#Inkober2017 Magical Binoculars.

I read a quote by a man I hadn’t heard of before, Wayne Dyer.   I made such a connection with the quote,  that ‘Magical Binoculars’ became the inking you see in the photograph.

If you could have magical binoculars that you could focus and look at the field of intention, you would see what the source of all things looks like.   It’s a source of love and kindness and beauty and creativity, and it’s a source that excludes nothing and it’s a source of unlimited abundance.

Wayne Dyer.

Isn’t that lovely?  If you don’t get the ‘lovely’ first time, read it again. Read it as many times as you need to in order to use your own internal Magical Binoculars, and not only see what that quote is saying, but to feel it too.

If you look at the InkTober picture for today you’ll see a pretty standard view of a scene, looking out from a beach, as night is falling.  It’s not dark, but it’s not light.  You can still see the land and the edge of the sea in the distance, but you can’t really see anything other than that.

#InkTober2017 ~  Magical Binoculars, by Cobwebs @ The Cobweborium Emporium.  Photograph taken with the flash.

Photograph taken without the flash.

But …  what do you suppose would happen if you looked through the Magical Binoculars?  What might you see then?  What wonders would open up for you, I wonder?

Would you see the birds, flying in the sky, having one last stretch of their wings before going home to bed?

Could you see the man, stood on the end of that land in the distance, with his fishing rod in his hand?

Would you perhaps see the Mermaid, playing in the moonlight?

Who knows … for your sight may be different from mine.  Perhaps you will focus your eyes in a different direction. Perhaps you will lift your eyes to the sky above and see the Gates of Heaven.  Would you maybe, see the Angel?  Or perhaps you will look to the Edge of the Sea, in the distance, and see what is there and has been there all the time, but we miss it because we don’t use our Magical Binoculars.

Magical Binoculars. #InkTober 2017

The inks I used for this drawing were: 

• Black Ink
• Brown Ink
• Teal Drawing Ink
• Metallic Drawing Ink in Rose Gold and Silver (see pic. below)
• Yellow Drawing Ink
• Blue Ink

… in addition, I used a white Jelly Roll Pen for the highlights on the Magical Binoculars, and a tiny amount of Acrylic white paint in order to help the moon and clouds to be what I wanted them to be.  But apart from that, everything else you see is ink.

Use your Magical Binoculars today.  See if you can find the things you might normally miss because you’re too busy,  or not see at all, even though they’re right there, under your nose!

Wishing you a Magical Monday.

 

 

 

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Tag Art.

Back in 2014 I began the Tag Art category here on the blog and although I did post Tag Art from time to time,  I didn’t post in that category all that often except to add a bit of something or other, every now and again.

A couple of weeks ago I had a bit of a change around in my craft room and came across the box labelled ‘Tag Art’, and I realised that I hadn’t done any Tag Art in …  well I couldn’t even remember when!

I thought I could perhaps wake it up and see if I can interest anyone in trying a little tag art too.

If you haven’t met Tag Art before then can I suggest that you read the opening post in the Tag Art category on this blog, which tells you everything you might need to know about Tag Art.  (There aren’t any rules).  You’ll hopefully find suggestions to get your mind working and your arty fingers itching.

You can find that opening post here:  We’ll start with a Basic (little) Tag … With a (little) basic art.  

The photo at the head of this post is of a Tag that I made ages ago for one of the first posts on Tag Art here on the blog, but felt that it would be nice to begin with an oldy but goody.

I’ve also taken some photo’s of Tags I still have in the box to share with you.  Some are there because I kind of liked them.  Some were ideas for a tag which I never got around to doing anything about.  And some are there because I didn’t throw them away. . .  … and there are a few photos.  So in an effort to take away the mystery and show you that anything YOU make on a tag is great!

Ho Ho Ho.

A card tag, grunged up a little, with a panel of fabric sewn to it.  Halloween!

Made using a blue card tag and two colours of a Kuretaki calligraphy pen to make the bamboo tree trunks

Practise tags.  I was trying to work out the best way to draw a sunflower using my Kuretake Calligraphy pens.  I got there in the end, but sadly forgot to take a photo.  (Margaret is my neighbour)

Of course .. you just KNEW there HAD to be a fairy here  somewhere or other.  lol  She was an idea I had for what a particular type of fairy might look like for another project I had in mind.

