I don't know if I told you....

but I am crazy mad making cards to sell at My MacMillan Coffee morning in a couple of weeks. However, yesterday evening when I got in from work I had an overwhelming urge to take a break and make some art (no disrespect to card makers everywhere intended!). I really wanted to make sure I had an early entry for my altered art challenge group on flickr, 'Art n Soul' because I have missed so many lately. The September challenge is to alter a beer mat or coaster to the theme of nature. Initially I was going to do just a single mat for speed, but after looking at the Tuesday Taggers theme of 'Books' I decided I would make a little book and satisfy the requirement of both challenges.



I took three mats and covered them with old book pages and then had a lovely fun day splodging and inking and stamping - sometimes I think the end result is more gunge than grunge but I usually have a good time and I find a bit of gold paint here and there tends to lift the whole thing!!



As a title I took half a quote stamp 'Honour the Seasons of Nature' and then made four inside pages using a set of seasonal tree stamps by Whispers/docrafts that I have had forever - I think they were one of the first sets I bought, well before my current affliction took hold.


I particularly liked the way the autumn page turned out.
For the back page I kept it quite simple and after abandoning my split rings as fasteners because they were just too big I just knotted some cord to hold the whole thing together.
It's rare that I get a project finished in one sitting so to speak (well I did start last nighht so a bit more than one session) but for once I really knew what I wanted to do and not too many things went wrong. Just you don't love it when a plan comes together? Ah well, that's my fix over, back to the cards lol.

Something from nothing...

This is going to be a long post, so feel free to jump to the end result. I don't often give detailed breakdowns of projects, largely because I'm sure other people can do it better, but I enjoyed this project so much I thought you might like to see how it developed.

My starting point was the book 'Stitch, Cloth, Paper & Paint' by Angie Hughes and I would refer you to that for a real breakdown of 'how to do it' (slightly different to my how I did it version!!!). There are several yummy projects in the book but one had caught my eye which was a (faux) Sundial Diptych made from two small canvases.


Aah, stopped at the first hurdle. Nowhere could I find a small canvas even though when you are not looking for one I'm sure they are a dime a dozen. Not to be fazed, I went to a local 'home' store to try and find a cheap frame that I could maybe alter. Couldn't find anything suitable except..... maybe I could do something with this polystyrene packaging.


It obviously needed bulking up, so I used some mountboard to add a backing.


The next step was to create the fabric based covering that was going to go over the whole thing. Basically you need to add interfacing, tissue, netting and then do lots of beautiful stitching. I discovered my interfacing wasn't iron on kind (or I wasn't doing it right) so I helped it along with pva. I had forgotten that my antique sewing machine (it is nearly as old as me) no longer has a functioning bobbin winder so that had to be done by hand. Consequently I wasn't about to practice very much and dove straight in.I also only used ordinary thread so my 'vermicelli' stitchwork is more like a spider that's gone through an ink puddle but the spirit was willing if not very skilful (this is why you have to see the original - the machine work is stunning). The orange bit is tissue and is only orange because that was what came to hand - it all gets covered up anyhow.


So this is what it looks like when it's all attached to the frame, complete with various bits of beading and stitching, plus tissue, paper and extra fabric in various shapes.


Next we add colour, a base of yellow acrylic followed by a mix of blue and green and oddles of cosmic shimmer sprays and micas - it ended up with a great almost leathery texture. I prepared a sheet of paper in the same colours at the same time.

The finishing touch was to punch out flowers from the prepared paper and add as an embellishment along with sequins and stitching.

Before putting the whole thing together I had to cut out some apertures in the inside pieces and put in a picture or other decorative element as well as attaching the string which will hold the top section upright when the 'sundial' is opened. I chose a stamped picture of a vintage lady but instead of cutting out the corner spaces (OK I bottled it) I added some gilding. I then realised that the polystyrene base would not be able to handle screwed hinges, so I made the hinge using some heavily glued mesh.
At last we are finished. Here it is closed:-

And open:


A totally useless, if pretty, object made from some old packaging, cloth, paper and paint. Gosh, that sounds like the title to a book!! That's all for now folks!!

Are you a winner??.........I am!!

