Cotton Candy Girls

A while ago I signed up to do an online course with the gorgeous NATASA, I love her whimsy artwork, and when she decided to launch her first course I wanted to join in.

She called it Cotton Candy Girls, and in total we received 5 lessons and then 3 bonus lessons. Each lesson had videos and pdfs, and was well thought out with clear videos and very detailed pdfs.

I didn't have time to do the lessons as they were posted, but as everything was available to download, I was able to work through them at my own pace.

Each piece was done on either canvas or in a journal, but I felt I wanted to work on something that I could actually continue to use. So off I went to the charity shop and came home with some hard backed books, they were only 20p each. For the price of all of them I couldn't have bought even one canvas, so I was very pleased.

At first I thought I would pull out all the pages, and just use the covers...and then refill with blank pages. But then I got to thinking I could just alter the pages.

I really enjoyed painting these and would highly recommend you keep an eye on Natasa's blog for when she launches her next course.

So here are my finished Cotton Candy Girls.

week 1. The Angel

and the back..

week 2. Funky Hair Girl

week 3. Fairy Girl

week 4. Rainbow Girl

week 5. Girl with Cat

and the back...

There were 3 bonus lessons, one was a boy which I didnt fancy doing, so here are the 2 bonus girls that I did.

Bonus 1. Bonus Girl

and the back..

Bonus 2.  Soul Sisters

and now for the insides, so far I have ripped out pages, glued pages together, cut out secret compartments and created drawers. None of them are finished yet, so I shall just show you a few photos of the insides 'in progress' Now that the covers area ll done they will sit on the bookshelf and I can work in them like journals as i need to.. i think it will take a very long time to fill all 7 books, but I shall show you bits from them as I go along.

In this one I glued pages together to make them sturdy, and then at the back I glued a whole chunk of pages together and cut out section for matchboxes to slide into.

In this next one I cut out a secret compartment, no idea what i will put in here..

and in this one I cut out a centre section and added in a small journal..

Obviously there is lots of work still to be done on the insides...

Online courses

So here are a few online courses being run by awesome people.

First up is the LIFE BOOK course, run by Tamara Laporte. As you know I am doing this course and I can highly recommend it. There is still time to sign up before registration closes on Sept 30th, it really doesn't matter that you would be behind, as you can download the lessons and work at your own pace. I am about 20 projects behind, and I know other friends who are even further behind, so you would be in good company lol I am loving the course, and I think you would love it too.

Next I received a heads up about this giveaway from the gorgeous KYLIE FOWLER Go on over to her blog and find out about the way that you can sign up for an online course and NAME YOUR OWN PRICE... how awesome is that, you have till 5th august. ( Kylie is one of the teachers on the course but also one of the Life Book teachers, and her lessons are wonderful)

Finally the awesome JAY is going to be doing some free demos on ustream on how to paint portraits using acrylics. Keep an eye on his blog for up and coming details of days and times.

Postcard Challenge

Just thought I would pop on here and let you have the country for next week..

We are off to..

DENMARK

see you back here on Friday to link up..

A little bit of knitting

So  we have had a dismal cold summer, (up until this last week or so which have been stoopidly warm lol)

When it's cold my thoughts turn to coziness and knitting, and my favourite things to knit are socks.used

So the first pair I made used The Jekyll and Hyde pattern. I have made these before with yarn that was mainly bamboo, they turned out so soft and lovely. This time I used some 100%  wool that I won on Ebay a couple years ago. It is royal blue and very rough to the touch. Anyway I knit it up and despite being quite stiff to work with the socks turned out great. I have made the mistake before of machine washing 100% wool socks, which are now too small lol....so I washed these ones by hand, hoping it would soften them up a bit...it didn't really, I think I may have to soak them in fabric conditioner.

It is a pain having to wash by hand, and it does put me off buying 100% wool, I usually go for yarn that has 25% man made fibre content as they tend to be machine washable.

So here they are..

If you check out the pattern I linked up there you will see that instead of a regular ribbed cuff I made a picot edge instead, just for a change.

