Completely inspired by.......

 Anna Dabrowska whose blog is TWORZYSKO FINNABAIR......go see for yourself, it's FANTASTIC!!

 I have been eyeing it for a while and today decided to have a go for myself

 it was great fun working in lines across the page

 am loving these cogs just lately......they are a Spellbinders die set

 So after working on this first page I decided to make it feel more like me!!

 WELCOME TO THE NETHER WORLD!

 This time I worked up and down the pages in a lined journal and went for my fav colour combination of black and white with red

 Can't beat a creepy Stampotique girl.......this one is NETHER!

 This was GREAT fun, I'll be doing it again!!

What a week

this week turned into ending with one heck of a day yesterday!! 

At the start of the week I was thinking I would be able to spend lots of time in my studio playing around but it just never happened!! I had a joiner upstairs fitting new door frames and doors.....what a noise he made, felt like the ceilings were coming down sometimes!!

 Then on Tuesday  decorators were meant to start, but called to say it would be Wednesday, no problem. So, they arrived Wednesday to start in the living room........all went well, everything got sheeted up etc etc and they started painting..............

looking good so far.............really pleased with the colour.......you never quite know when picking from a tiny colour card........going to be finished in here tomorrow they say. 

So next day comes (Thursday) and they discovered a crack above the fireplace, so filled it, let it dry, sanded it, it re-appeared...........5 fillings and sanding later it was decided to let it dry overnight.

So next day (Friday) was meant to be just quick touch up over the crack but it's still there.......the plaster is moving so never going to be good............long story short...........they took the plaster and board underneath out making a hole in the wall.....which is now filled and drying ready to be painted on Monday!!

 In the midst of all this....... with the joiner still making hell of a noise upstairs.....oh the silence this morning is bliss.......my son announces he is moving out (I did know he was moving just not this week) on Friday and needs to get all his stuff from his room past the joiner and through where the decorators are........

 so, on Thursday night he moved most of his stuff out of his room into the kitchen, then on Friday he dismantled his bed and brought that down too, a mattress was propped up in the living room most of the day until he finally took it away in a van Friday afternoon. 

I got home at 9.30 last night from moving delicate stuff like TVs and computers in the car! 

To say I was tired last night is an understatement!!

 So, in the midst of the chaos in the house the frogs in my pond in the garden decided Spring had arrived and did their thing! I found this on Friday morning! 

Life goes on!!

A book with a guilty secret

Today I took delivery of some old doors to replace the horrible modern ones in our house.........

 they came with these hinges and keyhole surrounds which I decided were not really usable for the doors but they are great mixed media pieces so they now live in my studio:)

 I decided to have a bit of a play......not made a book in ages so used one of the hinges to make one!

 Watercolour paper for the pages......lots of ink and paint to age them

 a fun "rusted" octopus for the front!

And its guilty secret?? 

Well, it has a design fault! While it looks nice sitting on a shelf or held in your hand.........it doesn't close all the way and it doesn't open very far either!!! 

Oh well!!

Do hares get inspected?

If they do, I have no idea what for!!!!!

 So, you might well ask why I put the INSPECTED thing on this page......I have no idea! I just know I like it and wanted to use it :)

The sticker came attached to a package that came through the post but I don't know what that was inspected for either!

 This page is made in my map journal............I have decided in this journal to just use red and black.....no great hardship as I really like that colour combination.......and to keep some of the map showing. I have to remember that as it's easy to get carried away and cover it up!

A few days in Bath

 I have been in Bath for a few days with a friend..................

 The first day saw us at The Roman Baths................

....... the head of Sulis Minerva.......to whom the baths are dedicated...........

 The next day we went to Bath Abbey.................

 then to Sally Lunns for lunch......one of the oldest houses in Bath and home of the Bath Bun.....

 that evening we went to the cute Little Theatre Cinema where we saw The Woman in Black......it was SCARY and we had to walk back to our B&B in the dark afterwards!!

 No visit to Bath is complete without a visit to the spectacular Georgian Royal Crescent......

No 1 Royal Crescent is a restored Georgian town house open as a museum

To complete our visit we spent a VERY lovely evening at THERMAE BATH SPA.....Britains only natural  thermal spa. It was extremely relaxing sitting in a eucalyptus steam room (even if it reminded me of a jar of Vick!) and then floating around a bubbling open air pool on the roof under the stars!

More..........

 playing just for the heck of it!! 

Well that, and using things I have bought and never used.........this stencil and dies both come into that category!

 I have a bit of a confession......I don't really like spray inks, especially through stencils! I think I must be a bit anal but I like to be more in control of where stuff goes and sprays are just a bit random. I do use them......like on this page.....as a general spray over a background and then work on over that.

 

 

 I read on MICHELLE WARDS blog that we should remember that we don't always have to get stencils wet to use them! So, I first drew through mine and later used ink on a sponge.

 I LOVE this image:)

 Masking tape, strips of book page, painty circles and paper clips and a black gem.

Just for the hell of it!

 After a morning of doing other everyday necessary stuff I felt the need to make something this afternoon...............the only problem was I had no idea what!! So, I sat down and fiddled around and came up with this..........no idea why except that I had this owl stamp that I had never used sand when I stamped him he reminded me of a Victorian school teacher!

 Just to show how small this journal is:)

 COMPLETELY by chance it says THE CAT IN THE HAT on the bit of paper I used for his hat.....and yes, I do know he's an owl but he does have a hat on:)