TWIT

TWOO!!
A while ago I asked Lily at OCTOPODE FACTORY if she would design some bird and owl images for me .......these are the OWLS she came up with!

 And this is my first play with them! 
They are available as digi images in her Etsy shop.......although I am a rubber stamper at heart the one thing I do like about digi images is that you can re-size them!

 They are coloured with GRAPHITINT watercolour crayons.............

 ..........the branches and leaves were done with the card dipped in paint method........

 ........and the OWL word is one I carved myself!
A friend gave me a lino carving tool and blades for Christmas so I put it to use when I found these cheap erasers at the supermarket.......its fun and easy to do, have a go!!! I like the extra lines and dots etc but you don't have to have those!

Long thin slimy ones........

short fat juicy ones...........see how they wriggle and squirm.....WORMS that is!!!
While reading the comments left on my post re art journalling one made me smile.......it was from NIGEL, he was talking about opening cans of worms (prompted him to make a page...see it HERE)................. it made me think of this old rhyme.

So I decided to make it into a page! Having talked about not writing on my pages I am continuing my campaign to get over it!

Not that you will see much personal being said, just silly rhymes and quotes! I wrote the rhyme within wavy lines to represent the worms!

After sketching in the words to make sure they fitted into the lines etc it took a good couple of evenings in front of the TV to work over them with a black pen.

Knock knock.........

who's there?
Alice................Alice who?............ALICE IN WONDERLAND OF COURSE!

On ALTERED ALICE today there is more inspiration for this months challenge from the design team and my piece is amongst them. The theme this month is DOORS and we are sponsored by THE OCTOPODE FACTORY.

I had to think for a while before I came up with an idea this month! In the end the old knock knock joke idea seeemed a fun one so I went with that!

I made this from a small canvas, used the hole in the back of the canvas to give a small niche. Cut a piece of card for the door and covered it with canvas to match.

 

In and around the niche I used digi images of Alice along with stamped flowers.....also from The Octopode factory........

......on the inside of the door I used stamped eat me cakes to make flowers.....the stems and leaves are hand drawn.........

on the front of the door is another Alice digi image sized to fit and a cut out and glued on large key hole......all the writing is hand done!!

A weird thing happened

at the haberdashery shop!!

But before I tell you about that I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that took the time to comment on the previous post.......great debate, just what I wanted!
It's nice that so many of you have the same thoughts on the subject as me and thanks for the lovely compliments re my stuff......I'm glad you like what you see.............but I would be just as happy to hear from those that do feel a journal is not a journal without the writing element.......I mean every discussion has two sides, that leads to healthy debate!!

So..... onto the haberdashery shop incident!!! I was there with some members of the local handicrafts group buying supplies.......one wall is completely covered with zips, never seen so many in one place before............so I wanted to take some pics as it looks so colourful.......as you can see

but these two were the only ones I got before I got told with much tutting and wagging of fingers that I couldn't take pictures!! Not sure why but there you go!!!

This is part of what I bought........the biggest press studs I have ever seen, these are 11/2 ins across!
And this is what I made with one of the zips....................

 

I used my sewing machine to stitch the zip around the edges of a small old book..........this was quite difficult!! I had to un-pick sections several times before I got it about right! Stitched the applique fabric icon style image to the front.........

The inside of the covers......I need to glue a couple of the pages down to cover the stitching............

This is it closed...........not finished yet, need to finish off where the zip starts and finishes......not sure how just yet!

I'm going to glue some of the pages inside the book together to make them a little thicker, gesso over them and use as another little journal.

ART JOURNAL OR NOT?

So, a comment on my last post by Rosie that asked "if this is an art journal, then where's the journalling" set me thinking AGAIN about something I thought I had settled in my own head.....thanks Rosie!!!! It seems it is only just under the surface so the question I want to ask and have discussed is
WHAT MAKES A JOURNAL AN "ART JOURNAL" and DO YOU HAVE TO WRITE IN IT FOR IT TO BE A JOURNAL?
What do you think?
While you think about it here's a page in my.....my........whatever it is........on just this subject!!

3 bird houses

Today sees a new challenge on STAMPOTIQUE DESIGNERS CHALLENGE blog.......the chasllenge is to use asn insect/animal in your piece.
This is my piece of inspiration.......it will appear on the Stampotique blog in due course......the dt is now of a size that all the pieces are not shown at once but spread over a few days

 

This is a page in my small passport sized journal..........

 

......I used THE ROW OF HOUSES stamp stamped onto different coloured papers, cut up and glued together .........

 

......used my current fav technique of credit card dipped into paint to give the houses posts and bases and then drew in leaves and wrote along the posts.......the birds are big and small BIRD LEGS

STAMPOTIQUE stamps are available in the UK from THE STAMP ATTIC

BIRD LIFE

TAKE A WORD is BIRDLIFE this week. I made these!

 

Ages ago I saw something like these.....can't for the life of me remember where ...... I thought I'd have a go.

The body is the lid to a coffee jar dipped in paint......all the straight lines are the edge of a credit card, the curved lines are card......all dipped in paint.

I really liked the way the first one turned out so I made another with two birds on.....same method just smaller lid for the bodies! 

Both are worked on old book covers......I have the spine left to do something else with!!!

We are all mad here

Today sees the second ALTERED ALICE monthly challenge......this time the theme is DOORS. Head over to the blog for the first set of inspiration from the design team.........my "official" piece of inspiration will be posted here and on the ALTERED ALICE blog next weekend, this is just a fun piece to be going on with!

 This month the ALTERED ALICE sponsor is  LILY CHILVERS over at THE OCTOPODE FACTORY

 As well as digi stamps and collage sheets The Octopode Factory now does ACTUAL RUBBER STAMPS and the first release are ALICE IN WONDERLAND..........

 ...the WHITE RABBIT, CLOCK, MUSHROOMS and the WORDS are all rubber stamps

 .....the little houses are by STAMPOTIQUE

Religious beliefs

are a hard subject to blog about........well for me they are......people tend to have strong views about them and the last thing I want to do is upset people......but I have been thinking about this a lot lately ........so here goes with a page I have been working on recently.........

 I seem to spend a lot of time in churches where ever I go.....I find them fascinating/beautiful/awe inspiring/spooky/creepy......but sometimes it makes me feel a little hypocritical.........

 These images were taken from some magazines and leaflets I picked up in the PUGIN church I visited recently...............

so......do you have to believe in something to be interested in it?.......I don't neccesarily think so.......

I leave it up to you if you want to comment......I'm not looking to be provocative or to promote any great discussion but ...........

Zenkov cathedral

This is my favourite place in Almaty.....it is the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Panfilov Park.....it is also called ZENKOV Cathedral

 I printed pics I took the other day......one in colour and a couple more in black and white.....I used the colour one complete and cut up the b&w ones into the spire sections.........

 ......and glued them together to make another version of the cathedral!

 I used the edge of a piece of card and the lid of a glue stick dipped in black paint to add the words.....liked this, will do it again!!

 To make the spire silhouettes, I used the paper I cut the spires from as a stencil.

I am entering this for this weeks TAKE A WORD challenge where the word is EXOTIC.....I looked up exotic and one definition is....from another part of the world, foreign.....I think this qualifies!