It's finally arrived!!!

I have been waiting with baited breath (metaphorically speaking, of course!!) for my copy of Cloth Paper Scissors to arrive since the 1st November, and finally it arrived yesterday morning!

The reason I was being more impatient than normal waiting for the mag, was that I wanted to find out if I really had made it into the magazine through being selected in a Reader's Challenge titled 'Home Sweet Home'.

And when I leafed through the pages yesterday morning I found it to be true~I had indeed made it as part of the mini house challenge! I know there were 6and a half pages of these little homes, but the more I tell folk about it being in print the more chuffed I get!! It's just such a boost to be chosen for one's art work! It's just amaziing to think that one's work is being viewed in the artisitc community by people all over the place! Wow! Wow! Wow! (Did I say I was chuffed????!!!)
So here it is for those of you who can't get hold of the actual mag to take a peek!



Cool huh?
Have a great evening!
xxx

Sparkle 2011!

This weekend was quite a busy one for me. On Saturday it was our church's 5th 'Sparkle' Ladies Conference. As part of the planning team for the event, I had been meeting with the other members of the team over the past year to help organise the conference. I was the co~ordinator for the craft stalls which was something I had not done before so that was exciting in itself!

So it was finally upon us! We all brought our items to church on Friday evening to be set up ready for Saturday and it was really exciting unpacking all the beautiful crafts and artwork that folk had made, and we spent Friday evening setting out the display and rooms ready for the next morning. It looked so great all set out and arranged, and we were all relieved to see that there was more than enough selection and variety for everyone's tastes.

The Craft Market was open in the breaks throughout the day in between some excellent speakers and seminars, and it worked really well. It was fab to see that everyone selling sold some of their work and that their hard work paid off. We had decided that 10% of our proceeds would be going to a Womens' Refuge in our town so it was great that we could support a charity as well.

Anyway! Enough of the waffle~here are some photos of our work. Please excuse the flash photography! It was just a bit too dark without it!

Caroline's Alli Balli Bees stall
Bex Parr's Jewellery stall
Kerry Phillip's Homeware and Bags stall
Angie Walsh art work
Lisa Simcox scarves, Ruth Stewart knitted toys, and various works
Deb Legge's Homeware and Jewellery stall

Rachel Rushton hand covered journals and diaries and Ruth Parr's homemade jams and marmalades.

I am really proud of how hard everyone worked to make it a fab part of a fab conference! Well done all! Same again next year??? :o)
xxx

What a Treat!!!

Wow! Doesn't time just fly by so fast???!!! This post is long overdue!

A while ago my friend Rachel mentioned to me that she was going to do an art workshop taught by artist Sue Brown. I was excited for her but a teensy bit jealous as I love her work, especially her printed spoons! Anyway! After showing such enthusiasm for Sue and the course, Rachel made enquiries to see if I could also go too!!! It transpired that it was possible; all I had to do was find a very kind friend to look after the little man for me for the day! After looking into different possibilities, (thanks, Jo T,) another friend very kindly said she would look after him for the day, and Hubby managed to sort out me having the car and I was sorted!!!

I was so excited!!! So on the day, off the little one went to my friend's with his Buzz Lightyear backpack and Wellies in toe, and I dashed the kids to school and off I went!!
There were only 7 of us at the workshop,which was great for one to one assistance if needed, and we started off looking at Sue's sketchbooks and she then showed us one of the techniques she uses a lot in her work: gum arabic printing. This involves taking a black and white photocoy image and using ink and gum arabic solution to transfer the image from its original state onto a surface as a print. The ink comes off the black part of the image and leaved residue on the white part. It was quite tricky at first as we had to make sure that the ink consistency was correct, and the image we chose wouldn't work if there was any grey in it, (it had to be black and white with nothing in between) but soon we were getting all sorts of images printed onto our paper and feeling very proud of ourselves!

Next on the agenda was Acrylic Transfer which involved transfering a photocopy of an image (coloured or black and white) onto a surface using white acrylic paint as the transferring material. This was a much simpler process but still took a bit of practise to get good results, but it was fun to practise and play!
Sue also taught us an easy way to make patterns by printing with wallpaper, and also, (my favourite technique), Quink ink and Milton bleach! So we spent the afternoon playing with all the different techniques we had learnt and then at the end of the session Sue showed us how we could transform our patterns into a simple booklet.

I had an absolutely fabby day and it was great just to play around with different materials and have fun!

I decided not to transform my experimenting into a booklet but intend to make what I produced into something eventually!!!

So here is what I made:

Whole piece

Detail

Have a great evening!
xxx