Squirrel-proof bird feeders

'Nuff said!

'My' sculpture

Vauxhall Road, Liverpool, at junction with Pumpfields Road and Blackstock Street. Identical design to my entry for an Elf petrol competition in 1997 when I was at Liverpool Art College.

At last!

24 August 2010
Next door's oak tree in our garden!

26 October 2011
Stage one completed. Damaged plants and shrubs
removed, bricks and stone removed from ground,
terraced, and four tons of good topsoil added.

Art journal challenge #1

Marguerite

I can't decide which version works best, so I'm putting them both up!

Oriental card - digital

Minimalist Yule card - digital

Back crafting again!

I recently purchased Serif's excellent program Craft Artist Platinum/Professional. It's so easy to use in its basic form but there is so much that can be done with it that I fell it needs a lifetime to explore everything possible.

I used it to make a New Home card for Swardy ...


... and some ATCs to learn new techniques ...




... and some ATCs for a New Beginnings challenge ...




Thanks for visiting.

Fabrics

Red, glittery, on sheer black stretchy netting

Blue polyester abstract

Brilliant emerald green velvet on black stretchy fabric

'Vasarely' kaftan

Great Salford Swim - 2010

View from my hotel room

View from the boys' room

Power warm-up between acclimatisation and start

The light purple wave

Approaching the turn into Mariners' Canal

34 mins 55 secs - Well done!

The Lakes - September 2010

The southern tip of Windermere

Guess who wants to swim!!

Rowing boat at the hotel moorings

View from my room

'The boys'

The pool and my room from the bench

Low Wood Hotel

Low Wood Marina

Inchies and twinchies

Lynn [Glitter Monkey] lured me into a new challenge run by the Dutch Small World of Inchies blog - inchies and twinchies. As the name implies, inchies are 1" x 1", and twinchies 2" x 2". The theme is 'Pink' and my submission is an inchie on a twinchie!

Lacking in inspiration for something so small I decided to incorporate a sketch from Di Hickman's February challenge, and what a challenge it was! The most difficult part was finding things that were to the correct scale, and wouldn't swamp the tiny pieces of cardstock.




Thanks for looking,

Oriental challenge

Another challenge - this time my first Daring Cardmakers. The challenge was for an Oriental card without using red or black. All the embossing is in gold, although the scan makes it look black in parts. The Sakura pens that coloured the geisha are turquoise, orange and brown.





Thanks for looking.

My first sketch challenge

As I was taking a wander around my favourite blogs this morning I noticed a sketch challenge on A Spoonful of Sugar that appealed to me, so here is my effort.

The papers are from Joanna Sheen's latest CD, Cottage Gardens; the stamp is coloured with Sakura pens.

Thanks for looking,

Seaside lighthouse scene

This stamp was an eBay purchase last week, and is by SonLight Impressions. After making a dreadful mess of colouring my first attempts I scrapped them and started again, keeping it simple!

I used my new-ish Colorbox Cat's Eyes Queue Inkpads for the first time and really like the colours in the collection. Unfortunately, the colour names are obscured by the ink below, so I've no idea what this one is called! The paper is one of the Day At The Beach scrapbook papers by Carol Wilson.

The lower stamp is Through the Storm by Stamps Happen, but I omitted the words as they didn't fit with the card theme.



I seem to be getting better at the actual stamping lark, but embossing and colouring need a lot more practice!

A challenge

Several members of the Stamping Mad forum join in challenges and following some of their links I eventually found the inspiration I needed for my next project.

The first was a template on the Stamping Challenge blog; the second the colours from Kristina Werner's challenge earlier this month.



Unfortunately the colours in my scanned card don't match the originals, even though they do in reality, which is a bit irritating.

I'm crafting again!

Some people, like Tim Holtz, can do mess well, but when I do messy it turns out ... well, messy! After a couple of traumatic days of searching I at last found mini-misters and Moon Shadow Mists. I almost wish I hadn't! I had another traumatic day getting the spray everywhere but where I wanted it and in the end decided to stamp over a bit of it and see how it looked.

I had bought a second-hand Hero Arts flourish stamp and thought it might look well stamped with Versacolor burgundy. I should have used the burgundy for the Hero Arts Happy Birthday stamp as well, but it didn't stand out well enough, so instead I used jet black Stazon which I think was a mistake.

I tore the edges of card pieces, mounted them onto gold mirriboard, wrapped them with a burgundy organza ribbon, added a flower, and stuck the whole lot onto a burgundy card.



The result is not what I intended, but at least I'm crafting again!

Learn Something New - Day 6

Here's the latest completed page. For the embossing I cut the cuttlebug embossing folder so the halves could be used at each end of the card front.



Thanks for looking

Learn Something New - Day 5

I've decided I'm going to continue making a page a day throughout September, following Shimelle's sketches, but not the ethos of the class as I was getting far too confused, and wasn't enjoying it. Looking at the forum this morning it appears I may not be the only one as the number of people posting their daily page has dropped considerably over just five days, which is a real shame.

This is my latest Yule card, and therefore my latest page.



Thanks for looking :)

Megan