My Craftbarn



Monday, August 11, 2014

Creative Blog Hop.

Hi there sweet friends,
Today I´m participating in a Creative Blog Hop, that I was invited to join from my Canadian blogfriend Beth Norman from Sunflowers & Dragonflies, who so sweetly invited me as one of her 3 friends to continue this hop here. She introduced me last monday August 4th here, so you can go there and see, what she had to say about me too. And while you´re there, please have a look around her blog and see some of her amazing work too, I promisse you, it´s worth it.
Grab a nice cup of coffee or tea, cause this is going to be a very long post.
This blog hop is a great chance for YOU to get to know a bit more about me, and be introduced to a lot of artistic and creative work of any kind from different creative people too. The hop goes on every monday, and today it´s my turn to answer a few questions here.
But first let me tell you a bit about Beth. She´s actually been a very dear friend, and we´ve been following each others blogs for many years now soon. She´s a very talented girl, Mostly a rubber stamper and designer, and she´s been designing for The Technique Junkie Newslwetter for years, and have made tutorials for them the last many years, and she has over 150 tutorials on her blog too, that she sooo sweetly shares with everyone there. And she actualy is a lot to blame for, that I in the first time got into making tutorials too, as she kept telling me, I could do it, when I didn´t think so myself, so thanks a lot for that Beth, and also a big thanks for the invite to join the hop here, I hope, we´ll still be friends, when we can´t even chew butter anymore ha ha.

What am I working on right now?
I´m actually not working on anything right now, as I´ve just had kids here the last 3 weeks and until late saturday night, when they all went home to start school here today
 So this bunch here has been invading my craftroom the last weeks here, and believe me, there´s no time for my things, when they´re around here, as they all want to create all they can get away with.
 Here they´re busy with modelling clay
 And some also made cards.

 Painted and decorated boxes
 Made big clothespins
A nice buquet Trine came and gave Gran when they left.
So I admit, I haven´t got much else done than the card I showed the other day in my last entry here. But as soon as I get all catched up here after the summer invasion, I´ve getting on with invites and tablesettings for my new grandsons baptism here later this year, so there´s lots of work waiting for me thoug.

How does my work differ from others in my genre?
That is really hard for me to answer, cause I´m not even sure, I have a genre at all?? I like to try out everything I ever see, and I´m really doing all kinds of craftings, and like to move around between many different things. I´m a true die addict, and I love to stamp and alter all kinds of different things, and I really love to make something out of things everybody else would throw out, and I like to work with felt and tubeknitting, and then I love to create 3D things too and homedecors, but I like to keep a lot of it a bit Shabbyvintage as I use to call it. But if it can be called a certain style, I´m not really sure ha ha ha. So I´ll just show some pictures of different things, that I´ve made over the years.



 All these above here are different cards.
 A bunch of mall notebooks I made for friends one year.
 A recycled card, where I used some small corkpads, that were sitting between some new windows, we got.
 Ninialbum made from coffeefilters
 A suitcase made all from cardstock

 Above 3D projects made for various occasions
 A clock made from old defect CD´s

 A minialbum sawed out of plywood and decorated
 A recycled bisquitcan
 A parchment card
 Mice made from felt for another baptism
 My own home made embellisments used here
 My fist attempt ever on pencilcoloring
 Tubeknitting made for christmas
 Inchie walldecor  A great way to get all these left over pieces of embellisments used, that we always get, cause here you can use anything you like.
 A little princess wagon made for my granddaughter years ago

 All the weddingdecor from my daughters wedding
 Small elves made of tubeknitting and the small furnitures made of wood
 A basket made of cardstock and paper
And finally some pretty big elves sewn out of fabric.

So as you can see, it´s ranging pretty wide, what I´m doing here, and I like to change among many things.

Why do I write/create what I do?
Hmmm it´s really some tuff questions I get here, why? I guess because I have to, because it gives me a huge satisfaction, when I´ve finished a project, and can look at it and think, I made this. And then it keeps me in sane after I unfortunately had to be retired after I broke my back 10 years ago. Even I had several big surgeries, they couldn´t make it work again, and as I wasn´t ready to just sit down and feel sorry for myself, I thought it could as well be a chance for me to do much more of what I´d always done, but never had enough time for, so here I am today, creating almost every day in some kind.