 A year ago I was in London and popped into John Lewis, thats where I bought the bamboo yarn. It is called Wendy Happy and is 75% bamboo and 25% nylon.  I bought 2 colours, I used the first colour last year to make socks using the same pattern as above.

As you can see, though they are the same pattern, they look totally different.

So onto the 2nd pair I have made this year, I used the 2nd colour of the  Bamboo yarns. I used  the Dublin Bay sock pattern..


This is the patterned section that runs down each side of the leg section..

The pattern also use the eye of partridge stitch for the heel section..this makes for a softly padded heel.

The finished socks.. It is really lovely yearn, so incredibly soft, and of course machine washable...BUT.. because it is so soft it is very slippery to work with.

postcard challenge

week 30 India..

The closest I have come to anything Indian is the food, and to be fair from what I have read Indian food served in the UK is nothing like Indian food served in India lol

Just so you know, my fave Indian dishes are

Lamb Saag Gosht
Mushroom Pilau
Peshawari Naan

and this is our local Indian restaurant, which is a really lovely place, with great staff.

click link

ok so enough of food...oh actually, there is another place to show you. There is a fabulous little shop in York that will make up bags of fresh spices for you so you can make your own curries.

another link

so onto my card...my first thought, after food..was elephants. I adore elephants, and in this house they get called heffalumps..

Most people will say there are 2 types of elephants, Indian and African...incorrect.

The 2 types are Asian elephants and African elephants, of the Asian elephants there are 3 subcategories; those are from Sri lanka,  from Sumatra and  from India.

Asian elephants are smaller than African ones, with smaller ears, they can live up to 86 years.

Elephants are also used widely in Feng Shui, did you know that if you have elephant pictures or ornaments they should always face the doorway. They should never have their backs facing the door, as an elephant with its back to the door is like turning your back on opportunity.

Many years ago I made this cross stitch, I used to have it facing the door at the back of the house. ( By facing the door, I mean the trunk/head of the elephant is to be facing the doorway)

So I made a little elephant for my card..

and for the page, I used orange as the background which is on the flag, and the Ohm symbol printed out onto glossy photo paper, cut out and glued in.. I then distressed the edges a little and added stickles to echo the stickled jewels on the elephant.

HERE IS WHERE YOU LINK UP... add your blog link and name and then go visiting. Please only link up if you are taking part in the postcard challenge.

Life Book

Here is another Life Book lesson that I completed a while ago and just didn't get around to blogging.

For this lesson we created a page of doodles, with a quote in the middle.

Here is mine after sketching and inking.

and here is the finished page, painted with watercolours and also twinkling H2Os

The quote reads..

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love, it will not lead you astray.

postcard challenge

How would you like week 30 nice and early??

here goes...

We are off to the land of spices..

INDIA

See you on Friday.

Postcard challenge

week 29 Ireland..

I started out by decorating my page. I love all things Celtic, so i first coloured the page with orange and green, the colours of the flag. I then brayered some gesso over that and then stamped lots of celtic knot stamps in different colours.

I then brayered more gesso over that and then added more orange and green.

Finally I drew a four leaf clover, coloured it with promarkers cut it out and glued it on.

Next the card...hmm well what to do. I first thought of a leprechaun, but it did seem a bit obvious..However then I got to remembering something from when I was very young.

I lived with my grandmother, she owned a boarding house. Men from out of the area would come and stay during the week,and work at the steelworks,chemical works and docks near us...and then they would go home at weekends, to places all over the country.

So one of these guys was called Aubrey, I cant remember his surname, or where he was from...we are talking 30 years ago..

Anyway this guy once told me that he had seen leprechauns in our garden, I had no idea what one was, or how they differed from fairies, or that they were from Ireland...

Once he had spun the story and had me believing, he would keep on saying he had seen them everytime he came to stay...As a child, I was desperate to see one myself lol

Isn't it bizarre the things you remember from childhood. 

so in the end I did do a leprechaun..

My story seems to have ground to a halt, I just can't get into writing it..but I will do at some point.

