Winter Garden Ring Box and Paper Artsy

As soon as Paper Artsy announced that their next challenge was to create a piece of miniature art I knew what I wanted to do - I have a collection of old ring boxes and I wanted to make a winter garden with one of them!   

I used old linen, twigs from the garden, pearl beads and matte glass beads, seed heads, wire with beads on the end, and a vintage pearl button.  I also used a little Treasure Gold around the edges of the ring box and on the twigs to give a soft shine when the light catches them. 

More of my Winter Garden art can be seen here, and why not pop over to

 Paper Artsy to see their beautiful and inspirational miniature art - I was inspired by the little village on a rock, and I wanted to create my own tiny individual world.

Winter Garden Seed Heads

On my desk this week is a collection of seed heads and dried flowers taken from my garden - I've been using them as inspiration for the series of works I've been doing on the Winter Garden - you can see some of the work here.

I have also glued some gelli printed deli papers onto A5 handmade paper ready to collage and embroider. 

 I am linking up with What's On Your Work desk Wednesday so why not pop over and have a nose at what other people have on their desks this week!

Winter Garden and Embossing on Velvet

I am continuing my Winter Garden theme and decided to dig out the iron and do some embossing on velvet.  I embossed some twig stamps and some old vintage crochet onto the velvet and used some handmade paper as a base.  I embroidered over the velvet and paper with machine embroidery and added vintage lace and beads. 

You can see the embossing in more detail here - the top left photo shows embossing with the crochet mat and the top right photo shows embossing with the rubber stamp - still with a little left over brown ink on it from the last time it was used!!

For anyone interested in embossing on velvet I have a couple of old blog posts here and here of more velvet embossing I've done, with a link to instructions - it's very easy and definitely the best fun you'll ever have with an iron!

I'm linking up with WOYWW this week and hope you'll pop over and see what other people have on their desks!

Paper Artsy and gelli printing

The latest Paper Artsy Challenge is to use paint, and I was inspired by all the wonderful artists over there to get my paints out and play - so I decided to do some gelli printing on deli paper, following my theme of the winter garden.  I think these two pieces work quite well as a pair, although I didn't make them with that in mind.

 Once I had picked out the gelli prints that I thought were suitable for what I wanted I glued them onto sheets of A5 hand made paper and then they were ready to be embellished with collage material, beads and embroidery.

This is the paint through the holes in the stencil - I love how it's mottled and splodgy!

Winter Garden Embroideries

On my desk this week are two little embroideries I've been doing - and they are continuing my theme on the winter garden.  I used hand made paper as the base and added sari silks, glass beads, freshwater pearls, metallic threads and printing.  I wanted to give the idea of awakening - new life pushing up through the dormant layers and the hard, spiky frost.

 I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW - why not pop over and see what other people have on their desk this week.

White Winter Garden

I have just finished another piece of work in my sketchbook this week, based on the winter garden theme.  The whole page is very sparkly and glittery but unfortunately the camera just didn't pick up any of the sparkle.   

In detail the shiny stuff includes glitter on texture paste, tiny diamonds, iridescent thread and little dots of Perfect Pearls.  Non-shiny stuff includes twigs, white feathers and tiny scraps of rubber stamped Tyvek - there's a little bit more info on this technique here.

 I am linking up with Julia over at WOYWW, and also with Paper Artsy for their current challenge 'shiny stuff'.