Extremely crafty knitting

ok - this was taken when i was ill wearing an enormous kaftan! this looks like a mad stranger in a very messy room!

the point is it shows some extreme knitting i was doing. i had 30 balls of yarn - all types, weights and textures. My darling man made the needles for me as they are 40 mm is size. he went to homebase and did a bit of magic at work for me. I made a rug - its fab and has been in my boudoir wearng very well. the cats loved me making this as it meant they could attack the yarn!!!!

The Naughty Magpies Nest

well....what a terrible photo (you live and learn!) this was an experimental piece trying out different skills. the orange piece on the left is a crisp packet that i shrunk with my heat gun. the film strips werw stamped onto acetate and mounted onto white card, there is even a crepe bandage (brushed over with a thick acrylic paint), a safety pin and even a scrap of fabric off some underwear. The backing card is waterford watercolour paper so it allowed layers of colour to be dragged over it and wiped back giving a lovley texture. the theme for this was a birds nest. i had a naughty magpie in my mind who collected anything it saw hence the eclectic mix of goodies within!...........................

A very unusual Valentine

This is different for a Valentine - my partner adored it as did many friends but equally many found it disturbing...it took a while to make as again it is a project with many processes. It started off as a grotty piece of yellow card with was gessoed and then i glued on a layer of paper and when it was wet tore some of it back randomly. I did this with 4 layers. This exposed under layers and created a lot of texture. Each layer was painted a slighlty different shade and stamped before being pasted on. (confused?!). I then scrunched up tissue paper and then smoothed it out and glued it on randomly - again to create texture. i then stampedover it - the fact that the texture was there made the stamping better as it broke up and wasnt all neat and

tidy and crisp. I loved doing this - lots of messing and not knowing quite how it was going to move forward.....

Mothers Day card

I made this for my darling mum - she likes somethign alittle dofferent. It involved rubbing back acrylic paints, dragging dry acrylic with a very bristly brush for a dragged look and of course stamping and chalk inks .... the pic with mum on is the front of the card, the other is the the insert. This all started as inexpensice white card stock and all colours were and effects were created by me. i loved maing this as it is verytextured.

The Crafty Clock

This probably isnt the best photo but the semi matt varnish i used to protect it has reflected in the piccie. it does not look shiny in the finished article. This took a few days to make as there quite a few processes and lots of drying time needed. Plent of gesso, tissue paper, acrylic paints etc needed. I loved seeing the picture come together. Mounting the time piece was the msot difficultpart for me as i needed to make sure the clock was properly balance. it is a foot long this is deliberate as i wanted it to have functin but look like a picture first and foremost.

How confusing!

Well having arrived here through looking at crafty critters work i have set up a blog and am totally confused! Who knows what will occur or whether I am typing this in vain. it is about time I got my act together and started crafting again. I had so much planned for this weekend but I have hurt my arm which makes it all slightly awkward! It also means the new bike hasnt come out today! Its like sods law - you wash the windows it rains, you buy a bike - you hurt your arm! So here I am web searching looking at ideas and getting back up to speed looking at suppliers etc. i hope to make stuff out of stuff i find knocking baout. In fact I really want to make it my misson to only get new stuuf like gesso etc .The rest i want to recycle. Lets see what happens. i have also started writing poetry lately - wonder if it could be incorporated into my work. Crikey, I sound like I am disappearing up my own derriere here! going to finish this now and do more hunting around for "stuff". Also fancy anotherlisten to the new Placebo track.So for now ...........tara