How does your writing/creative process work?(where do I get my inspiration)
I get my inspiration abasolutely everywhere. It can be a picture I see, or something some one says, or a piece of beautiful paper or somthing I see on TV, that suddenly puts an idea in my head, or the internet, other crafters blogs, a situation I face, some new products, that´s getting out, that makes me think of something. So it really can come from anything, as I said absolutely everywhere around us, we just need to open our eyes and ears, and it´ll flow against us everywhere. My biggest problem today is, to find time to bring all my ideas out in the open, because I always have soooo many ideas running in my head.

Now I was supposed to introduce you to 3 new bloggers for next monday, BUT I must unfortunately say, that it has been completely impossible for me to get 3 as it seems many of my blogger friends have already been asked by others, and some didn´t have the time to join and one unfortunately got sick , so I must admit, I can only introduce you to one new blogger, but it´s then not just any blogger, but a really fabulous lady, so I´ll like you to welcome:
 Kirsten Hyde from My craft and Garden Tale .
She´s one of the most amazing ladies, I´ve ever met, and she´s been a huge inspiration to me for many years now, and I really admire her stunning work, and her always sweet and kind personality. Always ready to help, if anyone need that and sharing her godgiven talent in making her own amazing templates for all kind of things always. So I can definitely recommend to give her blog a vist, that´s for sure. I know, you wount regret that.
Well like I said first, it has been a long post here today, but I hope, you´ve enjoyed it, and will give the other girls a visit too, as they really deserve it, and as always if any of you have any questions, just ask, and I´ll be happy to answer anything, and sorry to my Danish friends, that this is only in English, but it had to be kept this way, so most possible could read it and it was a bit much to write doubbled.
Have a wonderful day everyone and lots of crafty fun, I hope.
Until we meet again take good care.
Biig hugs Maryann








Saturday, August 9, 2014

A male boxcard for once.

Hi there dear blogfriends/ Hej igen kære blogvenner,
Now I have finally got the last kids sent home here last night, as it´s time to go back to school again on monday here, so I finally have a day just for me  ha ha ha, There hasn´t been much peace and quiert here the last 3 weeks now, and the girls even brought more of their friends here too, so they´ve been here in teams of 3 at a time, so when one team left another would arrive LOL. So it´s been quite a lively house here at times LOL. So now I really need to catch up on a lot of things here over the next days, that´s for sure. Not that we haven´t been doing anything, but it´s not for me, it was all for the girls, but I´ll share some of that in a later posting here. Today I want to share an easel  boxcard, I was asked to make for a male 40th birthday. It should contain a bike ( he´driving a bike) a handyman ( he´s into renovating their house and has been for 2 years now) and it should de fun. As most of you probably know, these male cards, haven´t been my biggest strength, but I´m actually pretty satisfied with this one here, and think, it turnd out pretty okay, but see for your self here:

Så har jeg endellig fået de sidste unger sendt hjem her i aftes, da det er ved at være tid til, at de skal tilbage i skole igen nu på mandag her, så idag har jeg endelig en dag KUN for mig, og det er tiltrængt nu ha ha ha.Der har godt nok ikke været meget fred og ro her de sidste 3 uger nu, og pigerne bragte endda indtil flere af deres veninder med herud også denne gang, så de er dukket op i hold den ene efter den anden, så når et hold gik, kom et andet med det samme. Så det har godt nok til tider været et ret livligt hus her LOL. Ikke at vi ikke har fået lavet noget, for det har vi helt sikkert, men ikke for mig, kun for pigerne, men det vil jeg vise jer lidt af i en anden post senere.
I dag vil jeg gerne vise jer et easel bokskort, som jeg blev bestilt til at lave til en mands 40års føsdselsdag. Det skulle indeholde en motorcykel, (han kører motorcykel) og vise noget handymand, (han er ved at renovere hu, og har været de sidste 2 år)  Som de fleste af jer nok ved, så er herrekort ikke lige min stærkeste side, men jeg må indrømme, jeg er faktisk ret godt tilfreds med det her, og synes det faldt helt okay ud, men døm selv her:

