Play Day

I've spent a happy day today crafting with my friend BetBet.

We usually have a craft day once a month where we do our own thing and chat and eat and sing... but this year I suggested we do something a little different.  Instead of doing what we fancied, and thereby always doing the same sort of crafting, why didn't the host of the day decide on what we would do?  This way we would push ourselves to do things we perhaps had never tried before and get out of the comfortable crafting rut that we've been wallowing in for some time.

As it was at my house today, it was my decision and I  went for Rosettes and Roses.  Now, I have only ever made one rosette and never roses, and BetBet doesn't often reach for paper (paint and glass being her specialist subject) so this was something I knew would fit the bill of 'pushing the boundaries' for the both of us.

My attempt was pitiful, but this was BetBet's

Good huh?

We then went on to make paper roses.  They were much more successful and we both enjoyed doing these.

I reached for my trusty Tim Holtz Distress Inks to add definition to the edges, whilst BetBet used her glass products

It took several attempts to get them to be consistent and I think I managed slightly better than BB, but then I use paper all the time.  Here are the fruits of our labours

As I mentioned earlier, we always have a treat, often Tunnocks Tea Cakes - we can't get enough of them!  Seriously, we LOVE these so much that  we restrict  our consumption to Girls Days ONLY!

We came up with the idea of seeing if we could make a rose from the foil wrapper.  BB stuck the foil to a piece of cardstock first for robustness, then set about making the rose.

I think they turned out very well, don't you?

We were also very, VERY naughty as we  had After Eight Mints as well!

I'd better not eat for the next week to balance out the calorie intake!

I hope you enjoyed the peek into my day.

'Til next time, Debs xxx

Sailing Life's Oceans

This month, the Being Creative Group theme was 'Ocean'.  True to form and what is quickly becoming 'the norm' for me, I had lots of ideas throughout the month but only sat down to do anything about it this weekend.  And so, yet again, I have only one piece to show.  

I decided I would settle for the sailing boat in the ocean idea.  I had, what I thought was the positively genius idea of using an old atlas page showing an ocean.  Leafing through my old atlas I found that the page I liked best was showing three oceans: the Atlantic, the Indian and the Southern Oceans.  Although my atlas is very old and was a hand-me-down from many years ago,  as it was the only  atlas I possess, I decided I would photocopy the page rather than actually tear it from the book.  I stuck the copy to a piece of cardboard for rigidity.

So far so good.  I felt it needed jazzing up a bit as it looked exactly what it was: a page from an atlas!  So I decided I would try out my new stash of distress inks.  I chose Broken China (blue) and Dusty Concord (mauve) and used a square of Cut 'n' Dry Foam to rub the ink over the paper ... 

gradually building up the colour until I liked what I saw.

I confess I got carried away doing this: it was so hypnotic making circular movements over the page.  It then struck me that a single sailing boat would be more effective than the fleet I had at first imagined, and the title 'Sailing Life's Oceans' just popped into my head and resonated deeply; I just knew that was the way forward.  And so, I drew a little sailing boat on thin card, cut it out, and placed it on the canvas.  Deep satisfaction; this was the way forward.  I wanted the boat to be really bright, a brilliant white, something like...like a ceramic tile.  Hmm, how on earth could I do that?  My mind wandered to the recently bought pot of Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel.  Would this work?  Worth a try, so I found the pot, the embossing ink pad, my heat gun and a pair of tweezers (I didn't want to scorch my fingers) and settled down to the task in hand.  And what a task it was!  If I tell you that the boat is less than an inch in size overall, and I had three sections to emboss, one at a time, you can perhaps imagine just how fiddly this was.  But I did it!  Patience and perseverance won the day.

And so I give you the end result... 

Sailing Life's Oceans

and the boat in close-up... 

I so thoroughly enjoyed making this and LOVE my little 'ceramic' boat.

This all came together so quickly and well.  Mr C loves it (and if you know Mr C and his shortcomings when it comes to art appreciation, you will know that that is praise indeed!) and has asked where I intend hanging it.  What better compliment can there be?

Being Creative - May

Hello.  I was so looking forward to this month's challenge: HOME, but in reality, life got in the way and I've had little time to craft.  I did manage to quickly put a piece together and I am fairly pleased with the results, but feel it could have been much, much better had I allocated more time.  I spent just a couple of hours on this.

As there is no way I could draw a realistic teapot or cup and saucer, I found a couple of images on the web and printed them off.  I drew round them in black ink so I could see the images clearly and I tried a couple of different layouts.

Then I decided what papers I would use ...

and what background paper ...

I didn't have any thick paper or craft cardboard to hand so recycled a breakfast cereal box.  I thought the paper looked a little boring, so scored lines closely together to give it a bit of a lift before sticking it down.  You can just see this in the photo above.  I thought the scoring made it look more like wallpaper, which is the look I was aiming for.  Then all I needed to do was to cut out the teapot, cups and saucers and stick them in place. 

