WOYWW 285

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Not too much activity on my desk this week. I got some new stash – a gorgeous art stamp from Stampotique called Kitty Squad which is waiting to be unmounted from its wood block and mounted on some EZ-Mount foam. Also some sticky embossing powder. I’ve made a start on the next section in my recycled mini-album. On the right you can see the new iPod case I got from Ebay – I have an identical black one which is pretty well worn out, and managed to find a replacement – it’s fine except it’s pink, which I didn’t want! They are very rare, but my favourite because you can attach a neck strap to the ring.

Oh dear, I’ve just noticed I’ve got another dirty paint jar on my desk… Hopefully this one won’t hang around for as many weeks as the last one!

I’ve also been doing a bit of sewing, altering some more bedding to fit my new bed. Even when cleared, the work surface isn’t very deep for folding and cutting! I think I may need to pull out all the pull-out units to make a cutting surface…

I’ve not been too well this week – one day in particular I had a tummy upset and felt pretty lousy all day but slept a lot which helped. We had a busy day out one day, and we dropped my defunct NAS drive in to my fav computer shop in Plymouth in the hope he can get it up and running again for me, and my hubby encouraged me to do some retail therapy in the market where I bought 3 simply gorgeous gorgeous tops… I love markets and charity shops. You can pick up some real bargains.

Had my first soap making class last Wednesday and I made a couple of really simple melt-and-pour soaps, including one for my hubby which he loves as it doesn’t upset his skin! I have ordered a special teddy mould just for him and am going to make all his soap from now on!! Since the teacher provides all we need for the class, if I’m going to go on with this, which I want to, I need to get a few supplies in, so I’ve been shopping on Ebay and am looking forward to some nice parcels arriving over the next few days. Some of the things will have multiple uses in the studio which is great.

Yesterday I started to strain my lavender oil that has been infusing for a couple of months. Our neighbour gave us a huge quantity of lavender that she’d cut back in her garden, and I filled a jar with it and topped it up with grapeseed oil and left it to infuse in the airing cupboard. It has darkened in colour and smells simply marvellous. I am hoping to be able to add some of this to my soaps.

This week I got some A4 Tyvek envelopes from Ebay. I can get a whole A4 sheet and two smaller pieces from each envelope, and it works out at 17p a sheet, which is considerably cheaper than the price a lot of the art suppliers charge. Wonderful stuff for melting and painting, and it apparently cuts very well indeed on electronic cutting machines, and once I get mine up and running again I am keen to try this – for cutting really detailed pieces which won’t rip when you take them off the carrier mat, and also for cutting stencils.

The result of my latest blood test shows that at last I am no longer anaemic! I shall be carrying on with just one iron tablet a day to keep me topped up, and hopefully I won’t slip back again. I don’t feel any different.

Great news – after hitting another plateau with my weight loss, I can now report that I have lost a total of two stone since mid-June when I started the 5:2 diet. I’ve got a way to go yet, and I am determined to reach a weight suitable for my height. Considering we have hosted 3 cream teas in 10 days, I don’t consider this bad going!!

My hubby took the kitties to the vet the other evening to get their boosters done, and they had their usual annual MOT. Uncle Luke (vet, who has a huge soft spot for Beatrice!) told Beatrice to stop purring because he couldn’t hear her heart! How many kitties in your acquaintance purr at the vet’s?!! Phoebe purred too. Uncle Luke gave them both a cuddle, and gave Beatrice a treat for being a good girl. Phoebe’s a little tub and didn’t get one.

Happy WOYWW everybody!

Kitty Squad, Tyvek, a Page About Cars and a Health Update

Yesterday my long-awaited new stamp arrived – it has been out of stock for weeks and I asked for an email alert when they were back in. It’s one of the wonderful Stampotique Originals art stamps, and it’s called Kitty Squad. I just love those cute kitties. They are cute without being cutesy if you follow me – I am not into cutesy lol!! Like all their stamps, it is wood mounted – I don’t like this, and can’t understand why they don’t do cling mount as an alternative as most people are using these nowadays, but at least I shall get another useable wood block for other purposes once I get round to unmounting it!

I shall cut the stamp to separate the kitties, to make them more versatile.

