• profileABOUT US

    My name is Jody Matthams and I am a 20 something year old self confessed geek and crafter from Portsmouth, UK, this is my blog where I will post ideas, projects and interesting things I find.

    I hope you like it and thanks for stopping by!

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Bags!!

I have finally got through all my blog subscriptions on Google reader and have bookmarked about 30 bag tutorials I want to make, I think this may be my favourite thing to make. Bags are usually quite quick and instant, they challenge me but are not so difficult I struggle or get annoyed and you can use them after too! As an added bonus if you wear them out everyone comments on them and are usually amazed you made it yourself, it’s brilliant. So along that line of thought here is a bag I made earlier today from this tutorial over at Petite Purls, I haven’t actually completed it yet though as I don’t have any webbing for the strap, I toyed with the idea of creating a strap from some fabric but decided I wanted it to have the proper webbing strap as it goes with the style of the bag.

camo-bag inside_camobag

A few other little bits and bobs I have made today from random tutorials, unfortunately I have already come off the pages where I got the tutorials from and I don’t even know how I got to them (you know when you link from one thing to another etc) If anyone is particularly interested in any of them, then I will have a look for you but for now take a looky:

Fabric_rose simple_origami_heart origami-rose

Origami-heart1 Origami_coat

1. Fabric Rose
2. Simple Origami Heart
3. Origami Rose
4. Fancy Origami Heart
5. Origami Coat

I feel really good for doing all these things today and will hopefully stay quite motivated even though I am starting my new job tomorrow (eeek!) Although I am a little bit worried that for the first month I’m going to be so worn out from working all day as I’m not used to it! We shall see, for now So long and happy crafting:)




Money money money…

…is so funny in a rich mans world! And I’m going to finally have some once I start my *new* job!:) I’m very excited and happy that I am going to be doing something I like (admin) and getting money that I can spend on me for once (starting salary 14k). Yay!

In other news I have actually been quite busy and I have made something, it is a little tissue case by verypurpleperson it is sooooo incredibly simple and easy, I did it in just under half an hour and that was with some faffing from me picking out materials. Very cute and a good handy little pouch to have in your bag when your out instead of that ugly plastic packaging.

tissue-case

I have also been on a mini craft day out (cut short only because I had an interview for above mentioned job) with my good friend and partner in crime of Tink Shui Paper crafts,  Maddy. Went to a few crafty shops, couldn’t find any black thread though weirdly to finish of my Nes controller cross stitch I started months and months ago! She also bought me a few prezzies too, yay!

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First we have some cute little tiny pegs, secondly is those little origami stars that I see sometimes and ever quite worked out how to do them but now I have 100 to make, yay! And lastly is some gorgeous ribbon to add to our card making collection. Thank you Maddy!!!:D

And last but not least I have been having a massive re-arrange and sort out of my craft room because I just wasn’t feeling motivated to do anything anymore and I reliased that maybe if my desk was over by the window and not in the dark dingy corner that might help and what about if all my crafty things are all in one place to find. So that’s what I did and now I want to be in here all day, in fact I am in here and might well stay here all day:)




Digging for gold!

So I fully intended on actually making something yesterday after a stint of inactivity, de-motivation and no creativity, which I am glad to say has gone now, but I got asked to look after my supervisors dog, Frank, and how could I resist…

I have no idea what he is doing, he is one crazy dog, he won’t leave you alone either, he has to be near someone all the time, I did a little bit of washing up and the was sat behind me whimpering ‘coz I wasn’t playing with him, bless! And then when I needed a shower I had to leave the door open so he could wander in and check I was still there, silly sausage!

So anyway I have some creativity back, I will be creating again and uploading stuff here, also me and friend are in the process of starting up a local craft group called ‘Stitch and Bitch’ So stay tuned for more info on that.

For now happy crafting!




The Dirty South!

I am very excited because Tink Shui Papercrafts as well as just generally Tink Shui has been featured in the newest and hottest webzine – ‘The Dirty South

The Dirty South focuses on Music, Fashion and Culture from across the South coast. Everything from Club Nights through to Fashion Shows and Art Exhibitions via Gigs and Theatre.

One of the head honchos (and a friend of mine), Ursula, came over a couple of weeks back for an interview of what we do and to take some pics etc. It was fun to talk about our stuff and show off all the bits I’ve made too and now we have a proper article and it looks and reads fab! I am very pleased and I think you should be heading on down there to go read it!




Whats your style?

Ive been pondering lately about my style, my crafting style specifically because I dont feel like I have one. I look on other peoples blog and they have a signiture, a way in which they craft thats unique to them and fits but mine is all sort of mismatched and jumbled. Is this normal? Do you get your style over time? I guess I havnt been crafting for as long as some of you guys in the big blogging world! Any one got any good advice or tips on this? Your experiences etc, did you start off style-less? How long did it take to develop your style and was it a gradual thing or did it come over night?

Thanks for your help!




Photoshop Fun!

