Partial to the Purple

Well the new challenge is out for Tuesday Alchemy - Tuesday Alchemy: Challenge #3 - Color Inspiration: Peacock & Plums: This week's challenge is all about color! Purple & teal are such beautiful colors that you will enjoy using them in your works.

I've got to say I absolutely love what everyone made this week,it must be those fab colours,you know I love that purple!

Here's my contribution.

I didn't really use much teal,there is a tiny bit on the butterfly and a teal butterfly collaged under the hearts(which are kind of a teal colour) but as would be expected I got carried away by(with) the purple :o)

I decided to use a mini canvas, painted and stamped it with acrylic paints and collaged with vintage sheet music and scrapbook papers.  I added a little button and a woodcut butterfly that I purchased from this awesome Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/porkchopshow  He has the most scrumptious butterfly wood cuts, you've got to check out his shop!

I will be adding this mini canvas to my Folksy shop tonight

http://folksy.com/shops/JuliaPeculiar

I would love to see what other people come up with using this colour combo.  Visit the blog and link your fab creations so we can all see them.

If you're on Etsy why not join the Tuesday Alchemy group -

http://www.etsy.com/teams/11675/tuesdayalchemy?ref=pr_teams

   I want lots more people to join so I can make a Treasury featuring all the members!

Birdsong

Well, being on a design team is certainly good for making me keep up to date with my blog,which I'm pretty pleased about  :o)  See, I'm getting this week's post written, but only because I'm getting a nudge, a week goes by soooo quickly!

Anyway, on to this weeks offering for the Tuesday Alchemy blog challenge.

For this week's challenge we got to use anything from nature in our creation.
Straight away  I knew I wanted to make some sort of nest with a bird image.  I absolutely love birds and get so much joy from hearing birdsong in the garden.  I just can't imagine life without birds,I love them!  We don't get many birds in our garden and I don't try and encourage them for fear of our cat eating them.  He may seem too fat and lazy to bother chasing them,but I know  just how sneaky cats can be!

Bear on the prowl!

I used an upcycled bamboo chocolate box lid to give the piece some depth,I was going for a kind of nest/looking through a tree kind of look,worked out pretty good I think.  Painted the base with acrylic paints and then stamped some swirls on it before collaging the bird image onto it.  I enhanced the bird by adding some watercolour and acrylic paint to him. The twigs were broken up from a small wreath I had and then glued  around the edge of the lid.  I added skeleton leaves,a dried rose leaf and petal, some Spanish moss and a feather.  Some small rusty hearts were also tucked in between the twigs to tie in with the heart I used on the base (This was gifted to me by a good friend yonks ago with some other arty supplies,I knew I would find just the right project for it).

My Daughter helped me with the photos as the wind kept trying to whisk it away!

If you fancy having a go at making something with a 'Nature' theme drop by the blog and join in.  You can get inspired with a new idea every Tuesday and share your fab creations on the blog.

Bring on the Ruffles!(Bringing a Paper Art Doll to life)

Ooooh where do I start? I'm so excited!

I'm now a design team member for a fabulous new craft blog called Tuesday Alchemy. It's a great new blog that aims to inspire creativity as well as promote handmade artists and crafters and I'm super excited to be a part of the team.

I hope lots of you will join in

The first challenge we were set was Ruffles. Well,it just so happens that I've been thinking about making a Paper Art doll with a ruffly skirt for quite some time and thought this was the perfect opportunity. Probably a rather obvious thing to make,a ruffled skirt! but she asked to be made and I couldn't say no.

I thought I would share a little of the process of creating her for anyone that is interested. I always like to see how other people's projects start out and then what they finish up with.

Isadora

 I had a look through my vintage image CDs and this lady jumped out at me. This particular image is from an 'Enchanted Mercantile' CD .  The creator of which, Petra Wilkinson,sadly passed away a few years ago and the company no longer exists.

I printed two copies out so that I could get a neater look when joining the arms together with the body.

Isadora as she appears originally.

1. After gluing the picture to cardstock and letting it dry I then cut out the different body parts which I wanted to articulate and pieced them together to make sure they matched up nicely.

2. Next I folded a piece of vintage sheet music ( I love love love using vintage sheet music!) and then cut it to the shape and size I wanted and glued it to the skirt part of the doll.

3. Ruffled vintage lace glued on top of the folded paper layer.

4. Next layer of vintage sheet music stamped and folded ready to cut to size.

5.Stamped and folded sheet music then glued on top of lace layer.

6.  Lastly for the skirt I added a little ruffle of lace on each side of the skirt and then finished it with a final layer of simply folded sheet music.

7. Painted the body parts with shimmery watercolour paints to give her more depth.

8. Added some texture by 'lacing' her corset with embroidery thread.

9. Finally I attached brads to all the body parts and fixed her all together.

10.  I added a piece of vintage sheet music to give a nice finished appearance to her back and glued a small wire hanger to her back as well.

I'm not the greatest at explaining things, but hopefully you've enjoyed seeing how Isadora came to life.  She is now for sale in my Etsy shop - http://www.etsy.com/listing/93045003/paper-art-dollmixed-media-original

My latest Treasury - I've come over all Summery and hazy :o)

Hello all. I thought I would share my latest Treasury with you. I didn't consciously make a nice warm Summery collection,but obviously I've had enough of the cold thank you very much and look forward to the fabulous warm hazy lazy lovely days of Summer!

I picked everything in this Treasury from my favourites,not easy because I favourite so many things. I love window shopping.

Wall hangings - Hazaaaah!!!

I'm making a point this year of creating things with objects I've collected and have stored all over my studio (dining/computer/gym room) space.  I tend to hoard away all these cool card shapes,boxes,random bits of wood and chipboard and then end up ignoring them and just going to the stacks of paper to make something.  I just get drawn to the paper,I can't help it!

Anyway, so I had this little stack of shapes in my odd bod box and decided to use them :o)  of course,99% of the time, regardless of what I start off with,it's going to be covered with some vintage sheet music.  I love looking through my pile of old sheet music and choosing some for each project, I can't imagine working without it.

My odd bod box

My fabulous collection of vintage sheet music,always being added to!

So, I ended up covering five different shapes with scrapbook paper front and back as a base and then chose some sheet music for the front of each piece.

I was very happy with how they all turned out and was especially pleased that I seem to be speeding up with my work, now that doesn't mean I'm speedy, by any stretch of the imagination, but I did finish each one in just a day (except for one), which for me is amazing!  Time just goes so fast when you're creating something doesn't it?  Hours go by in minutes,it's like the 'Twilight Zone'!

Got some great sunny photos taken before all the snow arrived.

Bear braving the snow for a very quick trip outside! He much prefers to be curled up on the sofa inside in the warm.