3D scene project: Kitsch is Where the Heart Is

Hi, hi.

As it is every 3rd Tuesday, today it's my turn to share a Design Team project on the shop blog of my friend 3D Jean, and this is today's offering:

Some people might call it a 'shrine' ... the Tando packing calls it a 'Mini Theatre Stage' ....

I call it 'the thing I made mam for Mother's Day hich she still has on display in the living room':

As it was for a very special person I populated my scene with some of those 'saving for best' items, like the little teddy and the gorgeous doll image from an old annual. And I went slightly cabochon-crazy too

It may not be the most sedate, understated creation ... if anything it looks rather as if I covered the 'thing' with glue and held it aloft during an explosion in a kitsch factory ... to see what stuck.

But who said that would be a bad thing?

And, like me, my Mam grew up under the influence of my [late] Grandma who bestowed her love upon us all at times with the most wonderfully eccentric, Magpie-eyed gifts ...

... so kitsch really is where the heart is round here.

Julie x

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Supplies available at 3DJean:

• Tando Mini Theatre Scene
• 'Horizon' patterned paper [around frame] by Lecon De Choses;
• Various cabochons;
• German scrap foil.

Other supplies:

• Bunting stickers + floral patterned paper [on background] by Lily Bee Designs;
• Floral label sticker: October Afternoon;
• Button + crochet trim from The Ribbon Girl

A super quick card from leftovers

Hi.

I'm still not really online.

I know ... you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise but despite having an infamous namesake with a time/space shifting abilities ...

I assure you I've not been beamed up from anywhere, Scotty ... this is just another scheduled post.

I just wanted to give you a heads up to a weekend of activities and giveaways going on over at the 'Jennifer's Jumbles' blog.

By now [fingers crossed] I believe my giveaway post will be live over there where you'll have the chance to:

• Win YOUR CHOICE of any single item from my Etsy shop.

**Make sure to hop over to Jennifer's blog for the competition details and to catch up on the weekend's other competitions and challenges.**

• And hop to the shop to see exactly what you'd ike to ask for if you won!

Good luck! [Or do I mean live long and prosper?]

Julie :-)

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p.s: I made the card in about 10 minutes as I wanted to include it in a parcel which had to go into the post yesterday morning. Apart from the card blank [itself an off-cut] it's made solely from items which had been hanging around on top of my desk and also from the bin beneath it! The only thing I added was the strip of fabric tape and gems.

My Month in Numbers 2012: June

Hello, hello.

If my calendar is correct then ... it's July tomorrow.

If the recent wet weather is correct then ... I may have a faulty calendar.

But, whichever it is, here's my June 2012 ... in numbers ...

35 years = the time elapsed between the taking of this photo:

... and this one:

Points of note: I now have more hair than I did in 1977. Which is a good thing.

Meanwhile Mam has less hair than she had in 1977 ... also a good thing.

And, coincidentally, Jo is dressed smartly in pretty dresses in both photos while I seem to dress more for comfort and am wearing trousers in both. The more things change, the more they stay the same, no? 

344 pages = the amount of Bring Up the Bodies read since May's Month in Numbers to finish it off.

3 = the number of wives Henry VIII has accrued so far and we're only up to book 2 of Hilary Mantel's trilogy. *spoiler alert for anyone unaware of how Henry VIII treated his wives*  

They cut her head off in the end you know?

But, seeing as how I knew that before I began, I was never actually reading to find out what happened ... I had half an idea how it all went down [to be honest it sometimes less than half ... royal History isn't my strong point].

No, rather this was one of those: "I want to keep reading because I love the atmosphere , the writing, the fully breathing characters inside yet ... I really don't want to keep reading because then it will be over and I won't be wandering around 16th Century England with Thomas Cromwell any more ... I'll be back in my own bedroom again, with hoovering to do" books.

You know the kind.

3 days = the time I had to wait between seeing a pair of these leopard print jeans in a shop and having a pair arriving on my doorstep after having to run home and order them in my size:

Animal print. Super comfy and stretchy. Look cute with ballet pumps.

Rarely does an item of clothing fulfil so many vital requirements!  

2 = the number of Christmas themed magazine features I've worked on:

It took me a whole [pretty much wasted] working day - mid-June - to get even remotely in the mood for such festivities.

Oh by gosh, by golly.

13 out of 13 =  the number of the final episode of Justified Season 3.

I didn't want it to end but we made sure to see it out instyle with an end-of-season 'event'.

If you don't watch Justified then what follows here will make very little sense. And even if you do watch Justified ... you may still have your doubts ...

We ate had southern style chicken and ribs and drank Kentucky Bourbon and Coke from jars ... Harlan County-style:

I wore my best Boyd Crowder outfit ... and we all took turns wearing the Dickie Bennet moustache:

Let me tell you something ... it's not easy to drink from a jar wearing a felt 'tache stuck to your top lip with blu-tack. Not easy at all:

And yes, my sister is wearing a Sheriff badge here. Because, while we may be slightly unhinged, we're not lawless ...