It didn't look quite finished so I cut a frame from some pink flowery paper and ran a pink felt tipped pen along the edges to soften it and to get rid of the white edge as I hate seeing the white cut edge of paper.

I then drew round all the images in pink glitter pen to make them stand out more.

I am quite tempted to put this up in the kitchen, but it will need a frame with glass,  which I do not have to hand.

Do you like it?  I'd love to know your thoughts.



Easter Already?

EASTER?  Have I gone mad?  Not really.  Its just that I saw bits and pieces in Hobbycraft for Easter and couldn't resist this wooden hanging sign, waiting to be painted.

I spent a happy couple of hours painting it; well actually I mainly used metallic pens to give it a bit of a sheen.

I'm rather pleased with how its turned out. Just needs  a bit of green gingham ribbon to hang it with (I didn't like the pale pink bit that came with it) and it can then be hung in the window when the time comes.

I also decided that I would start an inspirations journal for the Being Creative monthly challenge and so I set about decorating the front cover of one of the many (sshh, don't tell Mr C how many) note books I have waiting to be used.  It seems I cannot pass by a stationery shop or the stationery isle in the supermarket, without stopping to buy a note book; A5 and A6 being my favoured sizes.

I printed off the Being Creative logo that Julia produced three times in varying sizes and matted them onto mirror-board.  A couple of thin strips of the pink mirror-board, a magnifying pebble (not very clearly seen on this pic but its on the bottom logo at the beginning of the words and two buterflies and we're done.  Turned out okay, me thinks.

Being Creative :: March

I've completed the March task set by Julia.

I started with much trepidation, but found that soon I was enjoying the whole experience and wondering why I had been so nervous.  I thought you might like to see how I progressed through to the finished piece.

A stark white sheet of watercolour paper - quick get some paint on before I lose courage

That's better ... I had it in my head to have a background of same-colour squares, but out of necessity (due to me being careless) I had to smudge over it with a mix of green and yellow.  The outcome wasn't too bad so I carried on ...

I stamped on white daisies (I so LOVE daisies) and put the paint on thickly to add interest.  I decided that I would have bright orange middles to the daisies and painted a blob on each one.

I then thought it would be good if I accented the first daisy in some way so it would draw your eye into the picture and decided on chain stitching around the petals.  As the paper is 190gsm to withstand a fair amount of water, I thought it best to prick holes around the petals first and sew through them

This worked extremely well, but I hadn't appreciated that the thick paint would crack and flake away, but I kind of liked the effect so decided to keep going. 

What should I do next?  It needed something else and after much deliberation I decided I would french knot the centre of one of the other flowers

And I'm so glad I did as I'm really happy with the finished look.

Ta-Da!

The worst thing has been trying to photograph it!  These photos do not do it justice whatsoever, but they're about as good as I'm going to get them.

For information, I used 190gsm Bockingford watercolour paper, 10 x 7 inches (I seem to prefer working small) and acrylic paints.  The daisy stamp was a freeby with a craft magazine some years back.  I separated the stranded embroidery thread and used two ply for the daisy chain edging and three ply for the french knots.

All in all, I'm over the moon with this, but still feel I could have done better!  I really MUST train my brain to think positively about my own work.  I'm hoping that as the months roll on, my confidence will rise. I'm really looking forward to seeing other members work and I can't wait to get started on April's theme.





Being Creative

Hello and welcome.

I've gone and done it!  With much trepidation I've enrolled on Julia Crossland's Being Creative online monthly project. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing and feel very scared that I will fail.  Similar to Julia's experience , at age sixteen I failed to get a placement on a foundation course for creative studies.  As my next opportunity was to wait until I was eighteen and try to get into the mainstream Art college, it was decided that I must get a job for the two years and so I found myself as an office junior for a firm of Solicitors.  I can't tell you how heartbroken I felt and how bloody useless I felt - I couldn't even get into a FOUNDATION COURSE, I was that bad.  How did I ever manage to gain O'Level Art B+?  And so, somehow in those two intervening years I forgot about my dreams of being creative and forgot about my pencils and sketch books.

Mnay years later and I have slowly started to be crafty again,  but still lack any confidence that I am any good.  I enjoy a monthly 'play day' with my friend, where we create and craft (although lately its been more chat less work!) and we have set up a business to sell items now and then.  Even though I have sold one or two things I have made, I still feel that it was a fluke and that the purchaser bought on a whim without even thinking about the item, only to get it home and not like it.

So, I must be strong and just go for it!  Otherwise I will be stuck here forever, in this uncomfortable place being pulled towards creativity by my heart but being told to stop dreaming by my brain.

Wish me luck!