Its Beginning to Look a lot Like......

Its beginning to look a lot like...... dare I say it? No!

It is the last day of November, we have all been bombarded with those adverts since the day after Halloween, but its not really the season until I hear 'All I want for C-------s is you' on the radio.

 ( * a quick disclaimer* I am not a Mariah Carey fan at all but there is something about the introduction to that song that makes my insides fizz - instant festiveness!)

However, tomorrow is the first day of December and so the 'DECEMBER DAILY' begins and I am just a little bit excited!!!

If you don't know about the December Daily then have a look at Youtube or Pinterest, you'll find loads of examples there. It is basically an album to document the month (or up until the 25th) you take a photo every day and write something about it and at the end you have a journal of your lead up to that thing that we can't mention yet.
I made one in 2013 but last year I didn't get around to it , which now makes me quite sad as they are so lovely to look back through. This year I am actually quite organised (I know, not like me at all!)
I have made a monster of an album, the spine is 3 inches wide and it has taken ages! I used 'North Pole' papers by Trimcraft - they are a little unusual, all red and blue, no green but I loved them for the airmail stripe paper!

 You can never have enough space in these things so I have paper bag pages attached to the main pages.

Look at that Airmail stripe, I love it! - it reminds me of the letters my Dad would send home from the Gulf when I was small.

The spine so far.... I'm pretty sure more stuff will get added before the month is out.

 My friend Sally gave me this box recently and it was perfect for keeping all my bits ready for embellishing - its amazing what you can find in your stash! The numbers are from a 'Simple Stories' collection pack, I covered them with glossy accents to give a little shine. The small banner style numbers (in the bottom left corner) came from a free printable on Pinterest, I just glittered them up a bit - you can find it here.

 The front of the album is plain enough - I keep them on the book shelf so the front and back covers can't have any bulky embellishments.

I'm going to the Create with Kate party on the 12th (all details in the link, I have free seats in the car if anyone wants to go!) I never get any work done at these things,too busy chatting and catching up, but just in case i'll bring it along.

I'm all set now - all I have to do is remember to take the photos!

Polly Dolly kits:

Each kit contains:

A printed image from one of my hand painted original designs

A long piece of fabric to make a flower

Two leaves, a button, ribbon and a small piece of embroidery thread to attach the button.

To make the flower:  

Fold the fabric length ways, right sides out.  Sew along the open edge with a running stitch; gently pull the thread until the fabric forms a rosette and sew onto your project.

Here are a couple of ideas for using your Polly dolly kit:

                                                         I used it for a cushion:

                                                                   And for a tote bag:

                    I hope you enjoy making your Polly dolly project, get creative and have fun!

Trick or Treat Bag Swap.

Even though she has just had a baby girl, Aideen from Aideens Swaps organised a Halloween swap. You had to make some sort of trick or treat bag (s) fill them with treats and send them off to your swap partner.
So lets see - you get to craft Halloween stuff and you get chocolate? of course I signed up!


First of all I made a card, this was Graphic 45 Steampunk Spells from last year.

I got the witches legs from a friend who cut them with her Craft Robo (credits here) Thank you Kay!
The broomstick bag is full of goodies, and the black bag has a scene made from Graphic 45 Rare Oddities paper. I'm not a huge fan of fussy cutting but this paper line makes it easy!

I put a battery operated tealight into the bottom of the bag to light it up, but of course I didn't take a photo of it lit. 

I am waiting for the parcel to arrive before I post this - Sabrina got it today, I can't wait to see what she has made, thank you in advance Sabrina!!  

I love swaps!!!

The Best Season of All.

Well, its here again, the season of new boots, the season of cosy, my favourite season of all - Autumn!

On the first of the month I started with subtle decorations, even I thought it was a little early for pumpkin carving, so thanks to a little Pinterest inspiration (who am i kidding, it was hours of deliciously lost time finding all sorts of Autumnal goodness) I started to gather some leaves and cones on my walks and put this together.

                                                                      Inspiration

The jar in the centre is covered with leaves and wrapped in raffia. I used Mod Podge to glue them on but the leaves had to be held in place while they dried, so the next one I made I used a hot glue gun and that was much quicker. It has a battery operated tea light inside which creates a lovely glow along with the small Pumpkin spice candles.
I found the little clay pumpkins at Mr Price, they were really cheap so there are six or seven in the tray, the tray itself was made by Himself. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Do you have any wooden trays lying about in your workshop?
Tim: What kind of wooden tray?
Me: Oh you know, one about 24" by 6" by 2"....
Tim: Hmmmmm............
(imagine measuring, the sound of sawing and nailing)
And then I came home and found this.

Thank you Tim!!!! xxx

The Virginia Creeper that grows across the back wall of our garden is a great barometer of the seasons.The leaves turn the most beautiful red colour and then start to fall, but with a chiminea and candle lamps the garden is still a lovely place to be. That clay pot with the spiders web on is a lamp, we have electric sockets on the deck so it plugs in and looks so pretty - if I was any good I would insert a photo of it lit here, but its raining at the moment, so I'm not going out to take a photo!

Along with decorations I have made a few Halloween Trick or Treat bags for a swap organised by Aideen . They went in the post today, so as soon as my swap partner gets them I shall put up some piccys.

Have a lovely week xxx

Making Polly Dollies.

 Last Sunday I had some friends over to play - they came over with paints and glue and paper and all manner of things so that we could make Polly Dollies.

Drawing

Shading

Adding blusher and lipstick!

Painting on eyes

A little hairdressing

Adding to backgrounds

The finished products-

They are so pretty!

                                                   All so different and all their own work. It was a lovely day to spend with friends - I hope you all come over again soon!!

Art Journal class with Karen Mathews.

I was going to blog about this class the very next day, but here I am FOUR weeks later!

Better late than never.

The lovely Karen Mathews came to teach her art journal class at my house, her art journal is beautiful ( if you ever get to meet her have a peek)  

We did two journal layouts, the first was a double page spread featuring a jar of hearts.

                                               This is when the table was somewhat organized.

                                                                      Thats Karen!

                                                                      Getting messier...

                                                                 I love this page!

                                               paint covered hands are not for everyone!

                                                And then we started on the lettering page:

 It turns out that those Inktense pencils that I've had for years are the best fun ever!

Everyone found the day to be really relaxing, it flew by and was a great way to either add to or get started on our art journals. Thinking of what to write after "Just be" was trickier than you would think!

It was such a good class that when everyone was gone and the kitchen was back to looking like a kitchen  I sat down and added another page.

Thank you Karen for coming all the way down to Kerry, and thank you to all the ladies who came.

Bicycles in May.

I was recently asked by a friend to paint a picture of a red bike - her mother who has moved into a nursing home was reminiscing about a bike she had as a child, so this painting was to go in her new room.

Now, as it happens I did an online course with Jenni Horne (whose work I love) and she paints a lot of bikes, so this is what I came up with. 

This is very much Jenni's style. I paint dollies, much more mixed media, so I am working on combining a bit of this and a bit of that to come up with something that is more"me", my recent dollies have more black outlines which is making an interesting difference.  I suppose that is the point of online courses - you take them to learn new techniques and then you combine them with what you already know and that is how we grow our art.
I love painting in this style - the Paintsomething e-course was brilliant, I'm sure she will run it again if you are interested. In the beginning I practiced and practiced and then life got busy and I stopped for a while,  when I was asked to do this I was delighted to get back to it and then Jenni announced Paintsomething #2...... the timing could not have been better!

So, I am looking forward to learning more and maybe one day I will learn to take straight photos!!

Here is the canvas Sylwia sent me!!

 

 

 

                                 

                                                  Thanks again, it such a happy piece!

Valentines Swap.

I haven't been in a swap for ages, but Aideen of Aideen's Swaps had a Valentine exchange in which you could make anything you liked, so I signed up.

I was paired with Sylwia who is the artist behind Tandiart. I had seen her work pop up on Facebook occasionally and thought it lovely so I was delighted to be swapping with her :)

I decided to make an altered canvas and funnily enough, so did she!

Here is my canvas:

( I swear that looked straight when I was taking the photo....)

 

I used scraps of paper, lots of vintage colours, hessian, lace, fabric, buttons, pearls and embellishments.

 

Sylwia's work is very colourful so I was a bit worried that she wouldn't like it... but she did!!

 

I will post a picture of the canvas she sent me - it is colourful and happy and I love it!

 

Thank you Aideen for organizing the swap and Sylwia for my beautiful gift!!

 

 

New classes!

It has been a very long time since my last post....... so happy new year and I hope you all had a nice Christmas!

My crafting mojo took the whole month of December off, but now, thankfully it seems to be back :)
So, I have one or two projects to show you. The first is a folio style album, I hope to do this class in Bunmahon, Co. Waterford but the date isn't settled yet (It will be posted on the "upcoming classes" page as soon as I know)

 It has hand decorated pages for notes or journaling, a wallet style pocket for keeping things safe and two folio style pockets for keeping important papers. It has stitching detail and measures 8x5"

The second project is for a class in Cork city on Sunday February 8th. It is held in Mardyke House and runs from 11-4pm, the cost is €35. It is a mixed media canvas class - it is meant as an introduction to this medium, but anyone with any experience is also very welcome. There will be several techniques used to create this and I hope people will want to make more intricate pieces with each class - mixed media is addictive once you start!!

Please feel free to contact me (details on the "contact" page) or through facebook and I hope to see you in Cork!!