I can't crochet a stone....

...but I can paint one. The sun is out today and I have been pottering around the garden, soaking up the sunshine and painting a little rock. I have felt so much happier with just a smidge of sunshine. I have happily done dishes, laundry, and hoovering up. In a few minutes I need to sort out some badges that sold and get then wrapped up nicely. Then I shall walk up to the post office with my ipod blaring something loud and happy...I'm thinking Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog as I always smile when I listen to that....or Eye of the Tiger on a Supernatural mixtape/playlist. I am such a geek. :oP

What are you up to today? I hope you have a little bit of sunshine where ever you are. :o)

Clarence the cat

say cheese!

Meet Clarence the Halloween Cat! He is a little bit shy but fancies himself a wildlife photographer...

Whoa... dude did you see that?

the only problem is he has this tendency to eat the mice he is supposed to be taking pictures of....His ambition is to have a coffee table book of nocturnal creatures. Unfortunately Clarence is deathly afraid of bats, owls, moths and spiders....

does my bum look big with this ribbon?

Did I mention Clarence is terribly vain, and likes to bathe in a mixture of coffee, vanilla and cinnamon?

primitive candy corn

I wish I had the real thing

This is my first foray into the world of primitive arts and crafts, though some may allude to my more primitive style to begin with. Its a muslin triangle machine sewn and filled with poly-fil, painted with acrylic paints, then dirtied up with a mixture of espresso grounds, water, cinnamon, and vanilla extract, and then baked in the oven for a bit. The whole house smelled like autumn, it was gorgeous. For a first attempt I think it turned out pretty good, and I may do some more candy corn to make a lovely Halloween display on the heart as Halloween is by far my most favourite holiday. I started a black cat in the primitive style as well but it has yet to be dirtied up and baked... I'm just happy to have the time and inspiration to craft again!

p.s. I wish I had some candy corn....

p.p.s. I did not make any typing or spelling errors on this blog post... shocking isn't it?

a little birdie

a little birdie in a tree

vintage book page illustration for Gloria. The birdie has been a little doodle in my sketch book for ages and until yesterday when I prepped some pages of Alice through the Looking-Glass with black tea and decided to make Gloria a little painting to go along with the bracelet she bought from my etsy shop. I didn't know what to draw but the little birdie called to me so I just had to paint her. Cute isn't she? I have a few more book pages in the works at the moment and I will try to get them finished tomorrow.

recycling the kitchen tiles

upcycled/recycled stone tiles (aka magnets to be)

In a box in the garage are several sheets of unused sheets of small stone tiles left over from the kitchen. In an attempt to amuse myself yesterday I dragged my paints, and tatty paint brushes out and had a go at painting on stone. My idea is to turn them into magnets, once I have sourced some strong magnets to glue to the back of the tiles.

teal cup (my favourite)

I think they look pretty good for a small quick experiment, and once I have found some magnets and sprayed some varnish/lacquer on top they will make a great little stocking stuffer for Christmas. The teal cup and the toadstool are my favourites so far, and I have a few more sheets of tiles to rip from the backing and have a play with. When I have found some magnets I will share with you what I have found and maybe write a mini tutorial if anyone would be interested?

a starbuck's red cup for M

Peg Dolls

"Hi there. I'd wave but as you can see I'm only a peg."

Today H and I did some crafting together, its the first time in ages we have done some crafting that didn't a.) end in tears (usually mine) or B.) end with play dough stuck in the carpet or paint between the floorboards.

I bought a packet of wooden craft pegs from the Works, but any wooden pegs will do. , I had the intention of gathering together some scraps of fabric for clothing from the Charity shop, but never remembered so we got out "Mummy's special paints" and made some painted peg dolls. I'm quite enamoured of the little ginger one, he looks quite cheeky with his dinosaur t-shirt. H made two peg people but lost interested when I said the paint had to dry before he could put a face on with a pen. So H wandered off to play jedi-cowboy-alien-chef-pilot-inventor while I finished painting mine.

peg dolls

H and I still had fun making peg people and I think I will get another packet of pegs sometime soon and make more peg people, I may go whole hog and acquire some fabric scraps to make some peg doll clothes. I might even see if I can pin down H and get him to draw faces on his pegs, they are a bit scary without faces... but then again I'm like that, I think I watched way to many episodes of the Twilight Zone when I was little.

