Winter Snowdrop Collage

 This week I finished a sketchbook page in celebration of these pretty little winter flowers that are blooming my garden at the moment.

I have one small group of Snowdrops and I'm hoping they'll spread - they originally came from a friend who has sadly passed on but I have so enjoyed making this page and thinking happy thoughts of her.

I'm also getting stuck in to another wintery page - I'm being drawn to that soft sage colour lately  - not a go to colour for me usually but I'm enjoying it and will be using it until I've worked it out of my system!  

  

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

Crackle Paste and WOYWW 600

Wow, it's WOYWW 600th anniversary - what an achievement!

A huge Thank You and a massive Congratulations to Julia for bringing us all together and creating such a friendly, kind and supportive community each week.

 I'm trying not to let the side down but this is the sum total of what I have done this week - using crackle paste that didn't crackle, inks and Glossy Accents.

I was planning on doing a lot more but other situations have arisen and taken up my time, however I decided to photograph it anyway as I could hardly not join in on the 600th episode could I!

Gardening Card and WOYWW

 I made a birthday card for the Hubs this week and decided on a gardening theme.  He's spent most of the week outside preparing the vegetable tubs, making bases for them to stand on, sowing seeds and generally tidying the patio ready for vegetable growing.  I thought the card was quite apt!

I hope everyone is staying safe and well.

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW

Guitar Gift Box and Card and WOYWW

My youngest nephew is very much into his electric guitar and is saving for a good quality amp, so for his 15th birthday hard cash was his gift preference!  Here's the guitar themed card and gift box that I made for him - the box was trickier than I anticipated and looks much better from afar!

 The card was stencilled and I used silver foil to highlight some of the guitar parts - the strings were sewing cotton.  The box was covered in Glossy Accents to give is a high shine with Liquid Pearls and Enamel Accents for the extra bits. 

  

And on a completely different note sitting on on my desk today is a patchwork pin cushion I made - I was taught the technique this week by a very clever friend.  The pink ribbons are only pinned on for effect - a bit too much pink for my taste - but I'm hoping to find some suitable green ribbon at Hobbycraft this morning! 

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

Gardening Mini Journal

Over the Easter break I made a little gardening journal in which to keep all the notes about the garden this year -  with my husband's foray into the world of growing vegetables and his constant quest for knowledge about it on the internet I decided that rather than have piles of little notes and scraps of paper lying around I would make him a journal to collate all his valuable information!

I took the idea from a birthday card I made him recently, which can be found here.

I used Eileen Hull's Wrapped Journal die and decorated it with stenciling using Distress Micro glaze as a resist.  I added real seeds and Glossy Accents for 'water drops' to the front cover and little miniature die cut vegetables to the inner cover. For closure the twig (which is actually a shawl pin) is slotted through two loops of leather held in place with brads.  The signatures are loose but held in place with brown elastic thread so that pages can be moved around or replaced.

The inside front cover has a small envelope which closes with natural twine and I made a page marker out of thick linen thread with a bead and a little pea pod on the end - this is simply looped through some of the elastic binding inside the journal.

I so enjoyed making this and I really could have gone to town decorating it but I was pleased that I managed to keep it fairly understated and simple - the hubs definitely wouldn't want dangly decorations and fiddly bits that might fall off or get in the way!

I am sharing this over at Julia's WOYWW and the 
Mini Album Makers Challenge.

 

Night Garden and Paper Artsy Challenge - Circles

For the Paper Artsy challenge I decided to continue my work on the garden at night and do a page in my sketchbook using circles as the starting point.  

    

I was inspired by the beautiful box decorated by Julie Ann Lee, who used text within circles.  I used Paynes grey and metallic gold acryllic paint with black texture paste and rubber stamping.  The flower image is cut from an old Royal Horticultural Society diary that I couldn't bear to throw away as I knew I'd use the beautiful flowers one day! 

Summer of Colour - Week 1

   This week's colour prompt for this year's new Summer of Colour was Citron Green and Turquoise.   For inspiration I played about with gelli printing using just those two colours, and I then used a couple of the prints for the background.  I also used a stamp I carved of a fern leaf, and added stencilled dots and shapes.   

Some detail shots - showing the 3D butterfly, and details of the background gelli prints.

