookmark which I made specially for Mrs.Craft, for this card.  It simply slides off the top of the card, and can be used as a regular bookmark.

On one side of the inner card there is a ‘scroll’ which reads…

…  and it continues on the other page of the card, and tells you exactly what you need to enter the Land of the Fae…

OF COURSE!!  “… one must come with the right KEY“  …  now why didn’t I think of that?!   So …  where do we get the right key from???

…  look closely.  ‘The Right Key’ is there … suspended on a cobweb thread, inside a tiny glass bottle, which has been sealed closed and dusted with Fairy Dust.  The glass bottle is hung inside the card, on a length of woven Unicorn Mane Hair. (or something like that).

… And of course … no one would expect that a Tag Art card,  made with the help of a Fairy who was sat on my shoulder, would have a plain ol’ boring back.  Nooooo.  Mrs. Craft deserved the full works …  and the Fairy whispered into my ear and told me I was to tell her this …

“Your Wings exist  . . . FLY!”  …. so, Mrs.Craft,  I know you’re reading this, and I wanted to tell you that the Fairy who was sat on my shoulder told me to tell you that your wings really do exist.  Don’t be afraid to fly.  (But I don’t think she meant jump off a ledge and fly…  not that sort of flying.  I think she meant that you can do anything you put your mind to.  And … I agree with her.  I think you can too.   So then…. ETSY shop here you come!).  😜

Thank you again Mrs.C for the wonderful gifts.  You won’t ever know how much your kindness  meant  means to me.  Bless your beautiful heart.

Edit to add:  Mrs.Craft has (a few hours before I did) made a blog post about this card and the fabulous Chutney which she had made and sent me a jar of.  If you’d like to read her post too, you can do  HERE   <— click to be taken to Mrs.Crafts blog post.

And now you …. no, not Mrs. Craft, but you...  you reading right now …  I want to do a post about Tag Art.  So … we’ll do that in a few days.  You see a little while back …  I introduced some folks to working in ATC size – which I was thrilled to pieces about.  Seriously so.  But … I kind of would love to also introduce those folks to TAG ART too.  It’s another fabulous way to craft, and really very easy.  So … that post will come in a few days. I promise. [holds pinky finger up]

Thank you so much for coming.  I love seeing you here and love even more when I get to chat with you, so please say hello in a comment.  Tell me what’s going on.  How you are.  How your cat/dog/bird/children/boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/parent(s) are.  Failing that … tell me your current guilty secret.  Have you bought something you shouldn’t?  Or planning to?  Do tell.  I love the juicy bits!  😎

I hope your Thursday is a truly lovely day.  Please …  Do something which makes someone else smile.  Pull a face.  Cross your eyes and pull your tongue out.  Just make someone smile.  It might just make their whole day into something worth being alive for.

A smile is a magical gift.  Use it.  LOTS.   It never runs out. 

Sending oodles of squidges to you ~

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I love you to the Moon and back!

It’s true.  I do.  I really do.  Cross my heart, and pinky finger promise.

I wanted to make a card which was fun, but sweet.  Not sickly sweet, and certainly not cute, but something which had a nod towards the inner child of a ‘bloke’.  A man of years, but still a boy inside.

So I decided that the ‘Love you to the Moon and back’ sentiment sounded perfect … but instead of making the card a more serious ‘love you’, I made one which suggested a rocket …. going forth to the Moon, landing …. collecting moon and star-dust …. and then returning to Earth, spreading sparkly Moon dust as it flew through the atmosphere.

I began by hand painting the background on some watercolour paper, using a combination of purples, blues and white from my Kuretake watercolours.  Once dry I embossed all around the edge with silver Tonic powder, which was meant to look like star-dust and moon dust.

I threw a few pinches of embossing powders over the painted background and then heated them slowly and gently so that they melted onto the watercolour background, and looked like twinkly stars in the sky.

