A Beautiful October Day

I was lucky enough to be able to go to the coast last Wednesday.  It was a glorious warm October day, and my son was on leave from work, so I suggested a trip to the coast.   This was the first time I have been to the beach this year!

Look at that gorgeous blue sky and sea - you can understand why I needed to share with you.

Although we have often drive down to this part of the coast, we have never really gone for a stroll - well not for a number of years anyway.

There is a lovely cafe with a good reputation, and we decided to have a cuppa and a cake there - wow the choice of cakes was amazing.

On our walk along the beach, we came across these plants - I wish I knew what they were - they are so pretty.   Part of the path actually goes through a tunnel of them.

If anybody knows what they are called - please feel free to leave a comment to tell me.

MDF Robot

sitting down

At last I got around to building my Clevercut Robot.    I will confess that I did struggle with this one - he is quite complex, and I did struggle with the instructions sometimes.  However, it was worth it and he is quite cute.    Now to decide how I will paint him.

standing up, and poised to show all his swivel joints.

MDF Tea Light covers

Another little Halloween project.  Very simple and easy to put together.  Painted with acrylic paints.

Dead of the Dead Mask

I attempted to paint a Day of the Dead Mask.  Hopefully it isn't too bad, bearing in mind that I can't draw for toffee, and currently can't see where a pen meets paper (or in this case mdf),  and this was done freehand using some inspiration from the internet.  I used Posca pens, Starlight paints and Indigo blue paint.   I also added a little "grey" shading with distress oxides.  The teeth were overpainted with phosphorescent gel.    Finally a thin coat of multipurpose gel medium was sponged on and a little diamond frost sprinkled over the surface whilst wet.

Reverse side

The other side in case you missed it yesterday - and I have actually done a bit more to it since then - though you probably can't see that! - I gave it a thin coat of multipurpose gel medium again with a little of the sparkle added and then over-painted all the white parts with phosphorescent gel medium.

Hopefully when "charged" the paint should glow nicely in the dark.   I may be scaring the trick and treaters this year!

A little play in the Den - Gesso rules!

I managed to get up to the Den this afternoon in the sunshine, after a couple of days of sorting out eyes - check up at hospital on Friday  (got the all clear to have eye test for new specs) and also got told that they were going to do the other eye in the next few months - that was a surprise as everything I had read said the local authority were only paying for one eye!

I managed to get a cancelled appointment at the optician yesterday, so am now on countdown to getting new specs .... can't wait!   Couldn't do any crafting as such miserable weather and so dark!

Anyway back to the Den ..... I made a start on my challenge project.  First picture shows the box.  I applied some texture past to the "pages" and the painted on some gold gesso.  I also did the inside, but that may not stay like that.  the rest of the book box got an application of black gesso.

White gesso on  3 of the 6 ATC greyboards

I mentioned that I had the idea of doing double-sided ATC cards.  So I applied white gesso to one side and black to the other.

I also had a play with one of the MDF skills I have. I was going to paint it with flowers etc in The Day of the Dead vain, but decided to play with the side with the markings on first to see how it would turn out,  which was a bit of a challenge as eyes are still a bit iffy until I get the new specs, as cannot see detail that easily - or more to the point I can't see the end of the paintbrush!  Here is the result, just painted with white acrylic and a little black gesso.  I didn't like the black initially as it was to blak, but a little blending with some of the white, water, and in some cases that good old tool called a finger, I was pretty happy with the result.

I have painted white acrylic on the reverse side - so that will have the Day of the Dead flowers etc painted on it.

Happy Post

The Book Box

Another parcel I received yesterday was marked "Happy Post" and was a  present from the lovely Lou Withers.  It contained this lovely MDF Book Box containing 6 ATC sized grey boards.   This little present came with the proviso that I decorate it and post pictures on the Junk Journals and Mindful Art Facebook page.

Obviously I am accepting the challenge, and my mind is in overdrive as to how I will decorate them.  I did sit and make up the box this morning ... so have made a start.

The inside showing the ATC cards

For those that follow my blog and do not know what ATC stands for; it stands for Artists Trading Cards.   These are normally playing card size, made of card, tand show off the artist's work.  They are quite often made in a group of related designs.   A sticker is put on the back denoting details of the artist, and the name of the design etc and whether is is part of a series.

