Our Castle and Our Keep for Paper Artsy

Over on the PaperArtsy blog I'm delighted to have a piece for the Our House challenge. I have featured a little row of wooden houses with the central one depicting, 'Our House, in the Middle of Our Street'. I have used Lynne Perrella stamps throughout.

The roof has been made up of one inch stampbord tiles with a selection of Lynne Perrella faces.

I then made a chimney out of turrets from one of the lady's heads to suggest, 'Our Castle and our Keep', the words from the 1982 song by Madness.

I really hope you will like what I have made and leave a comment! Thank you.

Crafting At Ally Pally

 I had a wonderful time at Crafting at Ally Pally last Saturday! It was so great to have a day out and to be at this beautiful venue and to meet up with such lovely friends, old and new! My good friend, Helen, did this write up of the day, as always with her brilliant photography:-

 http://stampingbyh.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/crafting-at-allypally-show-today.

This was her photo of me, my first time demoing:-

Thank you, Helen, for the photo! I really, really enjoyed demoing and the time went by so quickly. It was great meeting the lovely members of the public who came over to chat and ask questions. Jo Firth Young was on before me and I was so pleased to see her again. Then it was time for Kim Dellow to take over. I have been wanting to meet Kim forever, and our paths just never seem to have crossed. It was such a great day.

As Helen pointed out, I'm wearing an apron I made with Lin Brown stamps. I didn't manage to get any of my canvas boards finished as everyone who came over wanted to see the image transfer being done, so I came home with a pile of canvases just with catalogue images on them! So this one I finished at home, using the most recent Lin Brown stamp releases. And my current fave Fresco paint, Coral!

Roll on September Ally Pally!!!

Crafting at Ally Pally - 9/10 April 2016 - I'm Demoing - Yay!!!

I'm so excited! It's Ally Pally time again! It's always been one of my favourite shows as it's such a stunning venue and a chance to meet up with so many people, but this year I am demonstrating for the first time. I will be on the PaperArtsy stand from 12.30 pm to 2 pm on Saturday 9 April. I would be thrilled if you can come along and say Hello. Of course, if you are there at other times over the weekend, there are some great demonstrators and make and takes, and you can see the full schedule here. For those of you who will be seeing PaperArtsy but over in Paris, well I am just green with envy!

I am going to be decorating small canvas panels using image transfer. It was such fun when I recently discovered transferring images from catalogues and magazines onto canvas using Golden Gel Matte Medium that I thought it would be a fun thing to show everyone so you can see for yourselves how easy and effective it is. I will be using the latest Fresco paint colours and the most recent Lin Brown Eclectica stamp releases and stencils to blend the transfers into a cohesive design.

If you can't get there but wanted to, I sympathize - normally at the weekends I'm busy looking after my lovely Mum. I hope whatever you are doing you have a great weekend and we will have lots of photos to show you afterwards I'm sure!

Angel of the South - PaperArtsy Liquid Fabric Sculpting Medium Challenge

This is my second go with Powertex and on Friday it was a beautiful day and I got gloriously messy at the garden table while Colin did the gardening near by and it was blissful! I was a bit more ambitious this time than my moth, and needed to do a serious Armature! I made the face out of clay and a mould and attached it with masking tape but because it didn't have a neck or shoulders I felt it was a bit wobbly at first, but by the time all the layers started to harden, everything was fine. That's what I really love about the discovery of this new medium! I think, though, I could easily add a bit of extra clay when I pop it out of the mould.

I don't think I really have enough old clothes for this malarkey! You need old clothes to wear, plus old tee shirts to cut up to use. I used a perfectly good fuchsia tee shirt for the drapey bit. I used Bronze Powertex by the way. I used stockinette for the base layer which you can see round her middle. 

For the wings, which I am really pleased with, I used stockinette (over my armature of course!) followed by loads of drapey cheesecloth. I used a heavy layer of Green Amber Treasure Gold on the wings to really colour them, with a bit of blue rub-on. I wanted her to have bright red lips but the nearest colour I had was copper which was in the little sample I had in my Powertex starter kit so I used a bit on her cheeks as well, and some of their blue on her eye lids. I used Treasure Gold in Brass for the high spots of her robe and shawl but used it more heavily for the stockinette underlayer.

On the whole I'm pleased with how this turned out, considering it's only my second attempt. I definitely found some learning points for myself and definitely want to improve with the face but I'm going to get this thoroughly varnished once it's cured and give it as a present to someone very special who has a summerhouse she made herself. She is my angel.

I am entering this into the PaperArtsy Liquid Fabric Sculpting Medium Challenge, and the That's Crafty Challenge 'Red and Green should never be Seen' because she has green wings and red lips!

Powertex Moth for PaperArtsy Liquid Fabric Hardener Challenge

Don't laugh, this is my first attempt at Powertex other than the Make N Take I did at the Farnborough show. I'm really excited by this medium though, and I'm delighted PaperArtsy are doing a challenge on Liquid Fabric Hardeners, meaning I have to open the Starter Kit I bought at the show and face my fear.

It's a good follow-on topic to art dolls as I did wire-working for the first time, which is a useful skill with this product, but it would have been useful if I had thought to use it then as it would have been great for making skirts for the dolls bodies. Also I wish PaperArtsy had chosen a more consistently sunny time of year as it is so messy I really need to work in the garden. Honestly Leandra, you do need to order the weather!

The first thing I did was to make an armature. This word wasn't in my vocabulary until two weeks ago and now it is my most commonly used word. It's got a really good rhythm to it. Armature. Arm-ature. I'm Mature. Anyhow, I made an armature with 2 mm aluminium wire and it was meant to be a dragonfly but for some unknown reason I extended the body too far above the wings, so Colin said it's a moth. Apart from that, I quite like the shaping of the wings. I filled out the body with foil and masking tape, and criss-crossed the wings with masking tape and painted everything with Bronze powertex.

I then mixed a little bit of the Powertex varnish (you get a weeny bottle like an eye dropper in the starter kit) with some Cosmic Shimmer powders and dusted them on.

Since I got back from Mum's yesterday I've finished Treasure gilding the garden fairy I started on Friday which has hardened nicely over the weekend so I'll get that photographed and blogged. It's got a nice bit of Armature.

I'm entering this into the PaperArtsy Liquid Fabric Hardener Challenge. Can't wait to see all the entries and learn from what everyone does!

These Boots were Made for Walking for PaperArtsy Art Dolls Challenge

 This is honestly the last doll as I'm off in a minute. Spent yesterday walking round the house clutching various dolls between my thumb and forefinger where sections of glue were drying, as you do! I made this one by using one of the Jean Paul Gaultier bottles to make a papier mache torso with a false base (rather than the smaller dolls house mannequin ones I did before). If I had thought through the whole doll (I had no plan at that stage) I would have made the papier mache right up to the chin but unfortunately I ended up making shoulders and neck from paper clay and as I've not used paper clay before, I didn't do it very well. I then painted it Blush and shoved it into the neckline of the 'dress' portion.

You get a lovely base from the bottle. I'm sure I'll be making more of these!



The doll has a wire framework hoop skirt as before, with 2mm wire attached around her waist. I just love her boots which I made from clay stamped in black. They are Lynne Perrella as you can probably guess. So she can walk and fly! It was a bit fiddly as I used lolly sticks (it's been a very Blue Peter week!) for her legs and I made a slit with my craft knife into the base of the torso and shoved the sticks up there and covered the bits that showed with lace, then glued the boots on so she was standing.

The bodice is gorgeous, sequinned flowers in pastel shades attached to taffeta which covers the rest of her torso which you can't see. The fabric for the skirt is beautiful and was given to me many years ago by my dear friend Lynne of Adorn, and I have eked it out on many projects. I just made an elasticated waist and it flared out nicely over the hooped skirt. The cameo is a Primark earring.

 Her wings are grungeboard covered in adhesive metal sheet then put through a cogs folder then rubbed with Chocolate Pudding which was then rubbed off and highlighted with the new Copper. I did the same with two large metal flowers. I stamped the Lynne Perrella face onto a large flat wood bead with Versafine Onyx Black and added some black wool hair and glued (!) it to the two metal flowers and glued it to the wings and the whole lot to the neck of the doll, with some copper wire threaded through the bead and the holes in the flowers for added security. Oh yes I had fun getting everything to stay put!

Wish you could see all the dolls IRL. Will have to find a corner for them to live together. Thank you PaperArtsy for the fun challenge which I am joining in here.

Lynne Perrella Bird Cage Art Doll for PaperArtsy Challenge

I made this art doll with another of the Jean Paul Gaultier perfume bottles but this one has an embossed bronze corset design on it which is really pretty and I wanted to preserve it. I had intended to use this one as my make for PaperArtsy and to fill it with paint to keep the glossy surface but it proved to be impossible to remove the stopper. In trying to do so I broke the glass, quite neatly, but it was a bit too dangerous to recommend anyone to do on someone else's blog! So here I have filled it with Blush Fresco which looks so pretty and then sealed the top up again by making a 'neck' out of paper clay (only ever used oven bake before) and painted that with Blush too. I then stuck with bronze for the colour of my wings which are paper clay, made in a mould. I mixed Chocolate Pudding with some of new lush Copper Fresco, then used a little Copper on my finger for highlights.

The face is clay and is a gorgeous Lynne Perrella stamp, which I've coloured with Frescos and white gel pen. The base for the construction is a bird cage and bird I had in my stash (from Dunelm, I think) and a large spool. My dear friend, Julie Ann, had kindly lent me two feather Ink and the Dog minis. I had some brayered fabric left from when I made the fabric board for the transfer challenge a couple of weeks ago so I stamped them and cut them out and deliberately let the edges fray in a feathery sort of way. I wanted to follow through the bird/wings/feathers/bird cage theme. The feathers made a perfect skirt as they allow the cage to show. It's a shame you can't really see the colours in the fabric. The cage makes the skirt flare out nicely.

I finished off with some pearls and a button which I gave the choc pudding/copper paint treatment. I am entering this into the PaperArtsy art doll challenge.