Leadlights

Our beautiful windows in our front door are in need of repair.

The lead is cracked, and even missing in places.  So whilst having a quote for the front windows on the house, we asked about the door.  The guy didn't give us an exact price, just said to work on the principle of £6 per piece of glass..

...so my husband dutifully counted them (out of interest mainly!) and with more than 500 the quote was going to be in excess of £4,000!  My husband's response?  "Why don't you go and learn how to lead stained glass rather than phaffing around with knitting and crochet!"  I did chuckle, particularly as I don't do THaT much crochet, and haven't picked up knitting needles in a good number of months.  And not one to turn down learning something new, I quickly booked myself on a class up in Southport, only 1 hour's drive away, with the lovely Lesley and Richard at Glass Magic

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There was a choice of three designs that could be completed in a day so I chose the sunshine and set about choosing colours a little different than the usual (with lots of encouragement from Lesley, who has seen many blue skies and green hills and fancied a change!)

I left the choice of glass for the sun until last, and in the end a piece of mirrored glass fit the bill.

(that's my hand and the funky art palette cover for my i-phone you can see in the sun!)

Glass looks VeRY different when you hold it up to the light so I had to juggle pieces in my hand and hold them up to the window whilst planning my piece.   I had a thoroughly enjoyable day, Richard and Lesley are so welcoming, friendly and knowledgeable, and I think I'm hooked!  I've wanted to do this for so long, and got a chance earlier in the summer to do some copper foiling.

This was just a two hour workshop so we had to choose up to five pieces of pre-cut glass to work with.  I chose two mirrored pieces and a large pebble as well as a couple of pieces of more traditional glass.

Again it looks very different hanging at the window, although this photo doesn't really do it justice, especially the mirrored pieces (the top one is a pale green!)

step by step art journal page

Maybe it was a little ambitious to take step by step photos of the creation of a page whilst attempting something new!  All the way through, until I forgot to take any photos, I was telling myself to just play, just enjoy the mark making, but ended up really not liking what I'd done. I really, really, really love these pages now and can't believe they looked like this at one point!

So here you go, step by step :)

in my large-ish typewriter book, layer of Buff Titanium because I couldn't find the gesso!

patches of Phalo Blue in the bottom third of the pages

black drawing ink applied with a stick!

quite liking it so far, don't know where it's going though

a stripe of blue ink in the top third, then some Sticky Fingers Bluebell ink sprayed above it

darker blue ink splodge on, not liking this, and what on earth

am I going to put in the middle?

a stripe of a yellow ochre type of colour...like how it goes over

the blue spots and you can still see them

I wanted some red highlights on this page, inspired by

David Ashby's pottery, check them out they're stunning, like art journaling on clay

Nope, really don't like it, it feels to dark so I'll brayer some white acrylic

paint over it and see what happens

Oooo,

 I liked it so much I forgot to take anymore pics until I finished the pages

Brayering pulled off some of the paint so I used some scraps of paper from the table

as collage fodder

(I'd done some free mark making before starting this page aka Jane Davies then

used the same paper to dry off my brushes/brayer/stencils)

I've always loved the scraps of paper under my work, it's where I don't think so 

often get surprising results and textures.  It's also why I don't use a teflon mat!!!

A bit more drawing ink and hey, I'm happy!!!

:) hee hee hee

Happy, I'm so happy!

... not only did the postman bring some goodies I ordered earlier this week, but we have a new Hobbycraft store that's opened just down the road!  Ten minutes drive from my house, and one the way home from work (if necessary!)  And the best thing?  They had a 25% off coupon in the local paper :)  I'm AlwAys envious of you guys in the US with your Michael's coupons and I've never seen anything like this for Hobbycraft.

My Cuttlebug hasn't been well for a long time and I'm pretty sure it's rollers have 'gone'!  So although I love the look of the V2 Cuttlebug I invested in a Big Shot with my coupon.  I figured it'd cope better with the Bigz sizzix dies, it being made by Sizzix!

by Angeline Yong Jeet Leen

for http://thecreationofcreativity.blogspot.co.uk/

http://thecreationofcreativity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/jay-gees-nook-dt-thanks.html

After a bit of blog browsing over the weekend, and seeing this (see above) fabulous card, I ordered the gorgeous Chloe Stem die by Memory Box and had a bit of a play with it.

