A Late Paint Party Friday and some scrapling tags

I thought I would not be able to post today; Blogger seems to have had major issues today, the posts from yesterday are still AWOL, and I am wondering if they will turn up again!
But today is still Paint Party Friday, so here my efforts for this week. I wasn't feeling good this week, was very down, and painting and crafting are two of the things that help me in such situations.
Putting paint onto paper, however you do it, really is relaxing.
I made 2 paintings on Tuesday, which I randomly stamped with black ink, embossed and treated with perfect pearls, and used them to create die cuts, which I have used in my work this week, which was great fun. (See earlier articles from this week)
And then I made these three paintings. No subjects, just layers of colours. I am still thinking about whether to leave them as they are, or to use them for making embellishments again.

Yesterday evening I painted a canvas before I went to bed. Just lots of layers of colour, I seem to need this at the moment, and this will of course not be cut up. But I still think it needs something to finish it off. Time will – hopefully-tell. Anyone got any ideas?
This week I used a method that I developed in my childhood, and which I now I call *recurring artistic retrograde development*, or, more simply said, the 5 S method – splodge, smudge, smear, spray and scratch!
But it is fun, and it just does me good. Have a try!

And I also managed 3 tags yesterday. The team at *Just for fun* want us to use scraplings this week, so I used three paint cards Yvonne sent some weeks back, and turned them into bright and sunny children’s tags.

These are something quite different to the things ! usually make, but I think we all have to leave our comfort zone sooner or later!
Have a nice (Remains of the) Day, take care and thanks for looking!

Under the sea, play-day and what the postie brought....

Good morning everybody. Looks like nice weather again today, although the weather frogs have been promising us rain and storm. At the end of the day we will know if they were right!
Had a great day yesterday, just played all day, painting, crafting, reading; felt like a fish in water! Which reminds me, that I made a tag for the *Blog Challenge Garden*, theme *the deep*. At first I thought it was a silly theme, but then that lovely Beatle's Song *I want to be under the sea, in an octopus's garden in the shade* started going round in my head, and I was hooked. So, here it is:

I painted the background with turquoise metallic acrylic paint, drew some sea-weed with a felt tip, and added glass splitter as sand, and some shells and fishes I found in my decorations box. The skull was left over from halloween, and the blue fibres were in my stash, too. I wrote the opening of *Octopus's garden* round the edge, and that was it.
Then I want to show you some of the lovely things I have received this week from crafting buddies.
Lynne of *Adorn* sent me this beautiful notebook, tag, and home died lace in a wonderful shade of really hot pink, and the lace is so beautifully presented on a card and fixed with a decorated pin:

The lovely Notebook is next to my lap-top, so I can write down all the challenges I want to do, or things I would like to buy etc. A very big improvement on my flying scraps of paper! Thanks Lynne!
Then I received the coasters from the Gingersnappers Art Coaster swap, which were rather battered as they arrived, but I have tried to fix them as well as I could. Here they are:

Made by Beverly

Made by Kate Burroughs

Made by Sharon Briss of Gingersnaps

Made by Chris Grabb.
Thanks to all four ladies who put so much work into their lovely coasters, and especially to Sharon, who organised and dispatched etc, a lot of work with so many participants!

And here is one more thing I made yesterday. It's a 6x6 canvas, coated with structure paste, then painted with gold acrylic and distressed with stazon timber brown. I used the dragonfly die cut and 4 of the inchies I showed yesterday, and an image from CI behind a TH fragment. The little chain has been made from broken jewelry scraps.

I am entering the canvas into the *Simon says stamp and show* challenge - anything goes.
Okay, this was only going to be a short post today, but it seems to have stretched a little! Have a great day, take care of yourselves, and thanks for visiting!

Inchies, birds and butterflies

Good morning every one! Its another sunny and really warm day here. No pneumatic drills either, the silence must have woken me! Our road looks rather better now, less pot holes, and all the man-hole covers have been fixed properly again, as some of them were rather loose. Yesterday I went to a friend and had a day out, playing cards, going for walks, chatting and eating, so I was really keen to get started on something when I got home.
I painted and stamped some more papers for making die cuts or backgrounds. The first one was painted with orange metallic acrylic paint, then sprayed with home made sprays (re-inkers, water and perfect pearls) before being heat dried, stamped with stazon black and cut up.

After painting, spraying and stamping

Close up....this shows the lovely metallic sheen from the perfect pearls.

....And some pics of the finished die cuts. I have just placed them onto white paper to show them, they will be used on projects in the coming days!


And then I used the small scraps to punch out:

some inchies....

some butterflies....

and some birds.















Fun and easy to make, and now I have a nice set of home made and unique embellies to use in my work. The second sheet is also finished, I will show the pics another day. But this is much cheaper than buying embellishments, and it is fun to make, so have a try! I use a good quality paper to work on, this gives the finished parts a real quality.

And before I fell into my bed, I made a card for the daughter of a friend, who is starting her own shop for fashion accessories in a few weeks. I am calling it *A dedicated follower of fashion*, and will put the sentiment on later when I have found my small alphas!

Here I have kept completely to blue tones, although the cameo looks rather greenish in this light. The dress form (TH) has also been die cut from some of my hand worked paper, and the background stamped with lace and flourishes, all in TH *faded jeans*.

And the last card for *Less is more* - white on white. Well, def, the last one for today!

The flowers have been quilled, the sentiment has been cut using felt. Sorry again for the fuzzy photo, my camera is really playing up!


Tomorrow I will show you some of the lovely things I have received in the post this week. Till then, thanks for looking, have a great day and take care of yourselves!

Variations on a theme with inchies and one more for less is more....

Good morning you all. I was looking forward to sleeping a little longer this morning, but someone outside is playing with a pneumatic drill again, frightening the birds, waking poor old ladies and supposedly repairing holes in the road - sigh - there are enough of them after the last, hard winter!
Yesterday I played with some paper which I painted, stamped, embossed etc. I like to try out my stamps and techniques this way, and it does give me some beautiful paper to play around with. I cut some birds out of it - I love this Sizzix sparrow die - and used the leftovers to make inchies. Then I played with the inchies till I liked the way they looked. Strangely enough, they all ended up nearly the same....
Anway, here they are:

As I said, just playing around, and the cards are very simple, no matting, no big embellishments, but I like them. I am entering them into the challenges at *Spotlight* and *Just for Fun*

And then I made another one for *Less is More*, this time using a TH die cut and corrugated card - grunge meets CAS, so to speak.
The photo is a bit fuzzy, sorry, but the automatic focus on my camera is not working properly, it also seems to be suffering from old age!

I have all the envelopes ready to send off to my 5 winners from my Giveaway last Friday, I will be braving the dragon in the post office with my mail art letters even though I am not St. George!

Have a great day you all, take care, and thanks a lot for visiting, and for all your lovely comments, which really mean a lot to me!

A Mixed Bag for Monday....

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well rested and fit and ready to begin this new week. The weather has changed here, still warm, but overcast and windy. I love listening to the wind blowing in the trees, and watching the braches swaying backwards and forwards and shaking their leaves.
Yesterday I did a lot of crafting - what else? and would like to share three things with you today.
The first is an inchie card that I am entering into the *Size does matter* challenge at *Just for fun* .

I have stamped my Mona Lisa with Stazon black onto some white card and reduced her to 9 inchies. After mounting them, I have made her part of a a rather wild birthday card. Hope she enjoys the party!

The second card has been made for the Poppy Challenge at the *Stampman* Blog.
The stamp used is from LaBlanche. It has also been stamped in Stazon black onto ceramic card, and coloured with water colour pencils.

Inside I have put a poem from Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929) called
*Missing -- Believed Killed: On reading a Mother's letter*. Kennedy was an Anglican priest who was better known as *Woodbine Willy*, because during WWI he used to crawl through the trenches, bringing the soldiers not only spiritual comfort, but Woodbine Cigarettes. Here is the poem:

'Twere heaven enough to fill my heart
If only one would stay,
Just one of all the million joys
God gives to take away.
If I could keep one golden dawn,
The splendour of one star,
One silver glint of yon bird's wing
That flashes from afar;
If I could keep the least of things
That make me catch my breath
To gasp with wonder at God's world
And hold it back from death,
It were enough; but death forbids.
The sunset flames to fade,
The velvet petals of this rose
Fall withered -- brown -- decayed.
She only asked to keep one thing,
The joy light in his eyes:
God has not even let her know
Where his dead body lies.
O grave, where is Thy victory?
O death, where is Thy sting?
Thy victory is ev'rywhere,
Thy sting's in ev'rything.

I will be sending the card in to the Stampman Poppy Appeal.

And lastly, I altered an oval metal tin, which I was given a couple of years back, and has since been slumbering in one of my desk drawers, waiting to be changed....

The tin is made of silver coloured metal. I painted the top with white acrylic paint, which I then stamped with music notes (Stamp is from LaBlanche) in Stazon black. Then I decorated it with flowers and beads, evidently still under the influence of Less is More *White on White*. Although this is definately more than less! But it was fun to make. There is an oval concertina album inside, so I think I will collect some bride pictures and fill it with them.
So, that was it for today. Take care, thanks for visiting, and have a great day!

Sketch Sunday, Less is More and Mothering Sunday

First of all Happy Mothering Sunday to all Mothers. I know this is celebrated on a different day in England, but I am sure all mothers everywhere deserve to be praised and valued for what they do. And a special greeting to all mothers who are alone today, who have lost their children through illness, accidents, wars, or whatever, and to those who have just been forgotten by their families, as I know how this hurts.
It's a sunny and very warm day here, a few days ago we were shivering with icy temperatures and today it's summer. I'm sitting on my balcony, typing, drinking my coffee, and listening to the Church bells ring. A jay and a magpie are trying to get the last remnants of bird food out of my winter feeder - one sits here, pecking frantically, while the other is on a branch, hopping anxiously from one leg to the other and hoping that the other will leave something over....
Today is Sketch Sunday over on Blue Chair Diary.
I have 3 pictures to show. One is a card I made for my Mum back in 1951 - the date is on the back - when I was 4 years old:

The second picture is one also made many years ago, at school, when I was in the fourth year at grammar school. It is a simple pencil drawing of a still life.

And the last one is a sketch I made 2 years back while in Noordwijk in Holland. I bought myself a drawing pad and a black felt tip pen and sketched the view while sitting in the dunes looking down at the beach early one morning.

And now to *Less is More*. The challenge this week is white on white. Sigh! White cards do look elegant, but they are not really my thing. Anyway, I have tried, and made 2 cards, both with an embossed dotty background, white ribbon and some dimensional elements in the form of a rose and butterflies. I did add some embellies - two pearls on one, and some tiny beads on the other; I hope I will be forgiven for these excesses!

Okay, that was it for today. Thanks for looking, take care of yourself and have a great day!

And the winners are....

Hi Everybody, it's another bright and sunny day here, and I woke up very early, but it is nice to be woken by sunshine and birdsong. After drinking enough coffee to get my eyes open, I wrote down all the names of those who left a comment on my blog, and followers got written down twice - which was nearly everybody. Then the names all came into a plastic bucket which had once held popcorn. Things are done in style around here! At least the bucket was clean. Then I persuaded my rather grumpy neighbour to pull out five names, which he rather grudgingly did. Okay, it was only 7.45 and he was still in his PJs, but heck, who wants to sleep too long when it's such great weather? Well, evidently he had wanted to sleep longer.... Oooooooops!
Anyway, the winners are:
Julie of Sesenarts in far away Australia - has won a set of tags
Alex of My Serendipity in Corfu - who has won a set of tags
Lynne of Adorn up in bonny Scotland has won a set of tags
Annabelle of The woods are lovely, dark and deep in Canada, who has won a mini book and
Vicki of The Cheerful Stamp pad in the USA - who has won a mini-book
Congrats Ladies! Nice to see that the winners are nicely spread out over different continents, which is a reminder that bloggers really are an international community, who *visit* and support each other.
I want to say a big thank you once again to ALL the people who have supported me in the past year, and that it is really great to find so many blogger buddies.

I have 5 mail art envelopes ready, one I showed 2 days back, and the others are here. Sorry for the very grotty photos this morning, I got up toooooo early!

As you can see, I need addresses to ship them!
Have great day you all, thanks for playing, thanks for visiting, and take care!