Sew simple?

    My husband and I got married this summer and we had the most amazing wedding....

 We had a vintage style wedding with a village fete/afternoon tea for the entertainment (with money raised going to Great Ormond St Hospital)

        I asked my sister-in-law if she would decorate the venue as I knew she would do a far better job than I would ever be able to do. I think she would say that it was one of the most stressful things she has ever done.....it put a lot of responsibility on her and with hindsight we shouldn't have loaded so much on her poor shoulders. If you would like to see what she did and how she did it then check out this link -handmade wedding     

      I decided that I wanted bunting to decorate the wedding and this was really the only thing that I stated to Alison was a must have and she was totally happy for me to do that on my own. Husband-to-be measured up the grounds and hall and estimated we would need about 100m of bunting. 3 triangles per metre seemed about right -  Wow!!! 300 triangles....I could make it easier and just cut single triangles.......but I really wanted proper double sided bunting.....600 triangles....shudder.....Is this too much work seeing as I have never done this before?

      Quick internet research showed me what to do to and how to make bunting the way I wanted  - which was 'properly'!

1. Pin on paper template - or draw round card template onto material
2. Cut out triangles - 600?!!!! I'll be making this bunting forever!
3. Pin two pieces of material right side in 
4. Sew - I don't own a sewing machine and don't know how to work one....sew by hand? Noooooo!
5. Turn back out - Oh, that is monotonous!
6. Tops trimmed - Fun, fun, fun - I don't think!
7. Iron - I never iron! I wear no-need-to-iron clothes
8. Pinned onto 100m of bias binding - I'm going to need more pins!
9. Sew binding - Well, at least at this point it will nearly be over

    My mother-in-law saw problems ahead and she did try to warn me that perhaps I was biting off more than I could chew, which is usually the case with me anyway! I just stuck to my plan and said I would do bunting...I was going to learn to make it....I would find a way

     My mother-in-law, as always, did her best to solve the problems I was facing - First needing a sewing machine, because let's face facts, I was NOT going to ever be able to sew 100m of bunting by hand! One of her very dear friends came to the rescue with the offer of a sewing machine for me to have and a pile of vintage Laura Ashley material. WOW!!! So the sewing issue was sorted (I just had to learn to use it) and the material was sorted.

     One of my close friends, who was my bridesmaid, came to the rescue as well. I can't remember if she offered to help make the bunting, or if I approached her begging for help.... probably the latter. All I remember is that suddenly we had organised a bunting making day.

     Amy and Carol came over to make the bunting - Carol taught me how to set up the sewing machine and after a few goes I gained confidence (now I have no trouble setting it up and have done a bit of sewing since including making a mermaid costume out of an old top of mine for my daughters birthday)

     Making the bunting was sometimes a tedious job, but it was two days spent with wonderful friends and we talked, joked and laughed......The first day we cut out about 300 triangles and made 150 double sided triangles....then on the next day, Carol pinned the triangles to the bunting, while Amy and I continued to cut and sew triangles. Carol began to sew the triangles onto the binding....then disaster happened. Carol had been sewing for a while when she realised the bobbin had run out and all the sewing she had done fell apart in her hands.....it was an awful moment turned to humour as she laughed at mine and Amy's shocked faces. .

     I then managed to break the sewing machine and needed to take it to be mended. Once that was done  I cut out the other 300 triangles (using two sets of floral curtains from Oxfam) and over several days of pinning, sewing, ironing, more pinning and more sewing , the vintage style, handmade bunting was finally complete and ready to hand over to Alison.

 

It was hard work, but I was so glad that I had done it and I am sure you will agree that it was worth all the hard work, blood, sweat and tears!!! 

I really couldn't have done it without the help and support of two wonderful friends - Thank you Amy and Carol! x

Paintings

   Paintings it is! And I will probably do as Buttons suggested and do each one in turn anyway! So don't worry Amy, Servietten technique will be here soon!

      I used to hate painting! but I still adored my art lessons in school so much...so much so that when I was about 8 and struggling with maths lessons, the teachers decided a group of us should do extra maths lessons. Their chosen time to do it happened to coincide with the one weekly art lesson - for a WHOLE term!- I thought I would never stop crying.....My love of art class continued but with a hatred of paint...My teacher used to despair as I drew a good picture but refused to add colour. A friend in the class agreed with me that colour 'ruined' pictures (pencil can be erased but a mistake with the paintbrush can be disaster) and we stubbornly refused to go near the paints....a middle ground was met with coloured pencils and pastels and I passed the Art o'level easily (that shows my age!)

     After leaving school, photography took over as my focus and that was where I thought my creativity would go. I never drew anything or made anything. It took another 13 years before I re- discovered arts and crafts and loved it. As I have said before my first try of crafts was when my mother-in-law, Gil, handed me a fabric painting kit...It was a gift and I can't remember the occasion but to be honest Gil doesn't wait for birthdays or Christmas if she sees something she thinks someone will like. My first thought was "I can't do that!" Words that she has heard me say countless times, and as always she ignores that instinctive negativity and says that I can! The kit produced a lovely painted bag and I was hooked.

     For a special birthday in 2002 my husband and I were trying to think what to get Gil. I knew she loved mushrooms so I suggested painting a picture for her...Was I mad? Painting!!! What was I thinking?!!! It might have been a moment of insanity but the painting actually went well and I enjoyed it - so much so that I actually did a second painting for her and she loved both (I will include it in another post about gifts I have made) I thought the good result was probably more luck than talent and I put the paints aside.

      My interest in painting was there lurking in the background and I began to dabble a bit in trying to produce some things. I was given a set of watercolour pencils and that seemed to me to be a good compromise on the painting issue!....I think I began to enjoy painting in 2004 when my daughter was 1 year old and for her birthday we decided to put on a puppet show...complete with home made theater and backgrounds for scenes (we got a bit carried away....it turned into a full scale production with lights, sound effects and music!) Anyway, I am getting off subject here......

    The painting of the scenery and backgrounds got me interested in painting at last. It was many years later that I eventually got a small decent watercolour set and joined an art group - And I began to paint. Sometimes I love it, sometimes it goes wrong - and I have overcome my dislike of paint!

    When I joined the art group I realised that I really didn't know how to paint - or at least I was needing to learn some effective techniques. It wasn't a taught class - you just went along with whatever project you were working on and sat and painted. It gave me a much needed 'me' time away from housework and kids. Just two hours of sitting painting. Although we weren't taught, there were some very experienced painters there who were very willing to offer advice and I quickly learnt how to correct what I was doing wrong. One day I was standing by the book cupboard looking for some inspiration and someone asked if I needed any help. "Yes please, I would like to learn to paint flowers" she grabbed a book from the shelf and said "You need to look at Janet Whittle paintings then"....I glanced through the pages and adored them. I am certainly inspired by Janet's flower paintings and although I am far from mastering the beautiful blended paints and depth and beautiful haze in her paintings - I quite like the results I have achieved

   FLOWERS

 This is one of the first Janet Whittle paintings I did

This is an unusual painting of mine as I used a different technique. Usually I draw the flowers then paint. For this one I dampened the paper, swirled watercolours everywhere and tilted the paper to blend them. Then I began to paint the detail. If you look at the sky - that is what the entire paper looked like before I began to paint in the detail. The idea is you create the flowers in the blended colour. In the yellow flower area you can see a larger blended yellow area but I picked out small flowers and left the larger area blended into the grass. 

This painting I liked, but it has a terrible error...one that happened due to my lack of patience. I was about to throw it away and my best friend rescued it and said she would have it! I must say I don't throw paintings away anymore - I used to rip them up and chuck them but my daughter stopped me and insisted I recycle by painting on the back of them to save trees (hang my head in shame!)

   I won't say what the mistake is - If you don't notice it then perhaps it is only in my eyes!

This isn't a Janet Whittle painting. One of my friends is a florist and she put a photo up on Facebook that I liked - so I painted it. I had never painted roses before.....

And so began my interest in painting Roses!

   And it continues........!

This one used an interesting technique - Salt was sprinkled over the wet watercolour and left to dry. The salt absorbs the paint and leaves this sparkle effect. If you want it to be less dramatic then you dry the paint with a hairdryer.

                            Flowers are my main painting subject - but I have done others



                                                            ARCHITECTURE
   

  I didn't know whether to put this in Architecture or still life! I suppose it is more still life than a painting of a building....This is my Mother-in-laws house in the Czech republic. I think she had set this all up hoping I would paint in the courtyard. One hot sunny day I did just that....and it is one of my favourite paintings.

On the same holiday I joined an Art group having a painting holiday. This painting was the result of a day trip to paint architecture. It was wonderful. I found a quiet place, away from the crowds and sat painting this beautiful church....

 This is a painting of Oaxaca Cathedral in Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico. Sadly I wasn't there to see it for myself and paint it. I saw the picture in a magazine and loved the bright bold colours and I decided to paint it. To capture the intense colours I needed to work in acrylics - something I had not done before. It was quite nice using another medium...and acrylics certainly appealed to my fear of ruining a painting with a mistake. Acrylics can be very easily painted over...the sky was re-done about seven times before I was happy with it. That certainly cannot be done with watercolour!

This painting came about because I went to see a demonstration of painting reflections by William Newton. He did a gorgeous painting of a house by a lake. When I got home I was trying to describe the painting to my husband but he looked confused (or bored!) so I said "You know, it is probably easier for me to paint it" So for the next 20 mins I sat painting this from memory - I never intended it to be kept - I just wanted my husband to know what I had seen. When I was done I looked at it and thought "That's actually not bad" It isn't as good as the original - but I do like it. I love the fact that painting it was easier than explaining it!!!


                                         
                                                                     STILL LIFE

 When I was planning to paint the cathedral picture I bought some cheap acrylic paints and a pad of acrylic card. I thought best do a small practice painting (having never painted in acrylics before) so I grabbed a couple of apples from the fruit bowl and sat down to paint. I soon found out that mistakes are easier to correct and actually enjoyed using acrylics. However watercolour remains my favourite, even though it is very awkward at times. I love the hazy quality you can get from watercolours that is difficult to get with the bold acrylic paints.

LANDSCAPES

 

          This was a photo I saw on an online news site (I think the article was about the weather!) and I adored the photo - so I had to paint it

 
       This painting was done at a demonstration at the Art club. This time someone had been asked to come to the class to do a teaching demonstration about cloud painting techniques. We all selected a photo and she taught us how to paint clouds. This painting is one my husband loves (the other he really liked was the cathedral) so both of them I framed and gave to him. He hasn't yet asked for any paintings of roses ;o)

         

               Thank you for being here! See you soon........













                 
   

Stamps and ink

   I have discovered another passion in the craft world - Tim Holtz stamps and inks. My sister-in-law, Alison, discovered him first (she claims it is my fault because I got her to do half of a scrapbook for her mothers birthday and during her research for techniques to use she discovered the ink master!)

     Suddenly all these bookmarks began appearing. I adored them and asked her where she got the wonderful coloured card from....she said she had 'done them herself with inks and blending tools'.....WHAT!!?........"Haven't you heard of Tim Holtz?", she asked me.....I hadn't and I was amazed as she showed me a demo of blending inks onto card. My first instinct was to state that that was way beyond my capabilities and I would NEVER be able to do that. Alison promised me that she would show me just how simple and wonderful these inks, blending tools and stamps are....

    Finally ink day arrived. First things first...choose some colours. "Halloween style please" I said. Alison reached over to the tray of many TH inks and took out Ripe Persimmon, Seedless Preserves, Peeled Paint (swoon...) and Walnut stain. Then she showed me some of the techniques....

First using the blending tool (I do need to watch how many times I reach for the ink pad!) wrinkled card and build up the colours. I had to be careful to check occasionally how it looked and judge what is needed. I had a tendancy to just swipe it all over rather than build up the colours. Aren't the colours just amazing? Even like this it is a beautiful effect.........Then there were other techniques

This was great fun....I was amazed how simple it all was.....that the ink pads were applied to the heat mat, spritzed with water then just swipe the card through and dry it. Add a few dabs on the remaining ink...and the result is amazing! A little uncontrollable perhaps but I loved it anyway!

         I adore these colours!

Now it was time to move on to some stamping. A blank tag had clear ink embossed with a flourish stamp...........

........ and walnut stain and seedless preserves blended around the edge, then it was spritzed with water (the ink wiped from the emboss) and then it was dried.

A quote was chosen and further flourishes were stamped. A ribbon selected and - Hey presto! - A Tag!!!!