It's the perfect size for shipping tags and after cutting a flower from some scrap, inky paper I had lying around I used the negative first as a stencil (see above)...

...  then on another tag.  I can't resist sketchbooks in art shops so, having bought a new little one at Hobbycraft, I resolved to at least finish one of my most recent ones so this page is in a small A5 moleskine...

I'm finding lots of inspiration over on Jane Davies' blog at the minute and the block of orange stemmed from there (sorry, pun unintended but then it made me chuckle :)  )

There's some background Chloe Stems cut from book pages..

which then stand out beautifully against the orange.  I'm off to learn leaded stained glass tomorrow so they'll be something different to share here over the weekend :)

journaling in a tent..or field..or the beach even!

It was with some trepidation that I only packed paint, baby wipes, stencils, a Pritt stick and the odd stamp, a couple of book pages and a pencil/pen with me to go camping.

I chose a journal to use, just the one, and as it is an old book it's pages required gessoing.

Now I'm not a fan of gesso.  I like my paint to stay put once I put it on the paper. But being forced to stick with it meant I did have fun, and ended up with some interesting effects.

My pages have been feeling a bit 'samey', and everywhere I looked things seemed very similar, so I started by using parts of hymns or bible verses as starting points and using my journaling as part meditation.

I journaled these pages whilst attending a Christian conference so they have lots of meaning for me but I still didn't feel I'd 'cracked it' as it were.  I used to be able to just enjoy my journaling without feeling it had to mean something or say something.

So I've given myself a bit of a talking to, read some stuff, watched a fantastic video by Jane Davies HERE and am back just enjoying being creative, playing with paint and mark making and seeing where it takes me, if anywhere!

a touch of journaling

I don't know why this post didn't schedule before I went away camping, but still! A few weeks or so back I ended up at our local, large shopping centre, The Trafford Centre, with time to spare (that's what comes of taking my daughter and her friends and believing them that they'd only be an hour!)  After a bit of a mooch around Paperchase I decided to stock up on a little notebook and some washi tapes before sitting down in a coffee shop and creating a couple of pages.

I love cutting and sticking but although these pages are ok, they didn't really 'do it' for me.  I'm feeling a bit 'stuck' with my journal at the minute.

I think I'm just over thinking it all really rather than just enjoying 'playing'.

But I have established that although I love to cut and stick, splodging paint around is my very favourite thing to do!

We were going away, camping,  a week or so after this, and my husband always groans at the amount of different craft supplies I take.  My plan this year was to pack a little set of supplies so this gave me some clues when working out what to take this year.  My conclusion - paints, baby wipes, stencils... :) I'll start sharing some of the pages tomorrow.

What does your minimalist list of supplies look like?  And have you tried limiting yourself to them?  I'd LoVe to know.

another PDCC colour challenge, this time it's needle felting!

I did start a journal page with this week's PDCC colours but some extra colours crept in when a blue butterfly wanted to take part!

Then, following a bit of blog hopping this morning, I decided to get out my needle felting after seeing Jackie's wonderful pieces over at Dog Daisy Chains.  Jackie's base fabric is wet felted but I don't often have the patience for that and got out a few scraps of wool and fabric and my trusty embellisher.

The images were inspired by some patterns in my V&A fifties patterns book...

Jackie's work had really made me think of Angie Lewin's prints, jam packed full of imagery and texture.

Virago have recently republished some modern classics and as one was in an Angie Lewin print I had to read it!  I enjoyed it actually.  It was written in the 1920s and it turns out I own a book by this author - it's in my nice second hand books to recycle pile, or it was, I'm now intending to read it lol!

So, a happy hour 'dumpfing', as Twiglet would say :)  I'm not sure yet what this piece will become part of yet, but that's ok, it's purpose will appear at some point!

PDCC journal time

We've been home from our camping trip in Mid Wales for a few days now and I've been itching to get back to my journal instead of spring cleaning (a little late, but hey!) my craft room.  The play date cafe colours proved a perfect starting point.

This page is in a little A6 moleskine and after starting it very late last night I made a mess of one side of the page so tore it out, tore it into strips then glued them down this morning into a new starting point.

Rummaging around for some inspiration for what to do next I came across this word stamp.  I didn't want to put a heart on the page for some reason but a felted flower was lying around on my table and when I put this against the page it all clicked so I made a paper version to glue in.

It's back to rain here in the UK so these warm, summery colours are perfect to cheer up the day!