I'm not weird

 Have you ever given much thought to how the comments you leave on blogs or Facebook are received by the person whose blog/FBpage it is?
I am OFTEN called WEIRD and I know that 99.9999% of people who say that mean it in a kindly/friendly/fun way and that's how I take it......in fact I quite like being a bit different :) but every now and then some comment makes me stop and think...."OK, you don't know me well enough to say that".......it happened recently (I'm not saying where or by who....this is not the place for that) and I've been thinking about it since!

It prompted this page!

 This quote has been appearing on Facebook pages a lot recently and I thought it apropriate for how I've been feeling!

 

 My taste might not be your taste but please think about how you express that opinion! Not just on my stuff but on any blog etc that you choose to leave a comment on.

 I'm not trying to be funny or provocative here or to offend anyone,  just saying it as I see it! 

As my Mum always told us as kids "If you can't think of anything nice to say, don't say anything!"

 

 You know the comments that really say it all are those that say "this might not be my taste but I can really see the work that went into that" or " I don't like the subject matter but I can really understand what you are trying to say"

I'M NOT WEIRD

I'M LIMITED EDITION!

Humpty and Alice

HUMPTY DUMPTY SAT ON A WALL...

 HUMPTY DUMPTY HAD A GREAT FALL...

 When I went to the Alice exhibition at the TATE in Liverpool recently I picked up this postcard of Humpty Dumpty.........I've used it as the starting point for this journal page. 

I also used the exhibition entry tickets and some digi Alice images.

 Did you know that although Humpty appeared in Alice Through the Looking Glass (he even explained the meaning of the Jabberwocky poem to Alice!) the rhyme is much older?

It was first published in 1803 and then again in 1810 with slightly different words than we use now

Humpty Dumpty sate on a wall,
Humpti Dumpti had a great fall;
Threescore men and threescore more,
Cannot place Humpty dumpty as he was before

 I also bought this slightly strange postcard!

 This Alice peeping round the curtain was on the What's On guide I picked up.

ALL THE KING'S HORSES AND ALL THE KING'S MEN

COULDN'T PUT HUMPTY TOGETHER AGAIN.

A fractured fairy tale

A group of us that went to the Michael deMeng workshop in Portugal this summer decided when we came home that we would work on another project and share the results on a date in November......well most of us missed that date and have continued to work on our pieces! We have a new reveal date of December 10th but I admit to having got a bit fed up with my project hanging around part done so today I decided enough was enough and I've finished it!
The theme of our projects is fractured fairy tales click to see what that is

 Meet Mr F Prince F.R.O.G.c.... Fellow of the Royal Organisation of Green clairvoyants...... 

pond clairvoyant extraordinare!

 Here he is in his clairvoyant office at the bottom of the pond................

 all dressed up in his tie.....................

 with his fancy crystal ball....................

 ......his office is decorated with pearl acorns.....

and ferns and hung about with spotted spiders.

And here is my fractured fairy tale!

Are you sitting comfortably? 

Then I will begin..............Once upon a time there was a clairvoyant.....Mr F Prince …...he was a very good clairvoyant, he even belonged to a professional body......F.R.O.G.c......Fellow of the Royal Organisation of Green clairvoyants. He worked from his office at the bottom of the pond, turn left at the lily pad and ask the snail.

One day he was sitting at the edge of the pond lamenting the loss of his crystal ball.......it had been broken by a bunch of pesky pissed newts a few days previously. He could not work without his crystal ball.....what was he to do?

He had often see the Princess running along the river bank playing with her golden ball......he normally took little notice of her as she was often rude to him......once she had even called him a warty old toad …..TOAD? TOAD? I'm a FROG! But today he was watching her carefully, if he was nice to her would she come close enough for him to nab that ball? It would make a perfect replacement for his broken crystal ball.

Now being a clairvoyant he had seen what his future might be......kiss...turn into prince.....live at palace with spoiled Princess......no thanks.....all he wanted was that ball.

So, he decided on a charm offensive......to attract her attention he did spectacular dives into the pond, leapt athletically from lily pad to lily pad until he was exhausted...............just as he thought it wasn't going to work the Princess wandered over to see what this strange creature was up to.

Once she was close enough the frog took one more giant leap and landed one almighty huge sloppy slimy kiss straight on her mouth! The Princess was so horrified and so busy jumping up and down shouting EW! EW! EW! and wiping her mouth that she didn't notice the frog pick up her golden ball and jump into the pond with it.

So, Mr Prince had a new crystal ball and the Princess had to go home to her father the King and explain how a frog kissed her and that's how she lost yet another really expensive golden glass ball!

The end.

Weird and wondrous creatures!

I have to say thanks to everyone that left comments on my last post......I was a little wary of showing it but I am happy it was so well accepted even though it re-inforced my weird taste!


So, onto something slightly less weird! A couple of cards featuring weird and wondrous creatures!

I used embossing folders and Pan Pastels to make the backgrounds for my cards.

 Stitched into the centres of the flowers with my sewing machine.

 Added electrical thingies, star washers and metal star flowers as embellishments.

 The image is from LOST COAST DESIGNS

 Stitching around the moon adds texture......

 Another strange creature......I really like this one!

PAN PASTELS are available from THE STAMP ATTIC.........below are sneek peeks of more cards using the Pan Pastel/embossing folder technique......you can see the full cards and step by step pics of the technique over on THE STAMP ATTIC BLOG

3 blind mice

3 blind mice

see how they run

see how they run

they all ran after the farmers wife

she cut off their tails with a carving knife

did you ever see such a thing in your life

as 3 blind mice!

Have you ever thought how gruesome some of the nursery rhymes we taught our children actually are??!!!

I have been working on another piece and it has given me cause to think about the fairy stories and rhymes we all grew up with.......most are pretty gruesome and even downright scary!

I mean a wolf that ate your Grandma!

While all this was running around my head I was shopping trying to find plastic frogs (that's turning into an impossible task........why do all toys now need batteries?) when I came across these quite sweet plastic mice (Early Learning Centre) and that is where this idea started!

 The rhyme ran in circles round my head.....I couldn't make sense of why BLIND mice would run around after the farmers wife.....I mean how could they see her?!! My thoughts took a sideways step.....why were they blind? maybe the farmers wife was a sadistic old bag who put nails in their eyes before chopping off their tails?!!

If you look the rhyme up there is speculation it had a hidden political meaning as a lot of old rhymes did......decide for yourselves!

 ONE.....

 TWO....

 THREE....

 BLIND MICE!

 Before I glued the mice to the knife I took some pics of them and then printed them out using my Poloroid Pogo printer....see this post.....and used them to make a journal page.

 I used braille paper in the background!!

Some of you are going to hate this!!

BUT I LOVE IT! 

 Well of course I do, I made it!!

 Yesterday I bought these plastic skeletons and bats and spiders.

 So, I took one of the skeletons, one of the bats and added a skull ring and a deer head with antlers

 

this is one of my moleskine journals......getting pretty fat and bent!

 

cut the head off the skeleton, the wings off the bat and the skull face off the ring and glue in place........I added the antlers (cut off the deer head) later!

 And it became this!!

Now I can't take all the credit for this.......... I saw the idea over on ART BLISS BLOG.

THIS POST was my inspiration and there is a downloadable tutorial

 As soon as I saw the packets of flat-ish skeletons I knew exactly what I was going to do with at least one of them!

 My journal now has a pretty freaky cover!!

The new kitchen

is FINALLY finished! 

I don't often show much personal stuff on here but I have mentioned the new kitchen.....and hassles it has caused......a few times so thought you might like to see the finished result. I am beyond pleased with it:)

 I say finished..........it is...........for now! We have decided to have the wall between it and what was our dining room taken out to make the room bigger......in January! 

But for now, it's done!

 Looking from the living room door

 New back door

 I love that cooker!

 Looking from the back door into the room......the right hand door leads to my studio

 the wall with the dresser against it is the one that is coming out!

 Door to the living room

new sink area (always wanted a Belfast sink)......the old back door was were the right hand window now is.