A bit of ginger joy on a tag.  I painted LOTS of these tags a while ago, and put them all on the front of some plain white cards, and sent them out for Christmas.  I loved the fabulous little ginger faces SO much that I decorated some circles and stars shapes made from wood, with these wonderful happy faces and hung them on my christmas tree.  I still have them today, and still hang them on the tree every year.  Love them.

If you make Tag Art, you must make sure that you sign the back (and date it) so that your tag can be seen to be made/painted by you.

I bought the ‘Tag Art’ stamp as an unmounted red rubber stamp, and the moment it arrived I went routing around the scraps of wood in Mr.Cobs shed, found this piece, inked up the stamp and pressed it onto the back and then glued the stamp to the other side.  I’ve had this stamp for about twelve years now.

Tag Art is anything you want it to be.  It can be painted, drawn, stamped, coloured with pencils, felt tip pens, specialist colouring pens, or left with no colour at all.  You can glue things, attach things – lace, ribbon, adornments, bits of wood, leaves, acorns, feathers, anything.  Anything which you want to fix to your tag you can.  (Obviously you can’t attach something which is too heavy – no sticking a car engine to a tag, because it’s just not going to work! lol).  You can add paste – maybe through a stencil to give a texture.  Glitter, small dolls, toy soldiers, plastic animals,  flowers, (pretend and pressed) … anything.  Do anything you like to get the result you have in your head.  Make it complicated or make it simple – like the tag at the head of this post – the one with the blue flower on it.  Just make some art, because it gives you a ‘high’ which you won’t get anywhere else.

Here’s a tag I made especially so that I could include it here.  It’s a simple tag … and to prove that it’s simple I’ve taken photographs of each step along the way which I did to make the tag.  Here’s the finished tag . . . .

The finished tag measures 9.5inches or 24.5cm x 5.4″inches or 13.5cm.

I measured out the length of card I would need to put the image of the Angel onto the card, cut the card to size and then gave that card the pointy top you see in the photo.

I stamped the image and began to paint her colours . . .

I decided to keep her colours to greys and blues in order to give this a cold winter breeze feeling.

I coloured up the background with a watery wash of pale grey.  Then turned my attention to the edges and echoed the denim blue of her jacket and wings.  I then added the snow at her feet which she was stood in,  and added dots of snow as it fell from the heavens.

image taken from a different angle so that you can see the ‘snow’

Mounted the image onto black card to echo the black of the stamped image.

Added lengths of lace at the bottom, and towards the top of the tag.  I added charms to hang from that lace – these are made from Tibetan Silver, and the angel coin in the centre at the bottom has a more vintage look about it.  It has an angel cut from the centre, and around that it says ‘You are My Special Angel’.  I embossed all around the edges of the Tag in Silver Embossing Powder.  There are little ‘feathers’ at each end of the lace, along the top of the tag.  These are made of velum.  The card then was mounted onto some royal purple coloured card.  I punched a hole towards the top where the point is, using my Crop-a-dile, and added an eyelet, for the ribbon to hang by.

The Tibetan Silver Feathers and the Angel coin hanging at the bottom of the Tag.

And of course .…  don’t forget to sign your Tag Art on the back …  and perhaps date it, even give it a name and any other details you feel you want to add to your art.

The end of a really simple bit of Tag Art.

What do people do with their tags once made?  Well you can do pretty much anything you have a mind to do.  I have a tendency to mount them on or in cards, or use them in scrapbooks.  However, I also keep some of them because I fall so deeply in love with them that I simply can’t part with them.  So I store them.  I have a box, and some big clippy pegs which I use to hold bits of art.  People also keep tags in Library Drawers. They make a particular sized tag so that they can be stored in that special draw which they have.  I’ve also seen tags hung on a wire coat hanger, and they look spectacular like that.  I can imagine them hung on a wall in the house, and one tag could be chosen to ‘speak’ for a few days, and then move it along the hanger and choose another tag to display.

A dandelion wish, and a wish-bone wish!

A Tag, which has some surprise Tags!

Make your tag(s) about anything you want.  Anything you have an interest in.  Anything which would make you smile.

Just a crocheted flower on a plain tag … draw a plant pot and a stalk and you’re done!  Maybe a picture of a bike in the newspaper?  Or an advertisement for perfume, hair spray, cosmetics, fishing equipment?  Anything.  Anything at all.  Then build your tag up a little – eg. if you chose the fishing equipment, you could perhaps add a bit of netting somewhere on the tag, or a plastic fish you’ve ‘tidied up’ from your children’s games, maybe a photo of a fish which you fix to card (for stability) and then fix in place using foam tape to give the tag a little depth.  Add ribbon and anything else you’d like and VOILA!  One Art Tag!

You can buy your tags … or you can simply use card and cut tags to the size you want them.  Round Tags, square, triangular, kite shaped, banner shaped.  Anything you like.  Oh … and I almost forgot to say … once you’ve made it, you can also use it on a gift just like a normal gift tag, so when you hand your gift over, what you’ll be giving is actually two gifts.

Go on.  Make some Art.  You KNOW you want to.  Do it.  Go do it now!  Have some fun!

If you’d like to have a go at Tag Art, do it today.  Don’t put it off till a week next Tuesday, do it now while you have the inspiration bubbling inside you.

You can buy tags almost anywhere and for a small amount too.  Add some PVA glue, an empty cereal box so that you can back some images and give them support (for things like pictures cut from magazines and newspapers), and you’re good to go.

We’re only given so many tomorrows and at some point those tomorrows run out.  So do it now.  Enjoy yourself now.  Have a little fun.  You never know, you might like it so much that you decide to buy some proper card to back your pictures/cut-outs and from there … the sky’s the limit!

Have a truly blessed rest of your day.  May you end the day by looking in the mirror and smiling at yourself.  And . . . . Let’s make a brand new rule for life;   as from tonight, always be a little kinder than is necessary.  That’s all the world needs to begin repairing itself.  Us to be a little kinder than is necessary.

Sending my love ~

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And Pigs Might Fly! ~ an ATC painted for World Watercolour Month

I’m going to type this blog post and get it all finished and completed within 15 minutes.  Yeah … and pigs might fly!

I got out my paints this afternoon (Sunday) with the intention of painting an Angel …  but then a stray little ticklish memory came to mind and I found myself pencilling a flying pig, and so I went with it.

P ‘And Pigs Might Fly’  ~ an ATC sized painting for ~ #WorldWatercolorMonth

It was quite a quick painting project, the longest time was waiting for colours to dry so I could move onto another colour  …  but my heat gun helped with that just a tad.

Again, painted to the ATC size of 2.5inches by 3.5inches.  You can see the exact size in the photo above – the pencil marks around the sides – but I always leave an ‘over-hang’ so that I can touch/hold the painting and move it around without getting mucky finger prints on it and spoiling it.

‘And Pigs Might Fly’  ~ an ATC sized painting for ~ #WorldWatercolorMonth

I tried a white mount around it and quite liked that.  But then tried the blue mount and …

‘And Pigs Might Fly’  ~ an ATC sized painting for ~ #WorldWatercolorMonth

…  I quite liked that too.  One moment I love it with the white mount … and the next … well … what can I say.  I like them both.

What about you?  Which one do you prefer?

This really was an enjoyable make.  Watercolour paper.  Watercolour paints.  Some brushes and some water … and VOILA!  One teeny pig with really tiny teeny wings. Somehow I don’t think those wings would carry the pig … but hey…  who am I to judge?  I have no training in these things!  😇

Happy Monday!

I know, I know, you’re not overly impressed with Mondays.  Lots of people aren’t.  So let’s break the system.  Let’s paste a smile on our faces and wear it at every opportunity today.  Why?  Because it makes everyone wonder what the HECK you’ve been up to.   You’ll look like you’ve been up to something or know something.  Keep ’em guessing.  When they ask you just say   “Aw,  nothing,  really” … but say it in *that* way which makes them think that  …  you might not be telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.   And that alone will keep ’em smiling.  lol

Have a truly blessed day my friends,  and wherever you go today,  may your God go with you.

I Grew a Flower Baby in a Pot! ~ an ATC painted for World Watercolour Month

When it said on the packet:  “Baby Seeds” – I thought it was referring to the size of the flowers which would grow.  I didn’t think I was supposed to take it literally!

