Crafter...oo Issue 2

Issue 2 of Crafteroo Magazine is out right now please go check it out on Crafter...oo. The online magazine is only £1.50 and packed with projects and articles written by some very talented crafters. I have a tutorial (Wired for Sound page 10) and a thrifting article (For the Love of Thrifting page 14-15). Many thanks go to Kerry for all her hard work editing the issue and being all around fabulous! Please pop by the forum and buy a copy of the Crafter...oo for download.

Crafteroo Magazine

Tomorrow marks the launch of Crafteroo Craft Forum's shiny new online Magazine. I along with the great creative team at crafteroo and especially the Editorial skills of Kerry have worked our fingers to the bone to make the online magazine worth the modest £1.50. The magazine is out tomorrow and is filled to bursting with tutorials, blogs, recipes, reviews and so much more.

I have written book reviews, app reviews, and a recipe for the issue and I would love for every one of my loyal blog readers to visit crafteroo and purchase the magazine for download. It has been a great joy brainstorming and collaborating with forum members to create a brilliant little craft magazine.

The idea of Crafteroo Magazine began with a wish to keep our small little forum running, all sales of the magazine will go towards upkeep of our little forum. Crafteroo is a small UK based craft forum that we started several years ago after several founding members fell victim to cyber bulling on another craft forum and decided to create a happy and safe little forum of our own. I hope that the magazine will do well and it will brink new life and new inspiration to our little craft forum.

Please pop by Crafteroo and say hello and have a little look at the Issue 1 Overview page and see a little of what the 64 page magazine has to offer.

*bespoke* zine

the cover of *bespoke* issue 4

*bespoke* zine is the creation of Jessica Van Den of Epheriell Designs, a blogger, zine publisher, jewellery maker, and all around fabulous lady from Brisbane, Australia. A few months back Jess called on the crafty community to submit ideas for issue 4 of the zine. I said it would be great to do a little piece on drabble writing, something I like to do in my spare time and tend to hideaway on another tiny writing blog. A little while later Jess got back to me saying it was a great idea and can I write up 200 words for the zine.

My little bit in the zine

I think my head nearly exploded before I went into panic mode as I dug through my notebook and files to find a few craft based drabbles. I then tried to pull my thoughts together to explain not only why I write them but what drabbles actually are. I was quite possibly a nervous wreck and bothered several of my best friends (Thank you so much) to read through my article before I sent if off to Jess for her approval. Jess asked if I had any photos to include with my drabble article. I didn't but I knew just who to ask. At which point I bribed Matt with promises of cake and chocolate to get him to take some photos of my craft/writing space, dolls and general clutter. I'm pretty sure I still owe him more cake.

So now you must all go out and order issue 4 of *bespoke*, because you all love me very much and want to see what I wrote. Right? Right?

A Clockwork tale of Red Riding Hood (Part the first)

I know I'm a little bit behind on blogging (read as 'hugely immensely behind on blogging, writing and crafting') but I'm working on it...honestly.... I offer you the beginning of the fairy tale I am writing for the Red Riding Hood doll I finished making the other day with the addition of a few well placed cogs I managed to dig up in a antiques shop Wirksworth. I'm hoping that if I share the first few paragraphs of the story it will encourage me to finish writing Red's fairy tale and list the doll and figure out how I will print out her story in zine form. So here goes...

A Clockwork Tale of Red Riding Hood (Part the First)

by Apryl Lowe

My name is Rowan but most people call me Red. I live in a village in the heart of the forest. There is no silence here, the forest is filled with clanking and ticking of steam driven machinery cutting down trees. Vibrations shake the earth beneath my feet as the miners drill deeper and deeper under the ground, searching out new veins of precious metal. The sound of metal against metal fills the air near the blacksmith’s forge, ribbons of black smoke curl as they rise from the rooftops.

Today is my eighteenth birthday. Mother says I shall leave now to visit Grandmother in the Cottage. Mother has been up all night sewing me a hooded cloak, the colour of ripe red berries, the colour of my left eye. The one the villagers say is cursed and evil. Mother says it’s nonsense, that it means I will always see the truth of things. I have always been the finder of things, keys, coins, cogs and jewellery. Mother says I could find a diamond in a snow storm or weed out all the lies the peddlers spout and find the truth hidden in pretty words.

Today I leave the forest forever. I leave Mother, our small house and head to the city like my father did before I was born. I have been chosen to go to Grandmother as Father was before me, as so many were. Mother refuses to talk about it, she will only say that those chosen go to serve Grandmother in the Cottage and never return. She fears the truth I will see no matter how honeyed the lies she might speak.