The two colours haven't quite gelled for me in this mosaic, but I thought I'd include it anyway as I'd done the work on it!   The cat was made by my mum who loved working in clay, the butterfly wing and beetle are from my collection of dead things - isn't he gorgeous!  And as you can see from the Alchemella Mollis in the centre, we've been having a lot of rain! 

WOYWW - Still Gelli Printing!

I have been continuing working on my gelli prints and have been developing the theme of gardens and enclosures.  I have always had an interest in the history of gardens and I love the idea of them changing from practical enclosures for planting food and keeping animals into areas for pleasure and relaxation. 

The stencil/mask is taken from an image of a Sumerian pictogram on a clay tablet dating from 3000BC.  It's an extremely early representation of a garden with a tree planted in the middle of a triangular enclosure.   

'Beyond the Enclosure'

If any one else is interested in this subject I have found some wonderful information and inspiration from two particular books - Penelope Hobhouse's 'Gardening Through the Ages' and 'The Invention of the Western Garden' by Vercelloni and Vercelloni.

I am linking up with WOYWW - why not nip over and see what's on other people's work desks this Wednesday!

Color This Quote

For this months Color This Quote challenge over at Artists in Blogland, the quote to inspire us was:

'Always be a first-rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version of somebody else' 
 Judy Garland

I used Adirondack Colour Wash inks, chalk pastels, and a stencil/mask from The Crafters Workshop.  I used an old Stampers Anonymous rubber stamp as I felt the words 'Aspire, Astonish, Amaze' really fitted in to this months theme, and I summarized the quote in keeping with the simplicity of the image - I didn't want it too 'wordy'.   I have long had a love affair with the colour combination orange and purple, and although this was going to be aqua and brown originally, I am quite pleased that in some totally inexplicable way it turned into orange and purple!

TAG TUESDAY AND WOYWW - EASTER THEME

I wanted to take part in Tag Tuesday this week, but realised it was already Tuesday and I hadn't got a clue what I was going to do.  So I grabbed a chicken stencil I had made a few weeks ago and 'played' for an hour!  

I mainly used walnut ink spray with copper (Moonshadow Mist) and Golden fluid acrylic, with sponges, stencil brushes and splatter techniques.

 I rather like the effect of this chicken with the old paint covered stencil - shame the stencil had to come off!

I can't say it was a resounding success, but some turned out fairly reasonable - my nephews will each get a tag on their Easter Eggs and at ages 6 and 9 they are not too artistically critical of my work!!!

I am linking this to WOYWW - take a wander over there and have a peek at other peoples work desks - the link is on the right. 

WOYWW - STENCIL CUTTER AND EASTER CARDS

For What's on Your Work Desk Wednesday this week I have to show off my new 'toy' - a stencil burner - it's brilliant and cuts stencils in a far more accurate way than the Stanley knife did.  In order to get a quick 'play' with it I cut out a simple outline of a chicken and decided to make some gelli prints.

For the printing I chose to use the colour scheme from the Witch Hazel colour palette I made for 'Colour Me Weekly' a couple of weeks ago.  I found that the printing worked quite well despite mixing Dulux emulsion (and anything else I had) with the acrylic paints, and my gelli plate remained unharmed!

I turned a couple of the prints into Easter cards and added some stitching in the golden yellow colours to highlight the 'combs'. 

It wasn't until I photographed the cards that I noticed how tatty my table is - I don't notice it in real life!  The stains are where my water pot for paint usually stands - perhaps I'll try and do something about it - or perhaps not!!!

GPP STREET TEAM - 'RESTRAINING ORDER'

It's the very last Street Team challenge and only my second one, but I shall be very sad to say goodbye as I have so enjoyed doing these two challenges, and I've really loved seeing all the wonderful work from the other participants.

This month the challenge is to 'hold back' on what we put on our page - I guess the term "less is more" applies!  

For this challenge I have re-worked an old theme - a lot of my work focuses on capture, ownership and possession.   

This time I have tried to concentrate on the large space in the middle of the work - I realised most of my work is compacted into smaller areas - I quite often work on square paper and so this tall rectangular book has enabled me to consciously change proportions.  I am pleasantly surprised at the result - it's not as sparse as I thought it was going to be.   

'Capture or release?'

Thank you to Michelle for two fun months (I wish it had been longer) and to all the participants who have left kind comments on my work. I hope our paths cross again in the future.