Crafting Record Sleeves

Task for today... Miss Franny is a bit of a dab hand when it comes to crafting. Cards, shopping bags, gift bags and all that. Today though I have taken over the mantle of master crafter...

I keep going through all these 78 rpm records and finding ones that either have no cover at all or that once had a cover that is now two or more pieces of decidedly limp and tatty paper...

I had a look on t'Internet and found that with the amount I'm likely to need I can't afford the snazzy reproduction sleeves with some of the old designs on. What? Yes I know I said I'd feature some and I will. Just don't hold your breath ok? And if you were holding your breath I suggest you release and take a few fresh ones... I'll get round to it. There's a few more shop advertising sleeves that I've come across too.

Anyway I decided to have a go myself so with a roll of brown paper and a roll of double sided tape, I'm off and running. I started out trying with a glue stick. They are just as blooming useless now as they were when they first came out in the 60s... They are ok if you want to stick something on a firm surface for no more than 30 seconds. For anything longer than that, forget them. Plus they are incredibly messy anyway. Still, in 30 seconds or so the pencil should just come off the table...

My first two efforts! Just another couple of hundred should do it...

It's Been That Sort of Day...

And this is before I opened it...

I started the day full of good intentions to strip the remaining wood board panelling from the entrance hall, the stairs and the landing.

Once I gathered all the tools, I realised that the battens that the panelling is fastened to go all the way up to the ceiling, which is a bloody long way up above the bottom of the stairs. My stepladders don't do stairs...

I could tear and twist at the bottom I thought, but then the battens are only 1/2 inch square and would probably break off leaving a bit at the top. In any case there would be huge holes ripped out of the plaster where the rawl plugs are fixed...

So I abandoned the idea and resigned myself to a day of fun...

"You can plaster the holes you left in the hallway then," Fran said logically. I hate logic. I hate D-I-Y too but I did have some plaster in the outhouse.

So I spent a couple of hours filling up holes, smoothing out cracks and knocking out a load of loose plaster in the ceiling corner near the door. I actually managed to replaster that too. I was quite impressed with myself...

Not quite sure how I'll deal with all the lumps and bumps yet but plenty of time for that next week or the week after.

So thought I'd open a bottle of wine to celebrate my success and felt drunk before any of it passed my lips...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Lois Maxwell - the Miss Moneypenny. R.I.P.

Call That A Shelf???

Ok, so it sags a bit in the middle - that's a legacy from the day these planks stood where a radiator now stands!

Dare I say I lifted it and said to Fran "Is it straight?" before drilling for the angle bracket? No I daren't! Who wrote that?

Anyway that's why there was no entry yesterday, we spent the day trying to get back to rights after the central heating being done.

If anyone in the Blackpool area is thinking of having new central heating installed by the way, I can thoroughly recommend Read and Errington, who were quick, efficient and who managed to install pipes, radiators and a combi-boiler with the minimum of fuss in 3 days flat!

D-I-Y - Destroy It Yourself

I've been reluctantly forced into a spot of D-I-Y.

My motto is normally D-D-I-Y and for very good reasons but in this case it was more a case of destruction than doing...

Ever since we moved in here, the hallway has been somewhat hideously cladded with wooden panelling of the cheapi-board variety. It's meant we never had to bother decorating the hall and stairs and landing apart from painting the door frames but now, with a new central heating system about to come in I needed to clear the walls so radiators could go in.

There will need to be a spot of restoration work now to fill holes in the plaster where wall plugs have held the battens for the boarding.

In the photo, boarding is still on the left and may yet stay - it covers the space under the stairs where there is too much junk to have it on show... The new uncovered wall is on the right.

It's just Tigger's sense of humour that she is looking at the boarding trying to make you think that that is the new bit...