Apart from the  ‘happy birthday‘ sentiment (bottom right of the card), the stamps I used are from Altenew.  But the happy birthday sentiment ….well that came from my ‘sentiment stamps draw’.  I cannot remember who the maker was.  I just knew that I wanted swirly writing, which might look like the trail of a rocket as it swooshed and swooped and looped the loop through the heavens, and that stamp fitted the bill perfectly.

The Moon is stamped using two stamps, and two different coloured inks,  and then using an embossing pen I ‘coloured’ in some areas and then embossed it in Tonic Silver powder.

I used the embossing pen to add a Moon dust trail to the ‘happy birthday’ sentiment.  The words themselves were stamped and firstly embossed in black, then stamped over again, but this time I stamped slightly ‘off’ from the first stamp so that just tiny bits of the black (meant to look like a sooty residue) peeped from behind the silver.

I have no idea if space ships leave a sooty trail behind them, but the idea was ticklish to me so I went with it.  I loved the silver over the top of it because it kind of pushed the sentiment into the whole picture.  Instead of it standing out and shouting, it was just there ….  part of the whole moon dust/star shine thing.

And that, as I am want to say, … is all there was to it!

I trust you are well and that nothing is wonky in your world.  Although …  having said that I know that some of you are having a bit of a ‘wonky’ time at the moment.  Please know that I think of you often, and each time I do, I push a prayer out of my heart and head, and send it heaven bound, asking for help to be given to you.

There are some of you who are missing family members, and I know how difficult that can be to deal with the trauma of losing someone.  My thoughts are with you, and I send you my love.

One of our blogging friends suffered a stroke just a few weeks ago, while she was off on her holibobs with her husband.  There was no warning, nothing odd going on, when suddenly…  out of the blue…  a stroke happened while she was sat there in the car.  Thankfully she wasn’t driving the car at the time. 

I know that there are some blogging friends who suffer with depression, for whatever reason(s), and having a family member who suffers with this, I know only too well how difficult life and times can be because of that.

And there are more … lots of people, who have worries of one sort of another.  A difficult time. Some difficulty that they are experiencing.   Please know that I’m thinking about you.  About you all.  I may not know you personally, but I know you by heart.  By the words you type on your keypad.  And because of that I’ve come to care.

You … reading right now.  I care about you.  I may not always comment on your blog(s), but it’s not because I don’t care.  Sometimes I just run out of words.  Sometimes I think how grand or brilliant you are.  Sometimes I sit here on my side of the computer and smile, giggle, laugh.  And sometimes I cry.

But then … there are those of you who are SO amazingly talented that I just sit here wondering how I can possibly tell you how brilliant you are without sounding like I want to stalk you;  or those of you who I want to kiss all over the face, leaving visible lipstick marks,  for making me laugh like a drain.

Y’know … you’re all uniquely, amazingly, incredibly wonderful.  I’m SO so glad that I began blogging, for I’ve found a world of the most fascinating, beautiful people who I never knew existed.  Crumbs …. how did I ever get along without you all?  My life is so busy now, keeping up with you, sharing your days, getting to know you, your families, your ‘stuff’.  I have no idea what on earth I did before blogging.  I must have had hours wasted,  doing nothing at all!

Blogging really is a magical thing.

So … thank you.  Thank you for being the most amazing person.  Thank you for keeping me reading, entertained, teaching me, and giving me something truly extraordinary.    What would I do without you.? [shakes head while smiling to self].  I’d be terribly bored, that’s for sure!

I am so very blessed.  Thank you.  Each and every one of you.

Have an incredible day.  Be good to yourself….  and to everyone else you meet.

Much love from me in my corner to you in yours.  ~ 

 

The Friday Post: Education of the more entertaining type.

Arms folded, backs straight.  Are you ready for your Friday educationamalisation?

Gynotikolobomassophile:  Is a real word and it means:  Someone who likes to nibble on a woman’s earlobe.

Netting is used for more than just catching fish.

There is a place in Peru where they have strung up netting to capture the mist as it rolls in from the sea, which in turn gives them water to use for their crops and plants.

Honest Injun! It’s the truth. They really do use nets to capture mist.

