Messy but productive?

On the art of moodlingSarah has challenged people to own up to their craft room messiness. My husband is constantly telling me that he is going to come in and organise my desk for me (you can imagine the response he gets!)and I suppose looking at this, you could understand why. But, I know where everything is, and can reach most of it without getting up, which is pretty much all the criteria I have...In my defence, it was a lot tidier than this when I sat down yesterday morning, but you know how it is when you get into the groove... Anyway I have been making ATCs to swap with my new friend Katrin in Germany, who I met through Marion's Zetti swap, so I had a lovely couple of hours 'craaafting' as my husband calls it, in the hammiest of west country accents:


I so liked the nude image that I did for my friends card last week, I decided to scale it down to atc size and made one for myself too!

I have often wondered what to do with my atcs, as sticking them in a file in the cupboard seems such waste, until I saw what Kate does with hers. Then I found this nifty bit of kit in a gift shop in town, so I bought it and now it hangs in the downstairs loo!


Right off to do some jobs now so that I can get on with some journal pages that I am dying to get down...

More naked women!

This might seem like a new obsession, but this is for a birthday card for one of my friends who was involved in the wild swimming incident last week, so when I found this image on karenswhimsy.com, I had to use it. The background is ecoline inks and salt, the stamps are a mixture of Tim Holtz and Crafty Individuals. The text is from Lisa's altered images, and I couldn't resist the pale moon, even though the mica chip makes the moon not quite so pale!

New Journal, new experiences

 

My new moleskine journal arrived last week, and I have spent a few days trying to decide how best to 'christen' it. Committing something to paper, especially when it is bound into a pristine new book is quite hard for me - it doesn't allow for any 'errors'. This weekend I went away with some of my very best friends, and we had such a marvellous time that journalling it in my new book seemed only fitting. I used a mixture of watercolour paints (which haven't seen the light of day for ages), studio line acrylics, oil pastels and permanent pen. It records a challenge which was dreamt up after a few too many glasses of cava, but executed in the cold light (and cold water) of day!

Autumn

 

Can you tell that the kids are back at school, and that my life has taken a turn away from the self-indulgence of sitting at my desk? It's been ages since I had anything I felt like blogging - nothing else I have done felt worth sharing. Even this page has taken me nearly a week, and it's not even that pleasing to me. I was feeling quite miserable about the onset of autumn and the fact that summer seemed to be over even before it really got going.... But then I thought about some of the great things about autumn and the harvest time. As my good friend Anna would say, 'it's good enough'.

Does my bum look big in this?

 

 

Armed with all the tips and techniques picked up from Dyan earlier in the week, I got out the Claudine Hellmuth paints last night, created my background with pink, brown, blue, and stamped with Tim Holtz stamps. A little highlighting in oil pastels and some computer generated text, and then a layer of beeswax. I'm quite happy with it:)

More Claudine-y stuff

Yesterday I spoiled myself to a day with Dyan at Art from the Heart. She was running a class to teach some of the different ways that you can use Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Line paints. Happy coincidence seeing as I now have the full range! It was great fun as usual and verrrry relaxing. Anyway, here are the results....Now for some reason my computer won't let me rotate the images today, think I must have upset it...

A Tale of Two Houses

I decided to do this journal page yesterday, but it wasn't supposed to look like this, or at least not quite so shamelessly Claudine Hellmuth-like. It was the paints you see. I painted the background and had the idea of the two houses to illustrate the fact that my parents are in the process of moving into separate houses after forty years of marriage. It was the colours you see - as soon as I had painted them (new paints for my birthday) it just made me think of some of Claudine's art. After that, the Charlie and Lola collaged details and the black and white photo additions were obvious. I was reading last night that you have to try on different styles until you find your own, so if Claudine were ever to see this, I hope she would take it as such, and not just as shameless plagiarism. I really enjoyed doing it though.