Adventures are the Best

A little while ago friend asked me to make a 'congratulations on your wedding day'-type card for an old friend of hers, after seeing some of my mixed media canvases.

I let it all out. I love giving 'enjoy your adventure'-type messages to newlyweds, much more than the regular (might I say boring?) 'congrats'.

So, on a theme - in that the creation was also an adventure - I made this:

I gotta say, I liked it so much I didn't really want to give it away. But you gotta, you know. If you don't make something you don't wanna give away it's not worth giving.

I lost count of the layers on this. I used mists, inks, paints, chalks, stamps, stencils, stickers, paper, heat embossing... it really was an adventure through my art supplies.

I liked the theme so much I continued it for a wedding we went to not long after:

I hope all the newlyweds appreciate the message.

Speaking of adventuring, we're off to Paris today to meet up with my parents and show them around this new favourite city of mine. Adventures are the best!

Happy Easter!

There are first times for everything. This one was the hot cross bun first time. What do you think? 

Happy Easter!

Coming Round the Mountain

I was recently asked by a colleague to make a birthday card for her fun-loving, mountain-loving, bike-loving sister. I thought about origami; I thought about watercolours; I thought about acrylics and paper piecing and stencils...but each time, it didn't feel right.

Then I thought about my Big Shot and those tiny little white sticky squares that add dimension... and came up with this:

I would definitely say that this card is fun. Did you clock the teeny bike going waaay up the mountain in the middle? :-) 

Wedding Scrapbooking pt. 2

Told you there'd be more :-)

And it's almost finished. Such a joy to make, I will miss it when it's completed. But that's the joy of scrapbooking - it's there to be looked at any time.

Wedding Scrapbooking pt. 1

I made a push lately to finish our wedding album - the scrapbook version. It's almost done - a year and a half later! But I realised I'd not shared a great deal of it on here.

It's really coming together.

There's more to come... soon!

Foxes and Cakes

If you follow me on Pinterest, you'll have seen I've been on a bit of a fox kick recently.

I've experimenting with what I can only call magazine art, and it all started with a fox. That's the secret thing I was talking about here... and I'm still not ready to share it yet. Instead, in order to satisfy a foxy need, I picked up some thick felt in the craft shop and got to work with my needle to make a fantastic fox cushion:

Thanks is due to the article in my mum's Mollie Makes magazine - featured here online. I couldn't bring the mag home with me, and I didn't have time to photocopy the pages, so I snapped one pic of the finished cushion and worked the rest out for myself. Cute, isn't he? He makes me almost nostalgic for autumn. I also am aware that foxes are not the most popular animals at the moment... but for me, they will always be.

OK, moving on. Lots happening here. You may notice I have another new tab on my blog... MMM! HandmadeToo! has launched, due to such high local demand, and I am now pleased to be supplying sweet and sometimes healthy treats!

So, wish me luck. I'll be back soon, with some scrapbooking, some more foxiness, and maybe some cakes. Have a great weekend!

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Netherlands...

(this one is a project long in the making. a true labour of love.)

Last year, we planned a surprise 30th birthday trip for two friends to come see us, and then go see a favourite band in the Netherlands. It was such an intricate plan, with us only telling them at the last minute that they'd need to pack their passports, and such an exciting secret to be keeping.

The band, The Slackers, were playing their end-of-tour gig at a bar in Sittard, where they'd previously recorded two live albums, and we were going to be part of it.

Their flyer started me off on my colour scheme - black, white and yellow.

Their own 'tagline', from one of their songs, gave me the title. I used an acetate cover to add more interest and dimension to the front page.

Their singer, with his odd, funny in-jokes, gave me the style: he kept talking about events in comic-book terms ('meanwhile, somewhere in the Netherlands'). I went heavy on the layers for the front page, too - loads of paint, ink, gesso, newspaper and glue.

 

And the genre of music gave the pattern: ska. Behold the ska car! First I painted this wooden car shape with white acrylic paint, then stamped the checkers on. After I covered it with a layer of crackle glaze and waited for it to dry.

 I love this photo of the three best friends.

