This week

This has been a busy week but I don't feel like I've got much to show for my efforts. I have managed to put some colour on some pages which hopefully will turn into a wee book in the not-too-distant future. Been having fun with lovely sprays again - trying out different effects with paint and stencils, and mixing different sprays together on the same page getting lovely colour mixes. Love that nothing is a 'mistake', but becomes a layer, or a step on the way to something that works - this page was too bright for my liking to start with, and the distress ink thru a stencil was a bit much of a contrast. I washed over it with watered-down white acrylic paint - it made the distress ink blend through a bit, but this added to the softened look and now I really like this page (it's a soft purple in real life, less grey than it looks here).Hoping to do a bit more play on these pages over the weekend, but will also be devoting time to this book which I am already half-way through : another goodie from one of my fav authors.
Have a happy weekend everyone - don't forget the Red Cross Booksale if you're in Palmy North this weekend

Yesterday

Had fun for a few hours this week using this to make this for a friend's birthday. Really different to knit with but a quite cool effect. It's very soft. And last night a friend and I went to the alt.shift.craft show at Square EdgeSaw lots of gorgeous work - lots of "my kind of craft" . Couldn't pass up this lovely ring by the very talented Debrina and discovered Sabine who makes 'Hadpainted yarns and fibres for the adventurous crafter'. This 100% hand painted cotton is now in my possession It has the delicious name of Viper's Bugloss and has a beautiful sheen - read more about it here and check out her other fibres and yarn for sale.
Other cool stuff from this week :
Great idea from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer with trimmings from your quilts : make fabric ATCs or postcards....makes me want to make a quilt just so I can trim it!
Always love Michelle Ward's enthusiasm - this time she's had fun with embossing plates thru a pasta machine
In love with the pink card in this post from Jackie of Dog-Daisy Chains.
And I am really enjoying reading this : Hope you have a creative weekend.

New supplies

New supplies have been making me happy this week. Tote and Gloat was awesome (see my posts last week). As well as the inspirational quilts from those attending, Yvonne Brown was our speaker and she talked widely about her life and the path she has followed to get to now. She showed us many photos, and shared her new book with us - which of course I had to buy :If we purchased the book on the day, we were also able to pick a piece of her hand dyed felt. This is my bit- trying not to follow my usual colour choices. Intending to make something like this or this with it - instructions are in her book. And then there was the shopping....I don't really need to purchase more fabric, but I did need to buy some things to feed my mixed media 'habit'. As well as some useful bases (pelmet vilene and cotton duck) I also bought some pretty colouring items. A lovely set of shiva sticks And got a good deal on a set of new spray inks - they are from the Starburst Sprays range I decided that I wanted a colour reference for all my sprays, so have sprayed a set of tags with what I have now. Loving the shimmery iridescent colours and now I know what colours I am missing that I might need to add...I also bought some new stencils recently - these are from the crafters workshop range : Mini Arabesque Mini Cosmic swirl - through the stencil and then once sprayed I tipped the stencil over and pressed the remaining ink down to get the opposite image. Need to have more fun with these. If you want some inspiration or basic lessons on using sprays and stencils (with other goodies like molding paste and ordinary paint too) check out the video tutorials by Christy Tomlinson.
One more addition to supplies at my house - can't say they are something I have got very excited about, but now I am in my 40's (gah!) my eyesight needs a little help so these are my newest acquisition to help with reading and hand stitching. At least I only need cheapies from the chemist at this stage. Must say my eyes are not feeling so strained at night.