Town and country

On Friday night and early Saturday morning I made a few cards for birthdays and thank yous. Playing around with different combinations of distress inks, doing some spraying with the magic Crafty Notions stuff, and stamping. Here are some of them:

I love these stamps, and the sight of the verges of our lanes filled with the fresh green stalks and foliage and the delicate sparkling white of the flowers of the cow parsley made me want to use them.

Saturday afternoon saw me heading off to London. The view of the Houses of Parliament from the train made me smile as the main headline in the news on Friday night and Saturday morning was about yet another MP the Telegraph had identified as having claimed huge expenses in dubious circumstances. This particular view made me think "Behind bars where they belong!"

Walking along Drury Lane I was taken by butterflies made out of feathers in a shop called Happie.

And this little box filled with everything in miniature.

I was in London to see a performance of Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment" at the Royal Opera House. This was preceded by an excellent meal at Carluccio's. I saw a performance of this production in January 2007, and it was totally brilliant. It was brought back with the same principals, Juan Diego Florez hitting his nine high Cs with ease, and the inimitable Natalie Dessay with her astonishing comic acting skills and accomplished singing; and once again conductor, orchestra, chorus, soloists, director and all others who worked on the production performed at the top of their game. Dawn French again entertained in her speaking role. It was an evening of sparkling comedy where at certain moments the principals also sang with real pathos. Unfortunately, regretfully, no stage door photos as I had to dash for the train.

Back at home on Sunday after a satisfying late Sunday lunch of roast lamb and spuds and veggies, we took a stroll, and marvelled at the wealth of flowers in the hedgerows.

Note to self: come back and check out these wild strawberries !

And yippeee ..... tomorrow, Monday is a Bank Holiday. Enjoy this nice long weekend !

Wednesday

Another Wednesday and it’s time to join Julia’s What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday.

The table is exceedingly messy as over the past couple of days I’ve been tinkering with various items there. Experiments with the B-Line bird’s nest stamp, and with the walnut ink, and a box of ATC books waiting for me to pop an ATC in each.

And a peek behind closed doors into my cupboard.

Am posting very early on Wednesday as I need to be up at 6.30 and off.

Happy Bank Holiday weekend to all. Let’s hope for a bit of sunshine.

Two Weeks Ago

Two weeks have passed since my weekend at Lin and Leandra's Artsy Craftsy weekend, and now that the second of the two weekends has taken place, I can post the fruits of my efforts.

First of all a view of the table where I did the biggest of the three projects in my chosen colour scheme called Blue Lagoon. This project was a sampler with nine squares: three covered with sticky-back canvas; three covered with metal; and three with Terra. All mounted on a canvas we painted and embellished to either contrast with or complement the colour of the squares.

We stamped on all three surfaces, and used the embossing folders in the Big Shot on the canvas and metal. We used metalworking tools and masks, and we used metal and acetate to make embellishments.

The project that started off the weekend was a big tag on board, approx 11" x 8." The colour scheme I chose here was called Cream of the Crop. The tree is made of heavy card covered with Ferro, and we did lots of die-cutting and embellishing of metal. I particularly enjoyed making the tissue paper flower attached to the top of the tag.

The third project was a smaller piece of work. Using the Mediterranean Mix colour scheme, I painted the wooden frame, and used the Big Shot to emboss metal for the roof, and for the front of the piece.

It was such a treat to get away from everyday life and a real luxury to spend a whole weekend messing about with paints, inks, card and metal, and colours and textures. Roll on the next Artsy Craftsy Weekend, and thanks again to Lin, Leandra, Karen, Lynne and Jo.

Templates and the Salt Technique

There's no connection between Templates and the Salt Technique in the title of this post.

Templates refers to the subject of our Stamping Club evening on Thursday. Clare who organises it brought along her supply of templates and had invited us to do the same, so we could all share and play nicely. I only have two templates: a K card and a four panel screen, and the latter went down a storm inspiring quite a few people to make some gorgeous oriental cards.

