MMM - Harmony and Craftaway Sunday - Birds

This lovely lady was inspired by a Hiauku by Sourav Rcy which goes "Call of melody fills the ambience of earth a Bird's harmony" and so of course she is for both Mixed Media Monday Harmony and Craftaway Sunday Birds. The background is water colours sprayed onto watercolour paper and she is a composite of stamps by Elusive Images and bits of collage material, the piece is about 12 inch by 18 inch. My husband is at his pottery class so I have had to photograph it myself, rather badly I'm afraid!

Gothic Arches - Open

This week the theme is open, choose what you want, well this was torture how to select from all the things I would like to do so I asked my husband to give me a theme and he came up with theatre. I guess I ended up more Music Hall / Vaudeville than pure theatre, but this lady looks like she would be very entertaining and I have no idea what she plans with that sword! My background is embossing with Ecoline painting, the image has been painted with water colours.

Sunday Postcard Art - Autumn

In a way this is a joint effort with my husband in that last year ww had a lovely Autumn where the trees really did that turning red and yellow thing and he took lots of photos of trees and skies. I have paper pieced the foreground from the tree photos and grass and the sky is one of his skies. The stamp is by Elusive Images and is a special edition for Guild members.

Mixed Media Monday - Something you like to do

I am sure I am not alone when I say this was a hard choice there are so many things I like but I guess a real favourite is doing something new, a new technique or project. So with that in mind here is my first slide mailer. Well in truth the second, as when I started my first earlier toady I managed to pull the front off in my usual clumsy way so had to start afresh. Anyway it was great fun to try something new.

Gothic Arches - My Favourite Movie

The movie had to be Roman Holiday. Not long after meeting my (now) husband Richard we took a holiday in Rome and it was wonderful and romantic and it is where we fell in love. He had never seen the film so we bought it when we got home and it is now one of our favourites. The background photo is the Trevi Fountain and the small round one is the La Bocca della Verita both were taken by Richard, both places feature heavily in the film and yes we put our hands in the La Bocca della Verita and told it a secret and it did not bite our hands off as we did not lie and we threw coins in the Trevi and vowed we would return. This is really then assemblage but it was a great excuse to look back through our pictures from that holiday.

Craftaway Sunday - Water

The challenge this week is water and Kaz has made a gorgeous box. I decided that for me water means the sea and the sea means fish, preferably grilled! So I have used a Paper Artsy stamp which I bought from Craftaway this week using the lovely discount that Kaz kindly provided for people who did the first week challenge. I have gone for a 4 x 4 as I used that format for the first time yesterday and found working with a square great fun.

Sunday Postcard Art - Circus

Here is my Circus, a memory of the circus we would go to every Christmas as small children, when it all seemed rather strange and a bit frightening, confusing, bright and loud.

Theme Thursday Friends 4 x 4

Just got round to this today (Saturday). I haven't worked a 4 x 4 before and I liked working to a square shape rather than the usual rectangle, will try more squares I think. The background is painted with Tinkerbella inks, these are quite useful as they are acrylic based so dry quickly and do not run if you put another wet layer on top, then over stamped and finished with a collage image from my collection.

Mixed Media Monday - Famous People

After a couple of quite lyrical pieces I thought it was time for some whimsy. So here the Beatles recreated from the Abbey Road album cover and a few other record titles thrown in for fun. This was made using acrylic paints on watercolour paper, stamping with gesso and collage pieces. It is about A4 size. Hope it makes you smile. How does everyone else seem to manage to get their entries loaded on the day of the challenge!

Gothic Arches - Time

This week's theme reminded of the Shakespeare quote from Much Ado About Nothing - "Time goes on crutches, till love have all his rites" and so I felt a romantic arch was called for, I was reminded then of characters in old films meeting on blind dates "under the clock at Waterloo Station". So here is my lady waiting hopefully for love. The background is a mix of green acrylics over stamped with Stazon and Versafine then glazed with crackle glaze and the photo has been turned into a transfer. It would have been on here on Sunday but the crackle glaze took an age to dry. So not quite a flapper after all this week!

Sunday Postcard Art - Flowers - Warning Partial Nudity

The background is direct to paper inked in shades of pink and over stamped with a stamp from Elusive Images. The nude is from my collage materials and the flowers are dried roses (of course)

Craftaway Sunday - Cute

Like many pet owners we are completely besotted with our two dogs Paddy and Minnie. Minnie came to us at the end of February this year aged 10 months, she is a Patterdale terrier so a small breed, though she is very fiesty. We have many nicknames for the dogs and I like to do scrap book layouts showing them with their nick names. This particular layout uses a photo of Minnie in an uncharacteristically quiet and sweet tempered mood (she is like an explosion in a fire work factory most of the time, pocket rocket is another nickname!) anyway when she is like this she is very cute and my husband calls her his "little lady" so I took the opportunity to make this pretty and girly layout as there is unlikely be another one showing her being sweet, ruling the world would be more likely!

Monday Mixed Media - Stars

If I get any later this week I shall be in last week. Anyway here is my entry at last, even if it has been rather rushed. I made a photo transfer using Lasertrans of Theda Bara, one of cinema's earliest sex symbols, her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp", in her role as Cleopatra. I gave her some added decoration on peacock feather stamping and a background of glimmer inks and screen.

Gothic Arches / Created by Hand - Pretty in Pink

There is something about this shade of pink with this shade of green, not sure what that something is mind you, but it is certainly something! I always seem to use a 20s flapper for these challenges, not sure why. Note to self next week do not use a flapper unless of course it is a flapper related theme! The background is Scattered Straw and Peeled Paint distress inks over-stamped with stamps by Elusive images in scattered straw.

Have discovered that this week's Created by Hand challenge is pink and green so this is for that challenge as well.

Sunday Postcard Art - Alter a real postcard

At last and thanks to husband fitting new bits to the PC I have internet up and running again. So here is my entry for this week's challenge along with the postcard before altering. The postcard came from my mother in law who has quite a collection of old post cards showing regional and national costumes from around the world. I thought he had been drab too long and needed some colour, a new hair style and a big fish to cheer him up.

Craftaway Sunday and Theme Thursday - Halloween

My in laws have been visiting so access to making new work has been limited this week, and then a storm on Sunday has fried the network card in my PC, I can get access via the laptop but have to copy scans / photos onto a memory stick to put onto the laptop and couldn't find a memory stick! hopefully normal service will resume shortly. In the meantime as a Craftaway customer I got notification of this new challenge site and thought I would have a go and rustled up these 3 ATCs and have also entered them in Theme Thursday. Distress ink back grounds and collage elements.

Wednesday Stamper - Transparent Art

Here is my entry for this challenge. I have stamped an acrylic bird shape and then backed it with text coloured with Distress inks and mounted it to a page from the acyclic scrapbook on which I stamped a border.

Gothic Arches - End of Summer

Well it might be the end of summer but I cling on to any possible last vesitages of the season, particularly when it has been so poor this year, and the past couple of days have been lovely, so even if the last trips to the beach mean huddling in a beach hut or wrapped up in towels I would rather that than go any earlier into Autumn than is necessary, just like my lovely bathing belle here.

Sunday Postcard Art - Another Wings and Crowns

I was messing around with deciding what to do for this week's Gothic Arches when before I knew it another one for SPA had happened. Here she is, wondering why her wings have to be on her back so she can't see them properly in the mirror, it is very unfair she thinks.