Graphicus July Challenge

This Card is for the Graphicus July Challenge, the theme is "Inspired by the Sea" and the colour scheme "harmonious".

I started off meaning to cover both theme and colour scheme, but somehow my harmonious green and yellow morphed into a very unharmonious turquoise and orange. I still like them together, but it shows you don't have to stray far to lose the harmony. Gosh - that sounds like an answer to the meaning of life as well as a comment on colour theory - I must be in touch with my inner philosopher today.

I started by painting he background in greens and a bit of yellow, then I overstamped it with the seaweed and shells stamp from Elusive Images Underwater plate in 2 shades of teal. The panel is a piece of core'dinations whitewash board, cuttlebugged and sanded, I then stamped some more images from "Underwater" and "Seashell Collage" onto yellow paper using brownish and greeny-yellow inks, and cut them out and stuck them on. These ended up looking orange. I might have another go though and try to stick to harmonious colours next time! Oh, and if any more meanings of life occur to me I'll pass them on, but I doubt they'd be very reliable...

Art journals again- my new addiction...

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had also started a journal at the Mixed Media course at Graphicus back in April. It didn't need much doing to it, and I have now been spurred on to finish it. Here it is, not all the pages photographed very well, particularly the darker ones, so this is just a selection. The thing with this one is, a lot of it is about texture and dimension, hard to capture in a 2D medium like photos!

And can ayone tell me why on earth these photos come out in a column like this? I'm sure I've got them to spread around a bit better before! Very frustrating ....

Oh Sarah! Part two.

My friend Neet posted earlier about her new addiction - Art Journalling. This is me on the same subject. Oh Sarah! You have led me into a new way of moodling my time away!

We were at a workshop at Paddy's yesterday, and under Sarah Anderson's expert guidance, six of us, i.e. Neet, Sue, Cynthia, Sylvia, Lynne and myself, started to create art journals. This is something I have wanted to do and have been dipping my toe into for ages, partly inspired by seeing one of Sarah's journals before and partly by seeing some of Glenda Waterworth's when I was on the Mixed media course at Graphicus. Both very different, both lovely and inspiring. When I was on the course at Graphicus, I started one which I'm very pleased with, the emphasis being on materials and techniques, naturally, as the course was about just that! I think this type of journal is sometimes called a studio journal.

I also started another one a while ago in which I put pieces of work I've done that illustrate a technique, or combination of materials, colours etc, with a full description or "recipe" so that I can reproduce it later if I want. This is probably a studio journal also.

At Sarah's workshop yesterday she got us to take a more playful approach and cover pages with what we liked, what inspired us etc. We made lists - birds trees dogs chocolate etc - then we started by playing like five-year-olds with big splodges of colour on several pages, using Stewart Gill True Colours which have a lovely matte finish and bright strong colour. Then we stamped over them, added doodles, written journalling, swirls, bits of paper, whatever we liked, in other words collage. I absolutely LOVED it! The freedom Sarah gave us was inspiring, and brought out some gorgeous work in all of us. Pop over to Neet's blog for hers (Hickydorums, see left panel). The main thing is (both Glenda and Sarah said this) - there is no need to finish it now! Just start. Put stuff on pages. One day you'll feel like painting, one day stamping, one day cutting out. One day you'll want to journal about the weather, another day it might be chocolate. So What? Just Do It! The feeling of no need to finish today, or even to have an end in sight, is very liberating.

Anyway, here are pics of a couple of pages of the one done at Sarah's workshop. I have just realised that I didn't post about this aspect of Glenda's, so I'll try and get some pics done tomorrow and post them.

This first one is a double page as you can see, the subject is leaves. Sarah cut some out on her Cricut, I Cuttlebugged some, you can see the leftovers at the top, then I used some as masks to spray paint over. I stamped with some Stamp Bug stamps and some Stamp Man ones, a Tim Holtz one and I doodled a bit. I journalled in some words from a poem I wrote years and years ago about the word "leaves" and it's different meanings and here is the page:-

This single page is about birds as you can see. The little bird that is walking across the bottom is one of the first stamps I ever bought, I have no idea who made it or where I got it, it was in one of those bins where everything is unwrapped and cheap. I loved him then and I still do. The rest of the stamps are from my extensive collection of stamps aquired since featuring birds! The postage stamps were provided by Sarah, originally from a car boot sale apparently!

Anyway I hope you like these pages, I'm opff to bed now as I have akshually been wrkg today between jurnalling, modling and bloging, so am pretty tyred, therefore plz xcs splg!