13 = the number of episodes in Season 1 which I'm now going to buy and start watching the whole thing all over again ... after seeing them all twice already. 

Oh, amazingly well-written, well-acted and just plain entertaining Justified, I really wasn't a box set girl ... until I met you.

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Well, that's me ...

If 'My Month in Numbers' is new to you, you can catch up on all of the details here.

And you'd like to join in this month [despite seeing me in a moustache] here's the Month in Numbers 'etiquette':If you write a post and want to leave a link for myself and others to visit and/or pin please bear in mind it has a shared experience aspect to it.

• When you swing by my blog to drop off a link to your Month in Numbers post - please leave a comment for me while you're there. Not because I'm needy ... but because it feels fair. Reciprocal.
• Please link to my blog in your post. As much as I'd like to think that everyone who reads your blog already knows what 'My Month in Numbers' means... the truth is, they don't. So unless you explain where the idea comes from and how your readers can join you in doing the same next month, they are none the wiser.
• Please take time at some point in the month to visit and comment on a few of the other posts too.

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Just a note:  [mainly so I can't be accused of breaking my own rules ... ] ;-)

• this is a scheduled post as I'm away from the online world for a few days ...
• so if you have left me a comment and a link to your own Month in Numbers post then please don't be offended when I don't comment on it or pin it straight away.
• I still like you.
• Obviously.
• I'll be catching up with your vital statistics ASAP once I'm back online.
• I promise!

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Thanks for dropping by and humouring me today.

Happy July everyone!

Julie :-)

Outfit: My 'summer' wardrobe?

Hello, hello.

I'm British ...

... and therefore I'm contractually obliged to blog about the weather at least once a season. At least once.

It's only polite. So here goes ...

One day last week - in the middle of June - I knew I had to go out to the shops and chose my outfit accordingly.

 Now, seeing as it's the middle of June [ie: summer] you might imagine that this would involve a floaty dress, sandals, sunglasses and carefree sun-kissed hair.

Well [a] you'd be wrong, and [b] you're also probably not living in the UK this summer ... because if you did, you'd know that my outfit needed to be more like this:

Let me just break this summertime ensemble down for you, it involves:

• Bertie boots. When I bought these last September I joked that "I might live in them now". Many a true word spoken in jest.
• Jeans.
• Striped long sleeve T-shirt.
• Spotty vest.
• Baggy cardigan.

And not forgetting two of the most important elements of the outfit ... namely...

• A scarf. A scarf!! Have I mentioned it's June?
• And a floral print rain mac.

The mac was a £5 bargain bought in a winter sale when I imagined I'd look chic wearing it during spring showers ...

And yet here I am ... still wearing it in 'summer' and as if that wasn't bad enough last week I caught a glimpse of myself in it in a car window. Its shiny fabric meant it was slipping off my shoulders under my bag strap and my hair was all mushed about from wearing the hood. and,  do you know what I looked like?

I looked exactly like my 6 year-old self at home time from school. That's what I looked like! C'est la vie.

But let's not get too despondent, the sun's shining today and I've almost managed to forget the weather forecast this morning which said we were in for "a few days of sun ... followed by a few days of wind and rain".

Right ... I'd better go now and make hay. How about you?

Julie :-)

Found Poetry & Floor Gazing Philosophy

Hi, hi, hi.

Over the course of any given week I cut up lots of paper.

It might be for my own creative projects, scrapbook pages, art journaling, cardmaking etc ... or it might when I'm working on kits and paper packs for my shop ... but whatever it is for, it's constant: there's hardly a day goes by when a leaf of an old book isn't cut loose from the rest or a specific sentence isn't seized upon and snipped free.

But ... cutting out one section of a sentence, means leaving another section behind. And cutting out lots of images for Plundered Pages packs, means some wording is left stranded.

So, in a labour of love, I've been cutting up anything leftover from my wordy dissections and have compiled little packets of wild and wonderful phrases. [The first of which have found their way into these art-journaling packs]:

But now ... these by-products have create by-products of their own: I now keep coming across little surprise messages which have wandered from the word-herd and fluttered to the floor or drifted across my desk.

 Messages such as ...

Which is always good thing to be reminded of. Don't you think?

And so, for a couple of weeks, whenever I've found one of these random messages I've scooped it up and placed it on my shelf, for safe keeping, under the watchful eye of a few good friends:

BTW: ... just to balance out the sublime with the ridiculous ... on the day I photographed these found - and profound, messages ... I also found:

...  a bead, a butterfly and a bran flake. Which have their own special qualities no doubt ... but they're not quite as poetic ... especially the bran flake.

Anyway ...

After a while I took the snippets down from the shelf and began shuffling them around until - from entirely random phrases - I found a poem. 

This poem:

If you needed to read this message today ... then I'm glad it found you too.

Julie x