A Little Book and some New Decorations

I've been working on making a little book over the last couple of weeks, I've long been interested in artist books and this is an area I'm definitely intending to explore more. I started off with a zig zag but I'm hoping to try making some small bound ones too.

It's inspired by the garden as much of my work is. It has five pages and is one sided so it could be framed in a box frame or can be displayed standing up :)

I've also been finishing off a batch of new decorations...

 ...and although I hadn't planned to enter anything else into the Festival of Quilts other than my art quilt and miniature, I couldn't resist starting this fellow for the Quilt Creations category. For a while now I've wanted to make a big horse decoration and thought this was a good opportunity. He's half way through being painted in this photograph. He's around 30x30cm.

The book and decorations have been listed in my Etsy shop :)

Fun with Floorboards

For a long while I’ve wanted to take up the carpet in my bedroom/ workspace and have a wooden floor in there, so last weekend we made a start. Taking up the carpet was okay but I’d made the mistake of assuming that the floor sander would work rather like it appears to be working in the photograph on the hire site; neatly sanding away the varnish in a nice line to reveal a perfect strip of floor beneath. Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out this way and took a lot longer than we imagined. This also meant I ended up sleeping downstairs on the slightly too short sofa for a week which was an interesting experience, my neck still hasn’t quite recovered! Massive thanks must go to my Dad who did my floor for me, if I’d been trying to do it I’d probably still be looking at the sander and having no idea how to make it work!

Needless to say not much work went on during this time, hence the lack of blog posts. The only painting I’ve been doing has been painting the skirting boards and the odd bit of furniture. I tried out some Annie Sloan Chalk Paint which Mum had bought to paint some frames and it seemed to work quite nicely.

Hopefully painting and stitching will resume shortly :)

Paint Charts and Parcels

I've always loved the paint charts that are given away in DIY shops. I don't know if that's strange, but I always find them quite inspiring! Last week I set about creating some of my own to refer to, featuring the colours I use most and ones which I might like to use more in future. I've been experimenting with mixing white gesso in too, instead of white paint, as I like its chalkiness.

There are some scribbled annotations about which colours were mixed together but in the end I got carried away and everything got mixed with everything else, so I think it's going to take a bit of experimentation to get these colours again!

More fun with paint: I've been rethinking the packaging of my Etsy parcels a little bit, and making new labels and things for them. I keep a sheet of watercolour paper next to me when I'm working which I use for testing tools and paint colours and for using up excess paint. Sometimes it can end up looking quite nice and it seems a shame to throw it away, so I've started to add some little doodles to it before making it into little labels to add to my parcels.

I used a round corner punch on these which is a really useful tool, before punching some holes to allow me to tie them on with twine and stamping little thank you messages onto the back.

Until now I'd been using nice crochet thread to wrap around parcels but it's rapidly running out, so I've just indulged in some lovely hemp thread. I love this sort of colourful/ eco type of look.

 I love thinking up different ways to wrap parcels, another favourite of mine is hand printed wrapping paper. What're your favourite things to use for wrapping parcels and gifts? :)

Etsy Sale

I'm having a bit of a spring sale in my Etsy shop, I've lowered the prices of a selection of items in order to make way for some new stock :) The Spring Sale section can be found here

'Nesting' Finished

Last year I started a painting inspired by a pair of wood pigeons who had nested outside my window, I wasn't quite sure whether to keep it as a sketch and work on a different version another time or whether to finish it, I ended up doing a bit of machine stitch on it then putting it away for a while. I often find this is a good way to find new inspiration for a piece of work when I'm not sure how to proceed with it, and when I was sorting through some work the other day and came across it again I knew how I wanted to finish it.

I worked into it more with acrylic ink and then added collage before mounting it on some nice watercolour paper with a stitched border. It's approximately 21 x 14cm, or 24 x 19cm with the paper it's mounted on.

I'm hoping the pair of wood pigeons return to nest outside my window this year :)

Favourite Art Materials: Khadi Paper

I've been using Khadi paper on and off for quite a while now, Mum and I discovered it at a lovely shop in Wales in Machynlleth called the Deco Shop (which I definitely recommend a visit to if you're ever in the area :)) a few years ago and promptly got carried away and bought quite a few sheets of it. There are lots of different types of paper available on the website but the one we use most is the white cotton rag paper which comes in a variety of thicknesses. I use mostly 320gsm, though the 150gsm is lovely too, and I like the 640gsm but it's nigh on impossible to stitch through! I often stitch through the thinner papers though and they work nicely for free machining too.

I also have a few sheets of the coloured paper, I confess I've not quite decided what I'm going to use that for yet, it's just one of those things that's nice and inspiring to have. Looking at the website now I find I am also extremely tempted by some of the zigzag cards which they make!

The photo below is of a painting/ collage I'm working on at the moment. The surface takes paint and ink very nicely.

Quite often I'll gesso the surface before painting, it doesn't necessarily need it but I just like the added texture and interest which it creates :)

Miniature Quilt and Giveaway Winner

The miniature quilt I've been working on for the Festival of Quilts is now finished :) It's 11x13cm and is a paper and fabric collage. I've been doing a bit of research about displaying paper work unframed and have covered the paper in this is several layers of acrylic medium to protect it.

Just for a change from gardens and things, it's a little harbour scene inspired by Barmouth harbour in Wales.

I also drew the winner of my little giveaway today, and the name I picked out of the hat was Lucy, congratulations Lucy :) Thank you so much to all of you who entered, I really appreciate it and will be holding another little giveaway soon :)