Organisation Challenge - March

For those of you who missed it, I blogged about why I need to get my studio organised here. Please watch the video to see how chaotic it can get. It wasn't always like this. You can see that it was once a tranquil, creative space.

This challenge has been devised to help us all get our craft spaces organised and sorted. It is an individual challenge. Because I'm based in the UK and living on an extremely low budget, I've tried to set this up so that a) I'm spending little, if no money and b) the things I do buy or have bought are available most places in the UK. Ikea is over an hour's drive from me, so I'll only get stuff from there if I can not get it (or something similar elsewhere). Most of my suggestions are about repurposing and reusing.
And I cannot emphasise how much these are all suggestions. If you don't like an idea, or think you have a better one, please feel free to post it as a comment.

I'll also be working through the exercises a month ahead of you, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in a comment and I'll answer as best as I can.

So here's my challenge for March:

Size up what you've got.

You'll need:
A piece of paper
Some cardboard scraps (the small sides of cereal boxes are ideal)
Some clear plastic or transparencies
Permanent pen
Sticky tape
Measuring tape
Scissors or knife, cutting mat and ruler
Eraser
Calculator

1. Measure your space. No matter how big or small the space is you've got to create in, you need to know how big it is. Let's face it, unless you remodel your house (which goes against the low-budget philosophy of this challenge), it's not going to get any bigger. And, you may want to reduce the amount of space you're taking up at the moment, so it will be useful to know exactly how big this space is. Be accurate in your measurements. I've done mine in millimetres.

2. Draw your space to scale on a piece of paper. You can determine what that scale is, but it is important that you remember what the scale is. Mark on your drawing where windows and doors are and any fitted things that can't be removed (fireplaces, fixed shelves, etc) or won't be removed (like benches and cupboards). Don't forget to mark if the doors and windows open inwards or outwards and where the latches are. You'll need to plan the placement of your furniture so that you can still open windows. As you'll see on my drawing, I've drawn in some of my benches, but I'm open to the suggestion that at least one of the benches might need to be removed, so I've drawn the fixed ones plain but left out the one that might be coming out. Make a few copies.

3. Measure every single piece of furniture you have, or plan to have. You need to measure the obvious things like width and depth, but I also want you to measure height and floor clearance. Measure how much door or drawer clearance each piece of furniture needs. For example, if you have a 60cm wide cabinet, you'll need 60 cm in front of it to open the door. Try to allow at least a metre clearance for your chair/s.

4. Draw the width and depth outlines to scale (the same scale as your room drawing) in cardboard and cut out (you can cover the cardboard in white paper before starting so that you have a writable surface). I've made mine out of mount board scraps so that they're robust. Mark on each piece the height and the floor clearance. In my case, I've also drawn the piece of the bench that I'm open to moving so that I can see if I can use it somewhere else. I've also draw the shapes of some wire cubes that I have in the house that I might be using.

5. Draw out the door/drawer clearance allowance on the clear plastic or transparency, cut out and stick to the shape it corresponds with.

6. Lay your furniture cut outs on one of your room plans as things currently stand. Draw around the cut outs. You now have a picture of what your room looks like from above. Over a cup of coffee write down what works and what doesn't. For example, I've found that my computer desk just becomes a dumping ground for things as I walk in the door. I therefore need to think about either correcting my bad habits when I use my studio (unlikely) or find another way of coping with my habit - ie create a drop zone. But I like that I have most things to hand near my craft desk just by wheeling around. At the moment everything is in boxes so I have to move four or five things just to find one item. That isn't working for me at all. I've also just been given the base cabinets from a friends kitchen. Do I have enough or too many for this space?

7. Ok, it is important to not rush the next step. Take your time and get it right. Place the pieces of furniture on another room drawing and move them around and adjust them. Pay attention to how the clearance allowances impact on each other. They're done in clear so that you can see where they'll clash, but that might be okay. The metre allowance behind your desk is essential. Anything less and you'll find it very cramped. Another important thing to remember is that you should allow between 1 and 1.5 metres in any passage ways as fire exits. This is essential if you ever plan to have guests in your craft space.

