Pingu & Co.

Having just spent a week and a half in bed with a mystery illness there has not been much going on in the realms of artiness. I have been trying to catch up with a few random ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while though.

There is a growing trend on internet craft sites for making decorative paper arches. The arches come in a variety of sizes, from long and thin to small a squat and every other variation in between. Some are vintage, some are modern. I happened to come across this phenomenon a few weeks ago and thought I would have a go myself. My first attempt is small in size and Medieval themed, including one of those ubiquitous Medieval birds. It all adds a bit of variety.

Inspired by the arch theme I also made an architecture themed ATC. I love the randomness of using embossing powder with a glue stick. I got some great bubbles in the bottom left corner.

I also took another route in my papercutting adventure. My penguin is made up of layers of cut paper - a full bottom white layer, a black layer cut to the shape of the black on the penguin's body and an inlaid piece of hand painted paper for the yellows. I am quite pleased with the result and have been trying to come up with some other ideas that might work in a similar way.

Finally, my little bee heart. I don't actually like hearty, romantic themed crafts but I had some chipboard heart shapes that I was given and have been trying to use them up. The bee was a painting I did ages ago. It dawned on me that I can scan my art work, print it out and use it as images for my collages. The only trouble was that it was too fiddly to cut round the legs so I cut them off and redrew them once I had stuck the image down.