Neet's Clay Mirror

Last week I was at a workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place run by Neet Hickson, a very clever and talented mixed media artist, who is very generous at sharing her knowledge and skills with us all. We had a great time, playing with Makins clay - Plasticene for grown-ups! We used a cheap mirror from that well known swedish shop as a base and made loads of little clay tiles to stick on it. You can also remove the mirror (or just not put it back, as it's easier to work with it with the mirror out of the way) and put in a picture. The clay tiles were imprinted with stamps then coloured over with pearlex or perfect pearls before being attached to the frame. No adhesive was needed, except a little water. I added the beaded fringe myself when I got home, to tie the piece in with other items in the room where it will be hung. I may add some more beads yet. Anyway I hope you like it. Pop over to Neet's blog for pictures of other's work (Hickydorums, link to your left). If you look back many many posts, you will see another mirror frame which I made at a workshop of Neet's, called a palooza, which was made in a very different way, both as beautiful and fun to do as each other.

Ready Steady Stamp challenge

This is something I haven't attempted before - an online challenge - I think they are a brilliant way of getting the creative juices flowing, but I have never dared enter one before! Anyway, here goes. The challenge is on Ready-Steady-Stamp! and here is the link: http://www.readysteadystamp.blogspot.com/

The challenge is an interesting one - there is a list of "ingredients" and they all must be included, along with at least one stamp, but how you include them is open to interpretation. They are: Cats or dogs; black and gold; three different brads; faux-batik technique and a book or newspaper page. Anyway, go and have a look, I'm sure you'll find it intriguing and fun. Oh and they have a rule - no cute. Suits me!

Little Houses

These are some houses I made at a recent Workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place in Prestwich, Manchester. The workshop was called "Down Our Street" and the tutor was Sue Roddis - I just love her quirky approach. She never does cute, but often does whimsical, which is something I aspire to myself but never succeed as well as she does! Have a look at her blog - Jabberwocky - by clicking on the link down the left of this blog. I'm sure you'll love it. We had a great time playing with these houses, everyone did something completely different. Sue had brought in lots of samples to inspire us, and they did. I managed to finish one on the day, and have been finishing off the second and working on the last today - it ended up being a boathouse, inspired by the heron! The door is made of broken up coffee stirrers, thank you Subway, Starbucks et al. There is a tiny drawing of a boat on the horizon - thats as near as I get to freehand! I couldn't find a boat stamp small enough. It's hidden by a reed, just as well!

The dangly key and lock are Tim Holtz's idealogies, most of the stamps are Elusive Images or Paper Artsy, but I also used a Tanda one designed by Jane Daffern which is polka dots, and the image is designed to be variable according to the amount of pressure applied - uneven pressure gives a fabulous uneven result. Clever Jane!

The last one has a little story attached - (for you Paddy) - the big bird is a cuckoo and she has just laid her egg (the top one) in the other two's bird house (nest house?). She's hiding on the roof so they don't know! the trim across the bottom is a little row of beaks, waiting to be filled. Sorry about that, but I like my little rationales.

Keep It Simple Sequins!

By complete contrast to my last two posts, here is a very simple card I made recently. I just love these little fantasy flower stamps from Impression Obsession! The ribbon has black sequins down the middle, which are a bit iridescent, but don't show up too well. I think my next course to go on should be photography - I seem to keep blaming the subject for not photographing well, but I think it might be me who's a rotten photographer.

Mixed Media course

I haven't posted about this wonderful course at Graphicus in Barnard Castle until today. The tutor was the very gifted Glenda Waterworth, and it was every Thursday in April. I really enjoyed it, and my fellow students were great! The travelling was tiring though it was through some of the most beautiful countryside - Rossendale, Ribble valley, North Yorks, Teesdale etc - gorgeous, particularly when the sun shines. I have some photos but they are on my phone and at present I can't get my phone pics to upload!
Anyway, here is a photo (camera) of a piece of work I did on the course - it's Mixed Media of course, it includes various techniques like data transfer, and various media like gels and metallic paints. the subject matter is about an artist who is actually my Dad. He can no longer paint due to illness, but he loved to paint birds among other things. I stuck some objects from his art box onto the piece, and a notebook sketch, a bit of a poem which mentions birds and a father talking to his children, a little metal owl, all things relevant. The black splodge below the kingfisher is a bright blue feather but it will not photograph!

A bit of a change

This is a card I made today before work, inspired by one in Craft Stamper by Kim Costello. I loved her card, but not particularly the main image which was of a little child gardening. This whacky bird house is more my style, I bought it at HSNW. All the mats and layers and the main image are on pre-patterned paper, stamped, distressed, ripped up etc. It's coloured in with Promarkers, which I LOVE - the colours are so clear and no pen marks!

