art for arts sake..goodbye Wednesday Stampers

Sadly this week it is the last wednesday stampers challenge..this has been one of the best challenge sites to take part in as the inspiration from there has been wonderful..so a big thanks for everyone over there you will be sadly missed! Instead of doing a gloomy tag I wanted to do a sort of happy celebration tag for all the inspiration shared from each contributor..so I have used lots of bright colours. All the stamps I have used are from Scrollswork which is sadly also closing but has a 60% off sale on now.

enjoying the sun and works in progress...

I have been doing all kinds of stuff lately so many work in progress projects..


I am making a fabric journal using painted lutradur, tumble dryer sheets and decorators coverall material I found in the pound shop...takes paints and inks well so far as well as foil. This is going to be a journal all about my recent bike rides.


Playing around with bitumen, spirits and foil



My garden is looking nice with all my pots

New patio set I assembled this morning in the corner of my garden I bought some little dragonfly lights so will have a look at them glowing later when its dark..such a lovely place to chill and eat dinner and of course read the paper and drink yogi tea!

Bike rides along the Wirral coast this time to Hoylake to see a friend

summer fun at the school fair!

Hope the sun is shining near you..have a good week..I am enjoying this sun before it rains again!

Capturing the Forest

One of my fav things to do is to have a woodland walk and I wanted to capture all the textures and earthiness in a piece of art. I have used Gary Reef eggshell and foil techniques on this box. Instead of eggshells I used crushed shells and tea leaves and glued it all on with strong pva glue and used aluminum tape for the sides.

I really like the way this box has turned out with all the different textures on it..it is quite hard to photograph so I have created this little collage using picasa to show detail. The theme over at Kristens summer of colour blog is green this week so be sure to check out all the other entries too.

textures, grunge, tomatoes , peppers & peace

Grungy tag made today at Lindas..didnt have any inks with me so used a teabag to grunge it up



Playing around with textures I used gary reef''s eggshell technique on the top of this box but I used broken up shells, tea leaves and pva..work in progress havent finished it yet

My greenhouse looks great at the moment with loads of tomato plants, peppers, aubergines, courgettes, beans growing in there


so pleased my peppers are growing..never had any luck before


10 mile bike ride New Brighton to Meols on the Wirral this morning so peaceful

yogi altered matchboxes

Over at the milliande art community Palma is again hosting an altered matchbox swap with the theme this time of symbols. I have been drinking yogi licorice tea lately which is delicious and comes in a lovely box with little quotes on each teabag! So I have used these little quotes along with some altered mah-jong tiles, metal diecut wings, beads, sequins etc to make these little shrines. I have just joined the Gary Reef site Loving Mixed Media and he is also having an altered matchbox challenge so be sure to check out both of these excellent art communities.

I had tidied away my large art table as one of my sons was having a birthday party but decided I couldnt live without it! so got it out of the shed and my sons immediately started to paint again

fireman sams helmet


sun space and lightning


sunflowers

We have had a mixture of torrential rain and sun so typical British summertime! But at least its good for the sunflowers as ours are getting quite tall nownot in flower yet though

baby love altered tin

Thought I would alter another sardine tin. This one features a lovely Scrollswork winged baby image..I have diecut a little envelope which contains a little message held on with a silver peg and the word Love. Paper and crochet flowers with fake pearls finish this little tin off...dont forget to check out the huge closing down scrollswork sale which is still on with 60% off click here.
The theme over at the Twinkle Twinkle summer of colour blog is blue this week so be sure to check out the other entries click here.

I have had some great bike rides this week..Monday I had a ride in the wind along part of the Wirral coastline by fort perch lighthouse where I watched the windsurfers.

Beautiful blue wildflowers I think they are harebells in pickerings pasture...



Yesterday I had a 19 mile bike ride to spike island next to the mersey estuary...it was such a lovely day with hot sun unlike today when my sons sports day had to be cancelled half an hour into it with a torrential downpour!

lets just get along together genie

I am taking part in a journal page swap over at the milliande art community and the prompt for this page was genie in a bottle and one wish. The lyrics are from the christine aguilera song genie in a bottle. I have used the brasso wadding technique to blend the magazine images of bottles into the page (check out my vimeo video to the right about altering magazine pages). My wish for this page is that we all get along together in the world..it doesnt matter what type of women we are..dont judge!

7 deadly sins journal page swap

Over at the Milliande art community I am taking part in a journal page swap. One of the themes this month is the 7 deadly sins so had fun making this page..I wanted it to resemble a chaotic Bruegel Dulle Griet painting. I have used images from several paintings (Angels by Benozzo Gozzoli, Creation of Adam by Michelangelo etc). The words at the bottom are one of my fav biblical quotes "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" full of compassion in contrast with the hellfire and damnation colours and images. The next journal page theme in the swap is genie in a bottle so will make that with lighter brighter colours..good fun doing a very dark journal page though!

The weather here has been very dark and gloomy -here is a photo I took yesterday on one of my bike rides to nearby Halebank..I decided not to carry on any further as was already soaked through!

In the midnight garden of good and evil have faith

Monika over at the Milliande art community has organised an atc swap with the strange title of "midnight in the garden of good and evil" so had a go at making an atc today with some stamps I recently bought. Now to make 4 more and send them off to Australia.


Had a nice bike ride from Otterspool to the Albert Dock today and had a lovely mug of green tea at the gallery cafe while watching the world go by..then rode back in a downpour laughing in the rain! (Otterspool is at the south end of the city and the Albert Dock is in the city)

bike rides, bird watching, farms and crabbing ...

It was half term holidays last week so thought I would share some photos for a change of my life besides art:



took this stormy photo of the rain clouds over the Liverpool skyline this morning as had a bike ride the other side of the Mersey

our first blueberries..we are growing lots of fruit and veg this year


bike ride to Hale estuary to watch the birds on the Mersey


chicken with attitude at the ice cream farm where we had a go on the quad bikes and crazy golf but as usual didnt eat any ice cream!

Pete caught a huge crab using streaky bacon and string when we went crabbing at crosby marina...my sons loved watching all the crabs race back into the lake. I had never heard about using bacon to catch crabs before but followed my friends advice and we must have caught well over a 100!

art for arts sake...art journal cover

I have finished my first art journal which I began in January so decided to make a cover for it. I have used various collage images and a selection of Scrollswork stamps for the title, year etc (be sure to check out their 50% closing down sale..click here). The challenge over at Wednesday stampers is numbers this week so be sure to look at all the other entries too.