Spring jewels

I have begun a new spring crochet blanket..... inspired by the little flower jewels of April.

And the soft fleece like feel of new Lambs..

I do love spring, new life and light after months of dark and cold.

On my work desk some different jewels of colour. Little pieces of paperclay. Individually cut, moulded and stamped. washed with acrylic paint.

What am I going to use them for?
Well I will reveal soon.  ;)

Beach pebble sunshine

I have been experimenting with my air drying clay

on pebbles I find on the shoreline..once dry I will seal and paint with acrylics.

Plenty more pebbles to work on.... :)

wedding album

 This weekend I was busy working on a wedding album commission. I started off with a plain white mulberry paper album which I bought from ebay. They cost around £10-15 and come complete with a matching box.

 I decorated the album with doves and bunting which I cut from paper and then painted.

Added names and dates and little sequins. The doves are covered in sparkle modpodge.

Stuck some gilded ribbon around the edges of the box lid.

Glazed in Decoupatch glue to create a solid protective surface. I added a few quotes from old books which you can only see if you zoom in.

And had lots of fun decorating the lid!

Linking to Inspiration Avenue where the theme is Words. As you can see my little album is all about words and a little place to store treasures.

Also linking to Glue it Tuesday!!
                                              

                                               

Gone shopping

This week I am finally linking up to Artsyvilles Glue it Tuesday!

I have been meaning to do so for ages, after all I do go through buckets of modpodge glue in all it's varieties. Matte, gloss, sparkle, in fact the only variety I haven't tried is the glow in the dark variety, but there is time yet!
Many people seem a bit confused about which glue to use for collage. The most important thing to consider is using a glue that is acid free if you want your work to remain colour stable and not fall to pieces after a few years. Acid free glues usually state the fact on the label and most also act as a sealant encasing more unstable papers like newsprint and found papers and protecting them from deterioration. Modpodge is my favourite although it is a little thin for some more delicate papers. I also use golden gel medium which is harder to get in the UK and more recently a great modpodge like glue called Decoupatch, made especially for decoupage and collage.

'Gone shopping' is mixed media piece on a wooden off cut. It uses collaged paper, felt, lace and acrylic paint.
.
It started off as a more serious 'Hare and the Horsetail'

 I didn't like the hare much at this point, and thought she was missing something....

Clothes!!! That is what she needed! And a shopping bag!! 

Much better! I know what you're thinking...

I need more ventilation when working with Modpodge, the fumes had gone to my head!

well I think she looks far better in her little checked dress.

The shopping bag was made from a piece of antique crochet table mat and the trees were cut from felt circles.

It has a gloss glaze which is unfortunately very reflective so I had some problems getting a good photograph.

Linking to Glue it Tuesday

And Paint party friday

Sea and shoreline (Adventures with Citrasolv)

 I recently discovered the delights of Citrasolv

 And its ability to transform the pages of the National Geographic, from this....

 Into this......

 WOW!!!!

A vague face shape

This one still has a vague boat shape

I have no idea how it works or why, but it dissolves the ink to make beautiful abstract shapes..
I got my Citrasolv through Amazon.I didn't seem to be able to find it locally. It is a natural citrus cleaner which contains large amounts of concentrated orange oil.

You tube has some great tutorials..

I like the Cathy Taylor series.

                                           

 Warning!!! It is a messy business, make sure you wear gloves and have plenty of newspaper to hand. The smell is pretty strong too, so don't like me do it on a freezing cold day because you really need to open all the windows. I  hung out all my national geographic papers on the washing line to dry, I think the neighbours must have thought I had finally flipped. :)

Sea and Shoreline ( Citrasolv collage)

I used the paper as an experiment in this landscape collage. I love the sky like effects the random splodges make. All I added to this were a few faint ink lines.

