Steam Pumpkin

First things first......this was sort of inspired by a piece by Shelly Hickox....

see it here

 Been wanting to try out this faux riveted technique I've been seeing around :)

.......used some metal tape used to repair cars!

 ....used some old film and metallic looking alphabet stickers.......

 .... made him a hat and added some metal mesh stuff ................

 

......and some metal cogs........

 

......the pumpkin is by Dilly Beans

It's pickling season!

Or the time of year to put things in jars.........I have been doing some traditional pickling and chutney making and I had a spare Kilner jar sitting around so

 I also made 

THIS!

 This was really hard to photograph! The jar being see through and light reflecting off it just made it really hard to get a decent pic........so decided to show the individual bits that make it up!

 So, the doll that sits inside................

 ........the jar itself..................this is coloured with black paint and red alcohol ink.....

 ...tried painting the inside with black paint but it didn't work how I wanted so rinsed the paint out....that left speckles of black paint on the inside which I really liked!

 

Made the jar lid into a little pin cushion.......at ths point it's time to give credit where it's due.....it was this post on Effies blog that gave me the idea for this piece.

Added some skull beads to pins to sit in the pin cushion.

 

So, here she is trapped in her jar, peering out hoping for rescue!

 

Every now and then

we all need a new look!

 I had no intention of making this page today! 

I was working on something else when I came across this dress pattern..............it just yelled Hallowe'en dresses to me and so the page developed!

Through the keyhole

I've been messing with this owl over the last few days

 

 he has a keyhole in his belly......for no good resaon other than I thought it looked fun:)

Texture paste on the wings and then "rusted"

 Optician lens eyes

 and nails again just for fun and cos I like them:)

he saw a skeleton

 My blogging has been a bit erratic of late.......every day boring"stuff" gets in the way of the fun "stuff" at times.

 Today I managed a couple of hours of fun "stuff".

A while ago I was cutting these skulls out to use for something else......I was using an Amazon delivery box and when I turned one of them over I saw it had bar codes on it.....ohhhh liked that..... so then purposely cut more! 

Then they sat around waiting for an idea of what to do with them!

 Worked in straight lines....... with random part sentences taken from an old book, stamped patterns and lines made with the edge of a credit card........to echo the lines in the bar codes.

Have to say I'm happy with the way it came out:)

Windows

Today I went to Little Moreton Hall, a moated Tudor manor house here in the Cheshire countryside. I have been before but my friend hadn't........I was happy to go again, it's lovely and the food is great too:)

 As I had been before I decided to concentrate on one aspect of the building for my pics......the windows. I like stained glass windows in particular but have a soft spot for windows generally.

 Little Moreton Hall has 5% of it's original Tudor glass.

 This window had a circular pane missing, it was a perfect spy-hole to take pics through:)

NEAR and far

As any of you that read my blog know I LOVE to travel......although I like to go far afield I also love to see what is on my doorstep.

With that in mind my husband and I have just spent 3 days in Llanberis in north Wales, just about 100 miles from home and have had a fab time!

 We stopped at Aber Falls on the way......a leasurely 3 mile round walk to see the waterfall.......

 our B&B in Llanberis was lovely......there is free grazing locally which means sheep can go where they like including the B&B garden.....that's our car.......

 the next day we planned on heading up Mt Snowdon......I am a bit past walking that far up-hill these days so we took the train..............

 .....the views were fabulous on the way up.....till we got to about 200metres from the top where the cloud descended......this is the brass plaque on the summit at 1085m......and I have to tell you....it was FREEZING, blowing a gale and scary at the top!

 in the afternoon we took another train trip along the side of Llyn Padarn.....much more sedate but with some lovely views of the lake

 .....to finish off the day we went up to Dolbadarn Castle .....set in splendid isolation on a hill on the edge of Llanberis......made even better by the fact that we were the only people up there

 .......we spotted that on some of the slate surfaces in the castle there were layer upon layer of graffiti etched into the surface.....as it has eroded it has come to resemble old runes.....well, that's what it looks like to me!

 Before we headed home today we stopped off at the Slate Musem (still in Llanberis).....it was an interesting place.....and free!.........there were some interesting shapes and textures:)

Birds on wire

 Today I really felt like making something but not much idea what so headed into the studio, sat down and then thought "now what"?? 

 Don't you just hate that??

 Anyway, sat and fiddled about for a bit......pulled out a journal and found a page already done, then saw these little chipboard owls I had been trying out a paint technique on

...... long story short.......

they ended up sitting on twisted wire on the journal page!

 Added some metal odds and ends for eyes................

 then needed something word-wise.....searched a few drawers, nothing jumped out at me.....till I thought .........birds on a wire........shortened it to 

BIRDS ON WIRE

.....perfect!

All for now!