A Birthday Trip

It was Lindsay's birthday yesterday (Thursday) so we decided to take a trip to Freeport (a shopping outlet) in nearby Fleetwood. Despite a forecast of showers all day we were very lucky and the dark clouds stayed away until late in the day when I was heading back home - and then the rain arrived!

We had a pleasant few hours wandering around and although Lindsay treated herself to some new shoes and a top (she WAS the birthday girl after all!), I was very good and only bought some assorted bags of sweets - flying saucers, barley sugars, floral gems, aniseed twists - from the Sweet Emporium for my other half (who has an addiction to them at the moment).  

There's not a lot of choice when it comes to "eateries" at Freeport so we ended up having a fish and chips lunch - when we came back outside we spotted this very cheeky seagull tucking into the leftovers on people's plates ..........

Loved the harbour, with all the boats moored along each side or sailing off to destinations unknown, and the salty smell of the sea air took me right back to childhood days spent on the local beaches.  

Art and Soul

Yesterday I actually made a bit of time to sit down and create a new page in my journal, the first piece of "art" I've made since April!  Playing 'catch up' with the journal prompts that Ali sets us and am working on May's theme at the moment.  We had to jot down on paper a random selection of colours and words, then do a "lucky dip" of three colours and one word for each of the four pages.  For this first page the colours and word I pulled out were Black, Olive Green, Lime Green and Soul.  We also had to then choose one image for each page.  This is what I came up with - just plain and simple really, wanted to work quickly without giving it too much thought so that I didn't get bogged down with lots of ideas and inevitably wouldn't have done anything ........... 

 I started by using my Neocolour II water-soluble wax pastels in Yellow Green (nearest I had to Lime), Olive and Black, and blended them with my finger across the page.  I then brushed over the pastels with a little water and heat-blasted to set.

 I cut scrap paper to the same size as the journal page to use as a template.  I placed my chosen image where I wanted it to be on the page and wrote out my chosen quote (by Pablo Picasso) across the rest of the paper.  Each word was then outlined individually as a guide.

Using a scalpel I cut out and removed each word from the page. 

 I lay the "stencil" on top of my journal page and sponged over using a baby wipe to lighten the cut out areas.  I again heat-blasted the page.

I wrote my quote with a fine black waterproof pen in the sponged out areas and drew an outline around each word.  Finally, I adhered the image to the page and rubbed a little soft pencil around parts of it to make it blend in with the background.  Also embellished with a little stamping using Archival Ink in Jet Black and Olive.  And that was all there was to it .................

Nice and Simple!

(hope you like)

A Vintage Day

Thankfully, after the torrential rain that fell non-stop on Friday and resulted in the route of the Olympic Torch through Blackpool being diverted with celebrations brought into the Tower Ballroom rather than outdoors on the new Tower Headland (not having much luck with that venue at the moment - Elton John's open-air concert to open the Headland last weekend had to be cut short due to heavy rain and high winds!), Saturday dawned brighter and Lindsay and I managed to stay dry for our visit to the Vintage and Handicrafts Fair in town.

The Fair was held in the Winter Gardens building in the centre of Blackpool.  A programme of renovation and restoration began a year or so back, to return the Winter Gardens to the splendour of  its Victorian Days.  It was the first time I'd been inside since this work had been done and I must admit the entrance hall does look splendid !

(Apologies for the Ladies Toilets sign slap-bang in the centre of the pics - I tried to persuade Lindsay to stand in front of it but she was having none of it)!

 I absolutely love this shade of blue that's been used to paint the metalwork - just gorgeous!

There were lots of stalls offering a variety of vintage, handcrafted, antique and collectible goodies, along with some rather too noisy music on stage - a young lady with a guitar whilst we were there - the sound system was too loud and we felt rather sorry for the poor sellers whose stalls were directly beneath the speakers.  A section had also been set aside with comfy sofas and a stand offering tea, coffee and cream scones served on vintage crockery.

There were several stalls selling vintage clothes with vendors even dressing the part themselves ....

..... but one of our favourite stands was run by a lady called Wendy Moore whose wonderful fantasy creations of fairies, mermaids, mirrors and shells really caught our eye ..............

Lindsay especially loved these fairies hanging in the tree .......

 .... and we both thought the "blingy" mirror and decorated shell in the photo above were gorgeous too!

Another stall which attracted our attention was this one, selling individual pieces of vintage/collectible crockery.  Maralyn and Robert (trading as One Vintage Lady) run a china replacement service searching out those broken or lost pieces of crockery that you might be hunting for.

Lindsay had been on the lookout for pretty cups and saucers so decided to treat herself to this sweet Teacup Trio ............................

 I was very good and resisted buying anything, though I was tempted once or twice ......... this stall had some rather attractive painted wooden boxes for sale in a faded vintage style ........

 ....... and I was almost tempted by the Siamese cat kitchen roll holder (though I'm not sure what Mia would've made of it)!

Although I didn't spend anything at the Vintage Fair, Lindsay and I spent a few more hours shopping in town and I treated myself to a couple of new tops from M&S and couldn't resist buying two new books for journalling in - the covers were just so appealing.  The smaller book has Tiffany-style covers with ruled pages, ideal for "spill writing" (picked that one up along with another for Lindsay in the Discount Bookshop - only 99p each) and the larger one has plain pages, fairly thin, but will work well for art journalling especially if I glue some of the pages together for added strength.  This came from the TKMaXX store - they always have a wonderful selection of hard-to-resist notebooks and boxes (Lindsay treated herself to one and she may post a picture of it later on her own blog).