Ah I’m joshing with you really.  I didn’t really grow a Baby in a Flower Pot!  I painted a baby growing in a flower-pot …  in ATC size, especially for World Watercolour Month.

an ATC sized painting for ~ #WorldWatercolorMonth

I got about half way through this and wasn’t entirely sure that it was coming out as well as I wanted it to.  I nearly gave up and started again.  Not sure what pushed me on, but I’m so glad that I did because I fell in love with this little scrap by the time I’d finished.

If you look carefully at the photo above, you can just see the pencil marking of the actual size for an ATC/ACEO ~ and that size is:  2.5″x 3.5″.  I tend to cut a piece of watercolour paper just a little bigger than that size so that I can hold onto the card and move it around, as I’m painting ~ without spoiling the painted image with a finger or thumb marks.

an Artists Trading Card sized watercolour painting, painted for  #WorldWatercolorMonth

I tried three different mounts on this little hand painted card and all three seemed to bring out different aspects of the card . . .

A Flower Baby Growing in a Pot ~  an ATC/ACEO painted in watercolours, especially for  #WorldWatercolorMonth

The green mount seems to pick out the two little green leaves growing from each side of the Baby.  Is she/he perhaps ….  a Fairy or Angel Baby?  Are the leaves in fact ….  wings?

But … I think my favourite mount colour, for me, has to be the creamy white mount:

A Flower Baby growing in a Flower Pot!   And ATC/ACEO hand painted  especially for #WorldWatercolorMonth

So … which mount do you prefer?  Blue?  Green?  White?  Or perhaps you prefer no mount at all.

Anyhoo ….  HAPPY SATURDAY!

I hope your day is sweet from morning till night, and that the Bluebird of Happiness flies over your house and leaves a little magic happy dust, sprinkled from its wings, over your home.

Whatever you’re doing today, do it with all of your heart, for that’s where your happiness lives.

Have a truly blessed Saturday my friends.

A moment lasts all of a second . . .

. . .  but the memory lives on forever.

 

I made a card based around one I saw in a magazine a few weeks ago.  It was the sentiment they’d used on the card which struck me and I wrote it down in my note book, hoping to use it at some stage.  I went on-line to check that this sentiment didn’t belong to a crafting company – a stamp or something like that,  and it didn’t  – (yay!).

I printed the sentiment and cut it out using an oval die from a set bought  a while back from Tattered Lace.

The card is pretty much self-explanatory if you look at the selection of 4 photos in this post.

The papers I used are from a selection of left-over scrapbooking papers – the two different prints were originally from the same book of papers.  I layered them up on top of a soft rosey pink paper to pick out the lovely pink in the roses, then onto white card.

Made on a white 6×6″ card – the front of which I scored down the centre and folded it back on itself so to give that an extra dimension to the card. The oval sentiment is mounted onto the folded front of the card.

The adornments – the roses, the star, and the Angel bunny inside the card, are all from a selection of Tilda adornments, which I’ve had for ages.   I tied a bow of pink satin ribbon from my stash and . . . .  Voila!  That’s all there was too it!

Once I’d figured it out, and chosen the papers I wanted to use, – the actual making of the card was really quite quick.

Well …  It’s Wednesday again!   I’ve not liked Wednesdays very much since I was at school. 

On Wednesday (when I was at school)  we had:-  a whole morning of Cookery.  Loved Cookery!  Then after lunch we had Double Geography (which I didn’t like),  then a lesson of History – which I quite liked,  and finally, at the end of the day, was a Double PE  (physical education).  Having PE  at the end of the day  Was. A. Nightmare! 

Our [meany] PE teacher wouldn’t end the lesson until five minutes before the end of school bell rang.  This meant that we had to: Get stripped off;  take showers;  get dried;  get dressed;  and get out of the door and run the length of the playground and to the bus stop,  all within those five minutes,  or the chances were that we’d miss the bus and have to walk home.  She was a real pain and wouldn’t listen to us when we begged her to give us ten minutes instead of five, to wash, dress and get out to our bus.  Hence …  I hated Wednesday, and after a gazillion years of not being in school, I still have that ‘droopy mood’  feeling about the day.

What about you?  Do you have any day that you don’t like very much?  Or days you remember from school which you didn’t look forward to?  Do tell and share with me.

Aaanyhoo …..  Wishing you a truly lovely day.  May the weather be warm, may the wind be gentle, and may you get out of school in time to catch your bus!

