Crochet bag and bunny

and the milk bottles reappeared with a bit of crochet around the top...

great for the kids to carry stuff around in...

or to hold the shampoo bottles in my toiletry bag...

and then the rabbit appeared...

only had leftover bits of cotton to make her...

but she found a home very quickly...

More scraps and bits

I have been building a scrap book...

this "notebook" magazine I kept because it helped inspire us to start this blog...

it's a solid magazine, holding together well...

and the cover was ripped off...

 so I'm now going through all those scraps of paper...

that I've collected over the years...

pleasing images or ideas and instructions for projects...

and gluing them all into one place...

the interesting stories are kept...

gluing only happens on the advertisements...

 then I sorted this old wooden box...

it held a jumble of sewing bits...

ribbons, zips, needles, etc...

the 3 litre milk bottles fitted just nicely...

so I trimmed them to fit inside...

ta da...no more tangled mess...

Garden and storage

we recently had a need to move some old furniture out...

it should go off to a new home at the tip...

but we had an issue with the how?!....

so...

it's become a sculpture in the blank bit of the garden...

anyone for a cuppa and a bit of telly??..

 

only one has noticed with a hiccup of a laugh...

and a - what is that??...

Raylee often asks what's on your work table?...

well she sent me some lovely jars she decorated...

and now they are waiting to be filled with stuff...

on my work table...

and this lot is holding some more stuff...

I cut the tops off the 3 litre milk bottles...

they make lovely containers for little bits and pieces...

and sit nicely in a wire basket...

or the pretty cane one...

on my work table!!...

Scoop Net For Live Bait

walked out the back this morning to ask husband if he would like a cuppa.
 he was sitting quietly in the sun stitching plastic mesh together.
 "guess what i'm doing"? he asked...... "sewing", he answered himself smugly.
 wonders will never cease......what next? i thought to myself.
"what are you sewing"? i asked, politely.
"i'm making a scoop net for  live bait"
ok....i thought to myself as i went about what i was doing.
a bit later he asked "do you know where there is any wire"?
my answer was "no i don't have any wire"........."don't worry i have some " he said.
later on......."do you want to take a photo"?
i must have looked a bit puzzled.
"it's recycled stuff, the mesh was around the gas bottle, & the wire is from the old clothes line."(he recently made me a new clothes line).
"you can blog it" he said , looking at me quiet seriously!
(raylee).

Tea Towels from aTablecloth.......

 ......following on from Simonne's tablecloth post.......made a couple of tea towels & a hand towel from an old hand painted tablecloth.

 a mixture of  cut & torn magazine paper collage & more texture exercises......using paint, moulding gel medium, aluminium foil, & painted papers.

the sun is shining today = happy!!
hope the sun is shining for you too!!
(raylee).

Mixed Media - 365 Creative Challenge 2013

how stunning is this?.........from bits of plastic stuck onto a small canvas with moulding gel, then wrapped with aluminium foil, pressed over the plastic bits & painted with a watery ultramarine blue acrylic!

old watercolours have been dragged out of the box to be scrubbed in places to remove some colour, torn into smaller pieces, re drawn over with oil crayons,...... pink lily .......

gessoed, repainted with acrylics, stamped & stencilled with moulding gel medium, bubble wrap, plastic lids, wood block prints, alphabet stencil, layers of paint,

 i used naples yellow, permanent sap green, brown madder, cad yellow light, prussian & ultramarine blue & vermillion, sometimes  mixed & sometimes straight from the tube, & sometimes watered down.........

 moulding gel in alphabet stencil over watery acrylic, when dry i painted over the lettering formed from the gel moulding medium.

gel medium stencil circles at the top, painted with three layers of acrylic,bubble wrap stamp in the background, pink circles painted with layers of acrylic, small circles made by stamping with a piece of lego dipped in paint.

there are lots of exercises to explore to create mixed media surfaces, i am trying some from the book "Surface Treatment Workshop" by Darlene Olivia McElroy & Sandra Duran Wilson.

thanks for looking at  what we are doing. we enjoy recycling / upcycling, re styling, re building all sorts of things......hope you do too!
(raylee).

Zig Zag Crochet.......

........& on my desk today.

(raylee).

Paper, Glue & Stitches......

this past week has been a mixture of sewing & collage........the first one is a print from a photo of  a collage i put together for our blog, i then collaged onto it & glued on a spotted ribbon border.

 this was my notes page, but i liked how it was going & it tied in with the previous collage so it became a page on it's own merits.

 some interesting history, then & now phones, & experimenting with paper  scraps  from other collages as they were without further cutting or tearing to make another collage page.

a request for a bib for a very dribbly baby......made from remnants, 

 & i made a cover for the altered book  which contains all the "365 creative challenge " pages so far, from furnishing fabric samples from the op- shop.the wrong side of the fabric.....

 ...& the right side of the fabric......what else but blue?

 tied with leather strips & wooden beads.

collages on  the first & last pages...... images of 

" moon angel" from thegraphicsfairy. 

 i like the way the colours of these images blended with the yellow of the book pages  & the grey from a magazine advertisement page. 

lorinda is also participating in the "challenge". to see her collages go here
thank you for visiting.......have a good weekend!!

Boys Presents Handmade

Christmas day was a perfect summer day here........but a couple of boys received warm winter crocheted beanies........the black one was sensibly put away until the winter chills arrive, but the Christmas one was worn on the day. he did get a surprise when he opened the wrapping , his face lit up & he promptly placed it on his head.....i don't think he has taken it off since.
 the response to the plastic patchwork bag made from shopping bags & trimmed with some braid bought at the op shop was just as good, his comment...."that's the coolest bag ever!"
 sometimes smiles are the best presents you can get.
 how was your Christmas?......i hope it was a happy one!
(raylee).