2012 Calendar Challenge

I liked the look of this challenge over on The Kathryn Wheel blog.  It has taken me a while to get going, so I have got quite a bit of catching up to do, but I am really enjoying it at the moment - lets hope it lasts all year!


As my new year mantra is reduce: reuse: recycle I thought I had better start with my own stash - I am going to try and do this challenge without buying anything new and do a bit of stash-busting!


I looked around for a suitable journal and decided to use an old Designers Guild catalogue.  The paper is a nice weight and not shiny, I had two copies so I took a couple of pages out of one and added into the other so that I had enough pages for the year.


This is what it looked like to start with.

Just to catch up this is my January page - will have to think hard about what I did in January.

This is my February page - this will be a bit easier to catch up as I have been doing the photo-a-day challenge. :)

and this is my March page - all ready for filling in.

Going to get started on the April page right away.

Photo-A-Day Challenge 2

It seems to take quite a bit of organising to take a photo-a-day.  It appears to be such an easy task, but I am now always looking for something to photograph.  Here are the next few photographs I have uploaded to 365Project.

25 February - My Favourite View

26 February - Shadows

27 February - Prickly Birthday Present

28 February - OCA Course Work Has Arrived

29 February - This is the View On My Way To Work, I think I could take a photograph every day and it would always be different, the scenery is stunning in this part of the world.

01 March - Back to Weight Watchers.  I decided not to make the usual new year resolution of lose weight, get fit, but did decide to try and live by the reduce: reuse: recycle mantra.  So really I could use the reduce part and apply it to myself!  Have decided to add it to my blog in a hope that if someone else is reading it I might apply myself more and stick to the diet.  Here's hoping anyway.

02 March - First Page In My Sketchbook - finally made a start on my OCA Textiles Degree, I will be blogging about this on a separate blog - more details later.

03 March - Indie - the wonder cat! :)

04 March - Honesty Seed Heads - so delicate in the evening sunlight.

05 March - Calendar Journal - this is another challenge that I am taking part in.  Will blog about this later as well.

06 March - Beautiful Rusty Horseshoes hanging on a rusty nail.  I find these old shoes when I am digging in the garden.  I love the rusty colours and textures.

Just a little glimpse of my life.  I am loving this photo-a-day challenge, just hope that I can keep it up.

Photo-A-Day Challenge

I have wanted to take part in a photo-a-day challenge for a while, but always seem to miss the start and then can't get into it.  I found this challenge on chantelle's blog, so decided to start it on my birthday.  I am going to post my pictures on here and here.  so here are my images from 11 Feb to now, rather a lot of them to start with but I will post them once a week from now on . . .

11 February - My Birthday

12 February - off to Anglesey in warm, soft, stripy socks

13 February - Wales - cold, windy, wet - and fabulous!

14 Febraury - Be My Valentine xx

15 February - Lovely new lamp from Next

16 February - w..w..web - spiders web catching the light ... and flies!

17 February - Birthday Roses - still lovely.

18 February - Indie - adventure cat

19 February - Indie - relaxing cat

20 February - lovely new yarn

21 February - Cat Sitting these two cheeky monkeys!

22 February - Work in Progress!

23 February - Mini Love Hearts

24 February - Biba - very nosey horse


So thats all up-to-date now  ... will post more about my crochet work in progess next time.

I'm back at last!

Everything seemed to have conspired against me blogging - no internet and broken computer and phone.  However everything is sorted now so I'm back - and I've got a lot of catching up to do.

Firstly, Being Creative - November and December.  Too late now really but I did take part so I am going to post them here and onto the Flickr group.

The theme for November was vintage.  I want to make a picture for our newly decorated room so decided to try out a small version first.

I divided a small canvas into squares with string, covered everything with newspaper and inks then used bits of all kinds of everything to make little square collages - scraps of pretty paper, leftover fabrics, vintage stamps, book pages and buttons, a rusty washer, stamped images.

I like how it has turned out and I think it will go really well in the room.  So now I am going to work on a much larger version.

The December theme was Winter.  I have been making quite a few baby hats lately, so I thought that this snowy white one would fit the theme well.

That's all for now, but I will defiantly be blogging again very soon - lots of projects to share!

Being Creative - October

So here we are already well into November, the year has passed so quickly!

I found the "Fire" theme for October quite difficult to interpret, but the thing that had popped into my head straight away was the lyrics from the Adele song Rolling in the Deep .... "There's a fire starting in my heart".  So at first my idea was to make a heart in beautiful red silk.  However, one of the ladies I go to nightschool with, organised a course for us to go on.  We went to The Museum of Sculpture in Berriew and made fabulous glass mosaics with Jessica Callan, who is working on a local art project called the Big Buzz.   She had been into school and worked with KS3 pupils to create the most fantastic mosacis that will go on display in the canteen.We spent nearly 3 hours making our mosaics, and I really loved it.  I think it was the liberal sprinkling of glitter that I enjoyed the most.

 
Jessica had already cut out wooden shapes for us to work on - I chose a heart.  We drew around this onto a piece of newspaper and then choses pieces of coloured and patterned glass and beads and sparkly bits and bobs to decorate our chosen shapes.  The base was then covered with epoxy resin and the glass and beads transfered to our shapes.  When these pieces are pressed down the resin plumps up between the shapes.  I then added beads and sparkly bits and then it was time to give it all a VERY LIBERAL sprinkling of glitter.  Then its was a very painstaking process of cleaning off all the little pieces with a small cloth dipped in water.

And finally it was time to take our works of art home - very carefully - unless everything was going to get covered in glitter!  So here is my piece for the October theme of Fire - Set Fire To My Heart.

Being Creative-September

The theme last month - for the Being Creative challenge on Julia Crossland's blog - was Autumn.  So, with a bit of a change of direction,  I decided to use my garden as the basis for this months theme.

This is a photograph of my front door.  I absolutly love this Virginia Creeper in the Autumn.  The leaves turn the most brilliant colours.  Unfortunatly it doesn't last very long, one windy day and most of the leaves are gone, so I just have to enjoy it whilst it lasts.

Being Creative - August

Once again ... running late!

The choice for this months prompt TRAVEL was easy for me.  I organise coach travel - holidays and day trips - for a living.  One of the vehicles we have is a 1963 Leyland Tiger Cub classic bus.

This is the fantastic badge from the front of the bus.

We sometimes use her for weddings and have lots of fun decorating her in appropriate colours.

  So, with the wedding theme in mind - and remembering the Dress Up 2010 challenge that I followed last year - I decided to make a wedding dress.

I used old wallpaper to cut out the dress shapes.  Then just started layering, with gesso, acrylic paints, magazine cut-outs, stamps, more gesso, glittery embossing powder.  I inked the edges to give it a vintage feel.  Added ribbon and sequins to the neck and hem edge.  Dipped ready made flowers in tea and added them to the dress with ribbon, sequins, flowers, beads and stick on jewels.  I added lines for journalling on one dress shape, then stuck the two shapes together, catching a wire coat hanger in between.
I have left space on the back for some journalling.

I am really enjoying taking part in this challenge, I am trying to keep the things I make small - so that they actually get finished!