Sending squidges from my corner to yours ~

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Free Art Friday

 

Have you heard of Free Art Friday?  If the answer is ‘no’, then I hope to help you discover what this wonderful bit of generosity, love, fun and Random Act of Kindness(‘s) is about. Stick with me .. you might just want to get involved in this. 

I hadn’t  heard of this myself until a few years ago when I saw a really fabulous artist interviewed on TV (here in the UK) about it.  

It all began over ten years ago with a British Artist who goes by the name of  My Dog Sighs (who was the chap being interviewed).  The moment the interview finished I knew I wanted to join in with this bit of ‘lovely’ in a world which seems to be increasingly unlovely.  But one thing has stopped me.  I don’t ‘do’ Facebook or Twitter, and in order to get the word out about your own particular piece of ‘Free Art’, you need to be able to give people clues about where your piece(s) of free art can be found so that they can go on a type of Treasure Hunt to find it.

Facebook scares the heck out of me.  People seem to get verbally bullied beyond belief on these social networking sites, and I’m just not the sort of person to get involved with allowing that sort of conduct.  But … I want to get involved in this Free Art Movement!  Catch 22 situation. 

So .. I’ve begun my adventure and joined Facebook – but I haven’t figured it all out yet.  I’m still trying to work out how to use the darn site.  Boy, is it confusing!   I will also look into joining Twitter and see if I can find a group in the area around where I live.

Here’s how Free Art Friday works:

• Create a piece of art
• Write on an attached tag “Free Art, to take home and enjoy” ~ adding the artist’s name, email or web address is optional.
• Place your piece of artwork somewhere in public, indoors or out.
• Some people make a game out of it and leave clues on Twitter.
• It’s NOT an exclusive group or movement.  ANYBODY can join in.

There are now Artists across the world making their own art and leaving it outside, somewhere noticeable but slightly hidden, for others to discover, and take,  free of any charges or from any costs to themselves.

There are no real rules as such – which is a joy.  The only ‘rules’ are:  that the art has to be exclusively free art and you need to make sure that the work is easily removable from where you’ve left it,  and does little or no damage to its environment.  Oh … and it doesn’t actually HAVE to be a Friday either.  (It just started as this, and it’s kind of grown into an any day free art)

Some artists will put out a painted canvas or mixed art canvas, others use materials found on the street, – such as cardboard, bits of wood, or a tin can – which is popular,  but your only limit is your imagination.  Many free art Friday participants’ work is fun and good-natured, which cheers up the folk seeing it (maybe on their way to work in the morning) and also, obviously, bringing a smile to the face of the person who claims the Free Art for themselves.

Artists have been leaving their art for others for many years, but My Dog Sighs can be credited with galvanizing the Free Art Movement when he coined the phrase “Free Art Friday“.  After several years he started his Flickr Group (in 2006), and you can find the My Dog Sighs website  HERE.  (it will open in a new page).

This is a typical ‘notice’ which can accompany a piece of free art.  There is a ‘global’ Art Abandonment page of Facebook, where artists all over the globe post photographs of the art they’ve abandoned, and where people who have found a free piece of art can say on Facebook that they’ve found something & post a photo of the item, or they can email (see the email addy at the bottom of the hand out above).

If you’d like to  view the Art Abandonment Facebook page,   CLICK HERE.

 

Below is an article from a newspaper I found on-line which talk about F.A.F in Gloucester (in the UK): (if you right-click on the photo and choose ‘View Image’ it will open up into a bigger picture for you)

So … now you know a little bit about Free Art Friday …  does it make you want to take part?  Does it bring a feeling of joy knowing that you could do something lovely to make someone else smile?   And …  they won’t have to pay a penny for the wonderful gift from the heart which you made.  Would it make you smile to find your own piece of Free Art?