Workshops, May 2009

Here are some of the industrious crafters who came along to my workshops last week, you can see Rita's left eye, Freda and Paddy, Sarah A, Brenda's hands, Sarah C and Moira - apologies to those of you whose photos came out too blurred or who were not there when I took them (Jackie, Lynn and Chris). I think we all enjoyed ourselves, I certainly did, and everyone did some lovely work. Particular thanks to the Thursday group for sharing my birthday and singing to me so beautifully! But thanks to all of you for coming along and being so willing to have a go. There were lots of lovely moments including Brenda shrinking plastic for the first time ever - shrieks of excitement, and a new addiction I feel!

Still here! I've been preparing for a workshop for the last few days, here are some samples:

This is a card I have made for the Graphicus Challenge this month, the theme is Teal and Brick. The teal cardstock and brick red pearl paper were from my stash, I printed a page from Peacock Summer Party CD and cut out the pattern for the left hand corner. I stamped the peacock from the Peacock Glory stamp set, coloured him in with Derwent Inktense pencils and lifted the colour with a water brush, then matted him onto a bit of silver mirri. Then I added a bit of sparkly pen here and there on his tail and some silver peel off corners and strips. The colour added to the background was Ranger Archival Teal and Distress Brick. I am not 100% sure what Teal is, it seems to be several shades of green or blue! So I hope this meets the criteria....

More workshop samples

Here are a couple more samples of cards made for my up-coming workshop. Again, using mostly Elusive Images stamps for all of them, and my fave kit, the cuttlebug, for the green number. Also an attempt to rehabilitate the skeleton leaf, which I'm sure anyone who has been crafting for more than a year or two has in their stash. I still love them! Any size, any colour, bring them back I say! Must go, have some minutes of a local group meeting to type up and email out. More blogging soon!

My First Workshop!

This is a card I have made for a workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place in a couple of weeks. Interesting to do as I had to restrict myself to stuff that Paddy sells, and not just dip into my stash in the usual way! As it happens the stamps are all Elusive Images, and from the botanicals set. Apart from the words which are from Damask Squares I think. I'm not good at keeping words with their "sets" I just chuck them all in a box together and root through when I need words, which to be honest isn't that often. I originally made a card like this with a Lavinia Stamp, the idea being to try and make it look 3 dimensional without resorting to decoupage. No particular objections to decoupage but its not a big thing with me. The darkest flowers are also highlighted with red Sakura Glaze pen, which isn't very obvious on the photo but looks quite good in life. I LOVE Sakura pens. The rest of the colour is Distress ink pads tapped onto an acrylic block and picked up with a water pen to use as water colour. I have made about four other samples so far and need a couple more I think to give people a choice. It will be my first workshop. Ooer. If any of my potential workshoppees are reading this, please be gentle with me! I've done a lot of training before and partly trained as a teacher, but that was vocational training, not fun! Looking forward to it though. Will post some more pics when I get the chance.

Gosh, two in one day!

Following my last post, I remembered that I had photographed some follow-up work I have done. The first is a bound notebook which I made as a small gift for my neighbour Gill. She likes quirky stuff and is quite arty, so I hope she will like this! It was bound with my Zutter bind-it-all which is a very useful and easy bit of kit. The panels are all embossed with cuttlebug folders as before, and the inks are stazon again.

The others are as yet only panels, waiting to have something done with them, but I was pleased with the look of them and will definitely use them soon. I really like the red / gold one and will use that for someone special, perhaps on the front of a card.

Metal Magic

Well as promised here is a write up on one of the workshops I have been to in the last few weeks. This is an accordion book I made at a Sue Roddis Workshop at Paddy's Stamping Place. It was probably one of the best I've been to, the technique gives amazing results. There were about 5 of us there on the day, and we were all delighted with the end result. Sue has repeated the workshop, and is repeating it again in the New Year at Paddy's. The best example is on Sue's own blog, but here is mine. Both sides are decorated as you can see. We used Cuttlebug embossing folders and Elusive Images Stamps. The inks used were Stazon. We got very messy - great! Not great photos though I hope you can see what is going on

I'm still here!!!

Well I don't seem to have had anything worth posting for ages, or have I just been too busy? Too busy I think 'cos I have done some workshops, been to some shows, done some (a lot) of crafting and been to work (a lot) !! Have been making Christmas cards for what seems like a decade (sound familiar?). I took part in a card swap on a forum, which was great fun, and lovely to see all the work done, on the forum album. Here are the cards I received (pink) which is so perfectly made and lovely! and the one I sent (blue). Strange we both picked un-christmassy colours. Was a bit scary because the other members are all avid crafters and expert card makers.

