5 faves right now

Now I have kids I've realised how quickly things change; Amy's favourite programmes, food and friends can change every week. With this in mind I decided to start noting a few favourites, just to see the differences over time.

I've started with my own 5 favourites, hoping to get time to create similar pages for Amy and Tom.
So for this month my 5 favourites are
1) The view from the back of my house. I never get tired of it. This week there's plenty of snow over the ground to add extra prettiness.

2) We line up our shoes on the stairs, and I love seeing 4 pairs there, including Tom's teeny bootees.

3) Chunky knits. I love wearing them myself, but they're even cuter on a kiddo. I'm not so hot at knitting myself, but luckily I have several talented friends who have created jumpers and hats for Tom.

4) New socks. Cosy, cosy, cosy: see earlier comment about snow on the ground.

5) Reading. I've always been a big reader, but I kind of got out of the habit after Amy was born. My attention span seemed only to stretch to a magazine article. Now I'm back in the mood, I especially love 3 for 2 offers at Waterstones, they let me take a chance on an unknown author. At the moment I'm mostly reading autobiographies and social history, definitely on a non-fiction kick!

All supplies used in the layout are from Designer Digitals.

Tiddy Jiggy swap

Hiya, I know I've been a bad blogger, been busy moving house and expecting a baby. Will get back into the swings of things soon.

Anyway, to keep me further occupied, I signed up for the tiddy jiggy swap on UKS. This was the final swap using chipboard jigsaws. The whole jigsaw this time is 6x6" after the 8x8" and 12x12" of last year.

I had a great time completing the pieces as usual. I love how I get to try out new techniques and materials on these pieces.

Here's the completed jigsaw, though the middle piece is separate as Philippa was quite happy for us to decorate her pieces in any orientation.

Here's piece no 1. Frances showed us a painting by Klimt, which we recreated on the pieces. I used a load of accent beads - mostly from The Bead Shop in Partick, a great shop which I could easily spend a fortune in.

Piece no 2 is mine, but I'll be completing it when I get my jigsaw back, and see what everyone else has done:).

Piece no 3 had the theme of masks. I love the look of masks, but was stumped for ages with this as I had no supplies specifically related to masks. Eventually it came to me. I cut out a mask shape from card and painted it in liquid pearls. Then I added dots of gold stickles, and added small feathers and gems to each side. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. The background is painted, then I used an Autumn Leaves background stamp over the top.

Piece no 4 was ammonites. Again, I loved the theme, but couldn't think of anything I had to fit. I used Fimo to create some fossils, then painted them and added gold touches. The background was painted, and another background stamp used to add subtle texture. The main fossil is sitting on an inked circle of grungeboard.

Piece no 5 was wings. I created a background using digi supplies from Designer Digitals. I then added a bird charm, and a butterfly that was originally on a hair clip.

Piece no 6 was fun, the theme was grungey metal. Philippa said she wouldn't be reassembling the jigsaw so we could decorate the piece however we liked, in any orientation. I'm loving the tensecond studio products just now, so I used one of their embossing plates to emboss some metal with the alphabet, then added black paint before scraping some back off to distress it. On top I painted a grungeboard tag, then added some metal with the word spirit, which I wrote using an embossing tool. I also put some grungeboard inside a bottle cap, with a metal alpha on top, attaching it all with a ball chain through holes at either end of the piece.

Piece no 7 had a great theme. I love the steampunk look. For this piece, I created a digi background, again using supplies from Designer digitals. I then pulled apart one of hubby's old pocket watches. It was a battery powered one, so there was a limit to how many cool cogs there would be, but there were some small metal bits and bobs which I attached to the watch face with diamond glaze. I also stamped a rose on the face, added the cover and the winder separately.

Piece number 8 had a theme of flowers, so I raided my flower tub to fill the piece with them, adding gems too.

Piece number 9 had the theme 'vintage love'. This was a fun piece to do. I started by painting the piece pink, then used another background stamp from the Autumn Leaves set (definitely one of my new favourites) with silver ink. On top I added lace and ribbon with a metal clasp, and a prima gem in the top corner. I found the pin in my stash, and used a chipboard heart which I covered with a piece of card which I also stamped.

I can't wait to get back my own jigsaw, my theme is nature/ texture, so I'm hoping for some touchy-feely pieces!