Alison had to then leave the room to bid on Ebay  and I decided to try another tag. Selecting Peeled Paint (of course) and a blue (I forget the name!) I applied some ink to the mat and used the water spray. Something went wrong though - I think I didn't swirl the card through the colours enough as I ended up with a tag that just had blocks of colour. Dismissing it as a lesson learned and feeling that perhaps I shouldn't be doing this unsupervised I waited for Alison to return. "I did this, but it went wrong - I don't like it!"

Alison, as ever, was her positive self....she declared that it was great...perhaps I would like it better with some brown? She suggested the walnut stain, and I began to blend it over the card and it was magical. The green and blue had been too bright and the colours hadn't merged enough but the brown changed it all. Suddenly inspiration returned...I grabbed the offcuts of diecut flowers and applied ink through them to give the muted flower images in the corners.

Alison suggested doing another piece of card with the same blue and green , but paler and doing diecut flowers to add to the tag....It was perfect! A quote was picked and Alison had the perfect embossing powder...a brown that has green shimmer in it

Then ribbons were needed - and I learnt a new thing. Dying ribbons using TH inks. Perfect match and fun to do. I love selecting two colours and seeing them blend into the ribbon. Amazing........!

Then it was time to learn masking. I had always wondered how the layering effect was done and masking is such an amazingly simple was to do this. So on this tag is lots of layers....text, flowers, grunge texture surrounding the central image and of course it was the perfect time to practice the diecut flowers and ribbon dying again!

Now it was time to just bring all the techniques together and play!

   ............And I certainly am!!!


 I am entering the bird tag in the following challenge -

 Glitter n sparkle challenge - Things with wings


   I am entering the green/blue/brown tag in the following challenges -

  The Stamp Man - Nov challenge - Emboss it
  Addicted to Stamps challenge - Tags
 Penny Black and more challenge  - Any die will do
 Sweet Magnolia Challenge - Dies or punches
 Our creative corner - Make your own background
Crafts 4 eternity -  Teriffic Tags

       

Christmas arrives early

Insomnia strikes so another post it will be........

    I adore my sister-in-law's blog and if you haven't seen it then "Where have you been?"!!!
Get yourself over to Words and pictures - You'll love it!

   Anyway, as I was saying.....I adore her blog and I eagerly await the new posts, though sometimes I have had a sneek peek at the new works of art before they arrive on the blog, I still enjoy reading about them (she is a far, far better writer than me!)

     She has been doing Christmas tags as part of the 12 tags of Christmas challenge although so far she has not actually done a Christmas tag....she has followed the task but there isn't a snowflake or sleighbell in sight....Her restraint is remarkable because I could never do that....I want it to be Christmas now!

       So today I sat down and made some tags. I am not following Funkie Junkie and doing the tags on the site. I am doing my own and perhaps they are slightly inspired by the ones on the site (though no way as good) and I have enjoyed making them....and I didn't have to go shopping first. All the paper, chalks, brads, embellishments were all items I already had crammed into the art cupboard. It was so nice to have a Christmassy moment.....without the stress of actual Christmas.

     First choice was the obvious red/green which I adore. Just a card tag, eyelet, two metal attachments, some ribbon and string and various Christmas papers

 






          I enjoyed making that so much that I decided to make two more.......but I didn't like the second two as much as the first....they used the same craft materials - leftover paper, ribbons, brads, eyelets, chalks, cardstock and metal attachments....I think red and green are my favourite Christmas colours!

   

       For something very different I went with brown and blue (which will please some people I know ;o)
   

         

And no, I can't read or write music.....I just scrawled something I hoped looked a bit like music....

This last one - it didn't end up being how I saw it in my mind. I really wanted to capture a Victorian look and it went wrong somewhere - perhaps the peg? I might go back and work on it at some point. I think maybe

some lace or ribbons.  For now it is ok, but nothing special.

       

 
           

So there are my three tags of Christmas....perhaps I will get the other 9 done in time to hang them up for Christmas. It might be fun to get my kids to have a go making their own tag for Christmas....I know what will happen....Anya's will be bright Barbie pink and covered in glitter, sequins and hearts and Jakob's?.........well,........ I am sure we can make Scooby Doo look Christmassy?.......I think?!!!!

I would like to enter the blue tag in the following challenge  -

Created with love challenge  - Christmas (No red or green)

Crazy 4 challenges - Favourite Christmas Carols (C4C162)

I would like to enter the red/green tag in the following challenge  -

Crafts and me challenges - Challenge #108 Reds