We got a bonus band, too. The New Town Kings.

I used the Fun Days kraft patterned paper and chipboard pieces from MME. They were a perfect background for the stamping, painting and inking.

The filler for this frame was an awesome find from my mum - wrapping paper from Tesco!

An amazing double gig ended with us partying with the two bands in the cool May evening air. What a day. What a brilliant surprise.

Lucky 13

So, a little belated, but happy new year.

I've been looking forward to 2013. Never been one to shy away from that number, and for various 'first-world problem' reasons 2012 was a bit of a washout (although I can say I'm still happily married, and making good savings from the boring office job I took on).

So, looking forward to it, not in hope, but in determination - because things are going to be different this year. We know what we want and what we have to do. We've made plans. We have goals. There is an unshakeable optimism emanating from me this January - something which January has rarely, if ever, brought out of me - and nothing is going to stop me, or us.

I just finished reading Art Saves by Jenny Doh. That was a good way to start the year, creatively speaking. From feeling a bit lost last year, I now have direction. That book, even if it took only a couple of hours to read, has little gems in it that spoke to me, made me sit up and listen, and most importantly, made me act.

I spent the last few months of 2012 doing a lot of thinking, a lot of reflecting, on me and my identity as an artist (in truth, I didn't know what my identity was any more). And I was pretty much blocked in terms of letting it flow out. That book helped me let it flow out - I got unblocked.

I made this little canvas:

...with important messages to me on it:

And I made this, using a ton of Gauche Alchemy stuff, also with a message to me:

These are messages to live by. They've already brought good - I played around with ink and watercolour afterwards, and loved the result. It was one of those rare times when I had a vision in my head, the night before, and the end result looked exactly how I'd envisioned it. That's something I'm keeping close to my chest though for now.  

Happy Wrapping Happening

We're busy busy bees in this household. For the first year I have managed to find the time to locate, buy and put together the gift wrapping that I've envisioned in my head.

But it takes a long time to wrap! My husband is a champion wrapper - all for straight seams and hidden seams and neatness - and we make a pretty good team.

Look! They're so pretty! I don't want anyone to open them!

I punched the tags from Lily Bee's Handmade collection

Like a Phoenix...

...or more like a lazy hibernating bear, I am posting on my blog again, six months to the day that I stopped.

It's tentative, an experiment to see if I can still manage it, and I have no idea how many of my old friends and followers will still be following and reading, but let's see. It's partly just for me anyway :-).

I had to take a break. I thought it was so that we could property hunt, but 1) we still haven't found anywhere and 2) it's more like I needed to just step away and have a clear enough mind to rethink things. Craft things, and how they will fit into my life from now and into the future. And I feel like I've gotten somewhere.

For example, I'm going to be taking some classes in the new year - learning new skills, broadening my talent. And, in response to local demand, despite my lack of activity on the scene, I've set up a platform which I hope will be the solution to an online shop, after a few wayward attempts elsewhere: on my facebook page, of all places.


And so, I hope you are all well, and happy. I have been watching a little the developments on some of your blogs, but since I really needed to step away, I confess I've not been as regular a reader as I once was. If you're still out there, still reading me, drop a comment in below and let me know how you are, and I'll see you soon on your blog.

It's good to be back...

The Swing of Things

I might be getting back into the swing of things. Going out into the blog world and reading that many, many other people struggle with time is reassuring. Especially when I take into account the fact that the time is being used to house-hunt. I’m not going to go on about it much more – I promise!

My super-special team-mates at Gauche Alchemy are always sharing stuff they find online. Last week, Michelle found this, and we all had a discussion about how expensive the pens are, and whether there wasn’t another way.

Confession time: my watercolour pencils have sat long and neglected on the shelf for one most shameful reason: I couldn’t find the pencil sharpener. Anywhere. I’m talking like two years. The odd drawing pencil is fine to sharpen with my Leatherman, but not 40 watercolour pencils. In the end, spurred on by this beautiful, colourful idea, I consented to using my make-up pencil sharpener for the watercolours. And I got to work on my version of the project. Ah, the joy of objects fulfilling their purpose after a period of neglect!

