what I have been working on.........

Well these were popped in a box to keep them safe, just wish I could find the other box, but if you have seen the recent posts about my Craft room progression, you will have some idea of the challenge I face in here. I have over 70 A4 storage boxes, so ideas as to where exactly the other samples are would be appreciated!

This disk officially launched on the 17th Nov but some of you would have been lucky to grab a copy at the NEC, and if you like steam punk then this disk is for you! So Pop to the Krafty Hands website and get yours!

 This one was one of the 6x6 Card kits. I created the shaker card base, then found the sheet of toppers that co-ordinated with the card , and the backing sheet. I made the easel box using some more of the backing card. And Each of the little 4x4 cards is slightly different, both in design as in the Shape the guys at Krafty Hands created, and what I then did to them! Some have ribbon, some are glazed, both with ordinary embossing powder and the Tim Holtz Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint, Faux pearls using Cosmic Shimmer, dimensional glues, and 3d clear glaze. So quite a lot of work went into this project!

 Next a plain Shaker card, using one of the 6x6 card kits.

 The Photo frame is full A4 size, with Acetate behind the first layer of the open frame, distress crackle glaze and 3d glaze. The the cogs were cut on my New cameo!

This final one was one of the A5 card kits, and is a slightly offset A5 card, with Insert from the cd.

So if Steam Punk is your style, then pop over here and snag a copy for yourself. I'm not fab at Steam Punk, I freely admit, but some of my Teamies are excellent at it, so be sure to pop over to their blogs, if you are umming and ahhing about why you need this disk!!

okay lets see if I can get this in order?

Hmmn, this could be interesting! And warning this is very heavy on photos!!

Basically, steps are being taken in the slow process of converting this box bedroom, (No Darling Daughter you are not moving back in!) into a craft room!
So in the beginning we had..........................
This: Taken about this time last year.

 Then we added this:

then the white cabinet joined in.

 Then Dads cabinet added:

which meant the table shifted over to the other side.

and shelves between the two.

and this happened in the old built in wardrobe.

and the pc squeezed into place.

 Now we have this:

Loads of storage from Weston Boxes.

an added shelf in Dad's unit.Sorry secret stuff on the desk!

and the start of the transformation. White cupboard is underneath, Cameo on the work surface behind the Ottlite, and the lovely Linda Simpsons gift to me last year, of a paint fusioned paint brush box!

E-craft next to it, and storage underneath. The shelves have now moved to the top of the worksurface.

Even had to bring in a bar stool to sit on!

And finally the walk in wardrobe thingy! You know the bit over the stairs!

And all this is still a work in progress!! As the shelves are being built for under the work surface as I type, and the whole thing needs a coat of paint, room as well as the wood!

And this isnt the end of the house transformation!

Outside there is scaffolding, been there for 3 weeks, but instead of a Dingy Grey pebble dash, we now have a fully insulated home, thats a lovely white!

The loft is being emptied tomorrow, so the craft room will be full of boxes, and the new loft insulation goes down on Thursday! And the new roof? Well Shouldn't be long! as I cant see them paying out again for the scaffolding!

And just incase you are wondering my house is a Pre-fab. its been here for 60 yrs, 10yrs past its sell by date, and was 2 slabs of concrete and pebbles and wire in the sandwich, no cavity walls, so it was Blooming cold and Damp! Not anymore! 6" of polystyrene all the way round! And BOY is it warm!! 

On the card front I am busy but its secret stuff, sorry!

I will post when I get time!!

hugs

Lou

Not Crafty BUT useful to know

I havent posted for ages, as I have been busy making stuff to sell, or samples for companies, so am not free to show them.........YET but I am still here!
Okay some of my friends in the crafty world use pc's well, loads actually, but some dont know much about basic Windows computer care, so here is a self help sheet for those that dont know this stuff!
None of this should damage your pc! These are tools built into the system by Microsoft, and as such are there to help.
Here we go:

Right now, what you really should do is run a disk clean up, and a full defragment of the hard drive.

If I am insulting you by teaching you to suck eggs, I am sorry, but I have learnt it's not wise to assume:

So, I need you to click on the my computer icon, so you can see the main drives, C,D, and possibly your external drive. C is your main hard drive, and D is your cd/dvd rom drive normally, or your restoration points drive, then E-Z are external drives normally.

So when you can see pictures of all your drives, I want you to right click on your C drive, it will open a new menu, and go down to the bottom, and left click on Properties.

Next you get a box, with about 7 tabs, General,Tools, Hardware, Sharing, Quota, Security and Previous versions.

On general there is a box, under an image of the hard drive showing how full it is, so its called Disk Clean-up. If you have never done a Disk Clean-up before, then be warned it will take a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG time for it to give you a result. So LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG that you will think its not working!! BUT it IS!!! Eventually it will give you a box with some ticks in:

Downloaded program files: Safe to get rid off if you have moved the files else where! So put a tick in the box if they are safe to get rid off, leave it unticked if they are not!

