A Holey Layering Technique

I'm still hard at work sorting out this slideshow for the school but I had a little time off to do a bit of crafting (yay!). 

One of the exercises in  Marit's Creative Summer Camp course that I am following was to produce a journal page or two using pictures and lettering from just one magazine. I made a start at this but I haven't made it into a journal page yet.

   (The lady was lying down in the picture)

I love mixing text with photos.  To do this particular type I hole punched into the top page picture and stuck it down onto a page of text.  The magazine I used in this case was an Italian copy of 'Vogue'.  (The pink colour was added using Picnik).

This is how it looks before its colour change...

and on the back of the page above was a picture of a couple.  They also got 'the treatment':

I love the layered effect that the hole punching creates.

 The lettering is also underneath on this one but the photograph makes it look as though they are stuck on top.

 

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

qwiksave

FOR TODAY

 I love these lists that have been passed around in Blogsphere and thought I'd share mine with you.

Wednesday Night, (Thurday Morning) 22/23rd June 2011
 
Outside my window ....Right now it's pitch black apart from street lights and lights from neighbour's windows.  We live in an area of many students that do their University work throughout the night and into the daylight hours. (Just like me then!...)

I am thinking ...I haven't blogged in a while and you might have been wondering if something was up.  There's no problem, I have just been Real Life busy.  My husband and I are working on a big photographic/video project for our eldest son that is all about his time in Junior School. He's off to High School in September and we thought it would be a nice idea to collect together all of  his class' early year memories to show at an end of term assembly.  Won't that be a great thing to look back on?  I wish my parents could have done it...


I am thankful for ...my husband getting a job in this country.  It's been difficult for us for the last 2 years with him working away in China and Germany and now he is working around the corner and is home every night.  As a family we now get to discuss our days around the dinner table and its beyond comparison... (love it!)

From the kitchen ...Our meal this evening was a simple meal of baked beans on toast with sausages made by my husband.  Sometimes 'simple' is all you need..

I am wearing ...Brown M&S jeans in Size 14, petite, and a t-shirt with brightly coloured cartoon  characters that was bought from a charity shop.  I've also got on a navy blue 'Bench' fleece, because this evening is still chilly, despite the calendar saying its Summer! 

I am creating the photographic video show mentioned above, also today I helped to make a shield and crown for my boys to wear in their school play about King Arthur.

I am going to bed soon, just got to finish reading all the blogs in my Google Reader..

I am reading ...a book called 'No Fear' by Sherry Ashworth.  It's another charity shop find and is quite an amusing story about an English teacher that worries about anything and everything.

I am hoping ...that I can lose a few pounds before we go on holiday this year.  As a family, we are going to tour Europe by train and will spend a few days at Legoland Village in Denmark at the end of August.

I am hearing ...the computer whirring and the internal fan.  At night it seems really loud when everything else around is quiet.

Around the house ..there are too many piles of things (ironing, washing...) that need doing.  I'm trying to organise myself with all the tasks that need doing on lists on my Iphone.  The theory is that I should be crossing them off...

One of my favourite things..is hearing my boys' laughter when I give them a tickle.  If I do it to one, the other insists that I do it to them too!

A few plans for the rest of the week ...a coffee morning with my other 'mum' friends tomorrow, some more work on that school video project (its a big job), crafting and blogging (of course!), and maybe I'll get to fit in some of that housework list too.... ;-)

A picture to share:

No, this isn't vandalism - it was taken at the Leamington Peace Festival last weekend. People of all ages were invited to colour this van all over with paints and chalks as one of the sidestall entertainments.  The 'art' was then washed off at the end ready for another session at its next venue!

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I think I'll be doing this type of written exercise again some time, it was fun!

Thanks for reading and for any comments,

qwiksave

Happy Father's Day

For my husband this year I have made him this pen pot out of an old gravy container.  He is an engineer so I  found some images of technical drawings to stick around the pot.  The background I used was a photocopy of an architectural drawing that used to belong to my father and it is dated from the 1960's.

After montaging the drawings around the pot, I used distress ink to make the papers look older and then mod podged it all over for protection. 

Even though my husband uses a computer for his job, he still has a need now and again for a pen or pencil!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

qwiksave

PS  This is my second post today, don't forget to check out my other post of photos from the Leamington Peace Festival here.

Leamington Peace Fesival

As I mentioned in my last post, today I went to the Leamington Spa Peace Festival.  It is such a colourful place, full of bright clothes, jewellery and a very diverse range of music.


Here are some photos taken on my Iphone (love!), made into montages using Picnik:

The weather was very changable today, rain, sun, rain, sun...  

(Above) A children's entertainer blowing assorted sized bubbles

Chillin' whilst listening to the various bands and speakers

It's a fun, FREE (yay!) festival that is on every year and is on again tomorrow - lets just hope the weather improves!

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

qwiksave

Not a Dress Rehearsal

Hi, I'm back! Sorry for my little break but we encountered computer problems (apart from my laptop being stolen, grrr!) so have cut our losses and bought a new one.  And yes, I also got the iphone too (squeals because I love it!) and I have installed all the trendy photographic apps that I've been reading about on other people's arty blogs. I will show you the effect of those soon, they really are super clever!

In my absence I've been super busy with home life including organising a Lazertag birthday party for both our boys last weekend.  They loved it, as did all their friends, including quite a few of the girls that came along too.

I haven't been doing a lot of crafting (boo!) but will be doing so again now (hooray!)  This weekend I'm going to the Leamington Spa Peace Festival. Some of you may remember the slide show I put on here last year, it is such a great creative place to be.

I couldn't have a post without any pictures, so here you go:

These are project exercises from the online course I am working my way through, Marit's Summer Camp - using titles from books (The cartoons I added to the picture of children's books were clip-art-type graphics from picnik)  The bottom one isn't strictly one of the Summer Camp exercises but when I was looking through my bookshelves for the others I came across so many children's books with 'FUN' in the title that I couldn't resist making up this collection.  

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

qwiksave

Painted Pages Exercise

I'm getting dead excited as the week goes on....because on Friday I am getting (squeal!) an Iphone! Not sure how I go about using one yet (I've not even got an MP3 player!) but I'm sure I'll get used to it.  Expect some practice creative bits 'n' bobs on here whilst I learn and get to know all about its knobs, whistles and apps (squeals again!)...

Meanwhile, I've been practicing some creativity with an exercise from this new book (a competition win from Facebook) that I got in the post from America today:

Painted Pages by Sarah Aherne Bellemare

 There are some unkind reviews on Amazon.com about this book having too many pages of the artist showing the art that she does without enough instruction, but I personally love it!  There are enough books out there that give you the step-by-step guides, this one is more of an encouragement guide for you to develop your own work in your own style. 

In the book there is a quick exercise on freeing your creativity by sticking randomly found paraphernalia into a mini sketchbook.  I did a double page spread with both pages on the same theme:

Shopping!

(The receipts aren't dry yet, which is why they are darker)

The left hand page has an old currency converter (photocopy) from a book on converting decimals from the 1970's and the receipt is for the actual 1971 decimal book, listed as 'Book Antique Value'

(I think for contrast I could have done with a different coloured background).

The right hand side has a few shop receipts, a tag, and a product barcode. I added to them the collaged words 'Material Girl'.

(shop details covered for security)

What I like about this is that the pages tell their own story without me having to say anything.

Roll on Friday! ;-)

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

qwiksave

Creative Summer Camp

I've had a busy creative day today producing some more pieces for the online course, Marit's Creative Summer Camp, I started earlier this week.

There is a (optional) photographic element to the course and these few pictures are for the title of 'structures':

A very jazzy interference lampshade

Detail of an oven glove!

..and a lid of a plastic dustbin

Another technique I had a go at was creating a 3d design using a 2ply handkerchief:

(Sorry I can't tell you the actual technique used as this is a paid-for course)

Finally, a slide show of the other technique I had a go at today:

"Ink Sprays & Salt Technique"

Create a free slideshow with Picnik!

Thanks for looking and for any comments,
qwiksave

Chocolate....and how to live to be 100!

CHOCOLATE MAKES MY CLOTHES SHRINK

I made this photo montage tonight using Picnik, I didn't realise you could use layers (multi photos on top of each other) using Picnik until today, doh! The function was a bit hidden and I stumbled across it by accident. I will definately be using that feature a bit more now.

I should point out that lady in the photo isn't me! lol. It's just a picture from google. The montage was made as a gentle reminder to myself that I want to fit into my Summer clothes for the holidays this year!  

Speaking of looking after yourself, I loved this list taken from a book I got for 50p from a junk shop today:

Click to enlarge

The book is dated 1909 and they had some unusual ideas about what was good for your health back then!

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

qwiksave

Online Creativity Courses

To give my creativity a good ol' kick, I've joined a couple of online courses that both started this week.  The first one is from Maritspaperworld, the 'Creative Summer Camp' (registrations are still open, until June 8th August 15th!).  Marit makes the most fantastic journals, go take yourself off for a good ol' mooch at her blog here...and then return! 

This course isn't a structured one where we follow strictly written instructions each day, this one has lots of creative ideas, technique videos and prompts and we get to choose which of the activities we wish to do. One of the selection of videos to start us off was on making bubble backgrounds and this is the one I thought I'd give a go today.  After getting over the shock of the price of a bottle of ink (£6.49 in WHSmiths!!) -  I got it somewhere else for £4 - I prepared my table outside in the sunshine.

I've got quite a few pictures to show you of the creative process:

 (Click to enlarge)

These pictures were taken just after I'd added the bubble bath mixture to the ink in the tray.  Love the way the colours separate, it looks like a painting!

Two more of those:

..and after blowing through a straw, here are a couple of pictures of my results:

 (Think I prefer the 'preparation shots!')

Oh, and this was the 'disaster area' setup in the garden!:

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Apologies if I'm not with you as much as usual, our house was burgled yesterday and my laptop has been stolen! :-(    We still have a family home computer, but all four of us are in competition to use it! 

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

qwiksave