Loving Ginkgo Leaves and WOYWW

It's that time of year again - time to gather up stray leaves that have fallen from a neighbours beautiful Ginkgo tree and press them for future projects! There's something so appealing about the shape of a Ginkgo leaf.  However they are rather delicate to work with so I needed a Ginkgo leaf die too! This one also embosses the leaf with veins but I've managed to completely erase them with my enthusiastic layering of crackle paste, glossy accents, antiquing cream and Metallic Lustre! 

They are both on MDF bases and the blue one is going to be the sturdy cover of a small journal I'm planning on making.  I had two ideas swimming around in my head so had to try both out - I think the blue one wins!

Happy mistakes - I accidentally dripped some dirty paint water onto the little pipe stems and I rather like the resulting splodges so I added more to both stems and leaves!

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

Beach Collages and WOYWW

 I really don't do the beach in summer, although I do spend many hours at our local beach out of season and love it.  Somehow the three little backgrounds I had left over from last weeks collages just screamed 'seaside' at me, helped along by me finding a piece of sea pottery with a pretty wave pattern on it! 
  

It also gave me the perfect opportunity to use more of my old clay pipe stems - they make a perfect breakwater!  The gold foil I used on all three is not showing up very well in the photos but in one of two of these detailed shots you can see the light glinting on the gold of the coral, the sea glass and the stamped seashell.

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

A Special Birthday Card

It's been such a busy week but I managed to find time to make a card and matching tag for my husband's birthday tomorrow.  I wanted something that wouldn't be too flowery, so I added a rusty washer and some clay pipe stems!

I'm linking up with Julia over at What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday to see what other people have been doing this week.

Winter Pods

I've been slowly working on a collection of little decorative seed pods using silk cocoons. As my collection grew I struggled to find a way of displaying them, and then walking past a bowl filled with pot pourri, I noticed this large seed head - perfect!!

As well as the silk cocoons I used felt, wire, beads, clay pipe stems, cinnamon sticks, eucalyptus bark, wired beads and pleated silk, plus a few touches of glitter for a frosty effect.  

So that's what is sitting on my desk today and I'm linking up with Julia over at What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday to see what other people have on their desks this week.

Paper Artsy - Grunge Paste Challenge

 The latest Paper Artsy challenge is to use Grunge Paste,and over on their blog I was inspired by Liesbeth Fidder's mosaic with it's beautiful frame looking like stained glass.  This gave me the idea to make a garden path, with some old pieces of sea-worn pottery, using Grunge Paste as the grout.  I also used it with rusting powder and stencilled it on the background papers.  I added antique clay pipe stems, wire and beading, threads around the wires, hand embroidery and a tiny needle-felted birds nest.

I wanted to create the feeling of moving away from winter, and to show the subtle changes as Spring arrives, growth coming up from below, little hints of greenery, the green beads replacing the white frosty ones and of course the birds nest with little pieces of green moss and lichen.