Fiskarette Spotlight – GezzyB

This week I have been chatting to Geraldine – GezzyB!

*Tell us a bit about yourself……*

Hi my name is Geraldine but I also answer to Gez! I’ve just turned 40
& it wasn’t that bad, honest!! I’ve got three beautiful children 14, 7, &
1. They keep me very busy. Our house is a very crafty house as the
children like to craft as well.

I taught myself to knit in my teens and to crochet a few years ago. I also enjoy parchment craft, encaustic art & have been cross stitching for over 18 years until….buying my first scrapbook magazine at a needlework/papercrafts show 14 months ago!! My main passion now is scrapbooking & making exploding boxes. I have
progressed from there to altering everyday items. I now view what’s in my
shopping basket in a different light, asking myself can it be altered??

I love being a member of the Bubbly Funk forum. I have learnt so much and made
many dear friends.

*What are your favourite craft techniques?*

I love lots of different techniques & I am always striving to learn more.
I am just starting to experiment with ink & stamps. I love UTEE it’s great
watching the layers build up. I normally like to cover chipboard shapes,
letters & numbers. I like making ATC’s for swapping and I have just made my
first inchies for a swap…I can see inchies being very addictive!  My
advice would be to try everything once.

*What is on your craft desk at the moment?*

My January ATC cards waiting to be finished. I’ve just let some UTEE dry!
also my Christmas journal that just needs the finishing touches putting to
it! Oooh, gel pens, scissors, ds tape (can’t live without that!) box of
little paper scraps. Small pieces of Lego that I’ve picked up off the
floor before my toddler decides to see what they taste like.

*Can you show us some of your favourite projects and tell us about them?*

My pride & joy is my millennium sampler (I’ve another two in the series to
make!) It took me 9 months and is stitched on 16ct cream Aida.

My parchment craft lady that was hand drawn with a quill & white ink.

My first altered item which is a clipboard that I made in one of the Bubbly
Funk Think Pink Cyber Crop classes 2008.

I also like this layout I made for my Christmas journal on day 2.

*Do you have a favourite quote or poem?*

Loads! One of my favourite  poems is in a book called The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Chapter 4. Children. But I chose this one because it sums up my beliefs on housework!! And it’s fairly short.

“Dust if You Must”

Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better
To paint a picture or write a letter,
Bake a cake or plant a seed.
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there’s not much time,
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb!
Music to hear and books to read,
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world’s out there
With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair,
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain.
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and its not kind,
And when you go and go you must,
You, yourself, will make more dust.

Remember, a house becomes a home
when you can write
“I love you” on furniture.

I haven’t any dust honest!!!

*Any hints or tips you would pass on to anyone else?*

Yes, if you’ve got any cross stitching ufo’s (un-finished objects) store
them in a cotton pillow case rather than just in a cupboard. It will keep
them clean until you feel like stitching again. Also, I find the ‘loop’
method for fastening on threads is very neat when using an even number of
threads to stitch with. If you cut a single thread twice as long as you
need it and then thread BOTH end through your needle. Come up through the
fabric and make a half stitch, (then go back down) pass the needle through
the loop formed to secure your thread & voila! no ugly knot needed.

*Do you have any New Year Resolutions?*

No, because they only ever last a couple of weeks. I like to be realistic
I tell myself I’m going to get another sampler finished this year, that
I’m going to go blog hopping less and do more crafting… Perhaps try and keep
all things in moderation.

*Do you have a favourite Fiskars product or one you would like to try?*

I love the Wire Winder that I won as blog candy. I thought it would be
difficult to learn but I had made my first creation in 5 or 10 minutes &
it’s easy enough for the children to use as well. I would love to try the
large lace punches.

*What makes you smile?*

My children all the time, every day. Yesterday, I said to my little one,
‘shake your hands in the air’ while I turned round to get him a towel so I
could dry his hands. When I looked at him he was shaking his hands through
his ‘hair’ trying to dry them. He was wet through!!!

*Favourite song right now?*

Difficult one to answer as I like peace and quiet although I do like
listening to Hayley Westenra. The one getting on my nerves right now is the
Teletubbies theme tune but it does mean I can get on with some day time
crafting.

*Do you have an burning desire to fulfil any ambition before you reach
your next birthday milestone, eg. 30, 40, 50, 60?*

I’d love to have my scrap pages made into a book and now I have a
blog, that as well. But as it’s a never ending story (for now) it probably
won’t be for a while yet, may be I’ll have to have a whole series!

*If you could take three things with you on a desert island, what would
they be?*

Excluding DH (to kill the bugs) and my darling children or laptop. I would like to take…a book called Digital Scrapbooking for Dummies that I just haven’t got the time to read right now even though I really want to. A Millennium sampler to finish off and a giant supply of Singapore fried rice.

*Can you provide a link to your blog and tell us a bit about it and why
you started blogging.*

My blog is called http://gezzybscraftybits.blogspot.com/ I didn’t know
Blogger was going to ask me for a name title when I created my blog and it
was the first thing that popped into my head thinking I could re-name it
later! My blog allows me to escape my routine for a short while and forget
about certain things. It’s ‘me’ time. It is a challenge in it’s self to
have a blog to me and I love updating it with my work and adding fabulous
links that inspire me when I’m blog hopping. It’s almost like an online
reference book that I can delve into day or night. If anything remotely
inspires someone to have a go at something they haven’t tried before then
that is fabulous. Although I need to look at taking better photographs. I
am always surprised and delighted when someone has passed by and left a
message for me and to my surprise I have even made some overseas friends that I   wouldn’t ever of know about if it wasn’t for Blogger. My blog design is only temporary at the moment as I managed to loose it completely last week. Just relieved I’ve got my work & comments back!

Thanks Gez – lovely to know more about you….

Caroline x