Projects On The Go!

I finished making Christmas cards last night but I still have several things on the go at the moment - I'm working on three little  garden landscape collages (nothing to do with Christmas!) based on some of the mini collages I've done over the last few months (see here) - I rather liked the colours and knew I wanted to continue working in those sorts of shades. 

In the background some Christmas coasters are drying after having their last coat of varnish - I decoupaged them as small extra gifts for some family and friends.  What the picture doesn't show is almost every pot of glue and paint that I own 

were used as stands for this mass varnishing event - 24 coasters in total!  I really should have put the sewing machine away to give myself more room but it has been taken out as I need to make a pair of curtains - if I put it away again they'll never get made! 

I'm joining in with Sarah over at WOYWW this week.

Lanscape collages II

 These landscape collages are a continuation from last week's post where I randomly picked the words 'landscape' and 'brown' from my prompt jar as a starting point for a series of collages.  I decided to carry on with the theme and use up some of the papers I had made, this time working a little bigger and marking out 6 squares in my sketchbook instead of 9.  I think I might work into these a little more but will wait a while and think about it!

I worked these directly into my sketchbook and at some point during the process I decided to work both vertically and horizontally - I wanted to move away from the horizontal horizon line in each one.  However I think individually or paired up  some look better rotated.  Below are the collages as made in the sketchbook and   above are the pairings which include the 4 rotated ones.

I am linking up with Sarah over at WOYWW this week.

Mini Grid Collages - Landscapes and WOYWW

It really has been a struggle lately to find the motivation to be creative - I've had a lot of other things going on and and my studio has been sadly neglected.  However I decided to use my little pot of prompts and this set of mini collages developed from the theme of landscapes and the colour brown - two prompts that so nicely went together!  I have a feeling I'll continue with this as I enjoyed the colours so much and have an awful lot of left over home made papers!

 

I'm linking up with Sarah for WOYWW this week.

Little Foggy Garden Embroideries and WOYWW

 I've finally got round to finishing the little 'foggy garden' embroideries that I was making in my last post and I've attached them loosely to my sketchbook - I'm not yet sure if they will stay there or if I will do something with them. 

Not a desk shot but this is a corner of my studio that just had the late evening sun hit it while I was up there - it made the glass jars sparkle so I grabbed a photo before the sun went down completely.

 I'm joining in with Sarah over at WOYWW this week. 

Embroidery Mat and WOYWW

A few years ago I picked up a wool ironing mat from a crafting/quilting fair -it's been brilliant and I use it all the time when I'm sewing - among other things it's a pin cushion and a place to pin little scraps that I'm working with.  The downside is that I often pick up fibres from it while sewing and end up picking them out of the embroideries with tweezers!  So this week I decided to cover one side of the mat with some smooth cotton fabric.  I blanket stitched it all around the sides - this means the covered side can be used for sewing and I can flip it over for ironing - the embroidery doesn't get flattened when ironed face down on the wool side.

 I'm sewing my way through some more little garden themed collages - we get a lot of sea mists in the mornings living so close to the water and I love the way the garden peeps through in such lovely soft muted colours.  

 

The corners of the mat were a bit hit and miss and are all different, giving it a very individual look!! 

I'm linking up with Sarah over at WOYWW this week.

 

 

Garden Shadows

 I've been working on a few mini collages based on shadows and shapes around my garden at dusk - always one of my favourite times of the day in the summer.  My garden is on two levels and has steps to the top garden but also lots of smaller steps from one area to another, little walls, and lots of paths - a great variety of shapes and textures to work with! These little collages are approximately 2 inches square, and after staining the backgrounds I added hand embroidery and collage papers, finishing off with gold leaf which I discovered is very tricky to attach to fabric!  

 

I'm linking up with Sarah for WOYWW this week.

Embroidery and WOYWW

I've recently been making a few cards and enjoying the process of dyeing the backgrounds and embroidering the flowers - it's very relaxing.

