Morning has broken....

Morning,

Well one of the joys of my Fibromyalgia and CFS and all the othe rbits in between, seem to mean that my body clock becomes very out of sync. It would appear that I am evolving from my state of hibernation and now moving from needing to sleep all the time to crashing like a flat battery at 7 or 8pm, and then waking full of awakeness at midnight, and that is it for the night. After a few nights of huffing and puffing from me then the hubby, I thought I may as well make use of the time spent awake. Lucky or unlucky me, the Bobster, my 9yr old son, also gets up at 5 so I only had about 30 minutes on my lonesome. So along with 2 wash loads here are my achievements so far this morning before a class at 10am.

These were done using Pebeo Fantasy Prisme paints and gold glitter medium and leading. The leading took about an hour to do, but was a lot easier than I expected. The Fantasy paint had just been applies at 7:30 in the top picture, the bottom shows it 90 minutes later.

I then went and applied a 2nd coat to one of my kitchen cabinet doors - they are about 30 years old and we need a new kitchen, so i thought chalkboard paint on at least one could be an improvement and useful at the same time. Hopefully the kitchen can limp along a bit longer whilst more important tasks around the house are dealt with.

I may do all the other doors too, but rather than Tim Holtz tissue tape, I now have masking tape!!

Then I found a jam jar and played with some alcohol inks. This is it so far:

 Lit

Time to run, have a good day. xx

Softly fell the Silent Snow

The title of the Country View Crafts challenge Sparkle and Shine inspired me to enter my first ever challenge.

I began with a shabby picture (by design, though frankly I prefer my efforts! and at least now the picture hooks on this one are at the top and not the bottom - obviously a Friday afternoon job!)  which I found in a local Supermarket reduced from £12.00 to the princely sum of £1.20, a price that offended me so much I bought the remaining 2 on the shelf.

I started by covering the board with white Gesso to hide what was previously on there.

I then used my distress spray stains in Faded Jeans, picket fence and silver to create a background, and let the stains run wherever they wanted.
 
I started off a little conservatively







Then I got braver !

To add texture, I used a spotty mask and heavy modelling paste.

Using the back of some paper pads I cut some snowflakes in a variety of different shapes and sizes and painted them white with gesso and stuck different embossing powders (from frantage to crystal, kaleidoscope, glitter) on whilst wet. I then heat embossed, I liked the fact in this instance that the heat would cause the paint to puff a little giving more of a snowy texture.

Santa and his reindeer were made from a precut tando shape covered in white fire treasure gold.

At this point the bottom of the picture need something, so, using a build a scene die I cut some houses out of white card and coloured these using a makeup sponge and faded jeans distress spray stain. I then added some black soot to this for depth. I also used a puffy snow pen on these, a gold glitter and a black sparkle embossing powder on the small sign and windows.The centre foreground then looked bare so using foil I cut out (by hand) a christmas tree shape and then ran that through an embossing folder and using the black tinsel embossing powder and an embossing pen added a trunk. I made a tag using a kraft tag, white gesso and crystal embossing powder, then stamped "Softly fell the silent snow" and used black sparkle embossing powder.

Then my friend Brenda rang and told me something she had done in a recent class she had taught - so I tried it and love the result. Brenda, you will know which bit it is ;).

Then my favourite bit, the assembly and finishing touches, although it is always tough knowing when to stop! I glued all my elements on, added a few star stickers, a couple of brads, my snowflakes and my tag, and some mini baubles.

I then added a heat activated snow pen to the ground and the houses with glitter ,and dotted bits of it on my board and on the elements and heated with my heat gun. This caused the snow effect to puff up and some of the gesso underneath, Now, most people would engage brain first and heat gun second - but not me. So please remember, heat guns cause plastic baubles to melt!!!! Having said that, I actually love the end result - a crafters happy accident!

I do hope you like my first entry as much as I enjoyed making it!

Sharon xx

First, please allow me to introduce myself.....

Hello,

I have finally succumbed and am dipping my toe, somewhat, timorously into Blogging waters. I am a mother of two fantastic children and 4 cats, and have a husband with an abundance of patience - much needed in this mad house.

I have always wished to be artistic, although as art teachers at school would have said, not been a natural artist! I however very much believe that you can be creative and artistic in so many ways, we just seem to automatically relate artistic and creative to drawing and painting, when there is a plethera of mediums we can use. My grandmother was my first inspiration and I have fond memories of the sound of her knitting needles racing along, the smell of her extra strong mints in her bag and the joy of receiving a knitted article through the post, also containing the delicious smells of my grandparents home when I opened it. I would take the garment and breathe in the smell. My grandmother helped teach me to knit, but as they lived a long way away, most of my knitting was taught to me by a lady at my junior school. I especially loved to make baby clothes and bootees. My love of knitting fizzled as I grew older and my pile of unfinished adult garments had grown, my mum bought me a tapestry of an owl and all the frame etc to go with it - still unfinished some 24 years on. I then moved on to Counted Cross Stitch and am pleased to report finishing many of these and a good number of wedding samplers.

Once I left home I moved to Worthing, "home of the newly weds and nearly deads" and started paper crafting in earnest, I soon took over the spare bedroom with my paper supplies, stamps and embossing powders. Then came my 1st child, and after little fingers finding acrylic glues, glitter powders, stamps and some rather oily paint substances and a carpet covered in green embossing powder, crafting took a long break. I dipped in and out for a while,  then 6 years later along came child number 2 who discovered at age 2 how scared mummy was by red glass paint down his face - stating on the school run "NO - don't feel sorry for him, it is NOT blood, it is paint!" A lesson for my GP that day was that glass paint, whilst it smells and looks bad is not too toxic, althiough I can certainly vouch thatit comes off skin far easier than carpet! Not much later upon discovering the same child covered in black boot polish, and when asking "why?" as you do, he informed me "I wanted to be a dog!", all items that could be used in this way were boxed up and put away for a very long time!! I hasten to add he is almost 9 now and fit and healthy (although his curiosity can still get the better of him - as I discovered a floor covered in holographic glitter the day after attendig the show at FIVE)!!!

I then went back to work to gain some sanity and unfortunately I was suddenly taken ill and subsequently diagnosed with a damaged disc in my back (resulting in being stuck in a wheelchair for several months), fibromyalgia and an autoimmune condition. I then began crafting again 4 1/2 years ago - getting all my wedding bits ready and have improved massively in so many ways. Crafting gives me days to look forward to, encouraging me to leave the house and take part in something, unfortunately days do come when I cannot do this but I am sure the promise of a craft session speeds recovery up no end. I love all kinds of crafts and have a horde of supplies and almost as many different projects on the go at any one time. I love going out to classes and meeting with all the amazing people out there, and the wonderful people who take the time to teach me new skills and giving me a lifeline. My passion at the moment would appear to be altered art - shabby and vintage and bead weaving with all and sundry in between. I still dabble in all the other bits and pieces too.

Above is the result of one of my most recent classes taught by the lovely Brenda Brown of
bumblebeesandbutterflies.

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Thanks for taking the time to get to know me and reading this first post, and as they say "idle hands ......."

Sharon xx