Happy International Charm Day 2009

I spent two days working on the charms above. They range from heat melted and soldered pieces (and yes I did burn myself with the soldering iron) to beaded and jewelled ones. It was great fun to try something different again and I spent alot of time looking through blogs finding new inspiration. Some worked out better than others - the pieces made from chopped up CD are hideous but far be it from me to not show the uglies as well as the pretties. I used buttons for the first time and was rather pleased by the way they came out. Tiny Christmas tree light bulbs that were sitting in a jar became charms with that distressed look - i.e. the soldering didn't work out so well. All in all it was fun.

I also signed up with Lorraine at Love of Collage for a small charm swap - my first, if I am one of the lucky chosen ones. Keep your fingers crossed.

Charming

I found a few of my old charms last night and thought I'd put them up for you to see. At the time I was inspired by people like Barbara Fajardo, Luann Udell and Christi Friesen. I was making so many polymer clay beads that I had to find something to do with them. So charms became the way forward. I have been working with a few new charms that I will put them online tomorrow. Provided I haven't burned myself too badly with the soldering iron.

International Charm Day - 28th April 2009

I have just come across this blog about International Charm Day and just had to get involved. Once in a while I make charms using things like polymer clay, beads, wire, etc but I have recently seen so many wonderfully imaginative ideas using christmas light bulbs or glass. I guess you are limited only by your imagination or your ability to not burn yourself with a soldering iron. So over the next few days I hope to make a few charms and put them here on the 28th. If you want to take part too go to http://www.internationalcharmday.blogspot.com/ - you can even become a follower and might just win a prize. Go on, be charming!

Flowers!

The weather has been amazing here for the last two days. It has been warm and sunny but with enough of a breeze to make it pleasant rather than boiling. The flowers in the picture are in my garden blooming their heads of like they haven't flowered before and have been doing this for a good few weeks.

I have been catching up with swaps recently. There have been a flurry of brilliant ideas for swap with more in the pipeline so I had to get moving. Here are some hand painted watercolour inchies.

And these are some Greek Mythology themed ATCs. The Pegasus and Minotaur head I drew myself as I couldn't find any images that I really liked. To make the background I scanned some of my 1884 ancient Greek text by Xenophon, printed and painted it then stamped using some of my own design rubber stamps (more about those later). I added some silver foil (which spread for a mile and stuck to everything) and used some Non Sequitur rubber stamp focal images with a little bling in the bottom right corners. I really enjoyed this swap theme (surprise, surprise!)

One more time

OK, final post for today. A coloured pencil drawing of a badger cub discovering a bee for the first time. I do believe I am badger obsessed.

Kiesha

This is my latest commissioned drawing. She is Kiesha, a rottweiler but no ordinary one. She was badly abused by her first two owners which is why there is so much white on her. A friend of my sister found her at a dog shelter and took her on, doing a wonderful job of rehabilitating her. Kiesha is a wonderful dog, calm and friendly and a joy to be around. She is also Stanley's mother so if her personality is anything to go by Stanley is from a grand bloodline. She is drawn in graphite pencil with coloured pencil collar.

A journaling we will go

I'm taking part in a journal page tip in swap- my first ever. It is entitled 'A Day in the Life' so I have been working hard at coming up with some ideas that actually make daily life in rural Scotland sound interesting. This is my first page but I noticed that I put my name too close to the spine where it will be bound - doh! I will try to unstick it but if all else fails I will have to reproduce it. I used some small drawings that I made, charms, bead, ribbon, acrylic paints, masks, die cuts, gems and my own photos on it and really went to town.

Corners!

How many times do you read your art/craft/any other book or magazine and want to mark multiple pages with bookmarks? Do you, like me, reach for some scrap paper and tear it into small pieces to act as markers? Well, Lisa Vollrath has a fantastic project on Go Make Something - recycled envelope bookmarks. If you take a look at the project all you have to do is cut the corners off used envelopes and decorate them. I had to give them a go. But what about all those little bits of paper you have leftover, the offcuts from bigger projects or even projects gone bad? Sure, you could collage the envelope corners but if you wanted something a little smarter? So I thought that I would make a template from one of the envelope corners. Then it could be used to form multiple corner bookmarks with a couple of simple folds. I've added the template here. Print the template onto some card and you're all set. All you do is draw round the template, cut it out, fold along the lines, glue the tab and stick down. Then decorate... or not. You just slip the bookmark over the corner of the page and it stays in place. Considering they only take minutes to make you can make hundreds of them for the many inspiring pages you need to mark and they are really handy for students too. Simple. I made mine to be 2 inches along the long edge but you can enlarge or make smaller if you like.