Quilt exhibition

OK by some strange quirk I am today able to access Blogger and post myself so I am making the most of it to show you some pics from a quilt exhibition I went to last week with the handicrafts group here in Almaty.
The gallery was not the most salubrious looking from the outside but inside was a different story.

The artist whose exhibition it was is called VERA SHERBAKOVA, she was born here in Kazakhstan but now lives and works in Moscow. This was her first exhibition in her native country.
The above pics are of her George and the Dragon quilt. It seems George and the Dragon is a universal theme, not just used as the patron saint of England!!

Interesting detail on another quilt, threads wrapped around sticks..............mmmm can see that idea being used!!

ALMATY JOURNAL PAGE

So here is my first piece of work produced here in Almaty! The three large letters ALA were cut out from one of the labels attached to our packing cases, they are the code letters for Almaty airport!

The corrugated card in the corner of the page came from a box of chocolates I was given last week.

And the white circles were made by dipping a Kazakhstan loo roll middle into gesso!!

COMING BACK TO BLOGGER!

As many of you know I recently moved to live in Kazakhstan. I was really disappointed when I got here to find out that access to Blogger blogs from here is not easy;and it really surprised me to realise how much I love my Blogger blog and the contact it gave me with like-minded people. I have felt quite adrift without it, the old saying you don't know what you have till it's gone is certainly true!

After a while I decided I was going to move to Wordpress as access to that is easier but I REALLY don't like my Wordpress blog, it is not easy to make it fun and funky like this one......I miss my skeleton guys......it feels too business-like.
So,I did some investigating and some chatting my good, good friend Wendy who has volunteered to help me with posting pics which I still can't do from here though I can post text, and I have decided I am going to continue with this blog and abandon the Wordpress one.

Posting might get a bit erratic at times as I have to rely on Wendy and its not like she doesn't have anything else to do but hopefully between us we can manage at least once a week!
That brings me onto another bit of news, there ARE going to be times when I CAN post more often as I am going to be back in the UK more than I thought initially! Watch this space for more news on that in the next few weeks!!

Not Sue..........but Wendy

What a veiw.........................

Hello everybody, this is not Sue but Wendy. Sue is having awful problems getting online to Blogger, she cannot post, cannot leave comments on any Blogger blogs and has decided to give up and try Wordpress instead, which appears to be working.................so
I am here to firstly show you this fantastic scene which is from guess where.............well Kazakhstan ofcourse, but its actually from Sue's bedroom window........how amazing is that?
and to let you know her new blog address over on Wordpress.
Here is the link
and
she would love to hear from you all..............she is a bit art starved just now as her shipping cases are not yet with her but she is having a ball...........
See ya

Before and after

While I was at Port Sunlight on Saturday I "pinched" one of Sarahs demo samples........this bird ATC. Feeling a bit guilty I tried to give it back to which Sarah said "no, take it and give him boots and a hat". So, I did!

Here is the result of my "messing" with it! I only used a black pen!
The bird is made using one of the new Paperartsy cutting dies, the shape is meant to be a leaf but it makes a great bird!

PORT SUNLIGHT

Today was Port Sunlight show! Wendy and I went along not intending to buy anything but just to socialise and pester those that were working!
Here is Sarah demoing hard for Paddy! Always a smiling face :)

Helen working hard on the till.

And Paddy wishing I would take my camera and go away!

Now, you might wonder why Wendy is pulling such an odd face? It's cos they had sold out of what she wanted!! It was a fun if slightly sad day, it was quite hard saying goodbye to so many people.

Is it too soon to mention HALLOWEEN?

A few days ago I noticed that one of my favourite blogs was up and running again (she takes a break for a few months after Halloween)....A NOSTALGIC HALLOWEEN.......and so I was browsing around some of the other blogs listed on there and came across this site........A SKULL A DAY.....what fun!!
On that site was the PDF file to download to make this card skull! I just had to have a go! It was a bit fiddly trying to work out just what went where but I got there in the end.



Then I decided to make another one and decorate it after the style of the traditional sugar skulls that are made in Mexico to celebrate The Day of the Dead.



This is the top, not the best pic but you get the idea!



This is from the side to show the lever thingy sticking out of a slot at the back, if you move it up and down the jaw moves up and down, how clever is that!! It is done with a very clever (and fiddly)folded arrangement inside the skull.

May 15th and other peoples art

First, the news is that I have a leaving date...........I am travelling out to Kazakhstan on May 15th, so only two weeks to go. Stuart has been there since March so we are looking forward to getting back together, moving into our apartment, unpacking boxes and settling into our new life!

Next,I was talking to my friend Wendy yesterday and saying that I don't have any of my art to put on my blog as my stuff is all packed away and I am so busy getting ready to move that my inspiration has disappeared but that I wanted to update the blog with something and she said why not put someone elses art on there? After thinking about that for a bit I thought "why not?" so here is someone elses art!


I have a bit of a "thing" for jewellery, well more than a bit of a thing if I'm honest, I love it, especially if it is a unique, one of a kind piece. So, when I go away I am always on the look-out for that piece that takes my eye and this owl pendant certainly did that! I bought it in Antigua in Guatemala, it is handmade after the local tradition and is signed on the back by the artist. It is actually a locket, it hinges from the bottom and you are meant to put a lock of hair inside but I think I will pass on that!


This necklace and earring set was bought on the market in Oaxaca. It is micro-macrame.......there was quite a lot of that around.........and handmade by the bloke on the stall.

And then there are these little beauties!!! I mean how could I resist???? Silver skeletons, come on???

What a trip!

Since I arrived home on Wednesday I have been so tired I have not been inclined to make anything so I don't have any of my own art to show you so I thought I'd give you a mini travelog.

Before I went to Mexico I wasn't sure what I was going to like most. Was it going to be the gob smacking archaeological sites...........above and below is TIKAL (in Guatemala)




This is PALENQUE.......


and this is Teotihuacan just outside of Mexico City


or the plant and animal life.............Coatimundi at Tikal.....


fabulous cactus as big as trees.........


and gorgeous flowering trees............or the art


fun skeleton stuff outside a shop in Oaxaca.......I loved this!!....


Aztec calendar (apparently it's not a calendar at all) in the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City


Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City............all these things were above and beyond my expectations.

What I didn't like was:
13 hour flight from Guatemala to Madrid
6 hours in a queue to be told there was nothing the airline would do to help
26 hours on a coach from Madrid to Calais
ferry crossing to Dover
more coach to Gatwick
train into London
train home!!!!!!
I finally arrived back late on Wednesday afternoon instead of on Sunday. However I count myself lucky compared to a lot of other people who were trying to get home at the same time. I have to say a big thank you to the company we travelled with EXPLORE who were fantastic in organising the coach and ferry crossing for us and getting us home safely.

MEXICO HERE I COME!!

I had planned on a journal page to blog today but an emergency call from my husband for more paperwork for our Kazakhstan move while I was in the changing rooms of Marks and Spencers put paid for that! After four hours of trying to sort things out I was losing the will to live never mind create and blog!!!

So, I am off to Mexico tomorrow for two weeks of R&R, I can't wait to get on that plane! Watch this space after April 19th for pics of my adventures!!

Take care till then!!

ZENTANGLE OR POSH DOODLING!

Today saw three friends Sarah, Helen and Chris arrive for a play/get together day. We were sitting quite happily chatting and drinking coffee when I got an emergency call from my Dad which meant I had to abandon them in my house with quick instructions as to where coffee etc was! About an hour later I came back having done my good deed for the day to find them happily ZENTANGLING at my table! Needless to say I quickly joined in and we had several more hours of fun.



These are my results which I have to say I am really pleased with having not done this before!


Below is my final piece which I don't think really counts as zentangle, more traditional doodling but I really like this one!

BIRD STAMPS

As things continue to be hectic here in the run up to my move I find I have less and less time to create and to play and I really miss it!
A couple of evenings ago I decided I needed a play fix so I got out a box of saved postage stamps and sat and went through them and pulled out all the bird themed ones I could find.
Then I created a painty/inky background on a journal page, let it dry and then glued the bird stamps to it in a rough square.
Next came a layer of gesso that was sort of dried with a heat gun, then rubbed over with a couple Distress ink colours, again roughly dried and then more gesso and again sort of dried. Next I took a baby wipe and rubbed off some/most of the gesso to reveal the birds to a greater or lesser extent. Some rubbed away more than others but that was OK, I like a distressed finish!
A bit of outlining, some words from an old book added, extra colour stencilled through sequin waste and I am really pleased with the result.
Hope you like it too!

SALE!

I don't usually like to use my blog for stuff like this but when needs must!!

I am having a sale of craft stuff that I can't take with me and I think I can live without!!
Lots of stamps all at £1 no matter the size.........sets of stamps a little more.............and all sorts of other "stuff".
There will also be a "free to a good home" table!

If anyone would be interested in calling in it's this coming Friday and Saturday 26th and 27th March, no set times. I might even manage tea and coffee!

If interested send me an email and I will give you the address but so you have a rough idea I am in Crewe in Cheshire.

TREES

Have not had anything to blog for the last several days, my work room is a disaster zone at the moment as I try to sort it out ready for leaving for Kazakhstan and it's not very inspiring! I walk in, look at the mess and walk out again!
However yesterday I decided that I had to do something, was getting withdrawal symptoms, so hauled some stuff out into the kitchen and the above journal pages are the result. They are actually a double page spread and sit side by side but were too big for the scanner!
Funnily they are NOTHING like I set out to do! Might play with my original idea later today.

JABBERWOCKY AND THE WHITE RABBIT

ALICE is everywhere just now, no big surprise there!!
SUNDAY STAMPER run over on HELS SHERIDANS blog had the white rabbit (or Alice) as the theme this weekend so I decided to make this little collage using some old and some new stamps.
The Jabberwocky J stamp is from STAMPERS ANONYMOUS the Mad Hatter is from TJ DESIGNS and the rabbit (though I think it's a hare really) is from A CAPELLA

DINA WAKELY WORKSHOPS

These two pieces are meant to be side by side as they are a double spread in quite a big journal (wouldn't fit under the scanner!) but blogger in its wisdom seperated them and put them one under the other....gggrrr!! why does it do that????

Ok moan over..........got back yesterday from two days of workshops with DINA WAKELY. Dina was teaching at ART FROM THE HEART studio which is in HARROGATE .....home of BETTYS TEA ROOMS.....can't go to Harrogate and not go to Bettys..so we did.......Ok, getting side tracked!.......AFTH run by DYAN REAVELEY

These are some of the pieces that I made in the two days.........of course I am only showing you the ones I am pleased with so far, some of these still need some more work but there are several that need lots more work on them! But that's OK, that's what a workshop is all about!

MARCH CALENDAR PAGE

Here is my MARCH CALENDAR PAGE, my unofficial entry for the 365 calendar challenge being run by Kate over on THE KATHERINE WHEEL.
I have managed to keep up so far but I am thinking that from now on, as the move gets closer, that I will fall behind but I'm not going to worry about it, I can always play catch up later!

I make no apology for using the ALICE and MAD HATTER images again on this, have to make the most of it when fav things are around! I did want to use tickets for the days on this page but could not get 31 of them to fit on the page after I had drawn the border! Oh well, save them for another month.

KARIN PRETENDS TO BE ALICE!

KARIN PRETENDS TO BE ALICE!
As STAMPOTIQUE has new images out just now I have been playing more than usual with them! The card above has KARIN #6108 and KITTY #6096 which are both new images and ROW of FACES #6020 which is an older image. While I was posting the ALICE IN WONDERLAND piece yesterday I had a very silly thought that one of the Stampotique girls might like to pretend to be Alice........so here she is with her best cheesy grin and her very own CHESHIRE CAT!!
This piece is also on the new STAMPOTIQUE DESIGNERS BLOG.



This is my piece of inspiration for the STAMPOTIQUE DESIGNERS CHALLENGE where the challenge is to use Stampotique stamps and the colours rose, pale yellow and mossy green with blue as an optional colour.
I stamped the ROW HOUSES #9082 onto paint colour strips and cut and pieced them, the tree was made using CRAYON CIRCLES #8948 and the little bods are called TWO STICKS #6006.
And don't forget that STAMPOTIQUE stamps are available in the UK from THE STAMP ATTIC

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

WEDNESDAY STAMPER has ALICE IN WONDERLAND as its theme this week. I expect that Alice is going to be a popular theme over the next couple of weeks as the release of the new film gets closer. I have loved ALICE IN WONDERLAND for as long as I can remember so I am more than happy if that happens!
I made this journal page a couple of weeks ago so it is nice to be able to share it today. The images are from a set of postcards that a friend gave to me, as are the words around the edges.

ART DOLL

This funny little art doll was one of the pieces submitted to CRAFT STAMPER for this months issue. It wasn't used in the mag but is online as a web extra project. Under the publishing rules I can't use pics of the other pieces on here but I can show this one as it is already online. For supplies list and instructions please refer to the CRAFT STAMPER WEB SITE