My Big News and Early Halloween Jars

 

I know it's not even October yet but I saw some of these decorated candle jam jars on Pinterest and remembered I had made some of these a couple of years ago which comes out every year on Halloween - I can't remember if I ever posted them so I'm showing them now.

 

They are really easy to make just red or orange tissue paper PVA'd onto clean jam- jars, when dry  black  die cuts were PVA'd on the top.  (The cat and the crow are Tim Holtz Dies and the face is one I cut out).  I twisted some old metal wire around the handles and they're done. 

 

Very effective in the dark.

 

 

 

 

 

My other news is I have been accepted for University and I'm off to the University of Central Lancashire in Preston to do a BA Arts & Designs Foundation course.  This is for 12 months and hopefully if my grades are good enough I will be able to go on and do a BA in Textiles.  When I was made redundant 18 months ago it soon became clear that I was going to struggle to get employment.  I decided to make the best use of my time and energy and do something I wanted to. 

 

 I didn't have the chance of going to University when I was at school so I started looking to combine my love of crafting with this goal and came up with a BA in Textiles - I applied with a digital portfolio made up of a mixture of all my work and to my absolute amazement I received an offer.  As I have no formal qualifications I  have to complete a 12 month foundation course and I'm really looking forward to getting started  - which is tomorrow!!!!

 

To say I a little nervous is the understatement of the year - so wish me luck I'll be the oldest Fresher on campus but what the hell.  I'll give it my best shot and let you know how its going.

 

Fingers crossed

 

Sue

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Amigurumi Pumpkin

I did say I would post Halloween /cards today but I have had a change of plan as the cards are still in the development stage - I have the design sorted I just need to make the final version - that's tomorrows job.

So I thought as it is nearly Halloween I would post a couple of pictures of a super cute Amigurumi pumpkin I finished last week.  I found the pattern on Planet June blog and I have added the link if you fancy having a go at making your own.  The only difference is the addition of a couple of leaves I made - you could also add Halloween faces if you fancy with felt or beads.

The pattern is in US crochet terminology but it is so easy to convert to UK and can be crochet in an evening.

Any problems just send me a message and I will try to help but there are lots of conversation tables to be found on the internet.



See you later

Sue
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This Years' Pumpkins

Here are the carved pumpkins we made last night. Much hilarity was had by all. We all said how easy it is carving pumpkins - when we were younger (in the dim and distance past) how we used to get blisters on our hands scooping out swedes. Pumpkins were too exotic for our childhood.

 

The Howling Wolf is my contribution and Jan carved the wonderful Sorcerer's Cauldren - it was really funny Jan kept humming the music from Fantasia - the Sorcerer's Apprentice all night.

 

The Jack'o'Pumpkin was carved by Pat - how scary is that wouldn't like to meet him on a dark night, and Emily carved the fantastic Haunted House (just look at the amazing detail).

I still have one pumpkin to carve but I will be make pumpkin cake with the flesh. That's a job for tomorrow.

LETTERS FROM AMERICA

This week the postie delivered three letters from some of my American Stamping friends - I have been writing to them for a while now and we all have one thing in common - Stamping and cardmaking.

I just had to show the fantastic cards they have sent me. So here we go:-
This is from my friend Janice in Chicago - she loves Iris Folding and it shows in this beautiful Autumn Leaf card - are'nt the colours fabulous

 

This is a close-up of the leaf but my camera is a bit rubbish at close ups or it could be the photographer!

 

The card is from Jan in Colorado Springs - I love the mummy stamp

 

and I just had to show you the inside of Jan's card it so made me laugh. Isn't the upside down bat the cutest bat you ever did see. Fantastic.

 

I have a couple more things to show, they didn't download with these pictures for some reason - back in a moment