On another topic, several posts ago I mentioned that my friend Eddie had commissioned me to make some jewellery for various of her relatives as stocking fillers for Christmas. Well I finally got them finished and she seems to like them. I hope her relatives do as well. Here they are, three pendants and a bracelet. The pendants are all on stampbord bases, coloured, stamped, sanded, scratched, embellished and finished with beeswax or glossy accents. The bracelet links are stamped and coloured shrink plastic, joined together with spandex thread and finished with silver fixings. Here are pictures:

That's all for now folks, as I have exhausted my limited supply of energy! and my ability / such as it is, to spel and puntuate;

Next time, more about workshops, been to some superb ones at Paddy's.

Chinese Windmills, Peacocks, chips and burgers!

This was a lovely workshop I went to at Paddy's Stamping Place a little while ago, the tutor was Sarah Anderson. It's a lovely idea, Sarah had researched it and gave us a lot of info about the history of these books, which predate bound books. Ours were made with different types of paper, including silk paper which we made on the day from silk coccoon and coloured with spray lustre paints. We also used Glitterati and hand made papers, which were coloured and stamped and glittered and embellished! We added coloured text pages, sparkly chips of plastic and I used Elusive Images Peacock stamps, from at least two of the unmounted plates. Then all the pages were put together, cut or torn to different lengths, and bound with the aid of sticks and ribbons. The finished item was rolled for storage and transportation, as it would have been in ancient times. Then ribbons are added to hold it in its roll and make it look even more glam. Mine is shown in the pictures pinned to the beam in my attic bedroom, where it catches the light and breeze, and spins colourfully and soothingly above my bed. I love it. If anything the back is as pretty as the front! We all enjoyed the workshop, Sarah is very cheerful and knowledgable and we all had lots of laughs as well as learning lots. It was a lovely day, even down to a burger from the sandwich shop and chips from the chippy! And of course, Paddy's shop to browse and buy stuff we NEED at the end of the day.

If we frame Nature, can we call it Art?

This is a thing I've been working on for ages on and off, and have now finally decided that it's finished! Or at least as finished as it ever will be. The idea was to look at images and artwork that reflected nature - who is the artist, us or nature? It's about 50 x 35 cm. The background was made with spray lustre paints, and each of the four larger panels were stamped, embossed, coloured and embellished over Basic Grey papers, using various stamps with a natural theme, then they were mounted on cream card and glimmer paper. The Stampbord pieces down the middle were mounted onto a pre-coloured strip that was printed with a leafy Rollagraph stamp and mounted onto glimmer paper. The Stampbord pieces themselves were pre-coloured, stamped amd triple embossed. Various small items were used to embellish the larger panels, such as ornate brads, die-cut corners, and a small epoxy frame and matching corner stickers. Crystal laquer was applied over various images for emphasis. I'm quite pleased with it, for a first attempt at "Wall art". My Dad is a brilliant artist, so I have a lot to live up to, which has always been a bit daunting, though this is nothing like his work. I shall definitely have another go though! I have just won a Unicorn stamp set from Elusive Images, so maybe I shall use it to make a picture for my little cousin's sixth birthday in December! (Sue, don't read this to Em, it will spoil the surprise!). Anyway, here it is! I'd be delighted to get any feedback.

On another subject, I have a commission to make 3 pieces if Stampbord or shrink plastic jewellery for Christmas presents, so will be putting in some thought about those over the next few days (between working of course) - it's nice to be able to earn a little cash from this expensive hobby of mine!

Manchester Central

I went to the Stitch and Creative Crafts exhibition last Friday, along with lots of other people. I went with Freda and we bumped into several people we knew, and got talking to quite a few others that we didn't know! Crafters are always friendly, especially over a cup of tea! Most people seemed to be enjoying themselves. I'm not at all into needle crafts - neither my eyesight nor my patience are good enough, so there was too much of that and not enough stamping for me, but it was still good fun, and great for embellishments and equipment. I did get some stamps from one of my favourite companies, Invoke Arts. Also picked up a kit to try to make a "paverpol" picture. If it turns out any good, I'll put the result on here! Also picked up some molds for friendly plastic faces, never had much success with that stuff, so I hope the molds will improve my technique. Neet, the demonstrator, was very helpful & encouraging. I'd love to know what other people thought of the show anyway. My biggest bugbear is the cost of parking, travelling there by public transport is just not an option from the out-of-the way place where I live! There's the Happy Stampers show to look forward to soon as well.