8. Once you're happy with the placement of your furniture, draw around each piece and annotate what it is (don't forget height and floor clearance). The advantage of this is that you can take your other copies and try out different layouts. As you get something that works, draw the outlines and annotations and then compare against your previous drawings. Which one works best for you? It may help to draw in the width of passage ways as well. Once you have your plan you can put the cardboard shapes and the original measurements and room drawing into an envelope and keep for future changes. Yes, you will probably go through this again in the future because our spaces are constantly changing and evolving. But hopefully, we'll get it right for the moment so that you're not having to change it again soon.
We're going to work to achieving this floor plan. But, you might find as we go through the rest of this challenge, that your floor plan has to change. That's okay. Put the plan somewhere safe so that you don't lose it.

Here is a video showing how I worked through these steps and how my floor plan evolved.


And here are the floor plans as referenced in the video so you can see them up close.

Life Artistry course at Woodbrooke

Along with a very good friend of mine, I will be teaching a weekend course at Woodbrooke Quaker College called Life Artistry.

It is the being held on the extra long Jubilee bank holiday weekend, starting Friday night and finishing Monday afternoon.

Details can be found here:.

The description doesn't really do what happens on the course justice. Over the course of the weekend, Wendrie and I teach you a bunch of techniques and help you to build your own journal. We show you how to use different triggers to help you journal the spiritual and mundane in your life. A journal doesn't have to be all words. It can be completely visual. All we do is give you the tools to help you start and develop your own journal.

There are plenty of gaps in the programme that allow you to retreat and reflect on what you're doing, allowing you to develop and piece of artwork that encompasses you.

If you'd like to do this course, there are currently 10 places left. The facilities at Woodbrooke are very good and the grounds are stunning. Being the beginning of June, the weather should be incredible.

Any questions, please just comment and I'll get back to you.

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Studio Organisation - Preview

 In a couple of days, I'll be offering a free "workshop" here on my blog. You see, I need to get my studio organised and have promised I'll share the challenge with my friends on the AllThingsTim-Euro Yahoo Group. You don't have to be a member of that group to participate, but we'll be sharing photos and ideas through that group. To sign up, you need to be a member of AllThingsTim first, then apply to the AllThingsTim-Euro group once you've been approved on the first group.

However, I will be posting all the videos, photos and files that I create here on my blog. You can put comments up and link back to your photos and share that way too. I'm also pinning all sorts of organisation inspiration on my Pinterest board as I find them. Please feel free to follow me.

In the meantime, here's a tour of my studio as it currently looks. Maybe now you'll understand why I need to do this workshop. It's as much to benefit me as anyone else!

Craft, Hobby & Stitches Show

Hello Blogosphere. I've just spent a wonderfully busy day at the UK Craft Trade Show in Birmingham. My feet are killing me, but my head is spinning from the inspiration I found there.


First stop was the Personal Impressions stand. The crowd around Tim was so big I couldn't see anything, so I wandered over to where Dyan Reavley was demonstrating. Her Dylusions stamps and inks are wonderful. The colours are so vibrant and pure, but still retain enough of the Ranger Earthtone look that they would co-ordinate well with the other product ranges. The Dylusions stamps have a quirky, almost Bratz feel to them. Dyan has made sure that the various figures within the sets are all interchangeable with each other, so that if you don't like the head on one, you simply cut it off and superimpose another head in its place. They all lend themselves to being coloured in so that you, the crafter, choose the look and feel of each of the figures. The other stamps on each sheet are strong enough to stand on their own, but really come out when you bring the various sets together. Dy was working in her journal while I stood there and had a lovely mushroom stamp and then brought out a stamp of a caterpillar from the same stamp that fits perfectly the mushrooms.