H's peg people

espresso and flowers

espresso shot glass

red flowers on teal

Sorry about the slightly odd angles these pictures were taken with. The light was very poor this morning, and I was in desperate need of more coffee. This is the second painting I have done of one of M's espresso shot glasses, its such a simple image yet I adore it and I really really want a cup of coffee now. The red flowers on a teal painting is so vibrant, I love red and teal together, I may just need to order some more beads and made some red and teal jewellery... mmm yummy.

I have some lovely beads that I purchased at Spellbound Beads in Lichfield on Saturday, we went to the Medieval Fair, and got utterly soaked, at one point I had to help hold down a jewellery stall, because the wind was gusting so fiercely that some of the stock was blown to the pavement. It was still good fun, H loved it but was a little disappointed that there was no jousting or strawberry stall like last year.

Spilled Coffee

Flapper Girl

I posted the flapper girl image a few posts back with a half dozen or so other painted pages, but I wasn't very happy with her something jsut wasn't quite right so the other day armed with a cup of black coffee I restained the page, and I think she looks finished now. Then I was doodling a skull while watching that show about the real crystal skulls with out Indiana Jones attached, so I painted it and added some black vines as you do.

skull and vines

And last but not least I have dragged out poor Lulu again, and added a little detail to her eyes. I think she looks alot better now, and the painting looks much nicer than the colours have come out in this image. I still don't know what I will do with her, I can't see putting her up in the house any where, especially with this move in the future. I haven't really had many sales recently so I'm not sure about putting her up in the etsy shop though I could do with the craft money she might provide if she sold. Though What I would price her at I don't really know. She is 11x14 in and is acrylic and ink on a canvas wrapped board. any offers?

Lulu

pages and pages

sorry I don't know how to straigten these out in blogger, I should have made a template and one image instead of 8 diffrent ones. This is just a preview of what I have been up to over the weekend, a few need a bit more work and tweeking. My favourite is the little pug Percival, though he turned out a bit more portly than I inteneded. Oh and M says the black and white flapper looks like Kelly Osbourn, not sure about that or if its a compliment or not.

I have beads and toggles that jsut came in the post and we are off to my favourite book store in the world in a minute. Scarthin Books.

Where the Wild Roses Grow

wild roses

flapper

espresso

fairy sketch

This mornings crafting, I love how the roses turned out, they are actually on my rose bush in the front yard, if you can call it a yard. I think they might be called dog roses, but I really don't know, they are pretty though. Yesterday we went to Lichfield and I got to potter around the charity shops, where I found absoloutly nothing that I was interested in for my crafts, but I did get to spend a very happy 15 minutes alone in the Spellbound Beads shop, I didn't buy much two focal beads, one green one orange, and a few silver beads too... hopefully I will get a bit of beading done later and see what I can make with them.

Happy Father's Day!

The Sorrowing Tree

the sorrowing tree

I have gone back to drawing willow trees again, well just the one so far but she is a very pretty tree on her painted page. I drew the tree the other night while shamefully watching Jack and the Beanstalk on the sci fi channel, it was cheesy but good fun.

I am caffeine deprived today and find myself feeling very un-crafty, there is a pile of bead carnage on the floor, the beads are beautiful but today they don't want to play with me so I have given up and got a glass of coca cola over some ice. They beads might not be working because I on;y have about two toggles left, and they just wont sit happily with any of the beads I have. Maybe Friday then, my next big crafting day when H is at pre-school all day instead of just a scant few hours this morning. Hopefully the crafting fairy will vist me and give me some much needed beading inspiration.

Isle of Apples and Owls

apples

little brown owl in his tree

balloon

sorry the image quality is lacking, there is no decent light. I'm quite taken with the little brown owl in his tree, and how the apples turn out. I'm off to help M design a buisness card for my little crafts and things.

Illustrator at large

Strawberries

I am so proud this morning H and I picked the first two strawberries of the year from the little strawberry plant in its little pot in the green house! I'm so pleased becuse the ones we tried last year didn't grow very well and seemed to go rotten before they ever got ripe. I didn't get to taste them as H dissapeared with the strawberries in a bowl with a tiny sprinkle of sugar and then re-appeared with an empty bowl 2 minutes later. I have been assured that they were very nice.