Mother refused to walk with me to the platform. I stand with three other villagers, two girls and a boy, each of us carrying a basket filled with gifts for Grandmother, shiny copper and brass springs and cogs with decorative scrollwork, some with tiny chips of precious gems, and golden threads. I grip my cloak tightly around me the basket heavy over my arms. Leaning against my boots is a worn leather satchel, filled with what few belongings I own. The train whistles before pulling to a stop at the platform, plums of steam bubble around the black engine as the breaks sigh.

A man leaps out from the train a book and pen in his hands. Brass goggles obscure his eyes, he is smartly dressed in a navy uniform with highly polished scrollwork and gears decorating his chest. His left hand is mechanical, a clockwork construction of brass. I tilt my head to catch the faint sound of gears turning as the man examines the clockwork pendants each of us wear. The pendants are the sign of the chosen grandchildren. I am forbidden to tinker with mine though it lies warm against my skin and makes my teeth itch.

to be continued....

************************************************

Ok that's the first half, I have another paragraph written and extensive notes for the rest of the story I just need a harpy on my back to get me writing again.

the red necklace - a story

The Red Necklace
a story by Apryl Lowe

Lord Lucian lived in a beautiful manor house in the countryside. His coffers were filled with gold and silver, silks and spices, and the finest jewels in the land. The rooms of the house were filled with art, beautifully crafted furniture, Persian carpets, silken walls, ancient artefacts and heavy leather bound books.

In the gallery hung a series of portraits men and women, the men were all darkly handsome and beside each man, a woman with sad eyes dressed in rubies and silver.

A young servant fell in love with his master’s bride to be. He wooed her with roses, and peppermint creams. He asked her to run away with him and she agreed.

He crept into his master’s chamber and stole a necklace of black metal and glittering diamonds.

The young man wrapped the necklace of diamonds around her slender neck. Together the young lovers ran through the twists and turns of the great house. They ran and ran but each turn brought them back to the same hall, the same carved door at the end of the house, the master’s bedroom.

The door opened on silent hinges and as it did so the servant’s bride collapsed to the floor fingers digging at her pale neck, colour fading from her cheeks, terror shined in her eyes.

The diamonds around her neck bit deep, a thousand glittering teeth biting into pale flesh. Drops of crimson blood dripped down her neck as the necklace cut deeper, the diamonds colouring the pale pink of new dawn. Her lover pulled at the necklace, rough fingers tearing at the delicate necklace. He watched with silent horror as the life bled out of his love.

The diamonds turned to blood rubies. He held his bride’s cold body crying silent tears. Lord Lucian stepped from the shadows, silver and black cane glinting in the muted light before it crashed down onto the servant’s head. Lucian laughed as he tore the glistening ruby necklace from the bride’s throat.

As the servant lay in a growing pool of blood, his fingers grasping at his bride’s cold fingers. Lord Lucian opened the door at the end of the hall. The room behind was bathed in light, in a chair sat a woman in a white silken gown, her long golden hair piled atop her head, pale skin, sunken eyes that stared lifelessly at the servant. The corpse bride’s paper dry lips were peeled back in a pearly white smile.

Lucian stepped behind his bride and wrapped the gleaming ruby strand around her lifeless neck. A whispering noise filled the room, a sound of dry leaves and death, the sound of the corpse bride laughing. And as the corpse laughed the blood drained from the stones, until once more diamonds shone and the corpse flesh filled out, golden hair shining in the candle light, black eyes shining, skin a delicate cream, cheeks a delicate rose. Lord Lucian kissed his beautiful laughing bride as the light faded from the servant’s eyes.

notes: When I was small and if we were very good we could choose to listen to a story tape with massive black headphones and turn the pages of thebook at the beep. My favourite book was the halloween themed one, possibly a Dark Dark Night and other stories that had Bluebeard and The Velvet Ribbon. The Velvet Ribbon was my favourite, the tale of a man and his wife who always wore a velvet ribbon around her neck. He would ask her every day to take the ribbon off, and she would always say no. One night he pulled the ribbon from her neck and her head tumbled to the floor. There is no beheading in my story but it was inspired from the tale of the velvet ribbon, which is sometimes yellow and sometimes red, green or black depending on where you are, I just added a few twists and a little more sparkle and Bluebeard to mine. The story had been in my head for awhile so I wrote it, and painted it (sorry about the poor quality of the image, I'm not used to this camera yet and it isn't as sharp as the old one).

Day 15 — A fanfic

I have read a few fanfics but on the whole I don't read all that many, and have written only a few which are probably quite terrible (no definitely terrible)but I figure that is was fanfics are for right?

I supposed the very first fanfic i wrote was when I was eleven or so and reading The Secret of the Unicorn Queen books. I loved the books to no end but they used the trope of the main character Sheila stumbling into an alternate verse where magic exists, she is loved, and fights the evil in that world then returns home leaving the friends who love her, the magic, and her pet unicorn, she left her pet unicorn and went home to her mundane life.