Next stop was with Lord Tim of Holtz himself. The crowd had thinned out a little, so I managed to find space right next to his elbow. While I've seen the demonstration of Distress Markers online, it was useful to see the pens up close and personal. The fine tip is exceptionally fine. I think I've only seen as fine on a Zig Millennium pen or a professional Rotring pen. I can see that these will bring non-stampers into the Distress world, but will supplement the products that crafters like me already have. Using the Specialty Stamping Paper from Ranger, Tim was able to get some amazing results from the pens.

I stopped to have coffee with my friend, Carol Hornby-Clements and her husband and a quick natter about what we'd seen up to that point.


Over to Sissix and Stephanie was demoing her new range of dies with matching outline and fill-in stamps. I like that each set comes with the outline stamps for each image (2 or 3 in each set), the co-ordinating fill-in stamp, plus the die to cut them out and the die to cut an outline background. Retail price could be high - in the US the MSRP IS $30, so we could easily see these retailing for around £25 - but an investment that would be good if you don't like colouring in and can't be bothered to cut out the stamps yourself.

Around lunchtime, I forgot that I was supposed to be taking photos and spent a lot of time meeting and hob-nobbling with various people.

My favourite US distributor, Product Performers came over this year for the first time. They have such low minimum order requirements and have leveraged such a good deal with UPS, that importing from them is very easy and competitive with the UK distributors. Their only problem is they don't have electronic products for the European market and there are restrictions on some of the things they can sell so they don't step on the toes of manufacturers with a European operation, like Sizzix. But, they are a family-owned and run company and the family are lovely, generous people. I recommend them to anyone trying to get some of the brands that are difficult to find here. Their catalogue is very extensive.

It was great to see Stacey Caron and Kim Hupke again. Kim showed me the new M-Bossabiities which look like larger versions of other embossing folders available, but they're double sided, so you get two patterns for the price of one. I love that Spellbinders products give a nice deep emboss. But, with a few exceptions, the patterns are not to my personal taste. They're too uniform in both pattern and texture for me.

I also stopped at Artemio. They are a Belgian distributor in their second year of pushing into the UK market. Their emphasis is mostly on scrapbooking and home decor, but they have a few things not seen here before. It will be interesting to see how their UK involvement colours their offering.

I took the opportunity to take a class called "Crafting with Sissix" to find that in our one hour workshop, we were going to cut out the shapes necessary to make a quilted placemat, and there seemed to be an expectation that we'd stay to hand-stitch. My feedback was this, a) if you're going to have a class on quilting, please state it on the description b) make it a simple shape that even sewing morons like me can produce something with in the hour and c) don't do a quilting class when you've only got an hour.

I decided that with time running out I should at least see the Bright Sparks Pavillion. This is a section of the show where first-time exhibitors get a smaller, discounted stand space and get pushed and promoted a little more. I didn't know about the Bright Sparks Pavillion in my first year and didn't qualify in my second year, but it seems to be a good place to showcase the new talent. There was one stand that really caught my eye.


IndigoBlu make a small but perfectly formed range of UK themed vintage stamps. Without having an overtly steampunk look, they evoke that feeling of an age gone by so would fit into work headed that way. If one of their vintage union jack stamps had inadvertently fallen into my bag, I wouldn't have been disappointed. Later on, they won the award for Stamp of the Year. Congratulations and well-deserved.



So, after the show there were the annual craft awards. It's nice to see people getting recognition for the hard work they put in over the year, but you can only be nominated if you design for, advertise with, or sponsor the magazine who runs the awards, so it's hard not to be cynical about them as it's not a complete representation of the crafting industry.


But congratulations to Joanna Sheen for winning Card Designer of the Year and Leonie Pujol for accepting Online Craft Retailer of the Year on behalf of createandcraft.tv and to Stephanie Weightman for getting Celebrity Crafter of the Year (just pipping Leonie to the prize). I first met Leonie when we spent a day demoing for Personal Impressions at their retailer training day back in 2005.

