Document the Ordinary

A bonus extra post today.  When I took the pictures yesterday of artwork around my house, I also took pictures of other things that were around.  I thought it was quite a good idea really, to document the 'everyday things' you have around you at different times.  For example my children's toys have changed over the years and it will be interesting to see in years to come, 'yes, I remember having that when I was 10.' 

This is a jacket belonging to my 8 year old.  Its not quite as bright as this, but almost! We bought this from the Philippines a couple of years ago.  (He's quite a mild natured boy normally but changes to a 'punk' (his words!) when he puts this on! :-)

Lego. I have bought the boys sets of basic bricks (+ oddments of sets) from charity shops when I see them because I prefer them to the Star Wars sets that they have already got. I like to see them make up their own designs and of course its much more creative!

I had fun altering this pic.  Its a baby toy that plays a tune.  We still like the tune (its very restful) so don't want to part with it.  The fluffy kitch baby photo holder was a present given to us.

This psychedelic light hasn't been modified.  Its the light in our bedroom.  I love the effect but its not very restful for sleeping!

Sorry for this, should have put a warning above it! (Tee Hee)  Very me though, this mug.

Finally, I thought I'd show you what that bicycle wheel I showed you yesterday really looks like:

(without modification)

Maybe you might like to go around your place and document the 'ordinary' things you have around?

My regular craft post will follow later,

qwiksave

[Sorry regular readers, no additional post tonight, I 've been craft shopping instead! :-O  (SShh!)  I've treated myself to a Bind-It-All and some Promarkers! ]

Crafts in my House

Bah! Another rotten day weatherwise outside so what better excuse than to show you some artistic bits and pieces I have around the inside of my house?  These pieces haven't been created by me but I have used some artistic licence and altered the pics I have taken of them today using my favourite photo editing programme, Picnik.

First up we have this painting:

This is an acrylic painting on canvas painted by a very talented previous lodger.

This is a framed photo of an enormous wave crashing against a coastal village - no idea where it was taken.  I got this from a junk shop ages ago for £1!

This is lovely. Not sure quite how it was made - a tiled mirror with painted shell decoration.  We got it from a craft shop in Ireland whilst on Honeymoon 14 years ago!

This is a detail of a painting  - love the way you can see the  texture of the brushstrokes. Origin of this one unknown.

This is so texture rich too. Made of handmade paper. Signed WaterfieldYoung, an american artist. Can't believe I got this for just £1 from a Salvation Army shop!

This sea creature mural in my son's bedroom was painted by me when 8 months pregnant with my first child.  It's still there as my son doesn't want me to paint over it! (10 years later!)

And finally, we have this.  It's left over from our 'hippy days'. It is a large bicycle wheel with the spokes wrapped around with coloured material and giant feathers tied on. It also has a metallic golden sun with a face attatched to the middle.  It was made by a friend of ours and hangs on a wooden area above the stairs.

This is just a selection of some of the pieces we have in our house, do you have hand crafted or painted items in your house?

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Springwatch

Today it was time to make the first adjustment on my seasonal tree calendar  (See this post).  When  I went out with my boys today though, it wasn't like Spring, more like Winter!  Brrrr!  On our travels we passed a lovely tree with loads of blossom on it and the wind was blowing really hard so lots of the blossom was blowing around and there was a blanket of it all over the floor.  The boys, being boys, decided it made excellent snow and decided to chuck it at each other! 

It's snowing!

So I have made the first alteration to my tree:

..Some bits of blossom on the floor.

I haven't had chance to do a major craft today, my husband is coming back from China on Tuesday and I'm catching up on all the housework  making the house spick and span!

I did, however, alter some more pages of my filofax (remember that?)

This time I used some craft punches on some of the pages.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Scrapbooking Page!

You'll have to excuse me but I haven't finished tonight's craft - I ended up watching the News to find out what actually happened in the Election yesterday.  It's still all a mass of confusion by the looks of it. 

Then I decided to do a scrapbooking page.  Trouble is, I should have given it a  bit more preparation than I had time for.  I was scrounging around trying to find some red patterned paper for the background.

