Wednesday 26 October 2011

Crafter..oo magazine - Mystery Package Challenge!

Well, it has been a while, hasn't it?! Honestly, I have had the roughest year you could imagine - I won't go into details as it will not do anyone any favours and well, my personal life is just that - I do not cross it with my craft life.


Anyway, this blog post is about the Crafter..oo Crafts forum who have put together an online craft magazine which has been put together by members of the forum and I am going to be involved in the second issue of it which is due to be released in Jan 1st 2012. If you'd like to take a sneak peek at issue #1, you can do so HERE (I think you may have to sign up for the forum to be able to buy it, but it's free to sign up) and if you go on to purchase it, it's a fabulous bargain price of just £1.50!

So, what's my contribution? Good question - I need your help! I am taking part in a Mystery Package Challenge - how exciting and intriguing does that sound?! But quite frankly, I'm a little bit intimidated by the contents of this package! There are several different materials - pretty much none of which I am experienced in using - EEK!

Ok, these pictures are what's in the package. I'll explain a bit more about the challenge afterwards.

This is the entire contents of the package.


Firstly, there's a page of a book. It's printed on both sides and has some German text on one side (as shown) and what looks like an appendix or contents page in English on the other side.


Then we have this beautiful selection of beads, buttons and charms! They're SO pretty to look at!


And finally, there are three different types of ribbon - a thin strip of pale blue satin-y ribbon, some white-ish organza-type ribbon which is a little wider and some white lace edging-type stuff. Oh, and that piece of grey/brown fabric is also part of the package!


I apologise for my lack of technical terminology in the descriptions - but as I previously mentioned, this is NOT the kind of stuff I am used to working with! And this is why I need your help. The rules/guidelines we have to follow for this project are:
  • You may blog WIP pieces as a tease, as long as they do not give away too much about the final piece
  • You agree not to post pictures anywhere on the web of the final piece until after issue 2 hits the shelves (or web, I suppose!)
  • You may use supplies from your own stash, but please let the supplies in the "Mystery Package" be the main focus of what you make
  • You do not need to use all the pieces that are in the "Mystery Package", but please try and use as many as you can.
  • You can make more than one thing

Anyone who knows me or my work, knows that I primarily focus on yarn arts (knitting and crochet) and paper and card crafting, so this is completely new to me! Ideally, I'd like to try to work the items in this package into something covering those areas. I don't want to have to go out and purchase lots of expensive extras to be able to make this work - it's far too close to Christmas(!) to be thinking about spending my money on anything else so I want to use things I already own as much as possible too.

I have maybe a couple of basic ideas, but am not really sure how to make them work. If anyone has any ideas that may help me, please do comment. I will gladly consider anything you can suggest - although I won't be able to let you know whether I use your suggestion or not! And I don't want to steal whole ideas either, so please bear this in mind when commenting!

Thanks so much to every one of you who reads this. You're so supportive to me all of the time and I appreciate it more than you know! <3