 

a blow up of the hand painted feather on the can art, ‘The Message’

The photograph above is a painting on an empty, washed and cleaned out, tin can, which would normally have gone into my re-cycling bin.  However, I took a hammer to it (outside on a rock) and flattened it, and made sure that there were no sharp corners.  I then primed it and painted the background, then painted a white feather on it.  A feather from an Angel, perhaps?  I’ve called it  ‘The Message’, and only the person who takes the art will know what the message that feather brings for them.  I framed the can in a box frame.  It’s destined to be my first Free Art Friday piece of art … once I’ve figured out how to navigate Facebook and Twitter. {Cobwebs sighs}

 

But …  Free Art Friday art doesn’t have to be a painting. Artwork could be something knitted, crocheted, painted, printed, stamped, sewn, drawn or any of hundreds of different artistic things.  It could be a scrapbook made from loo roll tubes,  a card,  a Tag, a painting on canvas/cardboard/bit of MDF/Wood/etc, or maybe a key ring you’ve made, a bookmark, a stone you found in the garden and painted with patterns etc.  An ATC or ACEO.   Anything … anything you can make, is your own artwork.

Artwork placed on the street for a member of the public to take home and enjoy.  Go on, make someone’s day!

How could I have forgotten that I loved Anna?

I wanted to make a special card for someone who is such a really lovely person, but I wanted to make it in a way that perhaps she hadn’t seen from me before so I sat and I puzzled over it until my brain got sore and then ….  I spotted a box on a shelf in my craft room and DING!  A big exclamation mark appeared over my head!

I’ve had some Anna Griffin die cuts in a box for quite some time, and, well, you know how it is, you make something, and then another thing, then another, and then you decide that you want a change so you pop things back on the shelf and, over time, they kind of get forgotten.  Well that’s what happened with the Anna Griffin die-cuts.

I sat in my craft room chair and opened the box (feeling a little like Pandora), and it was right at that moment a light inside my brain shone like a Christmas Angel.  “Ohhh dearest die cuts, how could I have forgotten about you, my darlings?  You are perfection” I said lovingly to the die cuts – like some weirdo.

So … I made a card with them!  Other than this (wordy) introduction, there’s not much to say about this card because it kind of tells its own story as you look at the photos, so without further ado …  may I present …  Flowers for my Friend …. [round of applause can be heard as the curtain goes up  …   stops halfway,  . . .  a whirring, grinding noise can be heard,  but then   . . .   with a bit of fiddling,  up it finally rises] . .

I had to hold the card in one of those big peg things,   that’s what you can just see at the bottom there.  It’s not my fingers, ’cause those are fatter than that peg. {snigger}

The outside of the card is a pretty card but it’s also pretty ‘normal’.  However … it’s the inside where the action is, for this card is meant to be displayed open.

When you open the card there’s a lot more going on than you might think from the outside.  {kind of like my good self … only in my case there’s a lot less going on than you hope for}

As you move the card around you get to see different things which you might not have noticed before .

Ta daaaah!  Like magic!  You can now see how the individual layers of how the card works.

Looking from the other side

Slightly blurry in places.  The camera has a self focusing thing and wanted to focus on those pansies.  In the end I gave up fighting with it and let it do whatever it darn well liked, because it wasn’t going to let me win.

And a final look at the front again, just incase you’ve forgotten what it looked like …

See … told you it wasn’t my fingers holding the card! {pulls out tongue and waggles it}

And that’s all there is to it!

Ok … let’s get down and dirty now …

The HEAT.  The TEMPERATURE HERE IS ALL WRONG.  IT’S TOO,  TOOOOOOOO  HOT!!  I feel dirty all the time and I don’t like dirty.   Mr. Cobs thinks I’ve developed one of those OCD things  … I keep washing my hands, and arms, right up to the elbows, because it’s such horrid, sticky weather.

Now don’t get me wrong…  I’m not complaining about the Summer, nor the fabulous Sunshine. But surely there is no need to roast a Cobweb in this unseemly fashion?

I’m sat here with the ceiling fan on at full throttle.  I have a large desk top fan on the coffee table, doing its gentle wave, back and forth, like the Queen waving from the balcony of Buckingham Palace.  And … I have a large air coolant machine, (which is darned noisy but worth the noise) in the hallway, facing into the living room, so that all my fur pals can keep cool.

Our living room, and leading halfway into the hallway, looks like the aftermath of a murder scene right now.  Four bodies are waiting for forensic Science to come and put white tape around them,  take swabs, and hairs and … whatever else they do in those white J-Cloth suits which they wear.  