I also got some sticky embossing powder. I thought this was a brilliant idea. You stamp with Versamark and sprinkle on the powder as usual, but when you heat it, it becomes glue! This means you can add whatever you like to your stamped image – foils, glitter, flock, etc. etc. – making them much more versatile. I am looking forward to trying this.

I love how the stuff was packaged. It was wrapped up in red tissue paper with the lovely rough string tying it up, and attached was the little double-heart charm! All these things will be useful in projects.

Also this week, my Tyvek envelopes arrived from Ebay. I was thinking again about getting stuff much more cheaply from different sources from the usual art/craft suppliers who really bump up the price of things. I know that in the USA a lot of mailings are done using Tyvek envelopes because this stuff is so tough and won’t tear, but it is still light, and superficially looks and feels like paper. I had never seen them used here in the UK but decided to have a look on Ebay, and there were masses of them listed, and they are really cheap. Several years ago I bought a couple of A4 sheets of Tyvek at a craft show and spent quite a bit on them, but I have worked it out that I can get a whole A4 sheet and two smaller pieces from each of the A4 envelopes and it works out at approximately 17p per sheet! Not bad, eh? On the cutting machines forum several people have reported that this stuff cuts fantastically well – a very clean and detailed cut is possible, and being so strong, there’s no danger of it ripping as you take it off the mat. Don’t attempt to cut it with a punch, though – I tried this and it jammed in the punch, and I had to prise it apart with a screwdriver!!

I also have some soap making supplies on order from Ebay. Our teacher supplies all we need at the class but since I want to continue at home, there are various bits and pieces I need.

In my Recycled Mini-Album I have now started the page about cars. My dad was very keen on all the cars he had in his lifetime, and only gave up driving when he was 89! So some pages about his cars will be a real celebration. They meant more to him than just a means of getting from A to B.

I began by selecting some images and typing some text, printing them and then cutting them out.

Some of these will be used for the “professional life” pages, but in the meantime I cut out the “cars” text and stuck it down onto the page with soft matt gel medium.

I then added a rough wash of titanium white acrylic paint mixed with Golden GAC-100 polymer.

There may be further layers added to this page – it is still very much in the embryonic stage and I need to think a bit more about what I am going to do! The photos will be laid down over the text and more paint added, and I may add some further embellishment. And, of course, the borders! Watch this space.

I had the result of my latest blood test a couple of days ago and I am no longer anaemic! I need to check with the doctor, but she said to me last time I saw her that once I am back to normal, I may need to carry on with one iron tablet per day instead of three, in order to keep me topped up. I can’t say I feel any different, but my haemoglobin levels were only slightly below normal.

Yesterday my hubby took me back to the mobility centre because the new and improved seats on the small folding buggies had come in. The new and improved buggies themselves are still on order, but at least I could try the new seat. It was very comfortable, and a huge improvement on the original awful bicycle-saddle-like seat! We have decided to get a small foldable buggy that will go in the back of the car so that I can go further afield on outings than with the wheelchair. The big buggy will only go in the car with a huge amount of effort and is so heavy that my hubby says he can feel it affecting the steering. I shall continue to use it for outings from the house, and for church, as it is nice and comfortable when I have to sit for a long time. They think the new ones will be in after Christmas. Again, watch this space!

First Soap Making Class–Learning the Ropes

Tonight I began my second 5-week course of evening classes this autumn. Since my hubby was doing a 10-week water-colour painting course, and the felt class was only 5 weeks, I decided to enrol for the soap making class. This is being taught by the same excellent teacher who did the felt-making course I finished three weeks ago. This time we have moved from the woodworking room at the school, upstairs to the kitchen, which is a gorgeous big, light and airy space with great facilities. It really is a beautiful school – very modern and very well equipped.

I got so carried away in the class tonight, that again, I completely forgot to take any photos during the class!

What we did tonight was to learn the basics of the melt and pour method of soap making, and we each made two basic soaps. This is an extremely simple technique. We were provided with two bags of lumps of the soap base, one white and the other clear, and all we had to do was weigh out a certain amount, and melt it in an ordinary microwave for 30 seconds or less, add some colour (only a few drops necessary) and some fragrance if desired – this came in two forms, either fragrance oil, which our teacher explained was synthetic, and the more costly essential oils, distilled from natural ingredients.

