Artists Way

Well I've managed so far to do my morning pages, I'm having to get up early but that's not a problem considering I'm not sleeping too well. Yesterday I had my Artists Date. I was working in the afternoon and normally I would have spent the morning at home probably doing the housework but instead I went to see a lovely exhibition about the Transporter Bridge at the Dorman museum followed by a trip to a beautiful gift shop called Conxept and I treat myself to an inexpensive bracelet but very pretty and then I had a wonder around Albert Park taking pictures of the Autumn leaves. It was lovely, the sun was shining and I enjoyed the fresh air.
There are a few tasks for this week. The book suggests you do at least two, the one you're drawn too which seems the most appealing and the one you dislike the most. It asks you to quickly list 5 altenative careers which you would have liked to do. Don't think too much into it, just write what pops in to your head first. My list read: Dancer, Textile Artist,Florist,cake decorator and community worker. Now I must do an activity this week connected to one of those jobs. Today I was at my textile class but I think I fancy a go at flower arranging so that's my next job. The task I didn't like the sounnd of was thinking of 3 old enemies of my creative self-worth. Those people in my past who have critised and knocked my abilities. Now I have to write a letter in my defense and send it to myself.I'm putting this one off but I will do it before the weeks out I promise!

The Artists Way - Julia Cameron

This week I have started the 12 week course called the Artists Way. For anyone who isn;t familiar with this it is a fantastic book by Julia Cameron in which she helps you discover your creative self. Each week you are given tasks to do to discover what really gets your creative juices flowing and also to identify what could be causing you to doubt your abilities, feel blocked and unable to allow yourself to follow your dreams. Two tasks which are musts for every week are the 'Morning Pages' and the weekly 'Artists Date'. The 'Morning Pages' involve writing three pages of long hand every morning about anything and if you can't think of anything you just write 'I can't think of anything' over and over if you have to. For the Artists Date you need to imagine you are taking your creative self on an afternoon (or morning/evening) out and imagine where it would like to go. One of the suggestions was to take £5 to the pound shop, market, carboot sale and see what you can buy which really strikes a cord with your creative self. I reckoned if I start the course now the twelve week will coincide with the New Year and I'll be all set for a creative 2012. 'Wish me Luck!'

Sewing Kit

I enjoyed making the sewing kit so much I thought I'd do another one in a green and brown colour scheme so I could send it in to the Ribbongirl Challenge, hope they like it!

Sewing Kit

I bought these lovely sewing stamps from Crafty Individuals and wanted to use them on something so I came up with this sewing kit using some vintage ribbons and bits I got from the Art Market at Middlesbrough Town Hall. I also used some lovely papers from 3D Jean.

Decopatch Screen

Well I haven't posted much lately and this is partly the reason why. I bought this MDF screen in a charity shop for £5 and decided to cover it in decopatch papers. It took some covering. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it now it's finished but I really wanted to have a go at decopatch and if you're going to try something you might as well start BIG!

Home Sweet Home Banner

Here is the latest project which I set for the Marton Library craft group. It is four decorated mount board houseswhich I drew free hand. Each one is decorated with DCWV Blossoms and Butterflies stack, sequins and ribbons. There is a concertina flower on each and the letters are stamped with Papermania - Alphamania stamps. The roof has been finished off with a punched flower and I have added a fringe on the bottom. Each house has been threaded on to some craft wire and net and wool bows added.

Bouquet Card

I bought this fab new punch that punches fancy ovals, circles, squares, corners all sorts so I thought I'd put it to good use and try the oval first which I have used in the background of this card. On the front I have stuck on some paper roses,punched flowers, sequins and beads and finished off with a ribbon. I think it looks quite sweet.

Butterfly card

Well I bought a lovely little butterfly punch so I thought I'd put it to good use. The silver butterflies are just from a bag of table confetti

Birdcage Card

For this card I cut a cardboard birdcage amd covered it in gold embossing powder and stuck it on to the patterned paper with foam pads. I have downloaded a template of the birdcage I drew. The bird I drew freehand but there are plenty of birds you can get off google images if you put in clipart bird to help you get the right shape. At the base of the birdcage I usd a flowery border punch to cut out a design on a strip of patterned paper and then mounted that on to gold card and glued it to the base of the birdcage. There is a punched flower and a paper rose at the top to finish it off.

Double Easel card

These cards look so effective and are really easy to make. I will get round to down loading the template eventually. I used Craft Individuals papers and images on this one.

Canvas

After going to our EfemeraInk monthy meet I couldn't help doing more pictures like the one you can see on http://efemera-ink.blogspot.com/search/label/Canvas (mines the cat picture), so here are my further attempts.

Textiles Folder

These pages are the samples of transfer printing and a few other random pages I think I liked doing the transfer printing the best. You will probably see alot more of that.

Textiles Folder

I have been doing a course at Middlesbrough college called 'Reinventing your clothing'. It was quite good because we got to try all sorts of techniques such as embroidery, dying, printing. Anyway I put all of my samples and notes in a folder and I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out.

Corset using transfer paints.

Do you like this corset I made?. The fabric and lace started off plain white but I used transfer paints to print my own design on to it and I used punched paper shapes, wool, leaves to create the patterns. I am really pleased at how vibrant the colours have come out. Once printed I used machine embroidery to embellish it.

Wooden House

After doing the wooden tray I thought I'd have a go at decorating this wooden house I bought from www.3djean.co.uk. Take a good look at this picture cos I don't like it so I'm going to pull it to pieces and start again. I used retro chipboard shapes to decorate it which were free in a magazine I bought but I'm not happy with how its turned out so am going to try and find some small objects to fill it. Watch this space!

Crafty Individuals wooden tray

I have had this little wooden tray from Crafty Individuals for ages. I decorated it when I first bought it and hated it so I stripped it back and had another go and now I quite like it. I painted the frame with pink paint and mounted it on some mount board covered in gold card for a border and then some fancy Crafty Individuals paper. Each box has one of those mini tags in again which I have decorated using various bits and pieces and finally topped it off with a fleur de lis also from Crafty Individuals.
I reckon this counts as Bright and Beautiful so I thought I'd enter it in to the Crafty Individuals August Challenge.

Photo Album

I keep finding old photos around the house mainly of the kids when they were little so I thought I'd put them all together in an album and then that way they won't get ruined.On the front cover I have decorated these little tags. I've decorated a lot of these little tags. They're so small so it doesn't take long but they look so sweet when they're finished abit like doing inchies, I suppose. The side of the album is decorated with scraps of ribbon.

Royal Wedding

Well our meeting back in April was the day before the Royal Wedding. What a fab day that was we had our own little street party in our garden with all the neighbours and it was absolutely brilliant! Anyway I wanted to make something with a Royal street party theme so this is what we came up with.

Easter again

We made these sweet little chicken baskets back at Easter but I like the paper birds best.

Shoes

I love these shoes. They are really easy to make but look effective plus I made little bags to match.

Shoe card

This was also from the same book. All the templates are in the book.

Russian Doll card

We made this, I think back in January its from this lovely book 'Papercrafting in no time'.

Hi, I'm back!

I know you think I've been terribly lazy and haven't been doing any crafting, well I have I just was being lazy and not putting it on the blog but I'm going to catch up. I'll start with a few projects I've been doing with the Marton Library crafters who meet the last Thursday of the month at Marton Library at 10.30am.