I discovered that 2 of the challenge blogs I have been regularly taking part in have ceased to be this week. Dear Sandy has given up – too much work and a real drain on her time. She has been running them for 2 years though and we all know what a job it is doing the challenges, never mind planning and orchestrating the whole thing, especially when they’re popular, as TGIF and SaWo were. She and the challenges will be missed…

I have been making fabric bookmarks as presents for friends for xmas, painting and designing my own personal xmas card. I finished a large mixed media canvas and am looking for a title or name for it. I shall photograph it tomorrow and ask for your help in the naming of this beast!!

In the meantime, I am quietly disgusted that my DD’s situation continues, along with the daily harrassment by the bullies. I have logged most of it on my other blog and as she turns 15 tomorrow, we’re having a breakfast party with her best GF and chilling.

The Three Muses challenge theme this week is simply “Time” – something we could all do with more of I think. For me, there are never enough hours in the day, but I was feeling time passing more as seasons when I created this page. I definitely had the autumn vibe with my colour palette…

The stamps are all from Home Impressions, apart from the Picasso quote, which is from MaVinci. The gorgeous frame is by Image-inations (I think!).

No gimmicks, just lovely rich paint, stamped images and a little shading with my charcoal pencil. A happy page in my altered art journal!

[Here are my xmas lottery numbers.... 5UYV5WFVPEH5 (just kidding!) It's a Technorati code check.]

For the Created by Hand challenge this week, here are 3 little ACEOs that I made using shades of blue paint on kitchen towels, with shimmers, vellum, stamping and some Japanese images.

The group:

One by one:

I have a feeling the vellum came from Annie in Finland…

The art stamp is from Robin at MaVinci.

Just have to go list a textured canvas on my ArtFire studio, slap some more layers of paint on a huge canvas, design my own original Christmas card and then I can sort out the dogs and the hoovering! Never a dull moment, is there?!!

Sunday Postcard Art… use flourishes/swirls in your art this week. There are always some gorgeous postcards to see on this challenge blog and by the time I get around to linking up there’ll probably be about 40 entries! So, lots to see!

I seem to be going through a punchinella and machine-stitching phase at the moment, but then, who’d have thought that combining the two would be fun? I used a small image from Crafty Individuals Miniatures and a recycled postcard and lots of recycled scraps, as is my wont! The flourish is also one of my favourite CI stamps.

The stamped image is embossed and I thought it’d be fun to see if the fabric strips burned or melted while I was heating the EP. The only reason I used EP is because I had to heat the Ranger ink to dry it anyway and that always irritates me, so I might as well have embossing effects too… I am terribly impatient! Anyway, the fabric strips did curl up but they didn’t melt. (Can you hear the disappointment?!!) Next time I’ll have to use some of the kite scraps – they DO melt beautifully!!

I was watching Gary Reef cutting a huge rhino stencil this morning, in his studio, direct on streaming cam from Norway. He lives on a farm, in a forest, far from his native Oz, and we talked about magpies, buzzards and milking cows – and knitting!! Can you believe that? I manage to get chatting with an artist whose work I’ve admired for ages, and end up chatting to him about ‘country life’… oh and saunas! You may know Gary as “Capricorn Artist 73″ on Youtube – fabulous, contemporary art.

NB: This is a recycled postcard from my local library in Bude. I grabbed a few during BBC Poetry season. On the back of this one is the following poem by Wendy Cope:

Some men never think of it.

You did. You’d come along

And say you’d nearly brought me flowers

But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts –

The sort that minds like ours

Dream up incessantly. You thought

I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then.

Now I can only smile.

But, look, the flowers you nearly brought

Have lasted all this while.

Flowers – by Wendy Cope

Well have a great Sunday all – I’m going to watch DD playing on the XBox and get some more paint layers down on various projects I’m in the middle of (no surprises there, eh?!). xo

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!!