Links to  Inspiration avenue

              Paint Party Friday

Gelli printing

My First experiments

I received my first Gelli plate a couple of weeks ago and have been experimenting to see what it can do...

some of you may know all about Gelli printing already, but I only recently discovered this exciting way of printing.I found it quite hard to find a Gelli Plate in the UK. In the end buying one from The Craft Barn. The best place I have found for a bit of Gelli inspiration is Caroline Dube on you tube.

Very soon I was Gelli printing everything and anything..

I found that thin craft acrylics worked best..especially with the bubblewrap imprints.

With the gelli plate printing papers for collage work is so easy!

And a little addictive :)

And what to do with all the printed paper??

A background for a collage, I drew out the figure and stuck her to the gelli printed collaged background.

Added some hair...

And stencilled a little gilt leaf and added some acrylic paint. I actually think I have overworked it as I much preferred seeing the jelli printed paper more clearer. So next time I will do less, to achieve more...

Links to Paint party friday
Gelli print party

Fun with the metal polish

Distressing magazine images!

Well not that distressing...  I have been experimenting on how best to change magazine images without a whole lot of effort...

This method works best on Junk mail, the sort with glossy pictures. I used Brasso. Not the liquid cleaner, but the one that looks like cotton wool fluff. I found the liquid polish just made the paper soggy.

Junk mail ready for the metal polish!

 

I found that if you rub gently the image begins to rub off. The surface of the paper is not scratched and the inks are spread around. Depending on what image you use the effect can begin to look like a watercolour painting. The text can be completely erased.

Brasso image

This is exactly the same photo, all I have done after using the Brasso is stick it in my Journal with Modelling paste as I found Pva wrinkles the thin paper too much and put some gesso  around the edge and stencilled text on the side..That easy!!

Making up a collage with distressed images

 

 

This method uses elements of the magazine page as collage pieces. I liked these colourful wellies so I distressed them with the Brasso.

Then I tore round them collaging them on to some paper I had printed with a Gelli plate

I used offcuts of butterfly stickers to make the printed paper.

Then you end up with a vintage looking image! The roses were from a gardening catalogue, I just rubbed them until they started to fade out a bit. The paper can also be used just to create texture as I did in the background to yesterdays post 'the Hare and the Tortoise'. Lots of uses, lots of fun. :)

I am linking up this page to The Artists Playroom the prompt being 'what do we often overlook'. I know I can spent hours in 'hobbycraft' our local art and craft store in amongst all the gel mediums, image transfer gels and die cut stencils, but  sometimes equally exciting results can be achieved by raiding the kitchen cupboards! I have been instructed by the Doctor to rest my arm after a burn injury. So no cutting, sticking or painting for a couple of weeks :( instead I will have lots of time to look at what everyone else has been creating... another thing which I often overlook through lack of time. No excuse now!!

Linking to APR
and Carolyn Dube Gelli print party

Decorating paper

Florentine marbled paper which I brought home

Whenever I visit somewhere new I'm always on the lookout for interesting handmade paper, which is why I was in my element in Florence a few weeks back after finding a gorgeous little paper making shop called Il Papiro

Marbled-paper making originated in the Orient, as early as the 10th century in China. A similar method called suminagashi also existed in Japan in the 12th century. In Europe, the art form arrived in the 17th century. Today it survives almost exclusively in Florence. Il Papiro uses these ancient techniques to produce in the back of the shop the most beautiful paper. The shop also sells handmade repeat printed papers.
Easyjet baggage allowances are very mean and I could have brought back far more than I did, but here are a few sheets  I found....

    

 Inspired by these repeat prints I thought i would use one of the lino print blocks I made a couple of weeks ago to see if I could use lino print as a method of hand printing paper.

 First using water soluble ink I printed my ivy leaf pattern, I deliberately didn't press on too hard to print the image as i wanted the print to be fairly faint.

 Then I used Conte crayon pastels to colour over the top of the print once it was dry.

 Then I used the paper to make a little collage!

Then I had a go at printing on thinner mulberry paper to see if I could print an image which I could tear out and possibly collage.

Yay!! It sort of worked. Now I'm in the process of using these printed dragonflies in a separate collage which hopefully I'll post soon.