I forgot how lovely watercolours are. I'm so happy too that the project works with watercolours as well as the pens. Go us and our money-saving ways!

Stealing Moments

That is how I am getting back into scrapping: snatching an hour here, 30 minutes there... I was getting too caught up about needing a large-ish time slot in order to get around to doing anything. 

I realise my blog posts are still sounding a bit subdued; however, the response I got from the last post, and being able to read everyone’s blogs again, has certainly put me on the path to being cheered me up.

Anyway, I stole a few moments to get a quick layout together. Using a kit from GottaCraft, a special photo from our engagement shoot, a selection of bits from Gauche Alchemy, a sprinkling of my Crate Random win, and just a smattering of paint, I created this in not much time at all:

 

And into the album it goes. 

In other, though not so different, news, it’s been a restless, uncomfortable start to the week, despite the beautiful sunshine bringing the conviction that May is finally deciding to show its face. Anyone got any tips on sort of centering oneself after what feels like a rough kind of month?

Far, Far Away

I've been away for a while... yup. Lost a lotta contact. Missed a lotta happenings. Feels like a lot longer than 3 weeks since I've blogged, but it's that. It's been a good month since I've been able to make anything, that's for sure. Something snapped, I guess. In the househunt time condensed and my craft room gathered dust. I'd like to say that in this time we've gotten ourselves a nice little property, but it's not the case. Not yet. A standard has been set, though.

I'm gonna get back on the blogging horse, and visit all of you and see what I've been missing. I hope you'll all come back and visit me, too. I've missed this contact.

Anyway... deep breath...limber up (stretch, stretch)... what have I actually managed to scrape together these last few weeks?

Well...

...a wedding invitation order took up a lot of my time:

But that's OK because I made someone very happy.

There is an unconventional colour challenge this month at XOXO:

For which I used pink and orange. All the time I was thinking 'yeuch' but then I remembered fruit salad penny sweets and embraced the challenge - and I was really happy, in the end. There's a bit of Washi tape in there, some fabric ribbon, lace and other fabric - all from Gauche Alchemy. There's a bit of Crate Paper's Random stuff in there too.

Oh, I got my hair cut:

Yeah, that made me feel goooooood.

I've also been playing around with my camera, trying to learn a thing or two about its manual settings...

OK, work in progress - but I'll get there.

And I went to a gig - another time, another story... but I took my camera:

That was one awesome night. I will come back with the story another time because I'm gonna scrap it. Like, ASAP.


All righty, I think that feels OK - I'm blogging again. I'll go warm down now. Hope to see you all on the rounds again! Thanks for stopping by to say hello again!

House of Cards

That's what life feels like, at the moment. House hunting in a competitive market is an emotional business. As a result, I've not been blogging much, because I've not been crafting much.

It's frustrating when so many things come at once and you can't devote as much time to any of them as you would like to, or even give attention to all of them. Certain things get left on the kerb while we walk around property after property. It's not even like I'm in a creative rut. My mind is still sparking.

In the last few weeks, our boiler rusted its pipes open, flooding the boiler room. My craft room/study/our walk-in wardrobe/laundry room/etc is right next door to that. Before the men could work on replacing the boiler we had to move everything out, find somewhere for it all, and then we sat and waited for the job to be done. Which, of course, dragged on because one problem after another was found. "I can't craft like this!" I screamed, near to tearing my hair out. "And exactly when were you planning to?" mocked the calendar, while the clocks tickled quietly with laughter in the background.

But enough! I have business to do. A wedding invitation order is in progress, a baby/marriage/engagement/birthday order is in the wings, and an order for one of my colleagues has just been completed, turning this upside-down house momentarily into a house of cards.

Anyone got any advice for when it all just gets a bit too much? Breathe, right?

Happy Easter Everyone!

I am sure there is plenty (read: too much) chocolate to go around, so to counterbalance I am making this light and fruity recipe for dessert (suggested to me by a colleague), and also produced some anti-choc cupcakes:

oops! I lied! there is chocolate on them :-)