I decided not to add any perfume to mine, as I can be a bit susceptible to strong smells, particularly artificial chemical-type smells, with my M.E., and also I wanted to try the soap first of all in its purest form. Also, my hubby suffers from allergies and his skin is very sensitive to such things, and always has to use Simple soap to avoid coming out in a rash. I wanted to see if I could make soap which would be suitable for him.

The final step was to pour the liquid into a silicone mould and leave it to set. Any bubbles were dispersed with a quick spray of rubbing alcohol. Because our time was limited at the class, the teacher put the moulds in the freezer to speed up the process, but she said it was better left overnight, especially with the clear variety, which tends to go a bit cloudy if it is set too quickly.

There was a choice of moulds for us to use, including one of a gingerbread man. My hubby is very keen on teddy bears, but there was no mould for one, so I chose the gingerbread man as the closest thing! For his soap, I added some brown, and a few drops of orange colouring.

My second soap was made from the clear base, to which I added some glitter. This is cosmetic glitter, not normal craft glitter. When the soap came out of the mould, all the glitter had sunk to the bottom (a common occurrence, it seems) so it was all at the top of the piece of soap once it had been turned out. I have found some special soap base on Ebay which apparently enables any additives to remain in suspension throughout the soap and I may get some of this. Perhaps if I left it to cool a bit more before adding the glitter, it would hold its position in suspension a bit better, too.

We got on quite speedily at the beginning of the class, to enable the soaps to set enough to come out of the moulds so we could take them home. The second part of the class was devoted to the packaging of the soaps, and the teacher had brought along a big bag of sheets of cellophane, ribbons, labels, etc. etc. for us to play with, including some card, and a basic box template to make packaging for our soaps. My box didn’t turn out well; it wasn’t actually quite wide enough for the gingerbread man, whose arms stuck out too much! Also, there were no rulers, and I only had my nail scissors to cut it out. I can make much more satisfactory boxes here at home with all my equipment and supplies.

The teacher had come up with an ingenious way of matching the soaps to their owners – once they are all in the mould it’s hard to tell them apart. She issued us with small circular coloured stickers which we put on the two bags of soap base. Each one of us had their own colour. When we poured the soap into the mould, we had to add a sticker of our chosen colour to the mould beside the soap that was ours. That way each one was reconciled with its owner once they were removed from the moulds.

Here are the two pieces of soap I made. I’m afraid something went wrong with the camera for the first photos – I’ve been having some problems with this on and off, with it not focusing properly, so I’m afraid they are a bit out of focus. The first photo shows the soaps in their cellophane wrappers.

Unwrapped, so you can see them better:

Finally, one of the clear snowflake soap. This one is in focus! I love the ice-blue of this one. It’s really pretty.

This soap is gorgeous to use. It gives a good lather, and is incredibly soft to the skin – my hands still feel really soft several hours after trying it.

In the next two classes we will be continuing with soap making, and in the final two, will be making bath bombs and bath melts.

This first class was really very basic, and apart from choosing colour, fragrance and shape, there wasn’t anything desperately creative about it, as all we were doing was taking some shapeless lumps of soap base and melting them and making them into a different shape!! However, in subsequent classes we will be taking the technique further and learning how to layer differently-coloured bases to create some interesting effects.

One soap the teacher showed us was in the shape of a snow globe. The base of the globe was opaque white, and the top was in the shape of a dome, made from the clear base, and standing up in the middle of this was a tiny soap gingerbread man. There was glitter suspended in the clear soap.

Next week we will be making natural soaps, with different additives such as wheatgerm and loofah. The teacher showed us an excellent book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soaps-Cozy-Elaine-Stavert/dp/1861086458

which has lots of recipes in it, as well as the history of soap making, and some great information about different additives for different purposes. For instance, she explained to us that certain essential oils and other additives are good for different skin conditions, or for different purposes. A soap for the kitchen, for instance, with orange and/or lemon essential oil, will not only smell gorgeous, but will help eliminate the smell of onions from one’s hands.

