I'm creating again

I've moved enough stuff into the studio now that I can be creative again. Which is wonderful and just in time to pull together more stuff for Stitches which is in two weeks' time. I found this beautiful clock in my local supermarket after Christmas for £10 so it went up today.

I created these canvases a few months ago. I love Paris. I particularly love Le Tour Eiffel and I'm working on getting images of it all over my studio. I bought these coasters off a tourist trap seller's stall on the banks of the Sienne when we went over in 2007. I picked up these canvases from Hobbycraft and painted them with Adirondack Dimensional Pearls (the stamps are also done with the Pearls) before adhering the coasters on with Glossy Accents.

Today I've been working on two projects: The first is an altered cigar box for a class I've been asked to teach. I don't think this sample is finished, but it's definitely something to start with.

I removed the lid and as much paper as would tear off by hand. I then took some Midsummer Night's Dream paper and sprayed Interferance Violet Radiant Rains on it and ironed it dry. I covered the lid seperately, but have learned that you need to trim the lid down first or it won't fit once covered with paper. The inside of the box is covered with watercolour paper that I painted the Adirondack Dimension Pearls on to tie it in with the Scrapperdashery paper. I reassembled the box with hinges, added a clasp on the front and added corners to the bottom of the box. The lid was stamped with Tim's stamps in Pitch Black Adirondack Pigment Ink, then dusted with Black Sparkle Embossing Powder. I messed up a bit with the stamp, so I took three Prima flowers, covered them with Pitch Black Pigment Ink and dusted with Black Sparkle and set it.

My other project today as been to work out what the best Make N Take I can do at Stitches can be? It needs to be something that can be done in less than 10 minutes and that retailers might want to recreate when they get back to the shop. This little tag book uses one sheet of 12x12 (Romeo & Juliet), Radiant Rains, Distress Ink, Pitch Black Adirondack Pigment Ink and Black Sparkle Embossing Powder. It uses two sections of O-wire and the Bind it All to hold it together. It's simple, but I'm not sure if it's simple enough. Need to think about it more.

So, how is the rest of the studio coming along? Well, I haven't shown you any photos of it for a while (because my camera has been on the blink). So the photo of the cigar box shows you the work surface that I have covered completely with non-stick craft sheet. Wonderful stuff. So easy to keep clean. The corner that my computer equipment will go into is now ready for me to start moving in. I have network up in the studio (I'm writing this from the studio as we speak), so I need to move my desk up and then start to get the computer equipment in place. The desk will go where the white chair currently is. Behind the desk is a set of Billy bookcases, facing a set of Sten shelves that I painted white. This is my main storage and still needs sorting and organising. Somewhere in storage I have a label maker so that everything can be labelled once it is in it's permanent home. Underneath the benches, I have loads of Really Useful Boxes full mostly with paper.

This is the opposite corner - the one where the bench is entirely covered with craft sheet. There will be a desk going next to this. You can just see my paper racks to the right of the photo and I have a little oil heater which I can roll around the studio depending on where I'm working most that day. I have to be careful: this place is so well insulated that it doesn't take much to warm up and if I forget to turn it down, it gets too warm quite quickly.

I will take and share more photos so that you can see how things are progressing. But not right now, I need to go find dinner.

2.5 day workshop

We're about to start the last day of my workshop here in my studio. The girls have been doing fantastically.

On Wednesday night we managed 16 techniques and yesterday, clawed our way through another 30 or so. But, that still leaves another 34 techniques and they have to complete their projects after that! So, we might have to miss out one or two things along the way...

The girls say they've eaten better here than they do at home, so no complaints on that front. It didn't help that one of the toilet in the house decided to block up on Tuesday night. No time to call out a plumber, so we're having to restrict ourselves to only using the other two toilets.

I'd love to share some photos of the event, but when my camera came back from repair just before Christmas, they'd stuffed up and it still wasn't working. I had hoped that it would be back on Wednesday, but no messages, so I guess not.

Just know that we're having a blast of a time. We're all three of us exhausted - me from teaching them all this stuff and them from having to take in all of this information!

Classes:

I'm teaching some classes in the next two months that may be of interest to some of you if you're in the locality.

Firstly, this Thursday (27th November) from 7.30 to 10.00 ish, I'm teaching an 8x8 album class full of sliders, pockets and pull outs. This little wire-bound album is a great opportunity to learn how to add interactive elements to your projects. Although we're working in an album format, most of them can be adapted and scaled down to card projects. If you're interested in attending this class, contact MJ at sales@everymomentmatters.co.uk or call her on 07708 951 575.

On Wednesday, 3rd of December at 3.30pm and repeated at 6.30pm, I'm teaching a class on Perfect Pearls from Ranger at Stamparty in Aldershot. In this class, I'll teach a large number of different techniques that you can do with these marvellous mica pigment powders. Plus, because we're leading up to Christmas, I've got a great small project to add to the class that will brighten up your Christmas. If you want to book a place on this class, please email Alison at sales@stamparty.co.uk or call her on 01252 321 999.

Finally, I'm teaching a workshop at my house. The dates are 14-16 January 2009. The workshop will run from 3pm on the Wednesday, til 6pm on the Friday. This will be a technique workshop. The format will be as follows:

Wednesday:

4.00-6.30: Techniques

7.00: Dinner at the restaurant across the road

After dinner: we can continue if people want to

Thursday:

8.30-9.30: Breakfast

9.30-12.30: Techniques, stopping for breaks as people wish

12.30-1.30: Lunch at my home

1.30-6.30: Techniques, stopping for breaks as people wish

7.00: Dinner at my home

After dinner: we can continue if people want to

Friday:

8.30-9.30: Breakfast

9.30-11.00: Techniques

11.00-12.30: Start work on our project

12.30-1.30 : Lunch at my home

1.30-5.30: Finish projects

5.30-6.00: Pack up and clean up

The price for this workshop is £180. This includes all the food including eating out on Wednesday night. It also includes all the materials we'll use during the classes, plus a significant amount of goodies for you to take home with you.

I have accommodation for two people sharing a queen sized bed, or there are local B&Bs that I can recommend that are a short hop, skip and a jump away. There is no extra charge for accommodation if you stay with me, but you will need to meet the cost of the B&B, should you choose that.

If you'd like to do this workshop, please let me know via the Email Me link at the top of this page. I need to know if you'd like to attend by Christmas. A non-refundable deposit of £50 will need to be paid by the 24th of December, with the full amount paid by the 2nd of January 2009.

Lizzi's Album

A very good friend of mine asked me to create a scrapbook for her daughter's 18th birthday. Daughter had requested one that she can put all her favourite photos from school into.

You have to remember that when I scrapbook, it generally takes me two hours to create one page. The birthday is only two days away and I still have to get my day job out of the way and our Concert on Saturday really ate into crafting time. Plus the majority of my stash is still in storage. However, I'd picked up a bargain pack of papers from Costco made by Memory Stor and some of their albums.

So I decided to set myself a challenge. Could I create an album with limited stash and tools? Actually, what I've found is that it's faster to create an album if you don't have the worry of what photos are going to be in it! I'm not matching colours in photos to the album. I'll leave it to Lizzi to determine which photos she wants to put on which pages. It's quite liberating, actually!

I've limited myself to one sheet of each design. Besides the paper (which admittedly is 100 different designs, double-sided), I have glue, double-sided tape/photo squares and Distress Ink (because you're not going to get me to create anything if I can't use Distress Ink). My tools are limited to my Sissix Big Shot and only two dies, plus two texture plates, one set of Build-A-Swirl clear stamps by Prima, a non-stick craft sheet, Cut-N-Dry foam and my CM circle cutters. Everything else is off limits. I've managed to make and photograph 13 pictures in total and these are displayed here.

I'm going to continue working on the album tomorrow and hopefully have something complete for her mother to pick up on Wednesday. I hope she likes it.

I have to apologise for the poor photography. This was taken with my mobile phone as my camera is being repaired.

The Technology

All the benches have been put in now and I'll put up photos of them once I have them.

I haven't blogged the technology that has gone into The Studio yet. There aren't any photos of it, because most of it you can't see as it's hidden.

Doorbell: I needed to be able to respond to people at the front door no matter where I was. I have large doorbell on the front of the house labelled The Studio which is attached to a wireless unit. At my end, I have a handset that is wireless, so no matter if I'm in the house or the Studio, I can respond to whoever's buzzing and let them know that I'm on my way.

Networking: I have three cables running down a pipeline through the garden to the guest house at the back of our house. These will be attached to a switch which will pick up one cable running to the main house. Only two of those cables will probably be used to start off with (but Zandy says he'll set up Voice Over IP for me in the future if I want more sophisticated telephony up there). They will feed into a wireless switch which will also feed four cables that run through the walls over to my main work space. So, I'll have wireless and wired up there.

I also have a 16-port switch that will hang on the wall over my work area. This will allow me to have my two printers networked, plus my network attached storage as well as my main desktop and secondary laptop attached and still give me plenty of space for having customer's computers on the network. I have a nice, large screeen for my main desktop so that I can watch DVDs while crafting.

Telephone: I have a DECT wireless booster that allows my digital phone to reach up to the Studio. The phone system has an intercom facility, so Zandy can call me from the house if he needs me.

I'll blog more about the technology as it starts to go into place.

Moving in

This is how I finished the plastering. As you can see, it's not as neat as if it had been done by a professional, but it is good enough.





I was a little concerned about the finishing where the plaster met the rafters as it really didn't look very good and I knew there was no way I was going to be able to ignore it. So I purchased some lengths of quarter-round and they have edged the bits of the plasterboard. Now that they're painted in, it looks almost professional - almost.



So, I started painting. I had bought a large bucket of brilliant white paint with the idea that I'd paint it all like that. However, as you can see in this picture, I'd put up some second-hand cupboards I picked up on eBay and against the white paint, they looked grey. I have also tried every gadget available on the market to supposedly make painting easier and I have to say that there's a reason why most painters still stick to the old roller and tray method. However, one tip I picked up from a painter was to put the tray into a plastic bag then pour the paint into the tray over the plastic bag. Work like that and when you're done, you simply turn the bag inside out over the dead paint and throw it away. No clean up of the tray required. I decided to leave the ceiling white so that I get the most light reflection and to paint the walls a gentle cream. A friend, Richard, came over to help me paint and over the course of a weekend we got all the painting done bar a few touch ups which I went back and did later. He also stayed on an extra day and helped me lay the floor which was an added bonus.



This last weekend, Zandy came and helped me put up some of the workbench. My neighbour, David, is coming back to cut down the other workbench so that it can go in place, but this means that I have started moving in. Things are not in their final places, by any means, but I've started to sort things out. As you can see, I've added another set of drawers under the cupboards. Hung underneath these drawers is a curtain rail with pincer clips hanging on it so that I can hang just about anything I want and have it within easy reach. I've seen these sold as a commercial product in the US and thought they were a really good idea but very expensive to buy and import. This cost me about £65 in total and it is exactly the length I need for my work space. It has 120 clips on it so I'm not going to run out of space any time soon.

Underneath one of the worktops I have a display stand that I picked up from a shop that was going out of business. It is designed to dispense small bottles of acrylic paints. So far, it is holding my Folk Art acrylics, my Making Memories Acrylics and my Glimmer Mists. As I unpack more, I'll see how much will fit into it.



One corner of the room has a different type of workbench on it. This is because I already had this length of workbench which I had used on the Scrapperdashery stand at Stitches last year. It seemed a pity to waste a perfectly good piece of workbench. This will be my "wet area". I have a water cooler that supplies 4 litres of water which I just refill from the tap when I need a top up. It even has the facility to chill the water and dispenses either chilled or ambient temperature depending on what I want. Not bad for £50, I thought. I also have a little kettle so I can make myself tea and coffee. At present it is also the home for my iPod speakers, and anything else that I bring up from the house, but that may not stay that way as I have other plans.



I have 40 Display Dynamics paper trays that I bought from the shop going out of business and I have another 9 that I bought years ago at great expense. I've been trying to decide what to do with them. I think they'll go under a workbench, but we'll see. It will be great to have the paper I use a lot out where I can see it.

At the other end of the room, I've put up some of the shelves from Ikea that I mentioned in a previous post. They cover most of the width of the room. Facing them I've placed two of the largest Billy bookcases and backed them with white corrugated plastic left over from the Stitches stand. As you can see they provide me with a kind of storage cupboard so that I can put unsightly things out view. It also increases the amount of space I have for storage by a vast amount. What you can't see in the photo to the left is that I have a frame (you can see two of the parts of the frame leaning against the shelves) that forms a tall cupboard in the corner of the room. This will be clad in more of the white corrugated plastic and will give me a storage cupboard for things that are too tall to go anywhere else. It has a shelf at head height so lots of the tools that I don't use on a regular basis will go there. As will some of the network that is yet to be installed.

I have yet to attach the fixings for the car roof box to the ceiling so that I can store the roof box out of the way when it isn't being used. I also have two of these Really Useful sets which are going to be attached to the wall somewhere.

So, the next week or so is going to be spent with me moving things in slowly. There's about three or four car loads of stuff in storage and I really can only move one car load a day - some of those boxes are very heavy - and I want to sort things out as I move in as much as possible so that it goes in in an orderly fashion. I hope this weekend to start moving in some of the furniture out of the house but we have a concert coming up this weekend so that knocks out Saturday. I'll see how much I can get done on Sunday.

The Shed

I laughingly refer to my studio as "the shed". It is far more than that.

Today has been a successful milestone for me as I've decided that the sanding of the plastering is complete. I could continue to sand all the tiny imperfections, but I've realised that it is 'good enough'. This is not going into Homes and Gardens (or even Studio), so as long as the space is waterproof, clean and dry it is good enough.

I'll be putting up attachments for hanging the cupboards tomorrow which will allow me to start painting.

As part of the building of my new studio, I need some storage. We have some old Ikea shelving that looks a lot like their Gorm range. It's been sitting around in our laundry since we moved out of London, gathering cobwebs.

It's going into the studio. I've painted it white. and it will be going up along one of the short walls. I need to buy some Billy bookcases, but Ikea is over an hour away and while they will deliver, they're going to charge me more than the cost of the bookcases to do so. I won't get those until October when I go up to London for the Muswell Hill Crop.

Studio Building – the new home of Scrapperdashery

Since April, I've been building a studio in the back garden. I was putting off blogging it until it was finished, but people have been asking to see it and it is taking longer than originally planned because I'm doing so much of the work myself. I hope that it's completion will coincide with the release of the second "Studio" from "Cloth, Paper, Scissors" - it isn't featured in there.


If you're thinking of doing a project like this, I hope that some of my experiences will help you.

I've been thinking about this for a long time and all my research told me that this would be too expensive to ever achieve, as I wanted a space that was a decent size. Alternatively, I could do it relatively inexpensively, but would have to do all the work myself and I knew I didn't have the skills necessary. However, on a Sunday outing I drove past Phoenix Sales and noticed they had some buildings that looked appropriate. There was no one in, so I had a look in a couple of the buildings and went back on the Monday They had one of them converted into an office which looked great. However, the full cost of achieving that was £18k - again, way over my budget. But they had a shed on show they wanted to get rid of. Original price £5.6k, mine for £2k including VAT, delivery and erection.

Firstly, I needed to know if we had the space. I measured up the section of garden I had in mind and yes, there was space. Next, would I need planning permission? I did some digging and found that as long as the building was more than 5 metres from the rear wall of my house, took up less than 25% of the existing garden (including existing outbuildings), was no more than 4 metres tall from the ground to roof peak and because this is a home studio, I didn't need planning permission. You will need to check with your local council to find out what the regulations are because, frustratingly, they are not consistent across the country.

The building is a heavy duty workshop that came with standard garden shed windows which I knew would make the building uninsurable. I needed lockable windows. No company would estimate for windows or electrical work until there was a building to look at, so I commissioned my builder to build the deck. Here is my builder, David, putting the deck together.

They arrived about a week later to put the shed onto the deck base. It took them longer than anticipated to put it together so by the end of day one, I had walls but no roof:

It took them the whole of the following day to get the roof on and watertight. [First rule: everything will take longer than you plan, no matter how well you plan.] However, once the walls were up, I was able to get people to quote to put in windows and the electricity.

[Second rule: know exactly what you want before you have people come around to quote.] Draw or write down exactly what you want it to look like. If they are good, they will make suggestions. Note each suggestion down on your drawing so that as the next person comes in to quote, you can ask them to cost up the suggestions. Also, if you particularly like a suggestion, contact the previous sales person and ask them to include the suggestion in their quote – they will have seen enough to be able to include it without having to come back to visit.

By the end of the second day, I had a roof. Plus four electricians and three window companies had all come to quote. I decided to buy the windows myself and get my builder to install them. However, one of the electricians came back the following week and did the first fix.

We needed a way of getting into and out of the office. I had to really stop and think about what sort of staircase I had on it. My original plan was to have a small platform just outside the door and the staircase come down to the side of the building. From there, you would pick up the footpath and the steps that lead off the side of the raised area to the main section of the garden. Then I stopped and thought about this: If I'm carrying things into and out of this building a lot, will I be happy about doing all that turning and having to manoeuvre things up the narrow steps. I decided to increase the size of the landing so that I am able to put things down safely to open the doors and to keep the stairs as straight as possible. This was another task that I hired my builder to do, so that I could be sure that the stairs would be structurally sound and safe.

The next step was insulation. I wanted something that would make the room useable in winter, so having considered a number of products, I went with a solid foam insulation with aluminium on both sides. I had to buy large sheets and cut them down because the gaps between the rafters is non-standard. I (and later, my husband) spent the better part of a week covered in bits of foam (the insulation has a tendency to create a lot of beaded rubbish when you cut it). If I were to do this again, I'd use the standard sheeting on the walls, but the manufacturers make a special sheeting designed for roofs that expands and compacts to hold itself within the rafters. It would make things a lot easier. My builder had suggested that we put nails through the rafters to hold some of the sheets, but I couldn't make that work, so we used metal tape (the type used for insulation or for Alcohol inking) which held the sheets in temporarily until the vapour barrier was up and holding them in place. The vapour barrier was a large sheet 0f plastic which we cut down to fit each section and fitted with a standard domestic stapler. We allowed up to 5cm extra around the edges as overlap to just ensure that corners and the bottom were going to be safe.

Then came the plasterboard (drywall). I went for 9mm depth board, but in retrospect 12mm would have been better. I would also now seriously consider getting the plasterboard that has the vapour barrier integral. It would have saved a lot of time and made fitting a lot easier. My builder came back and helped with this and I have to say, his help was invaluable. It requires a lot of upper body strength to lift the boards above your head and you want as large sheets as possible to minimise the amount of jointing you have to do. In the UK, we usually do a skim coating of plaster over the top of the plasterboard, but I don't have the skills to do that and I certainly didn't have the budget. My choice was to go down the US example and just plaster over the screws and the joints. The trick that I've done which appears to have worked is to plaster the join roughly, then place some wet paper tape over the top of that wet plaster and then put another layer of plaster over the top of that. Once that's all dry, I've sanded it down and gone back and tidied up the rougher bits.

Where the plasterboard meets the roof joists, the plasterboard is a little uneven. An easy solution is to use a little quarter-round to edge the plasterboard. This is being held in with some panel pins and is just finishing off the ceiling perfectly.