Obviously being grey board these are a bit thicker - and I don't think I will put details on the back, but decorate both sides.   My initial instinct is to coat one side with white gesso and the other with black gesso, and do similar techniques, but on the different basecoats..  Watch this space as they say!

Mini MDFhouses

How cute are these little houses frin Samantha K Crafts.    They arrived this morning, and I just had to make them up.   If you look closely you will see that som of them have little holes in the top, so they could be hung on a Christmas Tree.   Also apart from the one that looks like a pagoda, the roof lifts up so you could put a little sweet inside them.    They would also look good inside baubles or bell jars with some imitation trees, moss etc. (This may well be the route I go down).

I also have to decide whether to leave them as they are or do some colouring on them, and make them look like little "gingerbread" houses.

A sad and happy day

Today's blog is not craft related exactly.  It is sad but also a little special.  It is my wedding anniversary, and sad because I lost my husband a few days after our anniversary three years ago,and I miss my soulmate so much;  but happy because one of my bridesmaids is coming over to visit and taking me out for lunch.   

Every Christmas we both say in our cards that we must catch up, but somehow never seem to make it.  Life gets in the way.   She was coming over last week, but Granny duties called, but the new arrangement makes it really special.    We haven't seen each other for over nearly 40 years, probably about the time I gave up work to have my son!

So I am really excited.

all those years ago! (the tallest one is the one coming to visit)

By the way I made all the dresses in the photo ... mine and the bridesmaids.

I have also made a copy of  our wedding video as a present for her, as she was saying that she had no photos of herself when younger ( I am not sure of the whole story behind that)., and was telling her granddaughter about her bridesmaid dress.     

I also did a bit of crafting  by creating a collage of photos for the label for the DVD .- I hope she likes it.

I have also lost contact with the other "grown up" bridesmaid.  She moved to Canada although we did keep in contact for a while.  The two little ones, I am in contact with regularly on FB, one was my goddaughter, and the other my niece.

Canal Boat Card

Back to using Craft Artist for this card - one of those difficult ones for a man!   As I know he recently had a holiday with his family on a canal  boat, this seemed the obvious choice this year.

I used one of the layouts provided but then added some extra elements.  I normally add a name and a sentiment on the front, but for once I didn't.

Butterfly Card and experimenting

I seemed to have lost my moo yesterday.  The weather was very grey, and at this time of year I tend to be a bit down as my Wedding Anniversary is in a few days, and I miss my husband most then.  However I knew I had a card to make ..... but I had a little play anyway.

This DaliART butterfly stamps were in the front of my stamp box , so I thought I would use that.   I also have some John Next Door Media Plates (sort of gelli plates), which I had only played with in my art journal - so one of those  came out as well.

I placed the media plate on my stamping platform and inked it with a brayer and Izink Sky blue pigment ink.  I then took one of the little butterflies from the collection and stamped it into the ink on the media plate to remove the colour.  The result was a border with butterflies.  I then applied clear embossing powder and heated this up.

I then stamped the large butterfly with black Nuvo ink (again using the stamping platform - where would we be without this - it makes life so much easier).

As I was watching a demo on Spectrum Noir Metallic Pens, I decided to get mine out and colour the butterfly with them.  I can see from the photo that my colouring is not what it used to be.   I do struggle to see to do this nowadays (roll on the new glasses next month).   Tiz a shame as I love colouring.  However, although the colouring looks dodgy in the photo, it looks ok on the card - or at least I think so!

I did a few highlights with a fine white Gelly Roll pen, and then when the image was dry I damped it with a wet paintbrush and applied some more clear embossing powder.  (This was a bit of an experiment as although I have done this before on MDF with Ultra Thick Embossing powder, I had never done it with fine detail powder - Thankfully it worked!)

I still wasn't quite happy with the effect so I edged around the blue frame with a little Nuvo glue and sprinkled on some Cosmic Shimmer Glitter Jewels - yes I liked that.  However, as you can see from the picture of the card (below) before I got to colouring it - I hadn't quite got the frame centred on the card.   Undaunted I got out my picot edge dies from Clarity Stamp, and cut the whole thing out, and edged the pico with more of the Sky Blue Ink.

Happy at last I then mounted it on a new card - and there you have it - the finished card (above)..

The start of the card, and the dodgy alignment of the square boarder!
(you can just abo9ut see the reflection of the embossing)

I created an insert in Craft Artist - with just a simple message in it saying "Fluttering by to wish you a very Happy Birthday.