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.

I'm in Stitches

I got back from CHA (more on that later) on the 14th of February, picked up a hire van on the 15th and packed it, drove up to Birmingham and built the booth on the 16th and had a blast. There are so many people that I met for the first time and others who I was meeting up with like they were the old friends that they are.

It was great to see Alain and Tim were over in the UK again, but I don't envy either of them their gruelling schedules for the next few weeks. Becks and Leandra looked to be having a great time at the PaperArtsy booth, Wendy Rhodes was having a great time on her own little booth (although, without power for her heat gun until two hours before the end of the show) and as always, it was really amazing to see Barry Short again. Kim from Spellbinders was looking wonderful (albeit rather jet-lagged) and introduced me to Peggy Budfuloski from LuminArte who gave some of her lovely Radiant Rain shimmering mists. Joanna Sheen was having a great time with the people from Sakura and was very admiring of the Scrapperdashery range of papers.

I also got to meet a lovely woman, who is incredibly talented (and said all the right things about my papers) by the name of Traci Cornelius, who as well as teaching, demonstrating and designing, runs her own business. Go over to her blog and find out more about her. I also got to meet a talented crafter by the name of Els Van de Burgt who took away some of my paper to play with and came back with some amazing things using Sakura pens.

So many people were interested in Scrapperdashery products that I didn't get much of a chance to get out and meet as many people as I would have liked, but lots of them came to see me.

I have to thank Peggy Budfuloski for the Radiant Rains as I'm having so much fun experimenting with them and I also need to thank Kristen Highberg for giving me a Big Shot and some dies to play with. I'll post something as soon as I can clear the remnants of the stand out of the office and get to my desk.

Colorado - at the foot of the mountain

I'm here in Lafayette with my friend, Jen Lowe and we're having a fantastic time.

But I digress.

I've been in the USA for a week and I haven't told you of any of my goings on. I met with Product Performers in Chicago who will be launching my papers at CHA in 5 days time. I got a chance to teach at Stampology Chicago all using Scrapperdashery paper. At present, Stampology Chicago is the only store in the USA that you can buy Scrapperdashery paper, but after CHA that will all change.

Here are a couple of the Cheque Books made by the women in my class. I was very impressed as it was blowing a snowstorm outside and some of them came way across town to meet me and do the class.

My hosts in Chicago were Ken and Judi Petersen. Ken owns Product Performers who distribute a lot of great products for different companies like Ranger and now, Scrapperdashery. Judi and I took the tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright House and Studio and more inspiration has hit this head of mine.

I taught another class on Saturday making two greetings cards. My cards are very rarely simple ones. If my husband asks me to make up a card, I generally need three days to get something together: One day to clear my work space, one day to think of a design and another to put the design together.

The Stampology people were wonderful (pictured right are: Dave, Gloria, Me, Sue and Chris). On Saturday after the class, they took me out for BBQ.

On Sunday morning, Ken put me on a plane and here I am in Lafayette. Jen and I are having so much fun. I will post some of our creations when they're finished. There are some people coming over to play tomorrow and I (unfortunately) have to fly out on Thursday (pray for snow, people. If I get snowed in in Colorado for another two days I get to play for a little longer).

On Sunday I'll be at CHA on the Product Performers booth. If you're going, come down and see me!

Shrink Plastic - the world 10 times smaller

This is not a great photo because I don't have any artificial lights that I can use with my camera and at this time of year, the moments of good natural light are few and far between.

I was recently asked to teach a class on shrink plastic. This was supposed to be one of the items that we'd do in the class (although my plan had been to get the students to colour and decorate theirs) but it takes nearly two sheets of plastic to do this and I neglected to mention to the store owner that she needed to get in lots of shrink plastic.

It uses one of the Creative Expressions trunk box stamps, stamped onto shrink plastic four times with either StazOn or Jet Black Archival (if you're using Jet Black Archival you need to leave it for longer to set). Each panel is then cut out and decorated, then shrunk independently as you can't get shrink plastic to bend once shrunk - well, not easily. These are stuck together using a really strong glue. I've used E6000, but that is so difficult to buy in the UK. Any good strong glue that dries clear will do the job. I started by sticking the front and back panels to the bottom. Then I stuck the flaps to the front panel and the flaps inside the box to the back panel. The flaps for the bottom were stuck on the outside. Then, I stuck two of the little tabs to the edges of the top panel, waited until it was dry, then attached the flaps to the top panel on the outside edge so that I could angle them outwards a little so that they would fit neatly over the top.

Ah, gay Paree

Paris is wonderful. If money were no object, I'd be happy to live there. But until I can speak the language better, it is not something that I would do.

Getting to Paris was easy. Get the train from our local station to Paddington, then Tube it to St Pancras. We thought we'd be able to withdraw and change money there, but no, everything isn't open yet. So we grabbed a snack and checked in. We left on the Eurostar just after 12 and 2.15 hours later, we arrived at Gard du Nord. Metro'd it over to our hotel and dumped our bags.

We walked up towards Bastille and I whipped out my camera - only to discover that I'd left the card back in the printer at home. We found a shop that sold cards and continued walking to Bastille where we found a North African restaurant to have dinner in. It was a little disappointing as far as North African food goes, but then we both like exciting food.

