Friday 30 December 2016

Hope..... and a New Year Greeting

I probably should have finished writing this post before going off to have lunch and a bottle of wine.... (well only half, cause Dave had the other half of course!)  so I do apologise for any spelling errors and any slurred speech... :) 
This is my last digital piece this year for AJJ and Valeries wonderful theme light and darkness  
and the sentiment is quite appropriate for the New Year too.
 

For the last few days I've been thinking about 2017 and what I'd like to achieve.
I never remember most of any resolutions I've made at the beginning of a year, at the end of a year anyway, so don't usually know if I kept them. But next year ... I'm not going to say I will do blah blah .... but say I will try harder at any aims...
and maybe keep a better note of them and how they are doing ... time will only tell how that goes.....

 
Being better organised next year is certainly one thing I would like to be better at...
I've started going through my digital files of art and digital elements I have created over the last few years to make them into digi kits/themed files. I confess I got side-tracked yesterday and made this car to go with the other Steampunk pieces I had made some time ago.
 
So good bye for now ...
Thank you for your visits and comments during this year
which I have really appreciated.
Wishing you all the very best for the New Year
Gill x

Thursday 22 December 2016

Sparkle and shine for AJJ and a message for you x

This probably will be my last piece for a few days so I will start off with a digital page for AJJ light and Darkness   theme chosen by Valerie.   The page is comprised of a couple of blended digital papers made from a photo of  Tower bridge, London and weird Christmas tree lights. ( I like putting my camera inside my tree and getting 'bokeh' effects). Additional gems and sparkles also added to page.
 


Wherever you are and whatever you are doing at this time of year,
I wish you and your families peace, love and joy x
 
 
 
 
Gill xxx
 
 
 


Monday 19 December 2016

An angel in the darkness



 
I painted on black paper. Added some washi tape at top and bottom.
I knew I wanted to have an angel on my page and wasn't sure what quote to use.
Then I found some old song lyrics I wrote back in the 1990s
and used a few lines as seem to fit quite nicely.
The background has Panpastels on and the pattern made with an eraser.
Finished with a little iridescent glitter glue.
 
It was bad enough with the winter light trying to get a photo,
but trying to show the glittered parts almost impossible.

 
 
I love all the coloured and twinkling lights at this time of year
 so that's my excuse why we have 5 Christmas trees up.
2 trees are about 6 feet tall and the other 3 mini ones about 12 inches.
Flash photography seems to have lost all the colours
 but you can just about see the 5 of them.


Slightly better but still not captured the magic.


Dave has been busy making chocolate chip brownies and
I'm thankful he freezes some
 otherwise I'd be eating them all at once if I could.
 

 
yummy!
 
  
Thanks for stopping by
and especially at this time of the year,
I do appreciate it.
Wishing you a good week.
Gill xx

Friday 16 December 2016

Darkness and light for AJJ and last of the Steampunk ornaments.


I'm loving Valeries fab theme this month at AJJ 'Light and Darkness'
 and really enjoyed making this page. I combined a piece of my artwork with some digital papers and digital elements from kits: The artists memories by G&T designs and 'A scrap of art' by Lynne Anzelc and added some digital effects. Finished off with some quotes. 
 

 
And I think these are probably the last of the new Steampunk ornaments I've been making. Sorry photos not good but the winter light has made it awkward to get a decent image ..



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The tree is a sort of iridescent and white but when the lights are on make it look various colours.
 
 
 Thanks so much for stopping by.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Gill xx


Saturday 10 December 2016

'Once there was only Darkness' for AJJ and more Steampunk Xmas tree ornaments

Hello hope you're having a good Saturday...

It's another grey day here and just starting to rain.
I have a page for AJJ 'Light and Darkness theme' - being hosted this month by the lovely Valerie. Sorry about awful photo ...Grrrr!..I can never yet a page to lay flat and play nice when I want to take a photo, and also finding it hard to get decent photo because of the gloomy grey wintry days.



And as promised, below are a couple more Steampunk decorations..

 
 The snowflake was thick white felt before I painted it with
various acrylic paints to get the faux metal effect.
The nuts and bolts, and cog in centre are made from craft foam.
 
 
I turned the tree lights off when taking these photos, but for this years tree we
changed the lights from white bulbs with black wire to coloured lights and clear wire
as I didn't like the black lead showing so much. Not sure if I should have stayed with
white lights, but the coloured ones are certainly more warmer and cheerful.
 
 
 I knew the pack of mini bottles I had bought would come in handy one day -
not exactly steampunk but fits nicely on my quirky tree. Somewhere on the tree
 there's a blue and a green version as well as the red one below. They are filled with
glitter and either little stars or hearts and topped with a big jewel.
 
 
 
 
 
The owl is actually an earring and I got two pairs of them from a pound shop and couldn't resist using them on the tree as I love owls plus the colour goes well with the verdigris/patina on some of the ornaments. The ornament on the right was from last year. If you missed that or would like to see my original post you'll find it here original Steampunk tree 2015 with all the decorations I made last year.


Thanks for stopping by today.
Wishing you a lovely weekend.
Gill xx

Tuesday 6 December 2016

Light and Darkness

😊Hi everyone
Hope your week going well.

Today I'm linking to AJJ Light & Darkness  the great theme for December chosen by Valerie . This is an all digital piece using an image from 'The Sum of all crafts' and a kit called 'Passionata' by ML Designs. The image I altered in my software to give an artsy feel.


 
Thank you for stopping by
Gill xx

Friday 2 December 2016

Light and Darkness for AJJ and a Hot Air Balloon for the Christmas tree

Hi... its 8c outside and one of those gloomy overcast (and cold? unless its just me) days that make you just want to curl up in front of the tv with a good film or go play and have some arty messy fun... or maybe both :)

I'm linking up to the new AJJ December theme 'Light and Darkness'   hosted by the lovely Valerie.
My piece is a mix of real art and digital. The real art using Portfolio water soluble oil pastels plus a black Stabilo all pencil.

The original artwork  (see below) was not so dark, so when I was adjusting it digitally,
I copied and layered it 3 times and added some effects to it to darken it.
Then I added some digital stars and word art to finish.
 
 
 
A couple of days ago I promised to show some more
of the decorations I've been making for our Steampunk tree.
 

For this piece I used 2 dies (a clock and an air balloon) and the clock inners stamp from Sheena Douglass 'Time Traveller' Perfect Partners range.  The clock hands were Marianne dies and a Nestability scallop circle die used to cut out the stamped image.
 


To make things more sturdy each part has a layer of craft foam in the middle and card either side. Glued all together with Cosmic Shimmer glue.


I wanted to make the original air balloon different and slightly bigger so used the balloon under the clock and sandwiched it between the scallop circle of craft foam.

 
The faux metallic effects done using various metallic paints, matte eco paint for verdigris/patina and a little extra rub-on wax to grunge more. But because its for Christmas I added a little iridescent glitter glue for some extra sparkle and some little gem stones.
 
Thanks for stopping by today
and for any comments.
Have a great day and if you happen to have an excess
of sunshine  you don't need - please send it over my way :)
Gill xx
 
 
 
 


Tuesday 29 November 2016

Stripes for MM&M and some baubles for my Steampunk tree

 
Nearly didn't make it in time for MM&M Stripes challenge as had a bit of a hectic month.
So I've created an all digital piece using a kit called 'Words to live by' by Kimeric Kreations.
One of the cool tools in the software I use are 'digital scissors' -I used this to cut up the blue digital paper into stripes. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
At long last Dave made some of Valeries super spice bars after she so kindly shared the recipe with us back in august - and if you haven't already tried these, I can thoroughly recommend them as they are really yummy!

 
The first attempt, Dave made an error and somehow left the sugar out so that wasted a batch and then he had no chocolate left to drizzle on top for the second batch. Not sure how we ran out of chocolate, that was bad planning! ha ha,  but even so, they were really lovely and also very nice with custard. 
 Great recipe - thanks Valerie x

October was spent finishing all the Christmas cards and November spent making more ornaments for our Steampunk themed Christmas tree. I'm done making them for this year now so now I need to clear up all the mess that is all over my 3 tables and a lot of the floor too.
 
 
 
The hooks on the front of my shelves were great
for dangling things that needed to dry.
 
 
 
I had great fun making 5 of these using silver baubles, metallic paints, green eco paint and fun foam.
 


 I will show some other things I made for the tree another time.
 
thanks for stopping by
hope your day is a good one
Gill xx
 


Thursday 17 November 2016

A sort of abstract/doodle page for AJJ

Hello
Hope your day going well.
At last yesterday I finished writing in all my Christmas cards - big sigh of relief :) So now that's all out of the way I can concentrate more on making some art and also on the stuff for our Steampunk Christmas tree which will hopefully be going up at the weekend. So this morning I finished a piece started about a week ago for this months fab AJJ challenge, the theme is 'Collage - but no wings, leaves or faces' and was chosen by the lovely Susi. I'd been struggling with this and maybe because the card thing is now out of the way it seemed to come together more easily this morning to finish off.


 
 I started with some bits torn out of my hubbies wine magazine
 and gessoed over some of the area but it wasn't looking good
 and I'd no idea really what I was going to do anyway.
 Added some paint and a little stencilling
 and still no idea what I was doing.
 Some doodling with black and white pens
 but still not looking right.
Added more paint, stencilling, bottle cap stamped bits and dots and I think I have a fun abstract/doodled page that I am a bit more happier with.
 
Have a great day wherever you are
and thanks so much for stopping by.
Gill x

Monday 14 November 2016

Wheels for MM&M

Hello everyone 

I did this last week and forgot to post as been feeling a bit out of sorts for a few days with a throat/glands thing, probably after getting cold when our heating broke down Wednesday afternoon - brrrr that seemed a long 24-ish hours till it was mended.
 
I used a mix of stamps from Viva Décor, IndigoBlu and 'Artemio'.
Colour is Distress stains, Aquamarkers and coloured pencils.

 
 
 I'm a bit behind so will try and catch up
with your posts asap :)
Have a great day.
Gill x
 




Monday 7 November 2016

Collage playing for AJJ

Hello

My first attempt for Susi's fun collage challenge at AJJ where we mustn't use wings, leaves or faces. I've not really done that much collage before so this should be a fun month to experiment and play.

 
I found it hard to get a decent photo due to lack of light as the days have been shorter and not so bright. I'm not particularly pleased with how the page turned out and so first thing this morning I sat in bed drinking tea watching some tutorials online to hopefully improve my skills for the next pieces.


I started with a few pieces of collage looking paper, plus a couple of postage stamps - and oh no - there's a face on the stamp!

Painted and drew over the face on the postage stamp and added some Washi tape then some colour on page with water soluble pastels and Inktense blocks/pencils.

Finished with some more washi tape
and a bit of stencilling and doodling.
 
Thanks for stopping by.
Hope your day was a good one.
Gill xx