A while back I came across a holder for embroidery thread bobbins and decided it would be ideal to separate and hold the colours I was currently working with. I just couldn't justify the rather high price of it so the Hubs made one for me - it does the job and keeps the spools tidily in one place while I'm working.   This holds 7 bobbins - a perfect size as I rarely need that many at a time, and I also didn't want it to take up too much room on my desk. 

After 15 years of running WOYWW, Julia has decided to pass the baton on to Sarah.  A big thank you to Julia for all the wonderful work she has done keeping the blog hop up and running for so long - she's done a tremendous job but is now off enjoying a well deserved Wednesday rest and new directions.  So hello to Sarah, and an appreciative thank you for deciding to keep this group going!  

I'm linking up with Sarah over at WOYWW

Collages and Stitch

This week I've been keeping the creativity going and out of the prompt jar came the theme of Samplers and the colour Orange.  I chose to do a different embroidery stitch on each little collage square, and I'm using bits of dress pattern and some vintage embroidery transfers that I've had for absolutely ages! Still a few squares to go, and in case anyone is wondering what the sellotape is for, I use it to hold down the threads on the back when starting and finishing, instead of using bulky knots.

 

 My prompts are written on different colours of paper to depict themes, colours and techniques.  I haven't used the technique prompts yet, they are an extra help if I feel uninspired!  I know a couple of people have wanted to know what my prompts are so for anyone interested here are the lists.

Themes: birds, tree houses, seasons, landscapes, maps, text, gardens, samplers, beach, shadows.

Colours: red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, neutrals, pink, grey, turquoise.

Techniques: tissue paper, wax, metallic, stencils, teabags, stitch, watercolour, pastel/chalk, photographs, die-cuts

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week

Mini Collages

I have recently been making little collages and have found them very enjoyable to do and also quite addictive.  To get myself organised I decided to make some grid stencils.  It's something I was taught to do in an art class many moons ago at college, and it's a useful way of displaying small samples of textiles, textures, techniques and so on.

These are A4 and fit my sketchbook perfectly - it's neater and quicker than trying to approximate the grid squares or re-measure each time. I made several different sized grids and the effort it took to work out the measurements and cut them out is more than worth it!

This week I picked the words 'Maps' and 'Turquoise' from my prompt jar and have spent a little time each day putting ideas down onto the collage grid.  

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW

Kickstarting Creativity!

 Making small collages for the last couple of weeks has been a good way to kickstart my creativity.  However, sometimes I struggle with what to do with the blank piece of paper in front of me - so I've come up with a prompt jar.  I've written colours and themes on different coloured paper squares and I can dip in and get a starting point for my next collages.  I've thrown a few 'techniques' into the mix as well in case I'm really stuck!

This week I picked out 'yellow' and 'tree houses'.  The combination didn't exactly thrill me and I was tempted to re-pick, but that's not really in the spirit things.  I also felt week one was a little early to give up on the idea, so I went with it and started enjoying myself!

12 little squares being worked on - a mix of home made collage papers, some wrapping paper and a few old postage stamps thrown in - and a bit more of an emphasis on ladders than I was expecting!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

Mini Grid Collages

 I decided to try and kick start some creativity this week by creating a grid of 6 little collages.  I was recently inspired by Angela (@Felix the Crafty Cat) to make my own collage papers.    It's been fun and quite addictive - I'm already planning my next lot of collages! 

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

Silver Acorns

In my previous post I showed some silver pendants in production stage that I was making for Christmas presents, and here they are finally finished - all given and well received!   The tiniest one was very fiddly, it's only about half an inch long but it was for my sister to wear alongside an oak leaf that I had made for her a while ago.

Sitting on my desk this week are some prints that I did at a photo printing workshop several years ago.  I brought them home and promptly lost them - it's always niggled me that I never knew what happened to them.  Well this week  they fell out from between the pages of one of my old craft books that I apparently don't look at very often!  They aren't as nice as I remembered - the more frustrated I got at losing them the nicer they became in my mind!!

I can't remember how we made them but it involved real leaves, photo paper and plenty of shaving foam and sudacreme!  Now I'm sitting looking at them wondering if I could use them for anything - the mind is a blank at the moment!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW.