Woohoo, It's Paint Party Friday again!

Good morning you all! Friday again, and that means another Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin. It 's been a windy and rainy night here, still seems to be rather blustery outside, but I slept likle a baby for 9 hours. Yesterday evening I visited my neighbour, and we feasted on cheese, crackers and ProSecco, a wonderful Italian fizzy wine, and It seems to give you a good night's sleep, too. I'm having light problems keeping the key board and screen focused, but I'm taking it slowly! And it's a party!!

Today I am sharing two more of my masks, one in cool blues and greens, the other in warm shades of orange and red. I love painting these faces, divided up into so many colour splashes, and every now and then I just get the urge to paint things in this style, so I do it!

And I made some more tags yesterday. The first one is for the *Spoon challenge* at *Blog Challenge Garden* where you need to make a tag with a spoon - a real one or a picture of one. I have used a spoon which I altered – and blogged – at the end of April. I have mounted it onto a tag, made from the packaging of some Prima flowers, it is a nice weight of cardstock and will not collapse when I put the spoon onto it. I just added a few floral rub-ons. The spoon shows an image of a distant relation taken back in 1916. The spoon is from my cutlery drawer, there are still way to many flying about there that never get used, so one by one they will be transformed....Watch this space!

And the two blue tags seem to be a hangover from the day before, they are just for fun.

That was it for today. Thanks for visiting, have a great day and take care!

Lots of Tags....

Good morning to you all! I hope you all slept well and are feeling fit. It's a windy day here, the trees are all being well shaken, but the weather men said that it will be blowing better weather our way, so let's hope they are right.
Yesterday I had a tag day, which was fun, as I enjoy making them. Over at the *Three Muses Blog* they are celebrating their second birthday, and the theme this week is blues, so I made a set of 3 blue tags in honour of the three lovely ladies who run the blog.

I don't usually work much with blue, but when I do I am always amazed how lovely it is, and what a variety of lovely blues there are, so I think I will try to use it more often. I distressed all of the tags with DI in faded jeans, tumbled glass, stormy skies and chipped saphire.
The first tag has some random tea stamping on the background, using stamps from Artemio and Character Constructions. The table with the lovely tea cup is also from Character Constructions, and has been stamped with archival black and then painted with water colours. I gave the cup a gold rim with an Edding, added some blue floral rub-ons and some tea cup and tea pot buttons.
The second one has been stamped with a beautiful, dressy bird and some some small birds, also from CC. Mrs Bird has been stamped, painted with water colours, cut out and decoupaged. Her hat has a feather on it, and seems to be able to fly of its own accord. I have given her a bow to match her dress, and all the birds have beady eyes. The wings got added just because they were (1) left over from the day before and (2) a very pretty shade of blue!
The third tag has a background stamped again with script and flourishes, and then little boy blue as a motive. I wonder how little boys would react today of their Nannies tried dressing them in an outfit like that? No wonder he doesn't look too happy!

Then I made two vintage tags for the challenge at *The Rubber Cafe* where the theme this week is vintage. This time I distressed the tags in Victorian Velvet and Antique linen, before stamping the backgrounds with my beloved script stamp and some flourishes. Then I added some floral rub ons to both tags. The lovely lady was a freebie from ??? I've forgotten again, she has been printed onto acetate and then fixed to the tag with glossy accents. Added a shabby bow and some beads threaded onto a piece of wire, and some lace and beads at the bottom. Et voilà!

The second tag has a vintage image of a little boy selling doves, I think he looks so adorable! The TH *Adore* adage ticket was just the ticket here.

So, I did make some more, but I think that was enough for today, as I need to get ready to go out, Havea great day, take care, and thanks a lot for visiting!

A family album

Good morning you all!
Yesterday I was totally nerved that Blogger was having attitudes again and making it difficult, if not downright impossible, to leave a comment on other people’s blogs. So I decided to work on my album, which I did, for about 12 hours, and then it was finished….Actually I had wanted to do a little bit each day, but once I had got my teeth into it, I couldn’t stop. I may still do some work on it, but I think I will leave it as it is. I have kept the journaling to a minimum, just written names and dates etc by hand.

I did not want to cover the pages, so I distressed them with antique linen and Victorian velvet, and then stamped the background with my fave script and flourish stamps in Victorian velvet. I did not always use matting. I put some scraps of non-woven fibre material behind some of the pics, or used a paper lace doiley, or just adorned the photo with lace and flowers. I did not have a plan, I just worked each page as it came, so as not to make it too rigid. The photo of my Great Grandma Rachel has been decorated with 5 little baby heads, representing her 5 children and her many grandchildren, great grandchildren – my generation – and the three newer generations which have arrived in the meantime. Then I have put photos of my Mum and me, both taken when we were 9 years old, but 30 years apart. Her photo has been framed with pink lace – thanks Lynne! – as this was her all time favourite colour. I have kept the scrapbook just to these four generations; the next generation will have to make their own. This is just for me.

I had a fun day sorting, cutting, sticking and embellishing, and I think I am pleased with the results. And I can always alter things if something else occurs to me.

Well, that really was all I did yesterday! I did not swallow any pearls instead of pills, nothing strange happened and I even cleared my mess away when I was finished!
Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks for visiting!

The skeleton in the cupboard and other tales....

Good morning you all. Just managed to roll myself out of bed and stagger to the coffee machine to get myself in gear. Had strange dreams all night, and feel rather shattered just now, but I think by the third bucket of coffee I should be fine!
Yesterday I started on 2 more books. One is a concertina book, and the other is just an altered note book. The note book has been painted with gesso and then covered with decopatch paper, that has been flying around here for some years. After covering it I gave it 2 coats of mod-podge to make it a bit more finger-print resistant, added some end papers inside made from the beuatiful bags from LaBlanche, my fave crafty supplier, and added a ribbon with some beads as book mark. Now I have a pretty note and sketch book to take with me and jot down all those ideas which invariably occur when I have nothing to write on!

The second book is a concertina album. The covers are made of wood-board. I covered them first with pages from my antique book, painted them with mod podge, and added the photos when it was quite dry. The photos - of my Mum as a little girl, and my Great Auntie, were both taken in 1918, at the end of the First World War. They have been printed onto trnsfer foil and ironed onto canvas. I frayed the edges a bit before fixing them on, and then added some lace and beads. As the book can be used and opened from both sides, I will have 13 pages to use for phtos, and there are some smaller pages sewn in between, which will be nice for journaling.

I will report on the progress of the album in the next few days.

Then I made something really and truly horrible, ghastly, scary. If you are squeamish, shut your eyes before looking! There's a blog called *Haunted House Designs* where they like ghastly things, a sort of all year Halloween programme. Their challenge this week is to make *necro neckwear*! As the only 2 festivities that get celebrated in my house are halloween and my birthday (both horrible occasions!) I thought it's never to early to start making the decorations, so I'll stop rambling and show you my altered pearl necklace:

It is complete with lots of bones (Alas, poor Yorick!), wobbly eyes, a large red bead to represent gellied blood and a bell to call the dead....And I was wondering why I had bad dreams last night! What did Shakespeare say in *Hamlet* - *I could be bounded in a nutshell, and still think myself king of infinite space, were it not that I had bad dreams!*
(NB - she seems to be awake now if she's using quotes!)
And on this lovely note I will leave you for today. Have a great day, take care and thanks for visiting!

Tags, cards and ducks....

Today is Monday but it still seems to be a right sun day! Looks so lovely outside. Yesterday we had lots of showers in between the sunny spells, I suppose they were necessary, as we have not had enough rain here in the past weeks.
I had a lazy day yesterday, I worked on 2 projects I started the day before, but they have to be kept secret for a few days as they are for a birthday of a friend who occasionally looks in here, so don't want to spoil the surprise.
But I did manage a tag for Hels' *Sunday Stampers*, where the theme this time is diamonds and pearls. I was a bit wary about the pearls, as you know, I swallowed some of them down last week, but this time all went well. I cut a dress form with THs alteration die, gave her a dress out of a piece of white netting, added some bejewelled white flowers to cover up some of her bits and bo(o)bs, a pearl necklace, and a hat. Oh, and a beaded heart charm hanging from her belt. The tag background has been distressed with TH inks in gradient colours, stamped with *Love* all over, and has a few added flourishes at the sides.

It looks likes she's been dressed by one of those awful, modern designers! Poor bride!


And what else did I make? I made a card for *less is more*, but this time it seems to be neither less nor more! I will try again when I am in the right mood!

I will try again when I am in the right mood!
And I made the June Calendar picture for my friend. I gave her a calendar for Christmas, and she gets a page each month to add to it. Up till now I have been late with nearly every one, but June will be able to begin punctually! I am also entering this into the *Three Muses* Eggs Challenge.

The images - both from the *Graphics Fairy* (thanks again!) have been roughly coloured with distress inks and water colours, then clear embossed and cut out and mounted onto a 6x6" background. This will in turn be mounted onto the appropriate space on the calendar!
And I wanted to share with you another picture made in the same way as the masks yesterday, which I painted while sitting watching the ducks at the duck-pond near here:

Well, I think that was it for today. It's time for another bucket of coffee here and then I will do my tour of my buddies<' blogs to see what's new. Have a great day, thanks fo looking, and take care!

Wonderful mail art and presents and Blue Chair Diary Day

Good morning everybody! Well, I am very pleased to say that after several bad nights I managed to sleep through this time, and slept for nearly 10 hours. It was really necessary, and I am sure I will feel the benefit later on when I am quite awake.
Yesterday was a busy, busy day, filled with tidying all the craft drawers and putting everything back in again - tedious, hard work, but worth it - then I have rediscovered lots of things that were lost....
But the nicest part of yesterday was not all that yucky clearing and cleaning, but my POSTMAN

He came yesterday and brought me a beautiful mail art envelope from Donna and another large envelope from Tee. And then my trembling-with-excitement-fingers opened them, and found goodies galore.
From Donna a pair of her wonderful *Dia de los Muertos Earrings* from Mexico, on a wonderful presentation card, and from Tee two things that we swapped - an egg and a mini-book, and loads of other beautiful things to fill the envelope,
So I won't torture you more, here are the lovely pictures;



I have made a separate photo of the earrings so that you can see them better!

And not only did I get all those lovely things yesterday, during the week I got a beautiful book mark made of handmade silk from Julie of Sesenarts
in faraway Australia. The pictures are all in the little slide show, you can set it to view with or without captions.
I just want to say a really huge thank you here to all those who support me, visit my blog, mail me, send encouraging messages when I am down etc. This is so much more than I ever expected here in Blogger Land. We really are a community, and I have found many good friends here. Donna is a wonderful artist, always busy and full of new ideas, ready to start new projects, and Tee is always trying to make things personal, by organising swaps and contests, and making lovely hand-crafted things. Julie makes the most wonderful things from silk, well worth looking at. So If you haven't yet visited these ladies' blogs, it's time!
An now to Sketch Sunday, over at Sophia's *Blue Chair Diary*
I am sharing two masks I made some time back. I have a whole series of these masks in different sizes and colours. They have been painted using gouche colours. For those who don't know them, these are water based colours, which are thicker and have more coverage that water-colours, but are just as easy to work with.

The maks have just been painted using my fantasy, I just like doing them. It was a phase where I painted nearly all my pictures divided up into separate colour fields, I think I must start doing more like it!
I am also entering them into the *Color my world challenge* over at *The cheerful stamppad*
And last, but not least, it just remains to say a huge *THANK YOU*
once again to Donna, Julie and Tee, and to wish you all a happy Sunday. Take care of yourselves, and thanks for visiting, thanks for being friends!

A Cowboy, a Cowgirl and some twine....

Good morning everybody, it's Saturday again! Just in case you hadn't noticed. hope you slept better than I did, I think I will need a lot of coffee before I start feeling human today. Weatherwise it looks like I will be able to spend time on my balcony doing some painting, so that's good.
Yesterday was a really uneventful day. I didn't swallow beads, drink paint water instead of coffee or have any other mishaps. Just started on several new projects, which I can't show yet, as they are not yet finished,so I just have 2 little things to show you today.
The first one is a postcard for GC 102, where we have to use twine on a project. As it is still wild west over there at Gingersnaps, I made another cowboy, who is carrying his lasso over his shoulder. I have used another digi stamp, which I have clear embossed and decoupaged onto a gradient background. I Used a TH tree die-cut, and a Martha Stewart bird punch to finsih it off. I'm afraid *wild west* isn't really my theme, and I have no suitable stamps, so had to improvise, but that isn't a bad thing.

And the second picture is just a bit of fun. I started doodling while I was thinking about the wild west and cowboys etc, and this cowgirl was the result. She has been made in my famous *Five S* technique, then heated, bubbled, and distressed (poor cow!)before I added a bit of background with water colours, stamping and rub ons. And a cow girl needs a hat, so I cut out a hat from a magazine and put it on her head. But I like her boots best! I am entering this as my second take on *cowboys and cowgirls* into GC101.

So that was it for today. I need more coffee! Have a great day, whatever you are up to, and take care. Thanks for visiting, and great thanks to all who left such encouraging comments yesterday and during the week, I do appreciate them very much!