Sketching the garden flowers in bloom

I can't believe it has been over five weeks since I last wrote a blog post. My last post was Christmas Eve - and I can't believe that Christmas has been and gone either. January has been a really slow month though. Not much in terms of creativity but lots of reading - mainly about business related topics.

I have done a little painting though. A selection of mini landscapes (which I will post about later) and some quick sketches of the flowers that are bursting forth in the garden. The flowers were an exercise in speed painting and took about ten minutes each.

Finally, I painted one of the rabbits form the field opposite my house. We had snow for a few days and I watched this guy playing in the field after one heavy fall. I couldn't make up my mind if he was enjoying it or annoyed at having to dig for his supper.

Colourful wooden beads for the summer

It has been rather damp here for the last few weeks. While the rest of the UK has been basking in sun, it has been dull and grey and wet in the Scottish Borders. The wet weather is taking its toll on my poor hands too. Usually I don't have to worry about my hands until late autumn when I start upping my use of cod liver oil. But this summer has been bad. As a result my paper bead making has been severely limited. So I have been painting wooden beads instead. As you can see, there is a summer theme going on. Bees, and ladybirds, flowers, lighthouses and starfish. It's a cross between summer in a country garden and at the beach. I wonder why? If you want to see more examples then you can find them on my web site.

Ribbon flowers

I came across a lovely company the other week on one of the craft channels - Ribbonbox. They supply products to make your own fabric flowers but they are so simple and so effective that I wanted to give it a go. So I looked out my stash of wire edge ribbon and artificial flower stamens and followed along with the demos. 

The flowers in the photo below are the result. Really nice blossomy flowers, one anemone and one poppy. Bear in mind I did not use Ribbonbox's kits (they come complete with ribbons, stamens, leaves, etc) but they will definitely be added to my crafting wishlist.

The poppy was nice as a little addition to a birthday gift for my sister - a little pencil drawing of Indy.

More hand painted wooden beads

I managed to get a few more wooden beads painted this week. More wildlife and more flowers. I have to say, it's a lovely change from the paper beads. It combines my love of beads with my love of animals and painting. What's not to love? Some of the flower beads are sold already but some of the wildlife beads are already listed in my new web store here.

Kanzashi flowers part 2

Just a couple of pictures today. A few more kanzashi flower samples that I made for Gina-B Silkworks:

A - Handbag charm
B - Phone charm
C - Bookmark

D - Photo frame
E - Decorated pillow box

Wendy Vecchi

I have been inspired by Wendy Vecchi recently. I came across her work when she did a guest spot on the Simon Says Stamp Challenge blog and I just had to find out more. Her grungepaper flowers just make that bit of difference when you need something floral. I'm not one for really pretty, pretty styles of crafting so this suited me quite nicely. Let me tell you, the style is beautifully mucky. Lots of ink and paint all over the grungepaper. Or maybe that's just me. Fun, at any rate.

Buried Treasure

Seth at the Altered Page is running a new project called Buried Treasure. All we have to do is re-publish a post that we might consider treasure. So I have chosen my post on my Nature Journal.

As I can no longer cut and paste the text into Blogger you can visit the above link to read what I have to say on the subject.

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!)

Casting flowers

Prima flowers cost a fortune here. Even buying small amounts, e.g. 10 flowers for £1 (or $2). Maybe I am just tight fisted with my money but for tiny flowers made of paper I feel it is a bit expensive. I don't use them very often either but they are in vogue at the moment and they look nice on cute cards. So, what could I do about it? Thinking about what Prima flowers are (moulded paper flowers) I figured out a way to make my own. I had tried out some paper casting with toilet tissue recently (see the pictures of the decorative squares) and thought that it might be the way forward. Take a look here for some instructions on paper casting.

I used a Prima flower as a template and drew around it onto some tracing paper. I transferred the shape to some rubber (used for making hand carved stamps) and carved out the shape. As Prima flowers have rises and dips over their surface I took that into account and carved deeper areas near the tips of the petals. The deeper the dip the higher the rise on the final flower. I also carved from the tip of the petal towards the centre of the flower. That way the flowers look like they have veins due to the valleys created by the carving tool. Then I took some mulberry paper and used the paper casting technique to form the flower. Lay the paper flat over the carved rubber flower shape and use a stiff, damp brush to gently tap the paper into the mould. You don't have to worry about cutting the paper to shape, that happens once the shape has dried. I used three or four layers of mulberry paper to make my flowers. So far none of them have separated or fallen to pieces. Once dry just trim away the excess paper and, hey presto, a flower.

Frogs and flowers

When the front door was renewed recently I lost the brass number that was attached to the old door. I have also had several delivery drivers ask 'Is this No.2?". So I needed a new number for the front door.

I made the one pictured out of a piece of 4 x 1/2 inch pine. After carving the number "2" using some wood carving tools I was given a while back, I then painted it in white acrylic and stamped with a froggy rubber stamp. I then drew a few extra bugs and coloured in with acrylic paint. Several coats of varnish later and I had a serviceable door number that hangs from the wall with a brass screw eye.

I also made the card using an alcohol ink background stamped with a hand carved hibiscus. Simple but effective.