"The Internet is for Porn!"

Finally i've got round to blogging about Avenue Q although after giving myself concussion yesterday i am still feeling a bit groggy, however maybe i shut shut my head in the car door more often as that the best nights sleep i've had for ages!!

So it was almost 2 weeks ago mum and i hitched a lift in the coach that david and his work collegues had hired to take them to london for their Festive outing. They had booked for Chicago and a meal after at some strange restaurant, and although mum and i tried to look for tickets to Chicago on Lastminute.com a few times, we had no luck. so we searched though the other shows. But narrowing our search to that day, the amount we were willing to pay and it being a matinee left us with not many options. So we plucked for Avenue Q.

There were 3 choices for the title to this post. the one i chose, "it sucks to be me" or "everyone's a little bit racist". The musical is a lively mix of Puppets and Humans, with some very talented puppetiers, covering a wide range of subject including racism, sex, finding your purpose in life.

I think my favourite was "It sucks to be me!" so much so that i forked out £5 for a magnet that says just that!

Over all a fantastic show, we laughed til we cried, but in my opinion not for kids!

Here's a little medley of songs from the show than was performed at the Southbank show:

Recycled bags to use at the farmers market

I was thinking about bags for when i go to the farmers market. now i know i never accept a new bag but little items like my magnets and brooches could easily get lost and i don't think people would really want to put them with food from the market in their bags either.

so i did a quick websearch and thought about all the envelopes mum brings home from work for the food waste bin. i found a template for gift bags made from envelopes!! perfect!!

This has really made my day, because they have worked perfectly. the brown bag in from an A4 envelope and the white from an A5.

however the clear window gets in the way with the smaller one, and also the paper is thicker with the brown one.

so with a bit of double sided tape, i have my bags!!!

Super Quick PC Swap

This seemed like a fun swap to do as i really am enjoying altering things and decorating things i already have. So after looking at my 3 partners' profiles, finding suitable cards from my collection and jazzing them up a bit, these are the results:

Chocolate seemed to focus a lot on this partner's profile, followed by gardening.
Then this newbie mentioned "Veggie Cooking".
And my 3rd partner also mentioned gardening and the outdoors.

My First ATCs

Well i finally did it. i finally got round to making some Artistic Trading Cards. I was wondering what to use as card and had planned on a cereal box but that has a grey inside, so i decided to try using a tetra-pak soya milk carton. i then covered this with plain paper.... bit of a mistake as when i drew on the paper with felt tips it went slightly transparent, however this seemed to improve as they dried. i managed to get 5 out of the amount of carton i had, and i needed four for a swap (Abstract Hand Drawn ATCs). but i know what i'm going to do with the first one i made.


My first ever ATC will be going to a special home:

These 2 are headed to Australia for the swap:

And these two to the USA:

Private Swap - my offering? bottlecaps of course!!

I've run out of my favourite Crystal Light again and a wonderful swap-bot member, Christina, set me some previously along with some tea. so i got in contact again and offered some magnets in return, which she accepted. so here they are:

On Christina's profile it says she like pink and black. but once i have made them with those 2 colours it just felt like something was missing, so i messaged her and asked how girly she like things. Her reply was "you can't get things that are too girly!" so i added a bit of bling to them too!

The Big Bedroom Tidy

Well it had got to the stage again where i couldn't see what little of the floor isn't taken up by my double bed, couldn't see the half of my double bed that i don't sleep in and couldn't see any of the work surface on my bookshelf/cupboard.

this is what it looked like when it was first built year ago, all neat and tidy.
that was before i started swapping and getting into arts and crafts, like painting, cross stitch, crochet and my latest venture, bottlecaps.

So as you have seen previously by little black magnetic canvas was getting rather crowed and i spotted someone offering a magnetic white board on freecycle. so i now have a large white board for them all - no good for photographic presentation but it means i can organise them into the different categories.

also on my tidy up i had a thought about the poncho i made a couple of years back. i've always planned to sell it but just haven't know where to try until now. so i'm going to add that to my Dawanda shop, but i need to get some nicer photos first. this one really won't help sell it!on cleaning out and tidying up i ventured into the bottom of my wardrobe, only to find despite david's efforts to insulate my wardrobe - which goes straight to the outer wall - my boots have gone mouldy from the damp once again! Eugh!! hopefully it will brush off now they have dried out again.....

thanks to my new shoes, i now have storage for all my received swaps - problem is the box is full already!!

i came across 2 DVDs which star yours truly. One was a copy if the One Show that the beeb sent to me:

and the other is the local film that stars me as a paramedic.... look like thats as close as i'm going to get to that career these days.

Just the Matchbox Swap

I received this wonderful matchbox from RudeNun. I've not thought about decorating a matchbox like this before. the little window is a lovely idea!! she said she didn't have any purple paint so mixed her own and was worried how it had turned out - well i think it turned out beautifully!!

Melted Plastic Magnet

Having a bit of a photo and log catch-up, so here's a quick picture of the one bit of plastic melting that did work - have made it into a magnet and its now on the fridge.

It looks like and 'A' to me but i don't think mum's even noticed it yet! might have to bring it to her attention.....

