Transparent Carrots

Do you remember my carrot paper?  It was really very bright orange...

 

It has been hanging in my Mum's house for a while and one year on it looks like this...

No mould, and it hasn't gone too brittle... the colour has faded in parts and gone a rich dark brown in others.  Fascinating!

See my other vegetable papers here and if you fancy having a go yourself there is a tutorial here.

Socks

Oh dear, I've got the sock knitting bug.  As if I needed another thing to be doing...  I've never wanted to knit a pair of socks before since I really don't get on with dpns but since I discovered the magic loop method of using a circular needle I thought I'd give it a try.  I'm not sure if my way of doing the magic loop is the 'proper' way, but it works for me.

I've been surprised how fast it's grown and best of all I won't need to sew it up at the end!  This colour (very Christmassy I think) was chosen by my eldest, who was most upset that I was thinking of knitting a pair of socks not for him.  Who knew that a pair of hand-knitted socks was such a must-have for the fashion-conscious teenager?  So I'm going to have to wait for my own pair... good thing I am enjoying the process!

I shall be taking a blogging break for the next few days while I take time out, spend some time with younger son, maybe do some sock knitting, maybe a bit of weaving, that sort of thing... I'll be back soon!

Bag Giveaway - the result!

Time to draw the winner of the bag giveaway! There were 12 entries - which tells me that I made the right decision in choosing to sell ffflowers instead - the ffflowers giveaway was far more popular! Still, it is a nice bag and I hope the winner will be happy with it.

So, courtesy of random.org, the winner is... commenter number 4, which is booboocraft.  I'll be in touch to sort out details.

So thank you all for entering - congratulations to the winner, commiserations to those who didn't. 

Most of all, thank you all for turning up and reading my witterings!

Window shopping on Etsy

All the printmaking this week has left me thinking in black and white... see the treasury here.

moaningminnie $39.50	saysthetree $23.00	cobbledtogethe... $40.00	RuthRobinsonCe... $14.50
ArtOnPorcelain $39.90	tangente $130.00	WonderlandRoom $3.80	fibrous $135.00
mojospastyle $45.00	Elze $120.00	ancagray $45.00	bazketmakr $125.00
ClareBears $149.00	Culinarium $48.00	LittleBeanPrin... $20.00	pipistrellecro... $66.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

Framed

Having said I probably wouldn't, I have decided I would like to frame my prints. So I have been rushing around like a mad thing for the last couple of days trying to find frames that were reasonable quality without being horribly expensive... I had a nice frame from Habitat (which was a bit expensive) but of course Habitat are no more and all the good stuff has gone from our local store.  And I wanted to see before I bought so buying online wasn't really a possiblility either.  So this is the first attempt - sorry about the rubbish photos.  I like the size and shape but the frame colour is darker than I want and the mount is far too white... but I'm nearly there! Who would have thought that art would involve so much shopping?!

I'm pleased with this particular print, it captures the feel of our beach for me.

Here's a picture so you can see what I'm talking about...

Folksy Friday

My Friday look at the work of some of the talented artists and makers selling on Folksy. Hover over an image for more details or click on each one to go direct to the listing.

I've gone for linen this week - I love the combination of natural linen with splashes of red or orange.



My bag giveaway is still open until Sunday - if you haven't entered and would like to the details are here.

Weeds

My garden has many weeds.  Often they are more interesting than the 'proper' plants.

 

New ffflowers

I have been surprised and pleased with how popular my little 1" flower embellishments have been.  I stock them in sets of 6 on a card.  From time to time people ask me for larger flowers so I will now also be stocking cards of pairs of 2" flowers in my shops.  Here are the first few colours... more to follow.



Available in both my ffflowers shop on Etsy and my ffflowers shop on Folksy.

My bag giveaway is still running if anyone is interested in entering... find the details here.

Finishing things

After feeling that I hadn't achieved anything much last week I've been strict with myself and finished a whole load of bits. So I have a couple of these...

and a bunch of these...

 

These brooches aren't quite finished, they still need felt and pins on the back but they're all neat and have their embellishments on, so nearly there...

The colours in the blue one reminded me so much of my seashore art cards I just had to put a piece of seaglass on it.  All of these will be appearing in my Hypsela shop over the next few days.  

And I can settle down now to do some printmaking without any distractions. I bought a couple of pillow cases the other day and they were somewhat over packaged - each one was wrapped round 2 good size pieces of thick greyboard which will make excellent bases for some more printing plates.

More Collagraphs

I did manage to snatch a few minutes printing time while the birthday party was going on upstairs on Saturday - kids parties are so much less stressful these days!

The prints from the torn paper plate were OK, I can see potential in the textures, perhaps not in this arrangement.  Although I have only applied the ink with a roller, rubbing it on/off gives a different effect again.

And I definitely need to practise getting the prints straight on the paper - it is so difficult!




But it was the plate with the textured acrylic paint that I really wanted to try out and I wasn't disappointed!






For this print I applied the ink with a roller                    and for this I rubbed the ink on with a cloth

But this one is my absolute favourite, again I applied the ink with the cloth, wiping it off in some areas and leaving other areas darker. This definitely has the feel I am looking for and I shall be making more of these plates.

Window shopping on Etsy

What better way to spend a rainy Sunday morning than with a little bit of window shopping?  See the treasury here.

ARTISANIEeurop... $135.00	alexandrafergu... $89.00	FeltByGina $40.00	QuercusSilver $105.00
JolieVintageSh... $117.00	TheSteelFork $380.00	rheaclements $36.00	BeckaGriffin $8.00
SylviaAnderson $18.50	88editions $22.00	inkwhimsy $18.00	Misspottery $150.00
annarubyking $17.00	granatina $60.00	lynswan $26.00	louise35flower $16.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.