I hated the ending so I re-wrote the ending so that she went back to live in the magical world that she belonged in with her pet unicorn and everything was magical. I left the book with my written end of the story at school one day and someone stole it from my desk. I still carry a grudge about that.

Chimera Book and Writing Group

A few weeks ago I lamented to Frizbe that I have always wanted to be in a book group, but never have because I have never been the sort of girly girl to sit and read Oprah's book club books about soppy modern romance, or tale of horrific childhood trauma. Books should be something that you fall into the world of the author, that you love, and that take you far far away from the mundane normalcy of everyday life. In my case a tendency towards dark other worlds, inhabited by aliens, demons, vampires, and other inhabitants of the night.

We talked about books and books groups and the great writing course we went on together last year. We sipped lattes and put our heads together, there were no book groups in Ripley, alternative our otherwise, and there should be. So we thought about starting our own. Frizbe took our idea and ran with it, she pestered Ripley's Librarian for information and book lists and found a slot on Tuesday March 3rd to hold the meeting at Chimera, the games shop she and her husband own in Ripley. So as of Tuesday the 3rd I will be in a book and writing group with real people (or possibly just me Frizbe and whoever else she can pin down to attend). eek!


Where: Chimera Shop Church Street, Ripley, Derbyshire
When:Tuesday 3rd March 2009
Start time 19:30-21:30
Cost: £2.50
What to bring: Your notepad, a pen, and a favourite book
genre: its an alternative book group, so horror, sci-fi, manga, graphic novels, etc....

for more information have a look here



Hmm do you think I should bake something to bring?

a short post about a forgotten teapot

I haven't forgotten about posting today, I have been working on something for awhile now, its not finished but it is something very close to my heart. Its a story, a fairy tale to be more accurate, its not complete but if you would like to read what I have so far, please visit here my often abandoned writing blog.

It started as a blog for drabbles, and now its whatever random bits of writing I can muster, if you look at the dates of the posts you will see a lot of cobwebs. I haven't added anything to the Teapot Nebula for a very long time. But now it has part I of The Poison Apple Tree. And if you need some imagery to go with the story than look here.

Amanita muscaria

Amanita muscaria- toadstool

Yes I have been painting again, I just love painting on books pages, there is something romantic and pretty about it and don't forget that element of recycling. I Have parceled all my storybook pages off with M to the studio to be scanned for future prints, and to sort out some mounts and then with a bit of luck I want to put them in my Etsy shop. I'm not sure how to price them yet, originals or prints, but I'm really proud of them, I look at them and think that they are something that I wouldn't mind in a frame on the wall and I think that's about the best compliment I can give them. I'm not the most confident of people, I'm not very popular I'm not cool, and I have never been one to have much self belief, but I actually think these are pretty good. Would you want? would you buy them even?

M says he likes the Toadstools at the top the best, and wants to keep it, or at least a copy, I do to because of the Tolkien quote about Faerie, all of these paintings were made on the pages from a Tolkien book that I got from a library sale last week, I love Tolkien's writing and because the book was so badly damaged I thought it would be a great way to mix my love of books with my love of painting. There is something so magical about the written word, I have often dreamed of being a writer, but I have always lacked the discipline to get the stories, and characters that swim about in that dark and cluttered recesses of my mind. I do write things, little drabbles, little bits of stories, and dream, and very rarely the odd poem, no body ever reads the poems though, I am a terrible poet, the rest though I sometimes share with the world, or at least the 2 people that have ever visited my drabble blog. And one of those is probably my dad. I don't often add things as I have been so obsessed with jewellery making and painting the last few months. Perhaps sometime soon I will swing back into writing mode, there are a few things that have been swirling around my thoughts for awhile.

But for today I'll stick with painting pictures on words.T hanks for taking the time to read my blog, to look at my art, and jewellery, and cakes too. And thank you to those of you who take the time to leave a comment, they really do me the world to me. Thank you.

Grizelda the Goose

Rapunzel's Tower

Little White House

Butterfly Blue

Notebook of a Slightly Mad Woman

doodle for a bracelet that I haven't yet made

I have taken up the challenge from Jill at Miaou Crafts to take a few pictures of some of the things in one of my notebooks. Now she shows pictures of her Happy book, I'm not so organized or possibly as happy as that, I am a notebook hoarder though, I hate journals, aside from blogging of course, but have always kept notebooks everywhere, there is always one in my purse, and I covet them fiercely when I see pretty ones in shops or on Etsy. My notebooks are normally a collection of anything from doodles, recipes, knitting patterns, quickly scrawled out story ideas and dreams, and lots and lots of lists. M thinks I should join list makers anonymous.

"Hi my blog is Meridian Ariel and I am a List Maker. " naah It would never work.