Temporary Internet files: things that are stored on your pc everytime you visit a different site. If you have your passwords and login details stored by Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome, this will NOT get rid of them!! It just gets rid of "cookies" stored on your machine by lots of different websites, and are safe to remove, so put a tick in this box!

Game News Files: Dont know if this is on all machines, or not, but it's on mine, and a new addition since I upgraded to Windows 7. Generally safe to put a tick in this box!

Recycle Bin: again, generally safe to remove! As you have already "binned them" but you havent "emptied" the bin yet, and yes you do have to get rid of the rubbish, its just like filling the craftroom bin with paper, you still have to empty it! So put a tick in this box!

Temporary Files: Okay this IS NOT the same as Temporary Internet files, this is different! This is to do with the Installation of new programs generally. Basically the computer when it installs a new program, writes little notes to itself during the installation, "such and such goes here, this is the registration number" and so on, so you can put a tick in this box too, you don't need the notes anymore, the installation has finished.

Thumbnails: Now on Win 7 Windows automatically regenerates the thumbnail cache, every time you open a folder to vies picture, bearing in mind that these are thumbnails, and less than 50kbs, I am horrified to discover that I have 254MB of them! If Windows didnt want you to be able to delete them, and bearing in mind that every time you open a new folder, with pictures or videos in, it goes behind your back and writes the thumbnails as it finds them, its safe to assume that Microsoft dont have an issue with them being removed or it wouldnt give you the ability to remove them! So put a tick in this box!

Per-user archived Windows Error reporting files, well I dont have any on my machine, Yay! and again it wouldnt give you the option if it was going to damage the system, as Microsoft are very protective of their operating systems, so if you have any put a tick in the box!

System Archived error reports: Operative word, Archived, as in old information, that's probably already been reported back to Microsoft, where do you think all the updates come from? So put a tick in this box too!

And one that I know is on OLDER systems, Compress drive. I have been around Techies for years, I have had PC's since Windows '93, and the advice I was given, back when I had Windows '98 was DONT compress the files! Wether this is true for newer machines, I dont know, but until someone I trust tells me its NOT going to slow my system down, then I wont do it!

Now click and clean those old files off your system!

Next up, is the disk defragment: on the Tools tab of the properties box. This is useful! VERY useful!! Basically a computer does NOT write files in an order that makes sense! Imagine taking your local paper, opening it to the middle page, throwing all of them out of the window to the street below, then having to go down, collect all the pages up, and put them back in the right order so you can read the paper! Basically that's what you are doing EVERY TIME something new gets written to your hard drive! It doesnt go, "oh this is a group of files that belong together, so I'll put them all together here." No it goes, "Okay I have this picture, so where can I squeeze this picture in? I know I'll shove it in the middle of this lot! Right next I have this word document that goes with the picture I have just put in with the middle of that music file, so I'll put this document, in with the old rubbish that came from that webpage I visited 7 months ago, that she never went back to." And you wonder why the computer is slow to find stuff after a while?

so make sure your computer isnt going to go to sleep halfway through, click on defragment, and let the system put things in the proper places, thats what defragment does! Its the librarian putting all the books back in the right places on the shelves!

Hope that explains it in terms that make sense?

new challenge site

hi guys.

Well Krafty Hands has changed to blog format! So dont go looking for the new challenge on the website! this is the new address: http://kraftyhandschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/

So to this months challenge, and the chance to win a £20 voucher to spend in the online shop for some physical goodies, instead of digi's!

I have to admit, that my current meds are making me feel as if I have had a goodnight out on the town, and I have never liked the feeling, so this post might not make sense!

heres the challenge for this month:

Christmas!
Rules use something bought from the fab tv stars at Kraftyhands, or something that is listed in their webshop .Anyone can enter our monthly challenges, the only criteria we have is that you must be a follower of our challenge blog, we know that taking part is 99.9% of the fun!

To be the monthly winner of the £20 Kraftyhands voucher, you must use at least one Kraftyhands or Crafter's Companion product in the creation of your challenge project.

That's as complicated as it gets!

Each month we choose 3 winners, the No1 winner will receive a £20 voucher to spend on the Kraftyhands webshop and the No1 winner's "blinkie", the other two winners will get a winner's "blinkie" for their blogs!
Heres my design team card:

This is a quick card page from the Team Santa cd.

The topper is decoupaged, which doesnt show in this photo, then sprayed with the Crafters Companion Spray and Shine, for some shine, obviously, see told you the meds are working, lol.

The background is using Imagination Sparkle Medium, Gold, and a Touch of Mica Snowflake mask.
A black base cardstock, the sparkled background, and then the green backing paper from the card kit, and the decoupaged topper, finished with a glazed greeting.

So there you go, my design card for this month, dont forget that this challenge runs until the first weekend in December, so pop over to the shop and have a butchers hook at whats on there, I can guarantee that even if you are USA based that you will find something you can use, so why not have a go?

hugs

lou