So, a hike back to my car where was parked in Outer Mongolia (otherwise known as North 10 car park), then it was a gentle 2 hour drive home to see Zandy and G. Tired.

Location:Birmingham NEC

Recycling & Repurposing

Zandy turned 45 this week and as usual, he is still one of the most difficult people in the world to get a stable present for.

But he's been wandering around with his iPad not in any case and he's been drooling over suitable models on the Internet. Unfortunately, he still has champagne tastes even though we're living on a Coca-Cola budget,so buying one was out of the question.


So, here's my solution. A fused plastic sleeve. I got the idea from a video I saw on YouTube (search "threadbangers laptop bag"), using shopping bags ironed flat to make a durable, but sewable material. It is lined with an old knitted jumper and the padding is all the off cuts of plastic from the bags. It seals with self-adhesive Velcro and there's a bit of Duck Tape to give the top flap a little more sturdiness.

Initially, I thought it had come out too small, but as the padding settles and the seams ease, it is turning out to be exactly the right size.

And it looks much better than I thought it would. I've just made Zandy promise to never turn it inside out as the stitching inside is truly awful.

But, instead of taking the few hours I thought it would, it took nearly three days. I think as I get more practised at both sewing and construction, it'll take less time. I'm now working on one for me that will be made by weaving the strips together to make interesting patterns. I may also apply alcohol inks to brighten up the strips.

And I'm not going to run out of shopping bags in a hurry!

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The Cheap Domestic Goddess

For the second instalment in my Austerity cooking, I thought I'd share my Cheat's Cannelloni.

If you've had a hard week and it's only Monday, don't bust yourself up about not making the red sauce from scratch. Just use about 1.5 jars of the pasta sauce of your choice and some passata, but be aware that the cost will be higher.

You will need:
2 Large saucepans
Lasagne dish or roasting tin
Mixing bowl

Ingredients for the red sauce:
4-6 medium onions
2-3 red peppers (capsicum)
2 cans chopped tomatoes
1 large jar passata
Crushed dried chillies (leave out or moderate if serving to kids)
1/2 tube tomato purée
Balsamic vinegar
Worcestershire sauce (optional if you're catering for vegetarians)
2 tsp sugar
Splash soya sauce

For the cannelloni:
8-12 lasagne sheets
500g Ricotta
500g Baby Leaf Spinach
Cracked black pepper
Mint (can be left out)
2 cups grated cheese (the stronger the better)

Method (red sauce)
Dice the onions finely and place in large saucepan in oil and cook until translucent.
Dice the red peppers finely and add to the onion
Add the chopped tomatoes
Add the passata and the purée and stir thoroughly
Add a splash of balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and soya sauce and the sugar. Stir thoroughly and taste. Add more of the sauces if needed.
At the last minute, add about 2 tsp crushed dried chillies
Leave to simmer for about 1/2 and hour stirring occasionally until the flavours have combined.

This is usually enough red sauce that I can make the cannelloni dish, a lasagne and at least one other pasta dish during the week. If you divide it into portions, it freezes well, making other meals easy. Add some kidney beans and some chilli powder, with a bit of mince and you have an easy chilli.

Method (cannelloni):
in the large saucepan, boil some water and add a slosh of oil. Add the lasagne sheets to the boiling water one at a time. Keep the water moving around the sheets until they are soft and pliable. This takes anywhere from 2-5 minutes. Remove the sheets one at a time and place them on a non-stick baking sheet or similar to cook.
Once you've thrown the pasta water away, wilt the spinach down for about a minute - just enough that most of the leaves have lost their shape.
In the mixing bowl, add the Ricotta, spinach, mint (if using) and cracked black pepper and mix until thoroughly combined.
In turn, lay a lasagne sheet out lengthways and spoon about two tablespoons of mixture onto it. Spread from the end of the sheet closest to you up to about 1/3 from the other end.
Starting at the end closest to you, roll the sheet up like a roulade.
Complete the remaining lasagne sheets until all the mixture is used up (this allows you to add or subtract mixture from completed sheets as needed).

