Halloween treats

As promised here are some Halloween goodies that I have been working on. Tim Holtz in his 'tricks & treats' blog post gave some great ideas for creating wonderful arty pieces and Ten Two Studios has some instructions on using matchboxes in the 'project' section of the web site. So I took my lead from those ideas and here they are. Some have been swapped out for group or one to one swaps but all of them were fun to do.

A few pictures of some greetings cards and inchies I made. At the top of the page, however, is a collection of pages from a manifest journal swap. The idea is to take a large piece of paper and write what you wish to manifest in your life on the paper in large, bold letters. Then you add some masking tape over the writing in places and coat it in gesso. Once the gesso is dry you remove the masking tape, tear the page into equal pieces and paint it, collage it, do whatever to make it look pretty. Each participant then gets a page from each person's sheet. It was another new project for me but great fun - even moreso when you realise that each page is a very personal piece of the other swappers.

The next post should be some of my Halloween treasures that I have been making and swapping.

Recipes for a sweet life

OK! I know! Until recently it has been a whole month since I posted. It has been busy here with everything from a new shower being installed (huge mess!) to me having a horrible cold. Now that things are quieting down - don't speak too soon, Gillian - I will hopefully have more time to create and post.

Over recent months I have been taking part in swaps for some things I have never tried before. The first of them was recipe cards. I like simple cooking - not for me standing, over a hot stove for hours on end. Just think Mediterranean cookery - mmmm, simple and tasty. So swapping recipe cards was new and fun. Of course, the first swap was for sweets and treats so the diet was put on hold while I tried some of them.

The other cards here revolved around other kinds of recipes - there is a facial scrub and some lemon balm tea. So even if you're not the world's best cook there is a recipe out there to suit - it just needn't be for something edible.

The bottom photo is for my ongoing tip in swap - it just had to be a Halloween theme for October.

I have more pictures to post but I'll be adding them throughout the week.

Heavenly rosary

Back in July I posted about a commission I received for 120 paper beads. Well, those beads have now been made into the most amazing one of a kind Rock'n'roll rosaries by the very talented Syd from Heavenly Rosaries. One was given as a gift to a friend of Syd's. Judging by what she has told me, her friend really loves the rosary and has received many compliments about it. And rightly so. They are truly stunning pieces and completely original which makes them great as gifts - no one else will have one quite like it as each bead and link is original. The second rosary is now for sale in Syd's Etsy store but she has kindly allowed me to post some pictures here. Enjoy!

Beads ahoy!

I have spent the last week making loads of new beads and updating my Etsy store. Lots of fun with just a smattering of hair pulling as my broadband connection caused a few issues. When I upgraded to broadband recently I expected much faster service and quicker upload speed for Etsy. However, it was not to be. It isn't much better than my old dial up connection at times. Anyway, at least I can get the pictures updated. I believe some people in the UK can't get broadband at all. So here are a few pictures of my newest beads. Lost of Halloween themes and some very pretty colours - if I do say so myself.

Where's Wally?

As it is already turning autumnal I have dragged out the wool and needle felting tools. I have been reading a book about polar bears and came across some photos of walrus. They are just soooo cute and I decided I wanted on for myself. As the bath isn't big enough to accommodate one I thought the next best thing would be a handmade one. Smaller and the smell less. So Wally is the end result. I think he looks a little sad so I may have to make him a friend and then I can have my very own walrus colony.

Photo enlargement problem solved

I finally sorted the problem with my photos not enlarging. Apparently when dragging photos within posts that one is writing the link can be broken. This means that when someone clicks on the link it doesn't enlarge the photo. The cure? I had to link my photos to my Picasa Web album. Blogger seems to supply a Picasa Web album, where blog post photos are stored, so that was pretty simple. I just had to upload my photos to my blog post and publish, then go to Picasa Web and open the appropriate image. By using the 'Link' button on the 'Edit Post' screen I cut and pasted the link to the Picasa Web image and re-published. A bit of extra bother but it would seem to work. I can't claim to have figured it out myself though - the Tips for Bloggers blog told me what to do. I just thought I would pass on the info in case anyone else has the same problems in future.

I'm back!

It's been a busy few weeks. I had a week away -not to some hot country with golden beaches, but to my sister's place to dog sit while she went to the hot country with golden beaches. It was great fun for me though. The dogs were brilliant and very good so we all had a nice time. Well, at least I think the dogs had a good time - at least they didn't complain to me.

So after the calm came the storm. I had alot of things to catch up on and have spent the last week and a half sorting everything out. Some of the things at the top of my 'to do' list were some swaps and cards so the following are the photos so far.

This fan is for a swap with one of my ATC groups. We were supplied with a template and instructions and had to produce one fan to send to a partner. This was my attempt - inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Halloween approacheth! Lots of Halloween images and papers have been floating around but inchies and ATCs are the easiest of substrates to cover. I hope the pictures will enlarge for you to read the humorous comments on the inchies.

This is my most recent page for the tip in collaboration. The farm and cat are hand drawn and the theme is related to 'Harvest'.

I have also started my new Open University course - Neighbourhood Nature. I had thought that it would take a more scientific viewpoint on nature watching but it is quite simple so far (and I have got to chapter 12 of a 13 chapter coursebook in five days). There are some experiments and observations that I have to make once the web site comes online (I just couldn't wait to get started with the course which doesn't officially start until the 1st September) so I will look forward to that in the hope that it will stretch my little grey cells a bit more. I can't help but feel that the Open University is dropping it's standards in order to get more people to take courses. As I said to a friend recently, 'They are meant to be teaching university level courses, not kindergarten courses.' But that's the cynic in me.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

DiSco again

OK, third time lucky. I have re-shot the photos of my DiSco goodies and hopefully they will enlarge when clicked. Here goes nothing:

Update (again): Obviously the photos still won't enlarge so I cropped them all so at least you will be able to see a little more of the detail on the blog page.

DiSco reveal

Way back in February I began a collaborative project with Seth from The Altered Page and over a hundred other artists. You can read about the earlier exploits here and here . The climax of this is to be a display of projects created from the disintegrated papers. After the big reveal of grunged up papers in May I actually left mine out in the elements as they hadn't disintegrated very much. Hardly at all - except for the puppy teeth marks from my sister's dog who felt it needed some extra help. Look what happened during the last three months.



Out of three rolls of paper I got a page and a half that was usable. One roll was filled with creatures that had made it their home so I left it in situ - insects need a place to call home too. Another had a small snail living up the inside but I gently removed it and found it a new home in the undergrowth. The rest had disintegrated through the action of insects, birds and possibly rodents chewing it for bedding. I am amazed that so much 'damage' was done in three months of summer when little effect was seen after three months of rain, hail, sleet, snow and sun between February and May.

So, now for my pictures. I made a few items that I felt fitted the DiSco theme - an ATC (even the paperclips and strings were out in the elements with the paper rolls), a couple of inchies, two beads and a 3x1 inch Memory Frame filled with collaged papers.

Update: It seems the picture of my DiSco goodies won't enlarge. I can't figure out why so I will try to photograph them again and re-post a picture later. Apologies for the inconvenience and thanks to everyone for commenting.