This morning after seeing M and H off to work and pre-school, I has a quick tidy and dragged my little paint box out and some book pages. Armed with a cup of very strong black tea, with the bar still in I stained about a dozen pages then proceeded to paint a few that were dry and a few that were still damp with tea. I really can seem to tear myself away from painting these little pages. There is something so romantic and bookish about painting on stained book pages, I love the effect. The only painting that didn't turn out the way I wanted is the tree one, it didn't turn out even vaguely similar to what my intentions were when I set out to paint it. I''m not sure about it yet, I will let in grow on me a bit and see what happens.

Lily

Little White School House

Anne

Defiance Tree

And to prove that I am not all together a coward I have added 4 painted page originals to my etsy shop we shall see if anyone out there likes them as much as I do. Oh and apparently I'm now an Illustrator, thats what Etsy says these paintings are called, Mixed Media Illustrations, very nice.

Amanita muscaria

Amanita muscaria- toadstool

Yes I have been painting again, I just love painting on books pages, there is something romantic and pretty about it and don't forget that element of recycling. I Have parceled all my storybook pages off with M to the studio to be scanned for future prints, and to sort out some mounts and then with a bit of luck I want to put them in my Etsy shop. I'm not sure how to price them yet, originals or prints, but I'm really proud of them, I look at them and think that they are something that I wouldn't mind in a frame on the wall and I think that's about the best compliment I can give them. I'm not the most confident of people, I'm not very popular I'm not cool, and I have never been one to have much self belief, but I actually think these are pretty good. Would you want? would you buy them even?

M says he likes the Toadstools at the top the best, and wants to keep it, or at least a copy, I do to because of the Tolkien quote about Faerie, all of these paintings were made on the pages from a Tolkien book that I got from a library sale last week, I love Tolkien's writing and because the book was so badly damaged I thought it would be a great way to mix my love of books with my love of painting. There is something so magical about the written word, I have often dreamed of being a writer, but I have always lacked the discipline to get the stories, and characters that swim about in that dark and cluttered recesses of my mind. I do write things, little drabbles, little bits of stories, and dream, and very rarely the odd poem, no body ever reads the poems though, I am a terrible poet, the rest though I sometimes share with the world, or at least the 2 people that have ever visited my drabble blog. And one of those is probably my dad. I don't often add things as I have been so obsessed with jewellery making and painting the last few months. Perhaps sometime soon I will swing back into writing mode, there are a few things that have been swirling around my thoughts for awhile.

But for today I'll stick with painting pictures on words.T hanks for taking the time to read my blog, to look at my art, and jewellery, and cakes too. And thank you to those of you who take the time to leave a comment, they really do me the world to me. Thank you.

Grizelda the Goose

Rapunzel's Tower

Little White House

Butterfly Blue

Owlwyn and Friends

Little Owlwyn the baby owl

I'd like to introduce you to a few of my little friends that I painted today. The first is little baby Owlwyn, he is terribly shy and a poor little orphan too, but that's ok because Clarice the chicken likes to mother everyone. Then there is Lucinda the ladybird that like to cause trouble and loves Ben and Jerry's Half-Baked Ice-cream. The last two paintings are a test painting for a russian doll, because I joined Katy's Russian Doll Swap. Though I begin to worry about the poor swappee that gets saddled with me. I also joined the Pink Petal Designs Kitchen Swap, I think I may have gone swap crazy. Somebody help me. Last but not least is the little cupcake painting, its for the cupcake candy and ice-cream challege on the mumsnet crafters blog, and as a challenge on the Uk Crafts Forum.

Clarice the chicken

Lucinda the Ladybird

Russian Doll test painting

cupcake

Vintage Swap

Here are the things that I posted off to my Vintage Swap Partner, so if you are looking Mel and haven't received my package yet DON'T LOOK!

My swap partner is Mel from Sky Rocket Sews who likes the colours red and turquoise. I ran out of time to have the painted page put into a mount or a frame but I hope that Mel likes it, Its one of my favourite painted pages that I have done so far. What me obsessed? probably but I cant help it its just so much fun to paint these little pictures on pages from a broken and battered book, my kind of recycling. I hope she finds some use of the key chain, the red agate, and the turquoise/teal glass bead look amazing together. The books were in a bag of books that came from a relatives attic, they were lovely and I thought that Mel would appreciate them, plus I thought they really fulfilled the Vintage Craft Swap.

red agate and teal glass bead keychain

Painted Page flapper with red necklace

vintage ladybird children's craft books