The Construction:
Spoon enough red sauce onto the base of the lasagne dish to cover the bottom.
Lay the lasagne rolls in the red sauce
Spoon more red sauce over the top of the rolls.
Sprinkle dried chillies over the top
Sprinkle grated cheese over the top
Dust with dried oregano or Italian seasoning
Bake at 200°C until cheese is golden

Serve it with crusty bread and a robust salad or on its own.


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Repurposing Cards - The Photos

Hello cybersphere! I've been asked to share the photos of the Repurposed Baby Announcement/Christmas cards, so here goes nothing. Let's see if my blogwriter can do what I want it to do.

Firstly, the original Birth Announcement card:


I took a black and cream paper stack and cut a series of 10cm x 15cm panels and distressed the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. Then I cut some ATC sized cards from black Coredinations card stock and embossed them with a script Texture Fade (which I can no longer find listed on Sissix's website). I sanded the ATCs to reveal some of the lighter core and then inked around the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I stamped the Baby and Postcode stamps onto cream card stock in Black Soot Distress Ink, cut them all out and then edged them with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. Then it was just a case of assembling.

Using a standard card blank, I wallpapered the front of the card with the black and cream panel, then added the ATCA card. The baby and postcode stamps were then arranged on the ATC and two small heart gems were stuck to the Baby plaque.

Now, the Christmas card:



I removed the Baby and Postcode stamps and the black hearts.

On cream card stock, I stamped the lamp post and the holly leaves from these two sets


















I cut them out (sitting in front of the television one evening) and inked the lamp post with Aged Mahogany Distress Ink and the ivy with Forest Green Distress Ink.

I stuck the lamp post on the edge of the ATC, and the holly leaves on top of the lamp post. I filled in the holly berries with Red Pepper Dimensional Pearls.

Easy, really.

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Repurposed Christmas Cards

Nearly two years ago when my daughter was born, DH asked me if I would make birth announcements or should he buy them. Given that G at that point was sleeping a fair amount (mostly on my Mum), I was prepared to give it ago. "How many do you want", said I. "Oh, I don't know. Lots", said he in reply.

Now, "lots" in my book is now clearly different in my definition than his. But I didn't know that at the time. Mum and I went shopping for bits and I ordered inserts from a printer friend of mine.

I made 100.

We used 30.

A year later, at the approach of G's 1st birthday, I wrote the details of her party on the back of the inserts of another 30 and sent them out as invitations to all the people who wouldn't necessarily read email or who might especially like to be invited by post.

That still left 40 sitting on the shelf.

As usual, I set myself up with a task list of things I needed to do this Christmas and completely forgot about cards. You see, having been brought up a Quaker and told that all days are as equally important as Christmas, and we should treat every day as sacred, Christmas cards were something that mostly got bypassed in favour of making cracking gifts for ours friends and families. DH came home from work about 2 weeks before Christmas and asked "Do we have any Christmas cards left over from last year?".

Argh! Busted!

I have a lovely studio filled to overflowing with things that I could use to make Christmas cards. In fact, I need to sort through it and throw some of it out. But I've got a half-built kitchen in there at the moment and it's been used as a general dumping ground since G was born.

Could I get in there, find what I needed and come out alive?

Then I remembered the birth notice cards. They weren't pink and fluffy because, as those of you who know me know, I'm not a pink and fluffy type of person. So, could I do something that would turn them into tasteful Christmas cards? This meant that I would only need to grab a box of Distress Inks and one or two stamps. Survival of the studio chaos was possible!

With the use of some adhesive remover and an evening in front of the television cutting out lamposts and holly (and the removal of the birth announcement sheets), I have created 39 lovely Christmas cards.

39? What about the last one?

I've saved one card to go into G's baby scrapbook.

I have all the bits needed. They're in my studio somewhere.