Read more about it here:-   news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8297276.stm
God supplies you with what you need … you just have to sometimes make a bit of an effort in order to help yourself to get it.

All the planets in the solar system rotate anticlockwise, except Venus. It is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

Peel a banana from the bottom and you won’t have to pick the little “stringy things” off of it.  That’s how the primates do it.

The waste produced by one chicken in its lifetime could power a 100W bulb for 5 hours

You know how sometimes, as you fall asleep, you will feel your legs jerk powerfully. This is usually accompanied by a dream about falling.  Have you ever wondered why this happens?
Well….

This is called a Hypnic Jerk. When you go to sleep at night your brain paralyses your body to stop you acting out all your dreams. It would be dangerous to act out everything that happens in your dreams, especially if you were running or fighting, not just for whoever shares your bed, but also for yourself. It’s thought that this ‘sleep paralysis’ evolved when we slept in trees, as acting out your dreams whilst sleeping high up in the branches would be even more dangerous than doing so while tucked up in bed!

As this system kicks in, you can sometimes have these hypnic jerks, where all the muscles contract suddenly and violently. For some reason, these are often associated with dreams of falling.

According to Wikipedia, pareidolia is “a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (usually an image) being mistakenly perceived as recognizable.”

One common form of pareidolia is seeing faces in objects (like the flying spaghetti monster on a tortilla, or the face of a cookie monster on a pizza).

There actually, is an excellent book filled with pictures of faces on objects, called Faces.  However.. I’ve found a Flickr gallery, belonging to someone called Jim Leftwich, who has been taking his own pictures of faces for a while.  The photos are all whimsical and surprising!   www.flickr.com/photos/jimwich/sets/796304/

You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.

Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty (50) years of age or older.

The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley’s gum.

The King of Hearts is the only king WITHOUT A MOUSTACHE

Most dust particles in your house are made from DEAD SKIN!

The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
So did the first ‘ Marlboro Man.’

Pearls melt in Vinegar

and finally ….. 

Thing that I learned this week  …
….. if you get toothpaste on the tip of your nose;   if you don’t get it off quickly enough, the tip of your nose goes numb.

I am contractually obliged to make you laugh, so here’s the best joke I could come up with at this moment in time…

This is silly, but funny!

A frog goes into a bank and approaches the teller. He can see from her nameplate that her name is Patricia Whack.

“Miss Whack, I’d like to get a $30,000 loan to take a holiday.”

Patty looks at the frog in disbelief and asks his name. The frog says his name is Kermit Jagger, his dad is Mick Jagger, and that it’s okay, he knows the bank manager.

Patty explains that he will need to secure the loan with some collateral.

The frog says, “Sure. I have this,” and produces a tiny porcelain elephant, about an inch tall, bright pink and perfectly formed.

Very confused, Patty explains that she’ll have to consult with the bank manager and disappears into a back office.

She finds the manager and says, “There’s a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $30,000, and he wants to use this as collateral.”

She holds up the tiny pink elephant. “I mean, what in the world is this?”

(you’re going to love this)

(it’s a real treat)

(a masterpiece)

(wait for it) . . .

The bank manager looks back at her and says…

“It’s a knickknack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone.”

(You’re singing it, aren’t you?  Yeah, I know you are…)…

Wishing you a truly fabulous Friday, and a wonderful Weekend.  Be kind to each other …. and to yourself,  and …  don’t take life too seriously.

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Glitter and Twinkle

How do you photograph an item which has glitter on it?  (insert a red-faced, steam coming out of the ears emoticon here and you’ll get a picture of what I look like right now).

I’ve made something that I want to share with you, but, out of all the photographs I’ve taken, I cannot get a good photo because the glitter which I’ve used shows up in the photographs as dots and blobs and looks like the glitter fairy has flown over it several times, instead of twinkling merrily like very fine glitter dust does.

So … any tips for photographing something which twinkles and sparkles like mad when viewed with the eyes, but looks like a crazy mess on a photo?