I forgot to post about my new found skills on Photoshop, I used to hate the thing and not understand what button to press to even crop a photo, but after doing a handful of tutorials I seem to have gained a better understanding of it although I wouldn’t call myself a pro just yet! Below are some of my creations so far, I am very impressed with how far I have progressed though and have enjoyed myself a lot during the process. (It’s also a very useful skill to have when you have a artist mum who needs some random image superimposed onto a building for a commission! haha)

coffee war-letters torn

stamp rainbow graffiti

fairy diary tinkerin-tuesday

Ok so there’s more than a handful here, I forgot how many I did! I’m not even sure which is my fave but I enjoyed doing the middle one on the last row of the old diary’s as it was very in depth and I got to use my own pics for the Polaroids plus I was more experienced then so I played around with my own textures and pictures to create the image within the tutorial.

I also am particularly fond of the last one as I find it’s always easier to create something when you have a project to do so for this tutorial for a poster layout design I decided to try out my new idea of a Tink Shui craft night (which I, quite cleverly I reckon, named Tinkerin’ Tuesday!) and I really like how it turned out:)

If anyone has any comments or suggestions then let me know, I am all ears:)

Thanks for reading!




Yay for iphones!

I gots me an iPhone the otther day, I decided I couldnt be bothered to wait for voda to get the iPhone so I switched to orange! Its awesome and I have this handy little app for wordpress which I happen to be using right now:)

Besides that I bought some rather lovely papercraft bits and pieces from whsmiths with my vouchers pictured below (oh yes i can add pics now with the trusty iphone!) gona have a go at some designing with the lovely Maddy when she gets better (get better soooooon!) which will be tres fun!

Anyway just a quick one really to test this here app out and keep u updated til my mac gets fixed:) over and out x
pa href=http://www.tinkshui.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/l_2048_1536_54063695-5467-410A-AD16-EBF955AB0ED0.jpegimg src=http://www.tinkshui.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/l_2048_1536_54063695-5467-410A-AD16-EBF955AB0ED0.jpeg alt= width=300 height=225 class=alignnone size-full wp-image-364 //a/p




Papercrafts

Getting really into paper crafts atm and my lovely friend Maddy of yahyamadeit showed me this fantastic website that has a load of little creations and you just click on them and you get the downloadable template to print and make yourself!:D It’s wonderful, I made this one the other day:

DSC_0745 DSC_0747 DSC_0745

Isn’t is adorable!:D I wana make em all but I’m sure my printer ink wouldn’t like it, haha. I also made a mini DS Lite from here which is cute too but very very fiddley!

DSC_0749 DSC_0750

It has working hinges too so you can open it up:

DSC_0751 DSC_0753

Not to mention the teeny tiny Nintendogs catridge that you can actually put into the slot!!:o

DSC_0755 DSC_0754

I’m sure I will be doing alot more of this paper craft stuff, I would really love to do some scrapbooking but not really sure where to start!




I’m back!!!

Did you miss me? It’s been over a month but we are finally pretty much settled into our new house, the virgin man only came a couple of weeks ago tho so we have had to use this shitty dongle that died about a week before the internet arrived:( Then when we finally did get the internet, Aaron left his charger in Bristol when he was DJing there and my one happened to pack up at the same time!

So now we have Aaron’s one back from Bristol but mine is dead and until I get payed on the 22nd I won’t be able to afford a new one, playing swapsey when one of our comp’s start to die, lol.

Anyway in respect to crafting I have obviously been trying to get the office up to scratch and bought some new shelves and boxes to put my stuffs in but I have concluded that I still have too much stuff! haha. I have been doing a little bit of crafting tho like this advent calender I made for my OH’s mum as she didn’t have one this year.

Advent Calender

She absolutely loved it and text me the next day saying ‘I have turned over the calender today and it is a christmas tree, I love it, thank you so much!’ :D I will post some more pics of the individual pages at some point too as I am quite impressed with myself, a sort of mixture between digital scrapbooking and normal scrapbooking.

I have also created some little boxes with personal designs on them for xmas presents for my family but I won’t show them just yet as they may read this, I can’t wait to show them though! What I will show you instead is my front room and x-mas tree I put up on the 1st of December like the organised lady I am, haha.

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, how lovely are your branches!

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, how lovely are your branches!

So pretty:) I will hopefully now be able to craft and post a lot more so look out for some exciting new stuffs over xmas and into the new year!




Lego!

I have a slight obsession with Lego and have a whole bottom draw in my craft area filled with the stuff. I have made some of these 4×4 blocks into awesome colourful earrings which are currently in my Etsy shop if anyone’s interested in buying some.

I thought that today I would research the net for some other crafty Lego projects that inspire me, here are the ones I particularly liked:

lego-sofalegomovielegtendo

very-big-legocakelego-businesscardlegoman

resizedlegobaglegowindermeltedlegolamp

1. Lego Sofa
2. 21 Movie Posters in Lego
3. Mini Lego Nintendo
4. 12 Lego Cakes
5. Making a Lego business card
6. Life sized Lego man
7. How to make a Lego gift bag
8. Motorised Lego yarn winder
9. Melted Lego lamp shade

And we can’t post about Lego without referring to the awesome official Lego factory digital designer which is just hours of fun!