PS. For those of you interested, I will post a title tutorial on how I turned the birth announcement cards into Christmas cards.

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The Cheap Domestic Goddess

Since G was born, my life has changed drastically - just as I expected it to before some of you start screaming "I told you so"! I've become a bit of a domestic goddess, in a small way. Finally, 22 years beyond my graduation, I no longer live like a student, washing a dish as I run out.

But with the cost of living skyrocketing, I have to find imaginative ways of cooking interesting things for G that we are prepared to eat too, so that I'm not cooking twice and that if she decides she doesn't like it, I don't end up throwing it away. I'm also finding ways of hiding vegetables into things - not because she doesn't like vegetables, because she does as long as they're cooked into it, but because as she gets older, we like to be out and about and it's useful to be able to take a healthy lunch with us. Just read the nutritional value of a McDonalds Happy Meal, and you'll never buy one for your kids again!

So, as I've been cooking tonight, I'll share with you my Austerity Sausage Rolls.

Ingredients:
1 pack pre-rolled puff pastry, because life is too short to make puff pastry
500g diced casserole beef - I buy the Basic stuff
2 medium onions
2 or 3 small carrots
Ground black pepper
Italian seasoning, or herbs of your choice
2 large eggs

I have a food processor to do most of my cooking. Again, life is too short to cut up everything as small as it needs to be as far as I am concerned, but you can cut it up by hand if you wish. You can also use a blender, but work in tiny quantities because you want things chopped, not puréed.

Method:
1. Peel the onions and carrots. Using the knife blade in the processor, blitz until finely chopped.
2. Transfer into a mixing bowl and do the same with the carrots and put them in the same bowl as the onions.
3. Set the processor going and drop about half of the beef into the bowl until it is finely minced. Put into the bowl with the onions and carrots and repeat for the other half of the meat. Add it to the bowl when done.
4. Break one egg into the bowl and add the black pepper and herbs. Mix thoroughly.
5. Break the other egg into a mug and beat well.
6. Cut the sheet of pastry in half and set aside. Dust your bench with a little flour and roll the pastry out to about 18x18cm, and cut in half. Repeat for the other half.
7. Take one strip of pastry and visually divide into three sections lengthwise.
8. Scoop 1/4 of the filling out of the bowl bit by bit and lay it down the centre third of the strip.
9. Paint one of the side strips with the beaten egg.
10. Roll the other side of the pastry over the mixture and continue to rollit over the egg washed third so you have a roll.
11. Paint the beaten egg along the top of the sausage roll.
12. Prick the length of the sausage roll with a fork and cut into 6.
13. Repeat for the remaining strips.
14. Place on a greased baking sheet (or use a non-stick baking sheet) and cook at 180°c for 25-30 minutes until the top of the pastry is golden brown.
15. Once cooked, place sausage rolls on a wire rack to cool.

There are a variety of other fillings that you can play with:

Pork shoulder with onion, sage, celery, and peppers
Chicken thighs with tarragon, onion, celery, peppers and mushrooms
Turkey with chicken livers, onions, chestnuts and maybe a little cranberry sauce
And for the vegetarians: Butternut squash, potatoes, onions, carrots, peppers and rosemary, with breadcrumbs (roast the squash and potatoes rather than chopping finely).

Basically, a good filling requires a central ingredient that has enough fat to cope with the mincing process. If it doesn't, the finished roll will taste incredibly dry. Cheaper cuts are better for this as they are usually higher in fat than the better cuts. I had to add butter to the turkey filling, but any fat would have done the job and I had to remove the skin from the chicken for the chicken filling as it just goes stringy rather than mincing.

Secondly, too much raw vegetable will make the filling too liquid when it cooks and the rolls will collapse. For a meat sausage roll, a 60/40 ratio works best. For a vegetable roll, mix in a largish quantity of breadcrumbs so that they absorb that liquid during cooking.

And G's verdict "I love Mummy's sausage rolls". That's enough.