Letter in a Matchbox #2 Swap

I first hosted this swap in June last year (see the photos here), and found a spare matchbox when i was sorting out some bits a few weeks back, so decided to host it again. There are 17 people including myself in the swap. Just a quick photo to show my swap offerings to Chappykat in the USA.

If Money were no object....

When i was in town Thursday i spotted this in a shop window:

(click on the photo for more info)

I knew instantly it was a recycled object, so decided to pop into the shop and have a look, with the thought of my bottlecaps in mind too. I had a nice chat with the lady, who said she was just getting back up and running after a family bereveavement over Christmas. She said this shop was a bit of a test to see if the town was ready to become more green in their purchases. She said it wasn't - basically people want to think they are but don't want to pay the prices for handcrafted objects. Well i have to say i certainly couldn't afford the prices but the with the comission she charges to sell things on your behalf no wonder the prices are so high! she takes 30% comission! really not worth it for me if i want to sell my items at a reasonable price.

Mum still think things like my magnets are over priced but then these days you will be pushed to find one for under a pound i expect so i don't think for a hand crafted item that £1.50 is too much, especially as i have to cover my costs and fees, so i probably only get £1 at the end of the day anyway! but 30% certainly wouldn't leave me with anything!

anyway here's a few other favourites from the online shop:

for sale billboard

for sale billboard
Originally uploaded by *jennyb*

if only i could advertise on real billboards!!

3 rainbow stars polaroid

3 rainbow stars polaroid
Originally uploaded by *jennyb*

a new way to advertise with flickr toy creations!

My Homepage Swap on swap bot

Well i have 2 active swaps at the moment this one and my own swap, Letter in a Matchbox.

anyway i thought i'd share the website links i received here:

so from NerdGirlCreations (Kirsty):

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/zefaniya
• Www.NerdGirlCreations.etsy.com

from apartmentcatEtsy (Katie):

• http://apartmentcat.livejournal.com/

from jenniferyellowhat (jennifer):

• http://jenniferyellowhat.co.uk
• http://flickr.com/photos/jenyoung

from storylaura (Laura):

• http://www.laurapacker.com
• http://www.truestorieshonestlies.blogspot.com

from SarahLiz (sarah):

• http://evancalous.wordpress.com/

Funny TV Advert

Shoe Love

something very strange happened today while i was in town. i've been looking for a pair of comfy shows that can be worn with tracky bottoms but also smarter clothes with little success. so mum suggested i look in Pearsons, which is where i stopped off today. i found their shoe section; Jane Shilton. not cheap but not too bad in the sale section. i found one nice comfy pair size 5 but they were huge! it seems Jane Shilton shoes come up quite big. so i move found to the size 4 section - still too big. round to size 3 - and then i spotted them......

not what i had gone in looking for but it a style i have fallen in love with recently, and i wasn't expecting them to fit being a size three but i thought i'd try my luck. mum has a pair in this style (something else coming round in the fashion circle again!) i couldn't believe it!! something i like actually fitted me! so i asked to try the other one on.

all of a sudden i changed into this girly girly. i often watch programmes on TV about girls who have lots of shoes and go mad over a pair of shoes - i was shocked to find i had become that woman! i put both on, walked up and down a few times - i felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz with her new ruby slippers - except mine aren't ruby!

normally when i go shopping for shoes or clothes i find so little that i like or that fits. but these set something off inside of me. all of a sudden i felt alive like something was tickling me inside.

so here they are. my victorian style lace-up boots/shoes:

please ignore the socks -the photos were taken quickly for mum's benefit. not bad for £30 especially as they were originally £80!! guess this means i can't live in tracky bottoms anymore as they don't look quite right for some bizaare reason (!)

Playing with Plastics

a few pics from my experiment with melting recycled plastics:

first a margarine tub with a couple of milk bottle tops chopped up:

took quite a high temperature - the max the oven will do is 250C but it still took a long time.



but it stuck to the greaseproof paper too.


then i tried to flatten it and ruined it completely!! why can't i just leave things alone.

so then i tried the marg tub on its own and i love this!! i kind of turned out in the shape of an A too! i might try this again because i love the way the plastic curls.

then i tried the mesh and labels from the clementines. the mesh melted well but the label seemed to be more of a paper than a plastic.

so i took out the bits that didn't melt, but the rest in a bottle cap and put it on the electric hob to melt down into the cap:

then i tried clear plastic but put some acrylic paint in to give it some colour. plastic works well, goes white but i need to rethink the colouring

then i tried a mix of white, yellow and red mesh with limited success:

then i tried to flatten that on the hob between 2 heat proof cooking dishes - but the yellow burnt and it stuck to the foil.....

Overall Verdict: Oven not hot enough and fumes cause headaches - don't try this at home folks!

No Room On the Canvas!

i literally have no more room now on the canvas.....but i did just get some more brooch backings.....and there is still room on my belt.......

No. i need to work on promotion i think - so feel free to pass on the link people!!

i've completed a custom order or Jenny's mum, and i'm quite pleased with it.

The only things i'm working on now are a custom order of a set of 5 which i've been having a few issues with and have had to restart, a set of 8 for a swap for Christina from swap-bot who is kindly sending me some crystal light, a brooch for me and another brooch for the shop. the picture below is the beginnings: