Tea on Tuesdays

Kimmie at http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com/ has suggested Tea on Tuesdays ..........

.''.......make yourself a cuppa, post a picture of it on your blog with a little something to say about your day, and then link back to me (Kimmie). We'll all make the rounds to see what's up with our blogging buddies and take a pause for some friendship over a hot cuppa ...... ''

So, here's my tea - it contains lemon, limeflowers, milk thistle and lemon verbena. I think I may throw in a slice of lemon as well to give it some flavour.
I do try to like fruit and herbal teas....but many of them just taste like dishwater to me. (Not that I've ever drunk dishwater...)
As for today - well, I helped my daughter move back home. Not something either of us really want, although we love each other very much (she liked having her independence, I liked having a tidy house and a guest room), but she was made redundant a few weeks ago and is struggling to find another job. Living away from home is not an option for her until she does.
We both hope she finds a job very soon........

My Girl.....

Last night I was out with the girls at the 'Stylist of the Future' hairdressing award show in Nottingham. We had a great time, but what made it even better ......... the winner was my daughter's friend and her model was my daughter! Here is the winning team ... the gorgeous girls; Liz (Marie Antoinette) and Sarah.

The majority of the hair was Liz's own, with a few extensions (and a lump of Oasis foam!) She wasn't looking forward to it all being combed out later....ouch!

There were two very proud mums out last night (who probably had a few too many glasses of wine for a Monday night!!!)

Sarah did a montage of all things Marie Antoinette ..... she may have inspired me to do some artwork.......

On Its Way......

Finally completed my fabric book .... now its on its way round the world! Sesga, Dot and Jacky are each going to do a page for it, then when it finally arrives back home I will stitch it all together. This is the cover.......I made the background fabric (my first attempt at nuno felting) then I hand needle-felted and stitched on top.

Inside front cover (I should have put a date - I will do that when I stitch it together).

First page........ (my favourite)

Reverse of first page........with extra embellishment added!

Inside back cover (don't really like this but hey...we learn and grow by making mistakes!)

Back cover...... same technique as front .

Here are a few close-ups.....

Dot is so well-organised; I already have her book! (The pages are scrumptious; you just want to hug them!) So now I need to start thinking about what I will do for her book ........ no pressure then, LOL !!!!!

Fabric Book

I've just finished one side of my page for the book I'm making (a fabric circle journal with Dot, Jacky and Sesga). Mine is on the theme of angels.
I used moda fabric (thank you Dot), Angelina, gold fabric, torn text, an image printed onto fabric and some sequin waste. Here's a close up of the sequin waste and my messy stitching (which was intentional of course, I honestly tried to make it shabby!! )
Do you think I ought to do more to it....hand stitching? Beads? Knots? I can't decide.

I've done both covers, front and back.......now I just need to do the other side of this page and then I'll show all on Monday.

Photo Challenge at ABAA

Rosie and I have decided to have monthly challenges from now on and this month Jaqi is our guest challenger. She has kindly allowed us to use one of her lovely old family photographs to inspire our artwork. I decided to transfer the image onto a 5"x 5" chunky canvas using gel medium. Unfortunaltely its now the wrong way round and (too late) I realise that I should have reversed it before printing it out!
I'd like to thank Ooglebloops for the lovely netting she sent me as part of a packet of treasures last week. It fitted perfectly with my colour scheme. The pansies are from a beautiful pack of tissues! (Torn and applied with gel medium......see Norah's blog if you want to see this technique done really well!)

I used upholstery tacks to attach the wire and the plastic netting .... and very pretty they are too!

The words Only a bird in a gilded cage are from a very old (rather sad) musical hall song you can find here (you can even listen to the tune!) As soon as I saw the photo I had those few words in my mind...it just took a bit of 'googling' to find the actual song!

Anyway...thanks for the challenge Jaqi - I really enjoyed it!

Scrapbook Layouts

Rosie and I spent almost 3 days together last week at my house. We had a lovely time .... we visited the Beetroot Tree Gallery and Peartree Yard ('Aladdin's Cave'), went to The Living Threads embroidery exhibition at Trent College which was just brilliant, had coffee and lunch in Andersons (gorgeous delicatessen).....and, oh yes, we did some crafting as well!

I helped Rosie with her first attempt at hand needle-felting and free machine embroidery (she was a bit too good at it) and she got me started with scrapbooking. I'm doing a book on Soller (Majorca). Here are a few of the pages.......

I've still got lots more to do....and I will hopefully get better at it. But it's so much nicer than an ordinary photo album!!

I've ordered a couple of books from Amazon and one arrived today...it looks fab! I'm hoping to learn how to do wet felting and nuno felting properly.Did anyone else go to this? All the exhibits were fabulous and very inspiring...there was also a shop with all hand made items and demonstrations of different techniques. Rosie and I fell in love with the embellishing machine! (But why are they SO expensive - can anyone tell me?)

Tea and Inchies

I'm doing a 'Tea and Inchies' swap with Kimmie at http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com/
Her post here explains it all. I like the way she describes the joy of having a handful of inchies to feel and look at. I've made mine really thick so they are almost like charms. I love the way they clatter when they are dropped into a dish.

So, Kimmie, I'll be posting 10 of these to you tomorrow...along with a few packs of tea!

I only intended making a dozen..... but got carried away and made 35. I rather like tiny art.

Before I go I just want to thank Lynn at http://hercreativespirit.blogspot.com/ for giving me this award. She's a lovely lady and I'm so glad I found her (thanks to ABAA).

Happy Easter

My garden is awash with muscari (such a wonderful colour) and this morning I've been watching the blue tits building a nest in our box at the bottom of the garden. I managed to take a photo from my craft room window. I was amazed at how long they took pecking around the edge of the hole....apparently they are 'marking' it so the other birds know its taken.

I must remember to prune that buddlea properly when they've gone!!

This is where I was last week....the Los Gigantes hotel in Tenerife. These are the champagne waiters around the pool (I only had the one glass) (per day). Those are my (rather pale) toes...they're a bit browner now.

On Tuesday evening I was here....at the Nottingham Arena!!

Torville and Dean were on top form and Ray Quinn was incredible. It was also good to see Kyran Bracken and Suzanne Shaw skating again. And Jessica performed her Bolero...aaaahh.....

Yesterday afternoon I did some hand needle-felting and made it into a brooch....my very late entry to our ABAA challenge last week.

And finally......thanks to a link from my lovely friend Dot I discovered the work of DJ Pettitt. Her books, paintings and collages are just amazing. I bought some pieces from her etsy shop and they arrived a few days ago. Three of them are on fabric and this is what she kindly suggests....

.....use these images in your mixed media collage work ... or even frame them if desired. They can be sewn on, painted on, you could glue elements on them... just about anything... ink won't smear with water media.

I need to think very carefully what I'm going to do with them!

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend.....enjoy that chocolate!!!!