Always, always always running late lately. Perhaps I should just miss out September and catch up. Seriously, I just popped on to announce the winner of the August giveaway which is my dear crafting buddy Nayski. Even more tat from me to put on her shelf, good job she has more space now!!!(I'm laughing cos I just sent her something for her birthday, will upload that later).


Also, after a few days absence from the pc came back to find that my entry to the Stamp Man challenge was chosen as a winner and I now have a £10 voucher to spend. Thanks so much to the DT for choosing my entry, I am most flattered gven the quality of the entries. Now, what do you suppose I shall choose??

Challenge Entries .....

Hey ho not much happenning here at the moment, it's all a bit boring. I seem to be very busy but not really doing anything that is making me feel very satisfied. Would help if the sun could decide to shine BEFORE 5.30 in the evening lol. Just when it's missed my garden completely. Also decorating, which seems to necessitate complete disorder throughout the house even when nothings happenning - had a huge dressing table in my craft room all last week much to my annoyance but what can you do?It also seems to require a lot of SHOPPING, really not my favourite pastime. Kind of bearable if DD comes with me but then it costs me twice as much lol.

Anyhow, suddenly realised I had been very organised and done two Stamp Man challenges and then forgotten to upload them. The first is ATCs for the August swap - the theme is time. They are more than a little grungy, but look a bit better in real life, honest!!
Here is an easel card I had made in adavance for the Monthly challenge (although after a quick check on the blog this stamp seems to be very popular so not a very original choice!!)
Also made a 'New Baby' card for a colleague at work - it's a big A4 card so we can all sign it, template for the little bib was in my stash, think I downloaded it from someone's blog, sorry don't know whose!!
Finally, card for my daughter who is 19 in a few days time..... now where did THAT year go?

August Giveaway time...

wow, didn't July go quickly?! I have chosen a summery theme this month as I have been noticing that there don't seem to be as many butterflies this year, so I thought I would do some of my own.


Used a lot of tissue paper and paint to get some lovely texture on the cover of this altered slide mailer and used a brand new stamp I got from Viv to make the butterfly on the front - I doubled it up, stamping on to vellum to make the top set of wings.
Inside I used half of some pretty little butterfly stickers I have - thought they sort of looked like one of those old fashioned display cabinets stuck in the niches of the mailer. They are a little shiny, I did wonder if it would be better to have made my own butterflies but hey ho it's done now. I just love the sumptious reds and oranges, which incidentally are the colour theme for the current UK Art Raffle so I think I may make something similar for that.



The giveaway will stay open until 8.00 pm on Sunday 29th August and all you have to do to be included in the draw is leave a comment on this post before then. Feel free to link from your blogs, international players welcome. Thanks for stopping by!!

JUST A COUPLE

of challenge entries to post. Trying to be organised this month (no chance) as last month I was constantly chasing my tail. First, at Tuesday Taggers the theme is 'Black'. Harder than it sounds. As I am in mega card production mode I chose to make a card. First I stamped and clear embossed onto the plain black card using a Clarity swirl stamp - always an elegant look to a plain piece of card. Then I stamped a little Geisha from a Debbi Moore set and mounted her on a panel. Added a rather dodgy japanesee knot I found in my 'oriental box' that I remember making from a tutorial by Ange.

Secondly an entry for the current Stamp Man Challenge which is 'Take Two Colours'. Just some colour blending using purple and turquoise and stamping with a variety of stamps, mainly Tim Holtz ones I think. Technically I suppose there are grey and black in there as well but think it squeaks in.Not totally sure that is an appropriate sentiment for a card but there you go!!

That's all for today, have decorating to do but hopefully will find time to put the finishing touches to the giveaway ready to be uploaded tomorrow. Hope you will come back and play.

We have a winner for July....

Sorry I'm a bit late with the draw, slobbed in front of the box yesterday evening and didn't make it to the pc. I'm pleased to say the 'winner' is a wonderful artist, Cathy from across the pond. Which is rather spooky as I was talking about Cathy to my husband today, vis a vis the fact she lives in Alaska and some great photos she posted of a place called glacier gardens. If you haven't seen Cathy's work then do pop over to her blog and have a look - she is a very talented lady!!

I haven't even got a photo of my holiday to post as they are still in the camera and I'm feeling very lazy. Bad blogger!! Thanks everyone for taking part, there should be a new giveaway at the weekend, though I'm not quite sure yet what it will be....... See ya soon!!