Our teacher told us how she’d made some dog soap for sale once (called “Dirty Dog” lol!) which contained essential oils for the prevention of fleas, and for a good glossy coat. She also described some gardener’s soap she’d made, which would be lovely to give as gifts in the summer. I recently saw some interesting stuff online about felting around a piece of soap, and a lovely idea of suspending one of these felted soaps over the outside tap so that the gardener of the family (in our case my hubby) can wash their hands before coming in – my hubby always makes an awful mess, with mud all over the taps, and worse, all over my hand towel lol! Men…

Next week we will be making Christmas soaps. One of the examples she showed us was the “Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh” soap, with real natural ingredients, including little flakes of pure gold leaf! It was a small bar, cellophane wrapped, with a beautiful band made from gold embossed paper, with a really oriental and exotic feel. What a great Christmas gift that would make! I couldn’t smell it much because of the wrapper, but I am sure it smelt gorgeous.

Soap making is something that has interested me for quite some time. I have been drawn increasingly to the idea of making our own skin products and cosmetics, and household products, not just because they are a lot cheaper, but because you know exactly what’s in them. I am sure that a lot of the health problems people suffer these days are due in part to the bombardment of our systems by harsh synthetic chemicals. Also, anything to help my hubby’s allergies, not to mention the absolute pleasure it will give me to make things for him with my own hands, that he will use and enjoy, is a tremendous incentive! He called downstairs just after he went up to bed, saying that he’d tried the soap and loved it! Let’s hope he has no reaction to it, but I am sure he will not.

I don’t suppose I shall go all out on soap making because I haven’t got the time, with the other creative activities I am involved with, but I shall make enough for our own use, and for presents. Very satisfying!

Recycled Mini-Album Pages–The Road to the Isles

WOYWW visitors – please scroll down for this week’s post.

After thinking I’d finished the Scottish pages, I thought I’d add one more, devoted to the Scottish song, “The Road to the Isles.” This was my dad’s favourite Scottish song, and mine too – it is so evocative of the pull that the Western Isles has on those with Scotland in their blood, and those who have chosen to be adopted by that wonderful country.

Many years ago when I was a child, and we used to have musical evenings in our home, a couple who were old family friends used to be regular visitors. The wife was a brilliant accompanist, and her husband had a fine baritone voice. While they used to perform classical music, they were also very fond of popular songs, and they regularly performed the song “The Road to the Isles,” which we always used to request because he sang it with such gusto!

In the course of my search for the full lyrics of the song, I came across a Youtube video of Kenneth McKellar singing it. He was a wonderful singer and sings this with great flair. The music is full of “Scotch snaps” and based on the pentatonic scale which is so common in Scottish music. I love the dialect words, and the evocative names of the locations in the Western Isles that so drew the writer of the song.

Anyway, to my page. I created a very subtle (too subtle probably!) background on which to write the lyrics of the song. Here are the materials I used.

I swiped across the pages with the distress stains (Salty Ocean, Evergreen Bough and Dried Marigold) to suggest a tartan design. On top of this, I added some perfect pearls with a soft brush – Forever Violet, Green Patina and Cappuccino. Once dried, it was very dark, but it catches the light, and it doesn’t dominate the text, which was written with the white marker pen.

You can see a bit of the colour on the left-hand page. I added another border, and a few more thistles around the text. Here are a couple of detail shots. The colour shows up much better in real life.

“May the best ye’ve ever seen

Be the worst ye’ll ever see

May a moose ne’er leave yer girnal

We’ a tear drap in his e’e

May ye aye keep hale an’ herty

Till ye’re auld eneugh tae dee

May ye aye be jist as happy

As we wish ye aye tae be.”

…and lang may your lum reek (long may your chimney smoke)!

WOYWW 284

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This week I’ve been alternately busy and poorly (as usual!) and we’ve had friends over for tea on a couple of days, so I was busy preparing that, and then suffering payback on the following day in each case. We’ve got more friends for tea on Thursday. Now we’re really settled after my hubby’s retirement, we are starting to invite old friends over so they can see where we are. I’m making scones and doing a cream tea on Thursday. I think afternoon tea is a dying art which should be revived, and I love getting my doilies and nice china out, and doing a bit of baking, although I don’t do as much as I used to!

Here is my desk for this week.

I am working on new sections in the recycled mini-album now – one on cars, and the other on professional life. I printed out a few bits and pieces on the computer and am fussy-cutting these out for pasting onto the album pages.

I have also finished the Scottish pages. I have soooo enjoyed doing these as Scotland is part of my heritage, and the pages brought back many happy memories. This is the title page for the section. I have printed out an image of the Fraser Clan tartan and also a map showing where the family came from, and created borders suggestive of tartan, and thistles.