Anyway, here it is in its unfinished, not glued down stage:

(Going to change the ryan title somehow and thinking of mounting the photo on black paper not blue)

It's 8x8 size, I bought 2 (black suede) albums in the WH Smith's sale the other day only £5.99 each! I'm planning to do one of each of my boys.

This picture was taken outside a restaurant in Bournemouth - some of you may recognise it - its a surf board mounted on the outside wall that tourists take pics of themselves 'surfing' on.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever the weather,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Easy as ABC

When I bought a stencil from a charity shop today, I thought that (a) it would contain all the letters of the alphabet not just the first 3 (b) the stencils would already be cut out and I would just have to do the painting part and (c) it should have been cheaper than £2.50 because the first 2 weren't true!

This was the stencil - after I'd cut out and painted letter A:

Nice isn't it?  But pretty tricky to cut out all those fiddly bits!:

Three more ABC's:  (a) Who do I know with those initials?? (b) How well is this going to stencil? and (c) What paint do I use?

Inspired! I'll use my (one and only!) Adirondack Paint Dauber in Boat Blue:

It's already got a sponge on it, that'll work a treat, won't it?:

Ready for the reveal...

OOps!  But at least I thought of someone beginning with one of the letters, my husband Andy! 

One to try another day I think...

See you tomorrow!

qwiksave

Ribbon Display

By popular request (don't say I don't listen to your comments!) I have finished the ribbon display piece I started to make yesterday:

This was far more tricky to make than the button frame!  Little tip if you do make this, only cut the line as wide as the ribbon is, because those blank squares in the middle can fall out!

(I also need to flatten some of those ribbons when I find my glue dots)

So the two displays together look like this:

Really pleased with how they've turned out.  Not only are they atttractive to look at, they are practical too - now I know which buttons and ribbons I've got in my stash now! 

Thanks to the original blogger for the idea and design.

(See yesterday's post for link and instructions)

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Button Display

I love buttons! And this is why I was delighted to find a lovely (and very simple!) way of displaying some of my specimens on a blog in my Google Reader this morning! 

This was a download from designsponge and I was a little concerned when reading the comments that most people were having difficulty printing it using IE.  Fortunately I didn't have a problem, although I did have to do a print preview and reduce the print size.

I cheated too and didn't stitch my buttons down, mine are just stuck down with good ol' temporary glue dots.

There was another lovely pattern for displaying ribbons that I printed but I haven't finished that craft yet.  (Tonight I've been looking at sites showing me courses on how to do Photoshop digital scrapbooking).

I'm pleased with how nice this looks and will be putting both (when I've finished!) on my attic room wall.

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Creative Flourishes Montage

I haven't done a compilation of my makes for a while so thought I would do it today: 

(click to enlarge)

Hope you are enjoying your Bank Holiday!

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Xmas Card No 3

I'm still working on this one! Nearly finished but not quite.  Had to dash and scan it to get it here on time.

I'm going to add some gems and glitter to the snowflakes.  I'll show it to you when its finished but sparkly bits are difficult to show on photos so it may not work. 

Its a very simple card to make - just a patterned paper background with a card embellishment that has punched snowflakes, a foam snowflake and a sticker sentiment on it.  I've also added drawn (wobbly!) lines around the edges to give it that homemade quality!  

This is the type of card that would be easy to do on mass - but its not my most creative!

Have you started your christmas cards yet?

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Tim Holtz Blog Candy

Starting the new month with some fab Tim Holtz Blog Candy! 

This wonderful offer is available at Crafty Goings On, the blog of Charmed Cards & Papercraft shop.

Winner will be decided by Random.org at the end of the month. 

* * * * * * *

I've decided to add today's crafty activity on the tail end of this post because that means it goes here on the right day! lol.

Although today wasn't a proper craft (again, sorry!) what I've done today is set up a flickr account where I'm going to put all my 'artistic' photos.  A lot of these are of textures and my favourite subject, decay.  I decided they would be better off on there rather than here because this is more for my general crafting.  I will still mention on here ocassionally that I have put things on there and give you the link in case anyone from here fancies a look. 

I haven't put many on yet (these were scanned in from old 35mm pics) but here are a couple of examples of the kind of thing that I've put on there.

You can see why I like the distressed look in my artwork....

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave