April Calendar Journal

I got painterly with this month's pages as I wanted birds eggs, I'm really pleased how they came out!

I Dream of Antlers

I have some poetry that I want to add images to and print.  This is just a try out, using a photo taken a few years ago by my lovely daughter Gemma and edited in Picasa.

Angel Canvas Swap

This is a swap on the main UK Scrappers forum, based on a decorated canvas in a recent copy of Craft Stamper magazine.  It involved painting a pretty teaspoon and adding wings to make it an angel, then attaching it to a decorated canvas.

I was asked to make mine for Lynn, who wanted some blues and gold for her colour scheme,  The canvas came together quite well, with texture paint through stencils, papers and layers of paint.  The spoon proved more difficult as it took a few layers of gesso to cover it up, then I added a special iridescent paint and the gesso softened and wiped off!  I had to peel it all off and start again, this time I used ordinary acrylic paints and thicker layers of gesso and it seemed to do the trick.

 I am no artist so I refused to try and paint a face in the bowl of the spoon;  I thought I had suitable face stamps but it turned out I didn't!  Plan B then was to use air drying clay with a set of face moulds, and once they were dry I could pick one that fitted best, paint it and add it on.  The wings are a wooden butterfly that came in a free decoupatch kit from a magazine;  this was painted and then microbeads were added at the sides.

Lynn has now received her canvas and is pleased with it,  and I am looking forward to receiving mine in due course from my mystery swappee.

Junk Key

This is another 'circle' swap I have joined on the Secret Swappers.  Each person starts with a key, either a real one that has no use, or a decorative one, and chooses their theme.  They then add a key charm on their theme to their own key and pass it on to the next person who will add a charm in the key's theme and so on.  There are only five people to add to each key as it might get a bit bulky otherwise!

My theme was Gothic/Edgar Alan Poe, and I made my key charm about his poem, The Raven.   I had a metal wing charm big enough for me to add a tiny quote to, and a silver bird skull that I sanded and painted black with Humbrol enamel paint.  I hung the skull up to dry, and watched the paint slide down and drip off the end of the beak, I had to keep mopping it so I didn't end up with a big solidified drip hanging off it!

 However, in the end it looked quite effective, so I hung the charms off the key on a bit of silver chain and threaded some black cord through it all.  It is now away on its travels, and I look forward to getting it home in a few months with other people's work hanging from it too!

Belt up!

After seeing how well my woven scarf turned out, I decided to have a go at weaving a belt using a similar method.  This time I used weaving sticks, which are virtually the same as the pegs in a peg loom except perhaps being a bit longer; these are held in the hand so are much more portable.  The only downsize is there is a limit on how many sticks can be comfortably held in one hand so they only come in sets of five usually.

This suited me fine as I only wanted to use four, and it probably didn't take me much more than an hour to weave the whole length even though I had to measure regularly to make sure I got the buttonholes woven in the right places.  I was pleased how this worked out, as the instruction leaflet didn't mention buttonholes so I had to work out the best way to do them before I started.

I used my favourite Sirdar Indie wool, which has a main colour and then changes to contrasting colours partway through.  I finally got to use a beautiful mossy agate button, which I have had in my stash for years because I fell in love with it at a show but didn't have anything in mind for it!

I have left the warp threads long for now, as I plan to tie found objects such as pieces of seashell and small hagstones onto them.

Calendar Journal: March 2014

February went by a bit too quickly, but I managed to get my pages done on time, I just didn't get around to uploading them on time!  Dylusions and acrylic paint backgrounds, with Prima paper for the journalling squares.