I had some fun layering and stitching this little collage together. No glue was used and it’s 99% machine-stitched! I relented and sewed the top centre button on by hand, but I even managed to get the needle through the little “Hand made with love” heart charm! Patient, I was!!

Most of this collage is recycled stuff and the stamped birds are from the Home Impressions Grunge Plate. I stamped them onto handmade paper from an old Thai or Indonesian handmade photo album.

This is my entry to SaWo’s Corrugated cardboard challenge. Thanks for the inspiration Sandy! =)

Here’s a spread for Collage Play with Crowabout #61. Nancy’s off on her holidays, so we won’t be doing any more till January, but I finally got my act together and had fun with this challenge! Not your typical Thanksgiving spread, but hey, I’m a Brit!!!

Now to pop it into the Group Flickr pool!

I felt compelled to start an “unartful” blog the other day because of our homelife. If you are interested, you can read it HERE.

I used to read graphic novels (Comics), when I was a kid, but never took them terribly seriously, although I did absolutely love “Sin City” and bought it on DVD. So, I found Gary Reef’s Art From the Heart group on ning and joined yesterday. I’ve been a Youtube fan for about a year, so it seemed like a logical progression and lo and behold! there’s an Illustration challenge which ended yesterday with ‘Dream’ as the focus…

You know I don’t really do drawing much, but boy, this character got under my skin and here’s what happened!

So, it’s doodle (pencil); watercolour mood wash; doodle with fineliner; Add Neocolour black to his hair and doodle some more with Sharpies. If you’re interested, here are some links to follow:

Wiki – Neil Gaiman’s Sandman

Neil Gaiman’s website

It was fun to draw/sketch again. I need to keep practising! =)

NB: Thanks for all your kind wishes re: DH’s health – we have an appointment with his GP tomorrow to discuss the Ultrasound scan and are both very impressed with how quickly our doctor heard back from the hospital. When you really need it, the NHS is unbeatable… xo

The Three Muses challenge us to use a KEY somewhere in our artwork this week. Instead of another journal page, I had the urge for some “creature comfort” and created this Stuffy Owl – for my DD – so when she looks at it, she’ll know I am thinking of her. The little suitcase key is symbolic, as I know we don’t have a suitcase that it belongs to!!

He’s made from a swatch piece of upholstery fabric – yep, from the Scrapstore! So, ‘green’ in more than one sense…

His hair is also recycled wool, and his eyes are buttons from my mate Fiona (Feebee)… He’s about 5″ tall and 3″ wide and about 1-2″ fat!

“Self” came as part of a prize from a challenge blog over a year ago…

All the embroidery thread is from my cross-stitching days and the little black feet are cut from a recycled felt hat. Beads from stash…

I enjoyed this one. I’d had the idea of making textile paperweights for presents for Christmas, but I really like how he turned out, so I may make a few ‘characters’ for people I know very well – could be fun and I get to practise my blanket stitch!!

DH has his renal Ultrasound scan today so it’s a fair old drive to the hospital and back. I just hope they tell him how it went in basic terms, providing it looks okay. Anything else will be iffy, so we probably won’t know the results till next week at the earliest.

Michelle asked us ti create a journal page about a sign or symbol that reminds us of a loved one, past or present. This is mine…

This is my “Long, Tall, Skinny” journal from the Supernova Class I took with Julie Prichard. The centre is scrap fabric, which was lovely to highlight, and the fancy swirls are from Home Impressions Grunge Plate – gorgeous! The Raven (DH), is my own mask! Small raven is from Ten Two Studios. The branches the raven sit on are small pieces of willow cane, from the Scrapstore!

I love Michelle’s Crusades – every month there’s something new to think about and I really have learned so much from her and the artists who participate. As she says: “How cool is that?”!! xo

Just like the Helen Reddy song, Mixed Media Monday’s theme is “I am Woman”… I had a fab time with this bold, red double page spread. I think I’m getting the hang of this art journalling thing! This made me so happy when I had finished it – the gorgeous face is from a magazine; I’ve used paints, Neocolour II crayons, white and black poster paint pens; a couple of pieces of overlays from my old scrapbook stash and a couple of other paper elements.

That’s the left-hand page…

And the right-hand page!! I love the combination of red paint and mica spray over the top. It looks so luscious in the flesh!!

Anyway, it’s really late and I have voluntary work at the Scrapstore tomorrow morning, so it’s Goodnight from me!!

Apart from the fact that’s it was “Queen” week on X-Factor, “Music” is also this week’s theme over at Sunday Postcard Art, chosen by Cindy McMath. This is one of my faves by Queen – great to vacuum to! I’ve used a magazine image of a woman high-fiving a friend as my central theme. I’m not sure I really like this – it’s more Teesha Moore than me, but it was quite fun and I made a lot of mistakes, so a useful little piece of work, in all honesty.

All the hearts are metallic, which doesn’t scan well, so it’s a lot more vivid in real life. My horoscope for today did warn me that I would do well to avoid tiny details, so no surprise that I struggled a bit, eh?!!!!

I have been working on several projects that I can’t share here on my blog – some for submission and some for Guest Hosting! Plus, of course, there are presents to make for Christmas too! But this evening, I was intrigued by SaWo’s challenge to “scratch it”!! Basically, it’s about using crayon or oil pastels on your base, painting over that with acrylics and then scratching away the pain to reveal the colours underneath… There’s a link to a pretty good tutorial on the subject by Sandy’s Guest Host – you’ll get the idea when you see the pics.

Needless to say, things didn’t go smoothly for me at all! Firstly, I couldn’t find the box of metallic crayons which would’ve been ideal for this project and then the crayons I used laid down a pretty pathetic coat of wax, but I was left with a very interesting page for my altered book! This is on the back of a cereal packet and further enhanced with Neocolours and a white Posca pen!

Stamps used: Cherry Pie Artstamps ; paint – Golden Fluid Acrylics

I’ve been looking forward to getting painterly again and had fun making backgrounds, etc. whilst tidying up. I’ve let things slide a bit because I realised that worrying about DH has definitely affected my mojo and lowered my energy levels too. Bummer!

Still, today was better and I’ve created this journalled page for The Three Muses – In your dreams – challenge. Personally, I have the weirdest dreams… and when DH looks up the meanings, it’s always pretty cool and very much a subconscious refelection of what’s going round in my mind at the time. I most definitely dream in symbols!!

The stamped images are a mixture of my own handcarved stamps – the border and the word Dream; the insects are from a box of mini-stamps I bought about 4 years ago. The dots around the word are made with the wooden end of my paintbrush. I used a mixture of straight paint, brayering and monprinting for the background effects…

I’ve relisted the mixed media canvas for BBC Children in Need because the reserve couldn’t be lowered when I wanted to, so I’ve put that down to experience and just hope the original high bidder sees it’s back if he/she still wants it! Fingers crossed, eh?