Anyway here is random selection of sketches from my current bag dwelling notebook. A peep inside my messy little brain. Aside from a few jotted notes my handwriting is quite awful, I'm pretty sure that only I can read my notebooks for the most part, and wont put you through the horror of my serial killer scrawl, If you are interested in my writing then you can have a peep ad my sorely neglected drabble blog. The Teapot Nebula several of the drabbles were actually roughly written in my notebook first, namely "scene" and "butterfly" and "lunatic" my personal favourite drabble. I really must get to writing more, but I have been having such a fun time crafting...

random doodles of necklaces

lotus blossom sketch that I painted

a cartoon blue heeler

The Deepest Greys are Grey

Ok I have not been on my laptop for pretty much a week and to be honest I haven't really done very much craftwise, knitting wise or even painting wise, but I did go on a one day novel writing course with frizbe last saturday. It was the first time in a very long time that I have devoted a day to me and myself and I. A day to really look at the process of writing a novel and It was a very good day for me with much praise to Daniel Blythe for presenting such a great 1 day writing course. And I actually talked and participated in group discussion. I didn't just hide behind more gregarious and entertaining people. I would have thought that by age 30 I would be able to speak a bit more freely and not be so shy about things but its still such hard work to speak out and make eye contact. Maybe one day I will be a bright and outgowing person, but for now I'm happy to have gone along on the course and spoke a little bit.

Obviously I haven't had a chance to be on the computer, no mumsnet either thank you very much, but I have managed to make some brownies in a haphazard fashion. Meaning I had only two eggs and every recipe I had called for 4, so i used some melted chocolate and cream and they eventually came out great to eat but rather fugly.

We have had a few family days out to the zoo on tuesday, and to York thursday, had a lovely time both days except for the excruiating hour spent at the National Railway Museum in York, H loved it M took aome video of H running around like a maniac from train to train, It was quite horrifyingly, mind numbingly boring but it was cute to watch H looking at all the train engines, its definitly one of those places for granddads to take grandsons and leave mums at home with a nice cup of coffee and a few magazines.

I started a new scarf type thing last week but it only has a few rows to it but I like the wool and seem to have a grey thing going on recently. I guess grey is the new black. I'm off to go paint I think.. or make a cup of coffee, its a very fine line. meh.

Jane of All Trades

I have been tempted by fate, or cheapness as I have succumbed to the lure of discount book and art supply shop the works and bought a little quartet of small postcard sized canvases. I know silly purchase but its too late now, they were very cheap and now I have to do something with them. I don’t know what exactly but its got to be something. I was tempted by the muse of small canvases and now they must be painted. I’m thinking something in the realm of browns and teals as that seems to be my latest favourite colour scheme. Which all brings me to the thought that I am creative person, but seem to meander about from thing to thing without seeming to find a specific thing that I am good at that defines me. Maybe being a Jane of all trades, master of none, is my destiny, to be a little bit good at some things and not stellar at any one thing.


When I was little the only thing I ever wanted to be was:

1. A writer. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t really count but it’s a step in the direction I want to go in. I think school did have its effect on me, high school and college, as to making me feel more and more jaded about what abilities I thought I possessed. Aside from my obviously atrocious typing skills thank you. My dad instilled into me a love of books and reading which I still have and am hopefully passing on to my own child. Because of me always having my nose pressed into a book my reading comprehension and my writing skills were often advanced of my classmates, and that’s what lead me into quite a lot of trouble with one of my teachers. I was accused of plagiarising my work because it was just too advanced for my age. Complete and utter bullshit but left me with a bitter aftertaste that carried with me a long time. The last paper I wrote for her class before transferring she had to get a college professor to help her read it. Honestly no wonder the state of the American school system, mind you its not that great here either. And don’t get me started on the ass that taught English in college, or the fact that I could never ever get into any of the freaking creative writing classes anywhere! But I’ m not bitter really.

2. an archaeologist/ anthropologist as my father gave me a love of history. There was nothing I loved better than to sit and watch a history show on tv with my dad and listen to him argue with the facts. Which come to think of it didn’t help me a lot in school when I had a tendency to argue with my teachers who insisted on teaching dumbed down cherry tree sorts of history. That dream was shattered in University by the horror of having to take cultural anthropology with an incredibly pompous professor that only seem to regurgitate over and over again tales of his getting drunk with the local people of South America. I was SO not interested.

3. An artist. But very vaguely defined, I have the vision just not the real talent, at least in that respect I have always had good art teachers, and loved art history as well. I’m just not very disciplined at art or writing. My own worst enemy sort of thing, Cleaver enough to get by but a bit to cleaver for my own good and utterly unambitious and lacking in drive, and self belief. But enough rehashing of old issues for this post. For now I shall try to me a good Jane of all trades, happily baking, cooking, painting, gardening, knitting, and hopefully writing and get on with things. Its late, I’m tired and Dr. Who is on in five minutes. Which still leaves me with four little blank canvases to paint.