Came home rather worn out after a long day in town with poor tired feet, so am having a "chill out" day today - I may even get round to doing a page or so in my art journal (well, it's about time I started "arting" again, particularly since I've acquired even more books to work in) and this evening I'll be glued to the TV watching the England v Italy Euro2012 Quarter Final match (a bit of football over the summer to keep me going until our own Championship campaign begins again in August - here's hoping Blackpool makes it back to the Premier League this season, having just missed out by a whisker at Wembley last month!

Chakra Pages

It's a horrible wet and murky day here and the farthest I've been is down to the supermarket this morning to do the weekly shop! Just popped on line to order some trainers for my son's birthday so I thought I'd do a quick post and show you the remaining two chakra pages that I did back in April for my Art Journal.

 Third Eye Chakra

The background was created by spraying on "Rum Raisin" Glimmer Mist.  I drew the eye freehand and adhered it to the page - the letters are punched out stickers from a Basic Grey alphabet sheet.  I added some stamped acrylic circles, freehand writing, charms, gems and a "gypsy" image, and finished by rubbing in a little Distressed Stickles.

Crown Chakra

I gessoed the white background for this page, adding some light silvery scroll stamping and a torn piece of paper doily for texture, with some pewter coloured metallic rub-on over the top.  Again, the page was completed with a couple of images, cardboard lettering covered with a Krylon silver pen, stamping, a charm and my own handwriting.

I remember I felt quite pleased with the results back in April, but understandably since then I haven't felt much like being creative in the least. Hopefully, I can gradually start doing a bit of artwork again, dig out those inks, paints and stamps (!) and take time out to relax a bit.  

Planning on visiting a Vintage and Handcrafts Fair on Saturday with Lindsay, so keeping my fingers crossed the weather improves a bit by then - looking forward to it and hope to pick up a few bargains (what, I don't know yet, but I'm sure something interesting will catch our eyes)!

Poppies for Remembrance

It's been a long time since I last posted and it's only now that I feel I can start doing so. My sister Lindsay's husband, David, was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the beginning of May and very sadly, lost his battle with this awful disease on 29th May. Thankfully, he died peacefully at home with Lindsay by his side, rather than in hospital. A beautiful funeral service was held for him last Friday, 8th June, at St Chad's Church in Poulton. Lindsay and David had been happily together for 36 years so it has been a devastating shock for us all and at the moment we are just taking things one day at a time.

David - In Remembrance

I took these photos of poppies in our garden a day or two before David died and it seems appropriate to show them here in remembrance of David (who never liked having his photo taken)

As you may appreciate, I haven't felt much like crafting in recent weeks and in fact, the last art I created were the last two chakra pages for my Art Journal back at the end of April.  I'll post pics of them another day.

Time Out

Sorry I've not been around for a week or two - unfortunately, at the moment I need to take time out from my blog due to family illness which has taken priority over any crafting.  Will post again when I'm able and upload pics of the last two chakra journal pages I did - I've not got around to May's challenges yet.  

This and that

I finally sorted out my browser/blogger issues by downloading Google Chrome (not without an afternoon's hassle mind you - nothing's ever straightforward is it?) to use as an alternative browser to my old Internet Explorer (thanks to Sioux for the suggestion, which confirmed what I'd been thinking).  So the problems I was having with Blogger have gone away (fingers crossed), though (like Lindsay) I'm using the old format to put up this post.  

Yesterday, the plasterers came round to sort out our kitchen ceiling so I decided to escape all the chaos and go spend the day with Lindsay instead, taking my camera with me so that I could help photograph some of her newest creations (not for public viewing just yet *LOL*).  I was supposed to be assisting Lindsay make some extra cards, etc, for her demos this weekend, but I think I was much more of a hindrance than a help.  Here's a picture I took of one of the cards Lindsay had already made:-

The stamped image is one of Lindsay's "Off the Wall" designs (Emily) and the text stamp is one of Andy Skinner's.  I have a "thing" about harlequin diamond stamps and stencils at the moment, so I really love the stencilling on this card too.

I took some photographs of another card that Lindsay created during the day too and this, along with the one above, will be on display I believe on Sunday when she'll be demonstrating her 'arty-crafty' techniques at the Strikes Garden Centre in Weavervale, Northwich (check out her blog for details - she'll be in Leeds tomorrow as well).

 Inking the card edges

 Black card sprayed through an alphabetic stencil with Perfect Pearls Mist

 Steampunk Sarah - one of Lindsay's new stamp designs

The card completed 

Whilst Lindsay was working on her laptop, I was very honoured to have Tara (originally our parents', now one of Lindsay's cats) jump up and sit on my lap - however, I think it was just so she could get a better view of the computer screen, maybe hoping that Lindsay was putting in a big shopping order for all her favourite food treats (chicken, salmon, ham .......... for starters!)

During the day I was getting updates from home about the progress on the plastering - all sounded pretty horrendous as apparently at one point a large chunk of the ceiling fell down and (despite dust sheets everywhere) created a huge mushroom cloud of plaster dust which enveloped everything!  Lovely!!! Eventually, I could put off going home no longer (and was also feeling slightly guilty by then about not helping my menfolk clear up the mess) - and yes, dust was everywhere and it took another couple of hours to clean every surface and make the place look presentable again.  Last job of the night was washing the floor down and we'd had enough by then.  However, it was worth it - no more ceiling cracks, now we've just got to get it all re-painted - more mess and disruption (I can't wait)!

I've still got to finish off the last two chakra pages for my journal, don't know when I'll get round to doing them, but will post pics here when they're done.  Thanks for the kind comments I received all ready about the pages I posted last time.