Great night at The NIA

Had a fantastic night last night- with great friends at the NIA Birmingham, to see these guys:  Marilyn Manson & Rob Zombie. Awesome night, both were fantastic. Seen Manson before, he is always great, but the first time we have seen Rob Zombie. Well impressed!

 The pic above is us with Suzi, and this is  her hubby Nick, the couple we went with.

WOYWW #182

 This is my offering today- everywhere else is still too mucky to show you, lol. I ordered some die-cuts from e-bay, as I don't have the dies for these, and received a fab package, with not only the die cuts, but some lovely other bits & pieces too. I especially liked that she sent me the 'whole piece' of the die cut, so I have masks as well. So a huge thank you, and well deserved credit to Dawnbirdsong , who also put me a lovely personal note in with the goodies. Its so nice to be able to give someone such a big thumbs up for amazing customer service! She later sent me a great e-mail, and is more than willing to make up special packages, to customer orders,so if you need die-cuts, and don't have the dies, I highly recommend her.Its also a good way to try out die-cuts, to see if you would actually get your money's worth out of purchasing the die, I think.  A little more of the 'work in progress' that is to be my new craft room:
               Most of the old plaster & lath down;

All the old plaster & lath now gone, and the plasterer starts today putting up new plasterboard, and then plastering the ceiling & skimming the walls.All being well, should be putting down the laminate early next week, then paint ceiling (a few times) then the walls ( another few times), paper the chimney breast wall- I have a fab black sparkly paper that didn't get used in the bedroom in the end, then we can start putting the Ikea stuff together.Have a great Wednesday everyone, see you around the desks!

WOYWW #181

 I can't believe its Wednesday again- where do these weeks go? I really must start some Christmas shopping soon, I think. Welcome to this weeks Workdesk wander, courtesy of our charming hostess, Julia of The Stamping Ground.
                   This fridge magnet sums up what is on my workdesk this week, along with every other surface in the house- even poor old Ambrose if he lies still long enough, and being a cat, lying still is possibly what he does best. He definitely gets in enough practice to be World Class anyway.

 And why do I have such a dusty house, you ask? Apart from not doing any housework?
                                       



                                               The reason is here:
This is the ceiling.Well, part of it anyway. And yes, it is on the floor.






 This is where it used to be:

This is Beloved Hubbys current project, my new craft room. Which was my youngest son's bedroom, until he moved out. So the room is being redecorated,( for redecorated, read renovated!) and needs some plastering. Actually now it needs a LOT of plastering! Seriously though, that ceiling has been up for a hundred years plus, plaster on lath, and in places it seemed a bit loose. So its all coming down to be replaced with plasterboard.

This was just as he started. I did think that if he'd strapped the vacuum cleaner to his back, it would A) have made him look even more like a Ghostbuster, and B) meant he could have cleaned up as he went along. I didn't think it wise to voice that thought, though. And yes, Hublet, I can see you looking over your glasses at me as you read this, :)

 Been some interesting stuff  here, not least of all the old gas pipes in the wall from when the houses all had gas lamps,
and the Lead weights from when there were sash windows fitted were still inside the wall.






This is Hubby trying to hide the tide mark on his forehead from the goggles. My current room isn't blue, by the way, it has a fluorescent light in it, and I have to keep changing the settings on the camera between rooms! You can also see the old  bedspread pinned over the door to try (unsuccessfully, I might add) to stop the dust escaping.

I have been getting round to some Christmas cards as well, and here they are part way through.

The fronts, anyway, as they are to be easel cards.





Final round off, you remember I posted earlier in the year that we were re-doing our bedroom? had a new roof to the house, and our bedroom ceiling raised. Well, it finally got finished, apart from one or two little details, and this is what it was:

And this is what it looks like now:

  

Well, I shall schedule this post, and see if Mr Linky is up and awake before I go to work at 5.30( that is just such a stupid time to have to go out), and I will be back to visit this afternoon. Have a great Wednesday folks, see you later!

 Had this urge to write Catch you later, Dudes!then, (watched Bill & Ted again recently, lol.)

Hobbycrafts NEC,November 2012- a few bits & pieces.

First addition to this years stash, was another visit to the Riverside Beads stand- for a selection of their Steampunk style charms. Skulls, cogs, watches etc etc, they make great embellishments for tags & cards.Available in a few finishes too- brass, antiqued silver and bronze for instance.

Next stop was the Sweet Poppy Stencils stand. You may know that a lot of their stencils are  designed by Tracey Dutton of Lavinia Stamps- and many are larger versions of her rubber stamps.

I bought these three- I love the Butterfly Tree. Actually, I just thought I should have included a ruler in the picture so you know how big they are! Right, been and measured them, the cat stencil is 3 1/2" x 4 1/2", the two tree ones are just under 4 1/2", x 5 3/4".


The smashing people at the Sweet Poppy stencils stand kindly allowed me to take some photos of their samples- these are the images which sold me on the stencils I bought! The cat stencil is completed using Black glitter over the stencil paste, and the trees stencil has had Abalone leaf added.

This last picture shows just how different the same image can look, depending on how you choose to complete it:

                                                  One stencil, three different looks.

 Everyone on the stands that I asked if I could take pictures for later inspiration very kindly said yes, and I would like to say thanks to all of them, I really appreciated it. I will post some more pics of what I bought later in the week, and if I have any pics of the inspiration for my purchases, those as well.