Sunday Postcard Art - Wings and Crowns

Having been out today, and enjoyed a lovely lunch with my husband at a Spanish Tapas bar in Sheffield, I have come late to this so it has been a bit of a rush job. I did think of using a picture of Paddy our dog who loves to run and jump to catch balsl and chase birds, which always fly away before he gets to them, so I rather thought that if he could chose he would have wings, but when I made it it was too cute, too personal so I kept it for the husband and instead here are wonderful Gargoyles from Notre Dame church enjoying the prospect of taking flight some day, maybe with Esmerelda on their backs.

Mixed Media Monday - Recycle / Repurpose & Wednesday Stamper Circles

For this challenge I thought I would make a clock or two from old CDs. The tree clock has a background from alcohol inks applied directly to the back of the CD and over stamped with a tree. The leaves were left over (re-cycled) from another project, which I might use for next week's challenge, and they are leaf stamps on shrunk plastic. The time clock background is a sheet of scrapbook paper which I have over stamped. The mechanics for both are small battery operated clock and hand mechanisms from a shop in the UK called Maplins.

Gothic Arch - Black, White and a hint of Red

This is the topic for this weeks challenge and this is my entry. To me the colours red and black together always seem a bit racy and Flappers were from one of our more racy times so here is a racy flapper giving us A Glimpse of Stocking. .I am named, by my father, after Moira Shearer the ballet dancer who appeared in the movie the Red Shoes which is possibly why I have a particular fondness for red shoes.

Sunday Postcard Art - Mystic

For me mystic summons up the dark ages when things were unseen, in this piece the girl is skrying, using her crystal ball to see into the hidden world around her.

The background is direct to paper inking and stamping in layers using a range of inks.

Gothic Arches - Renaissance Challenge

This is my first entry for this challenge and I am calling it Primavera. I loved the idea of doing something rich and glorious that reflected the renaissance period of history but felt ultimately drawn to the meaning of renaissance being re-birth and how Spring is a form of re-birth every year when the gardens come back to life and plants start to grow again. The background is painted in metallic green acrylic which has been stamped and embossed in gold, blue and pink to give me the richness of the renaissance period while the young woman with her basket of spring blooms represents the hope and promise that spring brings with it each year.

Sunday Postcard Art - Children

This is my first entry for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge, the theme is Children. I chose to use this picture, of the little girl with a biscuit and her pet dog, because part of growing up is learning to share, however as the owner of two dogs who do not seem to learnt that lesson and only compete for food, love, toys maybe children are easier than dogs after all. !

Mixed Media Monday Challenge - Numbers

This is my first entry for this challenge, it is called "Counting by the Rule of Thumb". The background is acrylics on watercolour paper, with stamping in Gesso. The techniques is from the online Softly Spoken class run by the Altered Diva Karyn Gartel - http://www.altered-diva.com . The idea came from the method used in the UK by workmen to estimate building materials needed.

Stampboard Challenge

Glenda Waterworth at Graphicus / Elusive Images / Artylicious has set a challenge to make a piece using stampboard and Elusive Image stamps. This is my offering. It is an ATC size mini book. The cover was coloured in two inks a pale pink where the face and body would be and a purple for the border. I then stamped using an image from the Elusive Elements Fashion Dream theme plate. I scraped the lips and nails and added a deep red, the ear ring is a Sakura metallic pen and the headband just scraped back to the board . The back is also stampboard which like the inner covers have been stamped with one of the EI Damask Delights patterns. The inner pages have been sprayed with Juniper Berry, Pink Bubblegum and Irridescent Gold Glimmer Inks and overstamped with phrases from the Say It With Words themeplate

Just back from a few days in Northumbria, a friend has a caravan in a lovely site by a river and the van itself overlooks a duck pond and is surrounded by trees alive with wild birds and red squirrel. We took Paddy there last year and it was great fun if wet as it was during the floods, so the intention was to see how we would get on now we have 2 dogs and discovered that caravanning in the middle of nowhere in the rain with 2 dogs is pretty muddy! Anyway here are the lovely doggies at home gazing out of the front room window looking as cute as can be, which just goes to prove that looks can be soooo deceptive!

On the way home from the caravan we called into Graphicus in Barnard Castle to pick up some essential crafting supplies and say hello to the lovely people who work there.

Petal Pot

I seem to have a photo shortage at the moment, lots made but not yet got piccies just this Petal Pot here, painted with Lumiere metallic paint and collaged with vintage images, lace and buttons which is proving quite useful as another pencil / brush pot. Not quite sure how it happens but I seem to have a small forest of pencil, sakura pen and brush pots on the desk, I think they may be taking over! The brushes are actually Chinese calligraphy brushes bought when I was working in Singapore and they are beautiful to touch, in fact so far they have proved too lovely to use as I don't want to get them dirty.