Whimsical whatnots

I'm winding up my alphabet series with wonderful whimsical words

W is for ... winter, white, wondering, wierd, whimsical, westerns, whiskers, wanted and the wayfaring fairy

Wanted!





















An aged tag I made with a western theme ... a western man wearing whiskers! I love old westerns, don't you? All the old Clint movies, Raw Hide, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, High Chapparal and Alias Smith and Jones (Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry), The Virginian, Bonanza, Young Guns and Zorro. I digress ...

I distressed the tag with acrylics and distress ink, used printed brown paper and a vintage photo with a little stitching and a button from an old pair of jeans

W is for ... a wonderland of winter whites. I love the beauty and tranquility of snow and frost






















1. A kind of magic 2. Colours of Winter, 3. Winter wonderland 1 , 4. Winter goes on

Thank you to my flickr friends and faves for their lovely photos

Wintery





















W is for ... wintery ... a little tag I made with a vintage photo of a girl sledging down a snowy hill, with a white sparkly star and crystal beaded danglies ... nice to hang on the tree at Christmas

W is for white















My inchies for the alphabet challenge at inchybyinch












W is for wonder and wondering what this wierd thing on my windowsill is. I found it washed up on the harbour beach this summer. I'm not sure if it's coral or bone. It has a strange texture and reminds me of some fossilised seaweed I've picked up recently. Does anyone out there recognise it?

Weird and wonderful ... but what is it?













W is for ... whimsical thoughts turning to my favourite seasons of autumn and winter















The nights are drawing in now and the leaves on the trees are just on the turn. My thoughts have already turned to autumn leaves, acorns and berries and it's a good time to pick up some wonderful nature finds from now on. I picked these oak leaves up yesterday outside my gate

Click and zoom for details














Thank you to Julie who sent me these wonderful treasures with the antimacassar, photographed with some finds from my garden

Click and zoom for details
















A rosehip from my garden


















W is for ... the Wayfaring Fairy
























The Wayfaring Fairy

My shoots are tipped with buds as dusty grey
as ancient pilgrims toiling on their way

Like Thursday's Child with far to go, I stand
all ready for the road to fairyland

With hood, and bag, and shoes, my name to suit
and in my hand my gorgeous tinted fruit

Cicely Mary Barker


So, as I'm celebrating my favourite seasons, here is a little bit of Christmas cheer just because I love Christmas all year round

X is for ... Xmas and Xmas Xstitch

















I started cross stitching this holly earlier in the year. I do a bit every now and again. I just might get it finished before Christmas as this rate!

X is for ... Xmas inspiration






















1. I see stars 2. Drum Santa 3. Design ribbons 4. 3.365 ♥

Inspiration for packaging from my Tilda Christmas book. I like the idea of using nature's twiggy bits in my decorating this year and ...






















... I think I will make some prim snowmen for my tree ... but not yet ...


















X is for ... Xmas tag made using a vintage Christmas photo, crinkly chiffon and a pearl button, photo'd on a recipe for Christmas cake icing






















X is for ... X-ray and my inchy for the alphabet challenge at inchybyinch






















After a very busy summer, my sister's visit and an unplanned week away from home last week (only got home Thursday 26th) I am now gradually catching up with work, stuff at home and all my various projects and challenges. The list is long! Had a sleepless night or two wondering how I'm going to get everything done but I just need to keep calm and work through things one at a time



This week I will be blogging more of my pebble sketchbook on the other blog, working on some parcels, making a new calendar for September, having a Crow Day with Jo, revisiting the Fine Art Textile exhibition, more gallery hopping and blogging the final parts of my alphabet


Have a great weekend and week ahead
Carolyn ♥

ps. I hope you didn't find the doll photos too scary. I was just playing!

Whispering winter

Silently snow falls
Flurries of crystal snowflakes
Whispering winter

Whispering winter





















1. Snow in the fog 2. Winter wonderland 1 3. That thing with feathers 4. Black & white snowy things 5. Untitled 6. Frozen bokeh 7. Bird in a tree 8. S N O W 9. Snowflake- pic 30 10. DSC_0478 11. December flowers 12. Iron crow 13. Desolation

All credit goes to the wonderful and talented artists and photographers whose work is included here. Please click on the links to go to the artists' work - for Mosaic Monday and Haiku - Week 1

Haiku Week 1 - I received a challenge to join a group on flickr to post a picture with a haiku verse. A haiku is a Japanese poem composed of three unrhyming lines of five, seven and five syllables often reflecting on some aspect of the season or nature. This is my haiku for week 1

The week ahead - organise my workroom, lay out the background pieces for my projects, work in sketchbooks and make beads from sweetie wrappers

Have a good week - keep busy, keep warm!

Carolyn ♥

In with the new ...

I can't put my finger on it ... I just feel that 2010 is going to be a good year!

It may have something to do with the fact that I feel really focused on my work at the moment and also that January always brings that feeling of there being plenty of time to reach all goals

Calendar for January





















You know I love my mosaics!

Well, on New Year's Eve I had a very belated challenge to produce some assemblages and a mosaic with a black, white and neutral checkerboard/New Year theme for Avant-Gardenist (interior design) and I thought it would also be nice to make a calendar for January in the same theme

Check





















1. Check 2. I think I grew 3. Curiouser and curious, 4. Old checkerboard marble floor, 5. Elements 6. Journal page 7. Yellowbird pendant 1 8. Skeleton watches & pocket keys 9. Cake - Checkerboard layer cake PH0843 10. IMG_3768 11. "Elements" ACEO 12. Newest domino art necklace 13. Knob

All credit goes to the wonderful and talented artists and photographers whose work is included here. Please click on the links to go to the artists' work

Happy New Year





















Happy New Year Treasures






















This assemblage was made on a draught board with lace and handmade paper. I used scrabble tiles for the "Happy New Year" and a collection of treasures that include a piece of pottery found on St. Ives beach, vintage silver buttons, snowflakes from Sharne and a beautiful sliver of crystal agate from the North Carolina mountains given to me by Cathie at Christmas - I wish you could see how it shines like a mirror!

New - Detail
















Ongoing challenges for 2010:

Sketchbooks - a page a day
Cottage - finished this year!
Gardening Monday - 1 to 2 hours on Monday morning
Inchy Challenge - try to make small scale art!
Mosaic Monday - more mosaics
Friday Flickr Faves - even more mosaics
WOW - Ongoing online workshops
Stitching the Textured Surface Workshop - need to finish samples in sketchbook
Crow Days - monthly textile art/craft play days with Jo

Inside a bundle




















New challenges for 2010:

Textile art piece with goldwork - I want to make a textile art piece for my parents' Golden Wedding Anniversary incorporating contemporary techniques, machine and hand stitching with some more traditional goldwork bits on it. I haven't started it yet ... it has to be finished by the middle of February!

Kiss Quilt - The challenge is to make a small quilt (only 50 cm square) on any theme using fabrics in only two colours and the stitching must only be straight stitch (can be hand or machine stitched). KISS stands for "Keep It Simple Silly". I think I can manage "silly"! The challenge is being organised by Dijanne and has to be finished by the end of March!

Festival of Quilts 2010 - I joined Annabel's group last August. I am making an art quilt for Festival of Quilts 2010 Exhibition. I have been working on ideas, brainstorming and gathering inspiration for my piece. I'm going with a St. Ives theme but will share my ideas with you later. I'm aiming to get mine done by the end of May

Work for Exhibition - Later in the year I will be creating new global warming work to go alongside my existing work for a small show of textile art in early 2011. I need to work on this between July and October

Distress
















Slow Cloth - a personal challenge. I'd like to have a larger piece that I can pick up and put down, a slow cloth that will take a long time to stitch, between projects, with lots of hand stitching and beading ... a sampler of sorts and something that I can take on holiday or pick up when I have guests staying at the cottage

Berries in a bundle
















The Erosion Bundle Project - The idea is to create an artistic bundle made from materials of your choice and then either hang it outside ie. in a tree, bury it in the ground or just place the bundle somewhere outside to be affected by all elements of Mother Nature, an experiment in decay and decomposition and what happens to the things inside the bundle

1 January - place bundle in nature
In between - share thoughts and photos
15 April - retrieve bundle from nature, open bundle
1 August - finish art piece using your eroded stuff and rejoice

Layers in a bundle


















I'm very excited about this project! I first got interested in this when Julie tried it last year!

I made a start on this today. I've made 4 bundles. Two to hang in a tree, one to bury and one to place amongst the leaves behind our shed

Inside my bundles I added various fabrics, papers, magazine pages, rusty objects, bark, rosehips, leaves, tea bags, berries, printed matter, seed pods, sycamore seeds, feathers, tie dyed tissue paper, snippets of text, photographs and distressed tags etc.

I shall put my bundles outside tomorrow - 2nd January 2010

















































Art dolls - always inspired by nature and the Mother Nature challenge in CPS I want to create a series of art dolls during 2010 with a nature theme

That's enough to be going on with but I know other stuff will creep in too!

Thanks for being so kind to read my ramblings
Have a lovely weekend

Carolyn ♥

Season's Greetings

I hope you had a lovely Christmas!



We had a quiet one, just hubby and I, watching lots of favourite feel good films like "White Christmas" "Bridget Jones" "Down With Love" "Yanks" and "Atonement" snuggled up in front of a real fire with a tin of Quality Street between us

The tree glistened with white lights and white and silver decorations, snowflakes, angels and frosted ornies

Dreams





















The fairies I made earlier in the year went on for their debut

Love Fairy





















A couple of them flew away to Cathie and Jo ...

Heart Fairy





















Heart from Cathie

















The prim snowmen came out for their umpteenth appearance






















I tried to resist (honest!) but new decorations this year included another large berry heart. They stay out all year round






















... and this adorable little snow covered berry heart






















Hearts featured quite a lot this Christmas. I made heart cards and hearts as small gifts and received hearts back too! You can never have too many hearts made with love ...

You can see more of my hearts on my makey stitchy blog and I will have more in the next post ...

Heart for Missy K





















Heart for Jo





















I wrapped some of my little gifts in paper I painted and printed myself

For Chris


















My friends laugh at me when they come to visit my cottage ... they think it looks like Christmas all year round because I decorate with red berries and prim angels and a lot of my Christmas ornaments stay out all year round like these Santas!






















Hope you continue to enjoy the holidays. Wrap up warm and snuggly. Take care if you have to go out on the icy snow

Carolyn ♥

Magical

Thank you all so much for your get well wishes ♥

I'm feeling a lot better now and I'm so pleased I'm over it in time to be able to enjoy these few special days before Christmas ... the most magical week ...

Magical




















All credit goes to the wonderful and talented artists and photographers whose work is included here. Please click on the links to go to the artists' work

1. White snow crystal 2. Imagine snow girl 3. DSC_0478 4. Untitled 5. | 6. Untitled 7. Snowflake macro 8. As a star in the night ... 9. Tiny houses painted 10. White Christmas Lavender Bird 11. Untitled 12. Christmas snowflake balb 13. This years tree 14. Star 15. Nature's Silver Jewels 16. Hug

... and now Christmas is only a few days away ...





















I've sprinkled Christmas all round the cottage ...

Pebbles, shells and candles

















As you know, I like to decorate my cottage with things from nature such as pebbles, shells and agates. I especially love agates because of the sparkly crystals inside that catch the light












I'm attracted to sparkly things

Shimmery shells














I love beachcombing all year round





















Peaceful colours




















Embroidered leaves, floral and umbel patterns that I love - especially honeysuckle which brings special memories flooding back




















A cosy corner




















Decorating with seedheads, acorns and fir cones















Thinking about the year ahead

While I was resting, I had chance to think about some things I want to achieve next year. No strict resolutions as such, just enjoyable things I want to pursue

Top of the list is to finish off the jobs in the cottage once and for all and I've made a "serious" snagging list!

I would like to experiment more with paint and collage in my sketchbooks, spend more time with photographic projects and I've committed to making a textile art quilt for Annabel's Festival of Quilts 2010 group. I'm bursting with ideas and inspiration for my piece, which will involve a lot of experimentation with fabric dyes, image transfer, printing, machine embroidery and embellishment - very exciting!

Later in the year, I want to work on a large and "slow" soft cloth piece (inspired by Rebecca Sower). I want it to be something that takes me a long while, something precious that I can pick up and put down, take on holiday ... something that will evolve (inspired by Jude Hill)

My hubby gave me this perfect fir cone he found for me!















Well, I shall do my best to catch up with all of my blog buddies over the next few days before Christmas and I will be back with more things here very soon (lots to catch up with!) and there will be some RED I promised a short while ago ...










... and if you (or someone close) are unwell at the moment I'm sending you huge get well wishes too ♥

Carolyn ♥