Playing with Texture Paste

I've had a busy couple of weeks where I just haven't had the chance to do much arty crafty stuff, but I needed a couple of cards for this month, so that made me sit down and do something!
While having a clear out recently I discovered a few pots of texture paste that I have never used so I thought this would be a good opportunity to try them out - luckily they hadn't dried out. 

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.

Underwater Birthday Card

I've had a bit of an unplanned blog break but at last I'm getting back into the swing of arty crafty stuff, and to start off I made a birthday card for my brother-in-law.  He used to be a dive instructor, so I wanted something with an underwater theme! 

 The card below is the first attempt but I didn't like the bright blue micro-beads that I had added - they seemed a good idea right up until the moment I threw them on the wet glue!  

I am joining in this week with What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday.

Coral Dreams - A Boat Full of Treasures for Paper Artsy

I was so thrilled to be asked recently to do a blog post for Paper Artsy, on the theme of stencils.  

The finished piece was a little boat surrounded by coral and filled with seashells and other special treasures!  Step by step instructions and information on the techniques I used are on their blog here.

 

Coral Embroidery

For WOYWW this week I've been making my own yarn (or cord) for collages.  My friend Jane showed me how to make it, and I made some in a soft but deep red for the work I've been doing on coral - for anyone interested my last two blog posts are about my ongoing 'coral' project. 

 Using an embroidery foot on the sewing machine you simply zig-zag along a fairly thick strand of wool (or several strands), keeping the wool taut front and back.  It's very effective with contrasting cotton threads, or metallic threads and wools. 

You can see the difference between the thick wool and the strands that have been zig-zagged over - I went over some of it twice as I wasn't very even with the zig-zagging - but it was my first attempt!

Work in progress...

 I decided to use some of my cord in a small embroidery that is going in my sketch book. Using embossed velvet as a background, I then used machine embroidery over pieces of vintage lace and crochet, and then machine stitched the thicker yarn I'd made on top.  I still have beads to add, and probably some more embroidery and lace. 

If you would like to know what WOYWW is all about why not pop over there to see what other people have on their desks this week.

WOYWW #246 - Red Coral and Gelli Printing

After a long period of artistic inactivity I decided gelli printing might kick-start me again!      I do love coral and have used the theme in quite a lot of art work over the years.  I used some wonderful coral stencils from the Crafters Workshop that I've had for quite a while but not got round to doing anything with (familiar story?), but I am also in the middle of designing and cutting my own as I also want some slightly smaller, simpler coral shapes.  

Why not pop over to WOYWW to have a snoop at other people's desks - it's fun!  

Focus On Life Week 27

For the Focus On Life challenge over at the Studio Sublime the prompt for this week was 'texture'.  Ooh, so much to choose from, but finally I focused on a large lump of coral that has been out on my desk while I've recently been doing some coral design artwork.  I decided to photograph it against some old antique lace as it has a similar delicate, lacy look but is so completely opposite in texture.  It's surprisingly rough to the touch for something that looks so 'spongey', and it's actually disappointingly unpleasant to hold considering it's so beautiful!   

Summer of Color week 2 and ICAD

For this week over at Summer of Color the colour scheme is hot pink and orange.  I decided to combine this challenge with the index-card-a-day challenge at Daisy Yellow.  

I ended up doing six cards based on a coral theme - I had to work hard at not making them red as that is the colour I had been using for my coral based work a few weeks ago.

I used gelli prints for the backgrounds and prepared a selection of cards ready to use each day with the backgrounds already glued on.  The gelli prints looked too dark against the buff background so I painted the cards cream.  I then spent about half an hour a day machine stitching, gluing and hand sewing them.

Some close-up shots

WOYWW and Red Coral Embroidery

If you saw my previous post you'll know that I am in the middle of a wonderful embroidery course by Karen Ruane and I am having great fun.  This week I have been working on a piece of free machine embroidery based on the theme of red coral.  On my work desk is the first page of a sketch book I started a while ago on this coral idea, a selection of red threads and felt beads and a gorgeous piece of silk sari strip that I was desperate to use but it just didn't work with this!

I free machine embroidered the background on dyed cotton scrim, I wove red ribbon through it and then started the hand embroidery - I don't have much more to do but I do want to embroider the felt dome and possibly add another one.

 The design for the little flower was taken directly from the torn out coral picture on my desk - I was going to do several but I wasn't happy with how it turned out so I decided not to.

I am linking up with WOYWW, where people get to nosy about at other people's work desks - it's great fun, why not go and have a peep!

LOVING BLUE

I have just purchased this lovely little bowl from Etsy - it's beautifully handmade by Hodaka Hasebe, and it perfectly matches the little blue bowl I already have (bottom left picture in mosaic).

I am so in love with it at the moment that I had to celebrate it with photographs!

Also on the theme of blue, I have photographed the last of the forget-me-nots in my garden.  I don't think they are the wild ones as they are a more pastel shade of blue - they have given such a wonderful splash of spring colour I shall be sad to see them die back.

I am linking this to Mosaic Monday and Color Me Weekly.

I have also found a new place to play at Blue Monday, so I thought I'd link to that as well - as the name suggests it is all about capturing the colour blue and there are some great pics to go and look at!