The following morning after a leisurely breakfast, we caught the Metro up to Clignancourt where you'll find the largest flea market in Europe with over 2000 stalls. Unless you're looking for rip off Dolce & Gabanna or similar, it isn't cheap. We had crepes and other great street food for lunch and walked our feet off. I found a great store that sells any number of watch parts that you might want. I picked up about 30 watch faces for €10. I saw some really cute old Lâncome ointment tins but he wanted €4 each and I didn't think they were worth it.

We caught the Metro back into the city, made our way to the river and walked to Pont Neuf where we picked up a boat tour and went up the Sienne where the picture of the Eiffel Tower was taken. We then went up to the Jewish Quarter in Marais and found a lovely Jewish restaurant where we were served a variety of things that went with bread until we were stuffed. We tried to get to see a movie but the only cinema nearby was only playing things dubbed into French. We gave up and went back to the hotel.

On Monday morning, we had another leisurely walk to Bastille, this time following along the top of the Viaduc des Artes which is an old railway track that has been converted into a green space running nearly all the way into Bastille, so named for all the little shops located in the railway arches underneath. We picked up the Metro at Bastille and went up to Montmartre, where we found the most wonderful fabric shops. Although I was tempted by lots, I restricted myself to six metres of the most wonderful purple/red shimmer fabric which I hope to have made into a blouse.

We had lunch in a lovely little brassarie and learned a great lesson for Paris: if you want good food, stick to what the French know how to do best - French food. After lunch it was a trip on the finicular up the hill to Sacré Coeur - beautiful but they don't allow photography inside. However, we did do the roof walk and got some fantastic photos - look, there's the Eiffel Tower again.

We gave into buying a few things in the local souvenir shops but managed to avoid the artists who were touting for business and started the gentle stroll down the hill taking photos as we went. You see, Zandy has a new camera (a beautiful Digital SLR) and so everything became a photo op.

We got back down to the main drag and walked along to Blanche and found a lovely patisserie that was doing baklava and suchlike and each picked up a snack. We walked down to the Moulin Rouge and took a few photos - well, I did anyway. Zandy's camera can't cope with as low-light situations as mine can.

Having caught the Metro back to Odeon we found a cinema playing English-language films and saw "Lions for Lambs" - fantastic movie, highly recommend it.

Tuesday was our last day and we really only had a half day. We went down to look around Notre Dame. Now, they have no problem with you taking photos as long as you don't use flash - so we took lots and lots of photos. The scale of the place is impressive. However, I'm less impressed than I would have been 16 years ago, because there are so many wonderful churches in Britain that (in my opinion) equal or better Notre Dame.

Still, the scale of the place is amazing and you can spend a lot of time wandering around it and still not see it all. We crossed over onto the south bank and wandered around until we found another cute brasserie to have lunch in. Our order had just been placed when our friends Lana and Toni discovered us, so the four of us had lunch together.

It was then back to the hotel to pick up our bags and head back to Gard du Nord where we arrived for our train with less than 10 minutes to spare.

Arriving back at St Pancras, we decided rather than rushing back to Paddington to get the first train out, hitting the rush hour and therefore probably not getting a seat, we instead went to one of our favourite restaurants behind Euston station before coming home at a leisurely pace.

I love Paris in the fall - Packing to go.

It's funny: when I pack to go on holiday, I have a methodology for working out what I need to take that starts with how many nights I'll be staying (in this case, three), then how much walking I'll be doing (lots) and how cold it will be (very). Normally, I would then pack my three warmest items of clothing, my most comfortable shoes and my warmest coat.

But this was Paris and you don't go to Paris in just anything.

I packed two pairs of my best jeans, then tops that would look nice on their own, but could be layered with other items and still look good. On the footwear front, I conceded that my walking shoes would have to be taken because there is no other way I can walk around any city for three days in anything less, no matter how grungy they look. And although it is the warmest coat I own, there was no way I was going to Paris in my flourescent yellow jacket with reflective stripes on it, so my full-length winter coat with fake fur collar was taken.

OK, there are limits to how good I'm going to look given the base that I have to start with, but the yellow jacket would have had people asking me directions and that wasn't an option.

Uploading photos - Vista, Grrr!

I've got some photos of work to put up and now I've found another snag that is preventing me from doing so: Windows Vista!

I can't find my original install disks for my Nikon camera (but it was bought when my computer was XP and Vista was just a beta product in Microsoft's eye), so I went to Nikon's website to download the appropriate stuff. Can't find anything there quickly. Knowing that I'm running out of time, I figured I'd just put the card into the card slot on my printer. Guess what? Vista doesn't recognise the card reader on my printer.

So, the only way I can currently read photos from my card is to put it into the PCMCIA converter I sensibly bought when I got the camera, and insert that into the PCMCIA slot on my laptop. Slight snag there: the laptop only has a 20Gb hard drive on it and it is too full to take all the photos on my card, so I have to send it to a shared folder on my desktop.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is: I won't have any pictures up just yet, but I made a really cool thing with shrink plastic the other day that I want to post, so as soon as I can, I'll have photos up there.