Blue Mono Printing and the Midnight Garden

A bit of a printing fest going on this week, and it's all a bit blue!  I've continued with the mono printing from last week but changed the colours to suit my midnight garden theme - I seem to come round to that each summer as I really do love the muted colours and beautiful shapes of my garden as it goes from dusk into night.    

The bright sunshine we've been having has meant I can get some more cyanotype printing done - topping up my stash for card making and collages - always a favourite activity!

 

  I've also been running low on notecards so I have printed off another run of them using some of these photos of old and new cyanotype prints. I need to trim them all up - about 30 in total - a job I don't enjoy so we'll see if it gets done by next week - I'm betting it doesn't!!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

Christmas Preparations

 It finally happened last week - I was wondering when I'd feel the panic coming on and sure enough I went to bed last Tuesday feeling fine and woke up last Wednesday hardly able to believe I was half way through December and nothing had been done.

Consequently the following 5 days were spent planning and making Christmas cards, gift boxes and tags, putting up the trees and decorations and Christmas shopping (the safer way, on the internet!).

I am confident my nephews and brother-in-law will not be looking at my blog any time soon - in fact, I'm not sure they even know I have one, so I'm safe to show the gift boxes I made for their cash and gift cards.

And now the boxes are sitting on my desk waiting to be filled and the cards are nearly all written.  

Gosh, that feels good!

 

 

I am linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week. 

 

Collage - Image Pairings

In between making a small handful of Christmas cards this week I've continued with Challenge 6 in the Collage Workbook, which is called Image Pairings - to cut an image in half and use each half in a separate and distinctly different collage.

I chose the image of the birds hovering over the sea, and found the collages weren't as distinctly different as I had imagined they would be!  However, it was an enjoyable little project.

Together you can see the continuation of the main picture.

I have also been playing about with some more collages - not quite in the order of the book but I suddenly had an idea and had to act on it!  This one is about peeling back the layers to reveal what's underneath - quite a messy process!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

A Little Winter Garden in a Tin

I'm working my way through some half finished projects and came across this tin with a couple of half made cocoons in it.   I think the idea might have originally been for a midnight garden last summer, but I decided it was perfect to round off the winter and get another 'work in progress' finished!

The backdrop is a piece of old rust printed cloth that is lying on my desk waiting to be used in another project, but I thought they went quite well together!

  I hope you are all staying safe and well in these challenging times.  I have been amazed at the selfless acts of kindness from the folks in my community - it lifts the spirit and renews my faith in mankind when I see such a supportive group of people on our local self-isolation support group pages.  I hope you are all getting the support you need and are coping fairly well with this horrible situation.

Sending virtual hugs to you and linking up via Julia over at WOYWW.   

Midnight Lavender and WOYWW

I'm loving my garden at the moment - especially at night when the colours come alive and the moonlight creates such a beautiful glow on the plants. This tag is made using dried and pressed lavender from the garden, some collage scraps and some metallic wax.
Some of you who visit my blog regularly will know that I love working seasonally and for the last few years have been working during each summer on my 'midnight garden'.  If you are interested you can see some of my older work here.

I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who left good wishes for my carpel tunnel operation last week - I finally had it done last Friday and it's now well on the mend.   I'm struggling to type (this post is taking ages) or do much art but I made some tag bases before the op and have been able to do the finishing touches one handed - in fact it was surprisingly easy gluing on the lavender flowers.  
I am linking up with Julia over at WOYWW.  I shall try and return visits but might just have to leave my mark rather than a comment - I hope you don't mind!

Fleur de Lys Tag and WOYWW

 I had a lovely, relaxing 'play' session in my studio yesterday and made this rather fussy tag for no reason other than the fun of it.  I flung everything at it - I stamped, crackled and foiled!  I then added some vivid blue glass beads simply because they are my latest passion!   

  

I'm linking up with Julia this week over at Whats On Your Work Desk Wednesday.

Christmas Packages and WOYWW

Happy New Year!

Very little has been going on in my studio since before Christmas - how long ago that seems now - and so there is nothing on my desk at the moment, but I thought I'd share some Christmas packaging I made for family members, just to give me an excuse to take part!

An envelope for a restaurant voucher - front...

and back.

A small box for a cash gift - front...

and back.

A small pillow box for a piece of jewellery - front...

and back.

I am linking up with What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday this week and I've just realised I missed the WOYWW 500 anniversary - what an achievement and thank you to Julia and all the wonderful deskers who have kept it going and made it such a joy to participate in. 

Three Little Collages

I was intrigued to find a piece of old crackle glazed sea pottery with what looked like a raised flower stem on it - I knew I had use it, and these three little card toppers, made on blank ATC's are what resulted.  

I lined up the little ridge in the pottery with the stem of the die cut flower, and I used the orangey/blue colour of the old crackle glaze to influence the background inks and the crackle stamping on the the die cut stems.

I'm linking up with Julia this week, over at What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday.

Playing About With Gelli Prints

I've been finding a little time to mess about in my Summer Night Garden sketchbook.  I came across some gelli prints that I had printed a while back but never got round to doing anything with. So I thermofax printed, cut, tore, glued and collaged!

I want to say a big thank you to everyone who left such kind wishes last week for my hubby's recovery from his hip replacement operation - I really appreciate your thoughtful comments.  He is doing incredibly well and is pretty much pain free now - I'm still amazed at how effective this has been - hats off to the NHS, they have done a fantastic job.

I'm linking up with Julia over at What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday this week - why not hop over and see what other people are up to.

Insect Card Toppers and WOYWW

Very little has been happening on my desk lately as the Hubs has had a hip replacement operation during the last two weeks - he was walking around on day 2, walking up and down stairs on day 3 and he was home by day 4  - I was amazed at how quickly they chucked him out of hospital, but he's doing remarkably well despite my lack of nursing skills!

 Anyway, I managed to grab an hour up in my studio and made some card toppers on some old blank ATC cards. I decided to play with my new insect stamps that I purchased after seeing them on Shaz's desk back before Christmas.

I'm sharing with WOYWW 

Winter Collages

I have finally finished making Christmas cards at last - what didn't help was my Big Shot breaking down a couple of weeks ago - my hubby has mended it several times but this time it's beyond help - so I've been die-cutter free and really missing it.   Of course from that moment on all my ideas required die-cutting, so I've been struggling to be creative!

I've had these little winter garden scenes hanging around from last winter - they just needed some extra embellishments to finish them off, so that's been a relaxing little project in between bouts of chaos and stress (namely present wrapping and supermarket shopping!).

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW.

Thank you for your support and friendship over the past year and
 I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and peaceful 2017.