Three Cats and one rather rotund Dog,  who has a big, chubby pink belly which I like to blow raspberries on because it makes her wriggle and snuff,  (but enough of my peccadilloes),  are all  looking, for all intents and purposes, like dead things.  I’d love to take a photo, but the minute I turn the darn thing on these four all know that little noise which the camera makes and they all sit up to see what the divil I’m up to now.  So I won’t photograph them, I’ll leave them to rest, because they need it.  If I’m too hot and I only have three items of clothing on, then these wonderful creatures are way hotter because they’re all wearing fur coats!

Oh look at me rambling on.  It’s the heat.  It’s addled that one last remaining brain cell.  I shall shut up – except to say …  Have a wonderful Wednesday.  Do something nice for someone else today.  Give them one of your smiles.  Tell someone you’ve never met before, that they look pretty/handsome/striking/attractive   .. anything nice. Lovely.  Anything to bring them joy.  By doing so, I promise you’ll get far more joy in return.  Go on.  Do something nice for someone else today.  I dares ya!

Have a  blessed day my friends.  Thank you for coming to share a coffee with me round the kitchen table.    Heaps of love  to you and yours ~

 

 

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Hark I Hear the Angels Calling …. or is it my My Hermes delivery lady at the door?

I’m still racing to catch up after being poorly – and although I made this one last week, I couldn’t post it until I’d given it to my My Hermes delivery lady, and since it’s now in her possession, I can now share photo’s of it!

As were all my Christmas cards this year, I made this on a 6×6″ base card with a high gsm, so that it would take the weight of the embellishments and papers I wanted to use.

I began by searching for an Angel image that I loved, and then, once found,  (image above – isn’t she just beautiful?), it was simply a case of seeking out some vintage sheet music which partnered her, and I couldn’t have found anything more perfect than “Hark I Hear the Angels Calling” – which I resized and printed out. (It’s a royalty free image – as is the Angel).

I used some vintage type paper on the outside of the card, in sort of muted shades  which I knew would sit nicely in the background, and attached some cotton  lace to the top and bottom of the card.

After printing out the Angel, I matted and layered the image onto two shades of blue linen effect card and attached it to the background using some dimensional tape.  The sheet music, I rolled and then curved it so that it sat ‘naturally’ and adhered it in place.

I added a fancy, bright silver metal corner, some faux miniature holly and berries, a white Christmas rose and a deep burgundy smaller rose, a previously gilded miniature frame, and a length of pearls – which trailed around the card, in and out of the music, around the roses and under and over the holly.  I added a little glitter here and there and the front was complete.

I’m not going to bore you to tears with how I did the inside of the card … instead, I’ll just show you what I did – because you’re all super intelligent beings, with brains far bigger than mine and you’ll be able to see what I did – so here goes:

The Bauble  ↑  is a stamped image.  – adorned with gems to make it look pretty.

“Oh!”  I hear you say . . .   “.. what is that on the inside front of the card?”  ….

Ha!  Who’da guessed!   It’s a Christmas Stocking!  (in the same shades of blue as the Angels Wings!  ….  see, … I do [sometimes]  plan these things!  lol)

I had to make it a little box as it was too chubby for an envelope!

Some close up details:

A ‘gem’  in the same colour as the deeper shades in the Angels Wings – I ‘glittered’ the gem to add opulence to it.   A wooden lock – which I gilded.  A miniature silver metal key which I did a little twinkling job on and made it shine like it was gold.

The frame around the ‘Merry Christmas’ sentiment – I only partially gilded, as I wanted it to look distressed.

I believe …  do you?  A metal charm which I kind of beat up a little to make it look aged, and then added a little verdigris twinkle around the edge to just take it up a notch.

And that’s this card done, delivered to my wonderful My Hermes delivery lady, and shared with you!

I’m back in my craft room tomorrow because I’m STILL trying to catch up!  But …  I won’t bore the pants off you with anything I produce after mid-day! LOL.

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve all.  May peace rest upon your homes today and stay with you all throughout Christmas.

Thank you for visiting.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your time.  It seriously means the world to me.  Thank you.

Heaps of love

There’s a Hundred Thousand Angels by your side.

