BLING BRITANNIA

2012 the year of the DIAMOND JUBILEE and the UK hosting the olympics

 BLING BRITANNIA

Yes finally here they are photos of my paper mache bag.

I am not quite sure why it took me so long to finish this bag because today I had such a nice time.  The lining worked really well, I love the ribbon detail on the back and the diamante swirls.
Now to move on the next bag - the paper mache shell is made, handles are attached and it is ready for the next stage.

Bruce doesn't think much of the weather

The long promised snow arrived last night just before we went to bed - much to the  disgust of the cat.  Three thirty he woke me up to let him out, I opened the door and snow fell in on us.  I got the dustpan to clear up the snow and while the door was open he took the plunge and went out.  I set an alarm so I didn't leave him out for too long through falling asleep,  but I needn't of worried within ten minutes I heard him come back under the garden gate and opened the door to a very snowy cat.  That was it he hasn't been out since then - he has spent a lot of the day sitting on the window sill.   

 
The wind caused some weird and wonderful drifting.  Like the snow on this roof,  the snow outside our door was really deep but inches away there was hardly any snow at all.

Apart from having to dig the snow off the drive and brush the snow off the car  (We learnt last year in the snow that we couldn't get on or off the drive with large amounts of snow on it - just couldn't get any traction) we spent the day nice and warm inside by the fire.  In some ways a perfect day - log fire, drop scones for lunch and crafting away to my hearts content.

One of a kind

I was asked for one of my photo bags for a Christmas present.  It was to show my cat - to start with to show him awake but then it was to show him asleep and instead of being landscape it needed to be in portrait format.

I thought about the design of this bag for quite a while.  The picture was the easy part.  A picture of young Bruce asleep and dreaming, that way we could have the best of both worlds.  It also gave me a chance to put lots of butterflies and dragonflies on the bag (for Bruce to be dreaming about - he likes to chase them).

The portrait format was harder because I didn't feel that it would give enough room in the bag to make it practical.  My solution was to make laminated panels for each end of the bag using THE JAYNE NETLEY MAYHEW COLLECTION from Joanna Sheen.  There are lots of big cat patterned backing papers on the cd roms that were perfect I chose a leopard print one.

Now the big issue was whether I had managed to over complicate the design and to be honest I didn't really want to start it in case things went badly .........I did a lot of the final construction on Boxing Day morning knowing that it had to be done so I could deliver it that afternoon.

Over sewing the panels together with a zigzag stitch turned out to be a bit easier than I had imagined and the black lace trim on the bag and braided into the handles gave it a nice finish.  

It could be truely one of a kind as I am not at all sure I want to make another one not even for myself.

let sleeping cats lay