 The front all folded /  Fronten foldet helt
 And here it´s sat up as an easelcard. I´ve used an image from a 3D sheet and some 3D tools too, I had in my stash, and then I used this tape mesurer of paper, that I found inside a roll of felt I bought some time ago and some metal roses. / Og her sat op som et easelkort. Jeg har brugt et billede fra et 3D ark og også nogle 3D værktøj, som jeg fandt i gemmerne, og så brugte jeg et målebånd af papir, som lå indeni en rulle filt, jeg købte for en tid siden og nogle metalroser.
 The inside all opened  Here I used some digistamps and filmstrips from TH and again some of those metalroses/ Indeni helt åbnet op. Her har jeg brugt nogle forskellige digistamps, lidt filmstrimler fra TH, og igen nogle metal roser.
 Here you can see the card set up and the drawer pulled out a bit/ Her kan I se kortet sat op og skuffen trukket lidt ud.
 And inside the drawer I sat a little verse, I found online a few years ago and used quite a few times. I think it´s sooo cute and fit almost anything. / Og indeni skuffen har jeg sat et lille vers, jeg fandt online for et par år siden og brugt en del gange. Synes det er såå sødt og passer til stort set enhver lejlighed.
 The lower inside a little closer. / Det nederste indeni lidt tættere på.
 The upper inside a little closer.  The digistamps just for the fun. The upper one is as far as I remember from TLC, while the lower one is from a cutting sheet I had in my stash too. /
Det øverste indeni lidt tættere på. Digistemplerne er bare for sjov. Det øverste er så vidt jeg husker fra TLC, mens det nederste er taget fra et klippeark, jeg havde i gemmerne
 And now some close ups here too. The blue mesh here I´ve used behind the bike is one I cut of a birdfood ball last winter, because I thought it could look nice, and I always love it, when I can reuse some things people normally throw out. The hook and the gears is from TH, and some I got in a candy I won earlier. /
Og nu til nogle mere tæt på også. Det blå net her, er noget, som jeg klippede af nogle fuglefoder bolde sidste vinter, fordi jeg tænkte det ville se godt ud og elsker når jeg kan bruge noget, andre ville smide ud. Hægten og tandhjulene er fra TH og nogle jeg vandt i en blogcandy tidligere.
 Here the tools, borders and tape measurer close up too./ Her alle værktøjerne , borterene og målebåndet tæt på.
And last the front of the boxdrawer, where I´ve used a TH brad as the handle here too. It was also in that candy.  Before they fave him this, they filled the drawer up with these small white pastils, to symbolize the pills from that gag /  Og her er så fronten af boksskuffen, hvor jeg har brugt en brad fra TH som håndtag. Den var også med i den candy fra før. Før de afleverede denne til modtageren, blev skuffen fyldt op med de der små hvide pastiller, til at symbolisere pillerne fra den tidligere gag.

I hope, you like, what I did here, but as I said, it´s not my strongest force, so if you have any ideas to how it can be done better or easier, I´ll be really happy to hear it, so I can improve on this. Thanks god the reciever loved it, that´s ofcause the main thing.
Jeg håber, I kan lide, hvad jeg har lavet, men som jeg sagde før, er herrekort ikke min stærkeste force, så hvis I har nogle ideer til, hvordan det kan blive gjort bedre eller nemmere, vil jeg rigtig gerne høre det, så jeg forhåbentlig også kan blive bedre. Heldigvis var modtageren vild med den, og det er selvfølgelig hovedsagen.

Have a wonderful week-end now dear friends and lots of great fun, and take good care./
Hav en pragtful week-end nu kære venner og masser af sjov og pas godt på jer selv.
Until we meet again / Til vi ses igen:
Biiiiiiiig warm hugs / Knuuuuuuuuuuuuuuzer
Maryann