I first found this incredible, hauntingly beautiful,  stunningly peaceful song about ten years ago.  Sung by Lucinda Drayton, of Bliss.  (Lucinda Drayton (vocals) and Andrew Blisset (Keyboards),  are: ‘Bliss’).  I’d recently lost someone and was in a place of numb anguish and hand wringing, heart breaking, continual pain, but to outsiders I looked perfectly fine.  We get better at playing ‘pretend’ the older we get, don’t we?.  From the moment I heard this song I never forgot that lyric,  and once you’ve heard it, you won’t forget it either.  Be you a believer or not.

Over the years I’ve shared this song with so many people and all of them have gone on to find the CD and own the music themselves.  I found myself urged this evening to go online and find the music to share it here.

It’s not loud – (there are no loud parts, no crashing, no banging, no drums)  –  so if you have your speakers set low,  maybe turn them up a tad or you’ll likely miss the beginning of the song.  I find the best way to listen to it is:   close your eyes, sit back in your chair,  relax,  and allow the song open up for you. 

Sleep well, dear reader.

 

With love ~

 

Wings of Peace, Courage and Love.

In my last post I said how difficult I found making ‘Sympathy’ cards, I think because it’s so difficult to accurately gauge the deep, all-encompassing pain which descends upon someone when they suffer the loss of a loved one.  So it came as quite a surprise to find myself making yet another ‘sympathy’ card, – this one very much different from the last one.

I had my Ranger Melting Pot (aka The Cauldron) out the other day and made a few things, putting most of them on one side for projects at some other point.  One of the things I made was the Angel Wings you see on the card above.  I got the little box out where I’d stored them along with the other items I’d made and the moment I picked up the Angel Wings and held them in my hand …  I knew I should make another sympathy card, this time using them as the feature embellishment on the front.

I laid the wings onto my desk and looked at them for a minute or so.  They were lovely – but there was something missing.  Took me a moment to figure it out.  Wax.  They needed high-lighting in pearl wax so that the individual feathers came to life and caught the light.  It took just a minute to do – but they looked so lovely once I’d polished them to a shine.  (Nicer than in the photographs – but sadly I’m not a great photographer so please make allowances for me being rubbish with a camera!)

I went through my stamps to find the right one which would be suitable to use – and although I stamped out several of them (wasting card like it was going out of fashion) – none of them were right.  They were either the wrong sentiment, or they were the wrong type face for the words.  In the end I decided that I’d print my own words, using my computer and my printer.  That’s when the ‘fun’ began.

It took me  a very hot  one and a half frustrating  [insert appropriate swear word]  hours just to get that sentiment from the computer to my card!  I had to work out where I needed to place the typed words on a word type document that I was looking at on the ‘puter screen – which would mean it would be in the right place when I put my card through the printer.

(Again – this resulted in more card being put into the ‘trim off the rubbish bits and put the rest into the ‘scraps’ draw’ pile.   Grrrr!)

Seriously – it was frustrating to the point that my sensible mind telling me to:   “just give up woman, you’re not going to get this right!”  – the problem was  →  – I was determined that it wasn’t going to beat me.

Then suddenly all the planets aligned.  There was a Star to the East.  My Lottery Numbers came up and ….  well no, actually that didn’t happen  . . .   but it certainly felt like it did when the printer delivered the perfectly placed sentiment, with the right font,  right place and right colour.   Ta DAHHHH!   (Was that a choir of Angels I heard singing?  At this point I really wouldn’t have been surprised.)

I attached the wings to the card using a mix of two glues – one an ‘instant’ fix – which was the hot glue gun.  The other one a glue which needs time to dry, but dries clear and holds well.  Then it was time to deal with the inside.

I didn’t feel it needed me to add words to the inside of the card,  but instead leave it blank inside so that the sender could write a short, or long note of condolence depending upon how they themselves felt.

Instead I decided upon a single creamy white Angels feather, tied with a bow of satin ribbon, attached to the inside of the card.

And that was it.

It’s quite a simple card  (or would have been, was I not so technically challenged!)  and once I’d got the positioning right of the sentiment, it was easy to pull it all together.  However – I think it’s perfect in its unfussy, simplicity.  It conveys the right feeling, in the right way, but it doesn’t go over-board.  I think I got the balance just right on this one and I love the finished card.

I think I got the balance just right on this one.  I really love the finished card and hope you like it too.

Have a happy Sunday.  I hope the weather is kind to you and that peace rests in your heart and soul today, where ever you are. 

Have a truly blessed day, all.