HERE IS WHERE YOU LINK UP..add your name and blog link and go visiting. Please only link up if you are taking part in the postcard challenge.

Scones..

It's been ages and ages since I gave you a recipe...so today I made scones. I had some strawberries left over and planned on making the passion fruit scones from this post... but I couldn't get any passion fruit so  I got to thinking what other flavours would go with strawberries..

Ginger and lemon..

So here goes..

10 oz SR flour
2 oz sugar + 1 oz for topping
1tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 oz butter
1 egg large
1 lemon
1 oz glace ginger
100ml buttermilk

To start with measure out your sugar, and grate the zest of the lemon into the sugar, mix and cover then leave for about an hour to infuse.

To a large bowl ad the flour,baking powder,salt,soda and the butter, rub together with your fingertips until the butter is worked in and it all resembles breadcrumbs.

Measure out your  ginger..this is how it looks.. The tub I bought was called 'Glace Ginger'  

the pieces, even though small, were too big for me as I am not a great lover of strong ginger. So I measured out the 1 ounce and then chopped it finer.. If you love ginger then leave it as it is, or add more to your own taste.

add the lemony sugar and the ginger to the flour etc and mix really well so that the lemon zest and ginger are evenly distributed. 

Put the egg into a jug and add the juice from half of the lemon and beat well. Add this to the bowl and mix. Finally add the buttermilk and mix.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead gently, you do not need to roll scone mix out with a rolling pin, simply flatten slightly with your hands. cut into rounds and place on a tray. Brush on a little milk.

Bake at 400F/200C/Gas 5 for approx 20minutes or until golden .

When they are ready, remove from oven and put onto a cooling tray...

 add the juice from the other half of the lemon  and 1 ounce of sugar into a bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir well and then put back in for another 30seconds..

Drizzle the sugar/lemon mix over the hot scones and leave to cool.

when they are fully cooled, slice them in half and top with clotted cream and strawberry halves..

Make a pot of tea and enjoy!

Canvas

Ok, so this is the last blog post about the weekend away that I had with the circle journal girls.

We had decided that we would meet and do a workshop together, and where else would we go but to Dyans shop...Art from the Heart. One of the girls, Jayne, called and organised for us to do a canvas workshop.

So on our second day in Harrogate we all went along to the shop bright and early.

I had made  a little gift for Dyan, knowing that she loves to sew and make dresses, I made her a little hexie caddy/pincushion and thread catcher bag.

Then we got to work on our canvasses.. I chose to work with blues and greens..

We managed to make a great mess.. here is mine part way thru..

and here we all are with our canvasses just before saying goodbye..

Once home, I finished mine, by adding  a little more ink, defining the houses and adding a quote. it is now up on the wall.

close up of quote..

it was a fabulously messy,inky day...

Raggy Bags

A while ago one of the girls in our circle group started calling us all raggy dolls, and the name stuck. So as we were due to meet up I decided to make them each a gift, for the end of the journal swap...

firstly I found some images of the Raggy Dolls from the cartoon, and drew them up. As some of the dolls are boys I had to change the to make them into 'girl' dolls.

I cut the out and painted the back of each image with transfer paints.

each one was then laid onto a calico panel...I then laid strips of paper over the doll, the strips had also been painted using transfer paints..

Everything is then ironed with a really hot iron, and you end up with the image and the background stripes transferred to the fabric.

I then added more colour and details using Inktense pencils. They are so easy to use on fabric, just colour in and wet the fabric. Once dry they are permanent.

each panel was then washed just to make sure no colour was going to run out, and then ironed. this also needed to be done to give the fabric chance to shrink before being made into bags.

Next I added embellishments of ribbons,buttons,beads,fabric etc...

I also made a little fabric journal for each of the dolls to hold..

Finally i made the panels up into bags.

I added lining fabric to each bag, and even made a pocket..

and here they are all hanging up ready to pack. 

they were a lot of work, but worth it, and I loved giving them to the girls. 

I also made a plain calico/stuffed art doll for each of the girls. I look forward to seeing how they decorate them. 

Here are some of them, I made them all different.