November ready!

One of these days, I will get my calendar page in on time. Although I am working less, I don't seem to get any more done - how is that?
This is an homage to the fabulous Dina Wakley - on one of her courses, we did intuitive drawing and painting, and whilst I can't pretend that I particularly liked the piece I did on the day, there is something very therapeutic about painting random areas in bright colours. As a child I used to do this kind of thing with felt tips, and now I'm 38, but it still gives me pleasure...
You might notice that there is a slight technical hitch at the bottom of the page. My poor, long-suffering, moleskine has finally given up the ghost, and split down the middle. I have just enough space to get December in, and then it's on to the new, pink leather bound baby!

Poison

I decided to do something a bit different this week, as it is so long since I did anything non-journal-y. As you will no doubt have observed already, I have something of a passion for Stampotique stamps, so the challenge on their design blog every couple of weeks is something I have been meaning to get to for a while... The challenge at the moment is to design a poison bottle, using Stampotique stamps only. I happened to be cleaning out my spice drawer and found an almost empty test tube container that is used to store vanilla pods in. Seemed like a good place to start. After a few mishaps (i.e. the cork getting wedged in the tube just after I had filled it with green spray ink, and the fact that as a test tube, it doesn't stand up - doh!)here is my finished creation:

Goglin just seemed the obvious choice for guarding the potion, and with his little hands poised - I kept thinking 'my precious' all the time I was painting him! I added some beads and buttons to the rusted wire, the pointing finger button is a handmade porcelain button, made by yours truly...

I used upholstery tacks to attach a tag (and to stop the cork sliding inside the tube again, hmm hmm)and used a torn piece of old book page to break up the darkness of the green 'potion' inside.
Hope you all had a happy halloween everyone!