I made a complete hash of my triptych. I will blame the card as it was too flimsy and it cracked when folded. There is plenty of good card ready cut for cardmaking, but I can't seem to find any good sheets of plain white A4. Having blamed the card, I will say that it is quite usual for me to make a complete pig's ear of something the first time I try it. Anyway, I had fun messing about with the inks, sprays and stamps, and I will have a go at this again to do a proper one. Same goes for the kimono which gave me the opportunity to try out the Barn Door DI and my newly acquired Ranger gold embossing powder with which I am very impressed.

And now for the Salt Technique. Sue asked about this in her WOYWW post comment. Well, it's dead simple. You need to apply a watery wash of ink or paint to a piece of card. I used distress re-inker mixed with water. Then you place the card in a shallow plastic box and sprinkle rock salt over; and put it aside (in my case out of reach of the cat) and leave it to try naturally. I usually leave it for a day. Then you scrape the salt off. Sometimes it leaves a bit of a shiny residue.

Here, as they say, are some I prepared earlier, all ready to be stamped upon (not with my feet).

And speaking of the cat, here she is, the crafty little lass, looking for my box with the card and the rock salt, so she can send it flying. Butter wouldn't melt, eh?

And so he doesn't feel left out, Charlie Poppins (who can be trusted not to send the box flying) striding purposefully out for a snooze in the sun on top of the chicken shed roof.

Wednesday

Morning all. It's the day when Julia over at Stamping Ground calls upon us to reveal all about our work desks with her What's on your Workdesk Wednesday, and we all get the chance to have a good old snoop.

Well, mine has evidence of bits and pieces of crafting, but not much in the way of finished articles. I did some embossing on metal, grunged it up a bit and put filler on the back, but I haven't decided what to do with it yet. Then there are the card backgrounds using distress re-inkers and the salt technique, and the assorted grungepaper die cuts, and a couple of cards.

The cards started out as rather bright pink shiny card but I covered them with Versamagic. The swirly one is finished but the Stampington one needs a bit more work.

I've got my crafting bags out ready to pack for our club evening tomorrow. We all go laden with supplies, but there are always mutterings round the table about what we've forgotten to bring or should have brought.

And lastly a shufti at another area of the shelves.

Have a happy Wednesday !

Blossom Time

I've got four apple trees in the garden - three eaters and a wonderful Bramley which provides the ingredient for delicious pies, crumbles and wines. They're all laden with blossom this year. I love the veins that pattern the petals.

And in contrast, a couple of Stampotique girls with distress inks, Perfect Pearls and embossing on a tag.

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday

Time for another post to take part in Julia's WOYWW at her Stamping Ground blog.

This week I haven't got round to wiping up the paint I was using to colour an embellishment, nor to putting away all of my weekend purchases. Plenty of naked wood and board to keep me busy.

I did actually get a bit more stuff which I have secreted in various nooks and crannies. Some new colours of acrylic paint, a couple of DI re-inkers and Tim's birdcage die.

The next photo is a bit more of the bookcase area. The little wooden case contains my acrylic paints, and I aim to decorate the case at some point.

Enjoy the nose around, and have a happy week.

Sshhhhhh....... It's a secret ........

Well, I'm back from my travels to the Artsycrafts Weekend. As there's another one in a couple of weeks time, we're sworn to secrecy about what we did, so as not to spoil things for the new participants. All I can say is that they are in for a fantastic weekend.

Five minutes into my journey I found myself sitting for 15 minutes in traffic.
However, the sun was shining, and I was listening to the post-election programmes on the radio. With slow traffic on the M25 and M1, the journey took 45 minutes longer than it should have, but there were two treats at the end of it: a browse and one or two purchases (well, yes, a few more than a two - but my birthday is coming up) at Lin's shop; and, as they say in Scotland, a fish supper.

We inked, painted, stamped, embossed, cut, snipped, sanded, smooshed and skootched from 8.30 am till after 9 pm on the Saturday, and from 8.30 till 5 on the Sunday. We renewed acquaintances from previous weekends, and met more new people from all parts of the UK and beyond. What a luxury to be able to do all this for a whole weekend without having to worry about all the other things that would normally compete for our creative time. And to sit down to meals without having had to do any cooking.

In the final session I decide to introduce a little red into my project, and ended up with hands looking as if I had just butchered a rabbit. As I drove home I looked down on these hands, still stained blood red, fingers of various hues, and nails with blotches of paint and specks of other art products on and under them. When I stopped for petrol, it crossed my mind that if any crimes of violence had been committed in the area, I would be reported as the number one suspect.

A good drive back, listening to favourite music, until four miles from home I find a level crossing closed for the weekend, and I have to do a 12 mile detour. Sweet to be home after a great weekend.

Luckily I had kept today free, but was up bright and early, sticking the final embellishments on my projects before going to collect my furbabies. Charlie P had done a lot of snoozing, and a fair amount of tutting at 'Young Cats Today,' while the Young Cat had disgraced herself by performing Wall of Death routines on the walls and ceiling of their run, and escaping three times from the run into the wider precinct of the cattery.

So no arty crafty pics today, as they would be ones from the weekend, or ones inspired by the weekend. However, I can guarantee there will be some of my shopping on my desk to ogle come Wednesday.

Thursday 6 May 2010

On the way to the polling station this evening I paused to look at the ewes and lambs. They were grazing peacefully. I expect the little dears were almost worn out after a day's gambolling, and the ewes from watching them.

You always know when you have reached the polling station.

These wild rhoddies get everywhere.

Must be a very relaxed day for the officials here. Each time I've voted there has never been another soul in sight, but this time I saw someone leave just as I was approaching. Obviously rush hour in our village.

Normally I'd sit up into the wee small hours watching the election results programmes on TV, but I need to get my sleep tonight as I've a drive ahead of me tomorrow to get to the Artsy Craftsy Weekend. I am now rubbing my hands with glee. Soon to be inkier and paintier than on a normal weekend. We know that the theme is Flights of Fancy, so we'll be working on birds and cages and dragonflies. Favourite themes of mine, so I'll be in crafting heaven.

More ATCs required for a swap, so I've done a few one-offs.

WOYWW

I was fascinated to see other people's working spaces, so decided to photograph mine with the surface semi-tidy and join in for the first time with Julia's WOYWW.

My space doesn't lend itself to tidiness as it is far too small for all the stuff I have accumulated, but I may not be alone in this situation ! It's basically a small table, and spaces left on shelves after the books have claimed most of the surface. As long as I've got my stamping mat and craft mat, I'm happy.

On the desk at the moment are grungepaper flowers coloured with distress inks and stamped and pegged together till the Glossy Accents sets.

They're back

For many years I enjoyed looking out of my front windows in Spring and, over the early months of the year, following the progress of a fieldful of ewes and lambs. Watching the lambs at play made me smile and I often found myself laughing out loud at their antics; to see this vibrant new young life was one of the pleasures of Spring. However, about three years ago the field remained empty when Spring arrived, and although there is still a big flock behind my house, I missed the usual sights and sounds greeting me when I opened my bedroom curtains. It turned out that the land at the front had been sold. Much to my delight last year a small herd of beautiful Sussex cattle were moved into the field. I hadn't seen them for a bit, and was missing them until lo and behold, they appeared again this week with babies.

There they were grazing in the pouring rain with the little ones huddling under the trees for shelter.

All lying down. Hope this doesn't mean it's going to rain again.

Tried a fun way of making a set of ATCs. Read about it in an article in Craft Stamper by Jo Firth-Young. You stick ATCs together in a strip with masking tape on the back, then on the front you decorate said strip. I followed the suggested methods of decoration: clear embossing some text on each as a resist to the ink used to colour the card, and then stamping and embellishing. A quick and easy way to produce a set where each is different but clearly part of the set.