The Scottish ancestors page. Swirls and leaves printed with Versamark and Perfect Pearls. You can also see the second tag in the album – its puller has a thistle on it.

Scottish holidays page, embellished with more tartan, and some Zentangles.

I have done a blog post about these pages. Finally, the “Road to the Isles” page. I shall be uploading a post about this in due course.

If you look carefully you can see some colour on the background. I swept across the page with some distress stains and then painted on some Perfect Pearls in a pattern suggestive of tartan. It’s very dark, but the Perfect Pearls are beautifully shimmery, which of course doesn’t show up too well on the photo.

“The Road to the Isles” has long been a favourite Scottish song in my family. We had a great family friend who had a fine baritone voice, and his wife used to accompany him on the piano. This was one song that we always requested. While doing this page, I discovered a wonderful Youtube video of the great Kenneth McKellar singing it – it is full of “Scotch snaps” and the characteristic pentatonic scale so favoured in Scottish music.

I’ve had the sewing machine going this week too, altering some bedding for my new bed. I still have to get the book out to remind me how to thread it… but I can do straight stitching and zig-zag now – considering how much more this machine will do, that’s pretty pathetic really, but I’ll gradually get the hang of it in time.

My knitting is almost finished now, and I’ll upload some photos soon. It’s been two years in the making, but we did move house in the middle so I’ve probably got an excuse! I’m just completing the second sleeve and have yet to pick up the neck and sew the side seams, and then it will be done, in time for the winter.

Happy WOYWW everybody, and have a good creative week.

Remembrance 2014

Today we remember the fallen of the two World Wars and all the other conflicts over the past century. This year is particularly special because it marks the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, which was hoped to be “the war to end all wars.” Those of us who enjoy a life of freedom and democracy should always be grateful for the sacrifice of our servicemen who gave their all to that end.

Here is the remembrance page I made in my art journal.

Let us also remember those who will live the rest of their lives suffering from the wounds they received, serving their country, and their families, and the families of those who did not return.

My grandfather, who served with the Royal Engineers in World War I. He had two very close friends and they all volunteered together. Their plan was to start their own engineering works after the war, but my grandfather was the only one to survive.

We will remember them

Recycled Mini-Album–Scottish Pages

Over the past couple of days I’ve been working on the next section of the album, concentrating on Scottish ancestry, and happy memories of holidays in the Highlands.

The first picture shows the materials used for the Scottish pages. On the left are two stamps – Designs by Ryn: Leaves (CM-F5) and a swirl stamp (CI-182) from Crafty Individuals. This latter is one of my favourite swirl stamps because it is nice and big, and you can use parts of it to good effect. Versamark and Perfect Pearls (Cappuccino and Green Patina), and Black Soot distress ink. Also regular matt gel medium and my normal white marker pen and my thickest black drawing pen. You can also see two cards extracted from my Zentangle album, of patterns to use on one of the pages – Miander and Bilt. These are two of my favourite Tangle patterns – the former, not just because it’s really pretty, but because it can be used to create a lovely border as well as a fill. Finally, the Tim Holtz Dot Fade stencil.

First of all I made the tag to fit in the tag holder I created from the centrefold of the signature by gluing the top and bottom together. I made the tag from some cream card scraps I’ve got, and made a tartan-effect background using distress stains in Salty Ocean, Dried Marigold and Evergreen Bough, swiping over the middle with Picket Fence distress stain to lighten it. The background and journaling are continued on the reverse. I created the puller by cutting two small squares of the cream card and drawing a thistle on each one with a waterproof black marker pen, and painting the details using distress inks as watercolours.

I cut a notch in the tag holder page to match the square tag puller, and this is what it looks like in situ. I painted the cut edges of the notch with black acrylic paint.

To create the background for the left-hand page, I downloaded and printed out an image of the ancient hunting tartan of the Fraser clan, which was then cut down to size. The ancient and hunting tartans of each clan are much more subtly coloured than the more familiar dress tartans, and personally I prefer them.

I also downloaded, printed out and cut to size a map of Scotland, and distressed the edges using Black Soot distress ink. I cut a small fragment of cream card and wrote the name of the village, and distressed the edges with the Black Soot distress ink, adding an arrow on the map and a red circle to mark the location.

The tartan and map page complete, with the tag inserted.

The images were stuck down using regular matt gel medium.

I added a tartan-effect border, and copied the letters of the text from a Google image of Scottish lettering – I love this Celtic lettering. I drew it with the white pen and then outlined it with black. I mimicked this font at the bottom of the page, this time in white only, giving the details of the tartan, and drew a thistle for good measure.

A detail of the title.

On the map page, I stuck down the village name so that its edge butted the edge of the page, and added a border of little thistles, drawn with the white pen.

Turning the page, I stuck down some photos using regular matt gel medium, and added some stamping using Versamark and Perfect Pearls. Finally, some text in white. You can see the tag puller on the right.

A detail of the bottom right of the page, showing the Perfect Pearls stamping and the borders.

The tag partially pulled out.

Turning the page again, we find the Scottish holidays page. When I cut the tartan image down to size, I saved the offcuts and cut them into strips to embellish this page. Again, you can see the tag puller in situ on the left. Before sticking down the tartan strips and photos, again using regular matt gel medium, I stencilled over both pages using Versamark through the Dot Fade stencil, and on the left, leaving some blank page in the centre. I brushed over this with both colours of Perfect Pearl and heat set it.

Detail of the left-hand page with the text and tag puller.

The right-hand page. I embellished this with two Zentangles, Miander at the top and right, and Bilt down the left-hand side.

Detail of the Miander border. As you can see, I continued the tartan effect border of the page beneath, onto this page a little, to add a softer edge and to follow the line of the Miander border.

Detail of the Bilt border. What a lot of legs in the photo!

I hope you have enjoyed this particular trip down Shoshi’s memory lane. By the way, Shoshi is on the right in this final photo.

I am feeling better about completing this album before the end of the year, if I can do more than one page in a sitting!! Also, these pages have no thick embellishments added to them and are no less decorative for that – I do need to be careful and restrain my natural instincts to add huge amounts of texture or the book won’t shut! I’m such a texture junkie that this self-discipline is going to be hard to maintain!

WOYWW 283

For details of how to join in the world’s most famous weekly nosey fest, please click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar, which will take you to our hostess Julia’s blog, where you can find out what it’s all about.

First of all, I’m sorry to have visited so few of you last week. We’ve had a lot of problems with Mum who has been very difficult this week, and in between I’ve been alternately feeling extremely poorly (probably due to stress) and very busy trying to catch up with everything. My poor hubby has been feeling the strain too, and has been quite wonderful throughout, bless him. Time in my ARTHaven when I’ve managed it, has been amazingly therapeutic and stress-busting – my favourite room in the house is well named because it really is a haven from the stresses of our present life!

Here is my desk today.

On the left you will see the recycled mini-album I’ve been working on. I am desperately trying to get it finished by the end of the year but I think that may be over-optimistic! It is open at the latest page to be completed, relating to family holidays at the seaside in the 1950s and 60s. You can see more here.

Today I started on the next section, which will be about Scotland – Scottish ancestry and holidays north of the border. I have made the second tag for insertion in the album, which you can see under the distress ink pad. I coloured it with distress stains, and made a puller for it at the top with a thistle drawn on either side, and coloured with the distress inks you can see in the picture. I have done some journaling on this with a black archival pen. The tag is similarly coloured on the reverse, where the journaling continues. It will be inserted into the pocket I have created at the centre of the current signature that I am working on.

Earlier in the week I completed the page I showed you last week:

and also finished the next page.

This is the finished page, as on this week’s desk photo above:

introducing a bit more colour into the album. I am still continuing with the black and white borders throughout. I need to cut back on the embellishments from now on as the book is getting alarmingly thick and I’ve only just started the second signature! I thought I’d allowed myself lots of room for added thickness on the pages, but it’s amazing how quickly they bulk up.

This week I also hit a major milestone – I got my new sewing machine going! After I got it in the early summer, I put it on the back burner because there were other things I needed to concentrate on, but this week, I needed to alter a mattress cover to convert it from double to single size, and this was a good project to start with, as it was basically just sewing straight seams.

The machine is MUCH more complicated than my old one! The whole job took simply ages, because I took so long pouring over the book just trying to discover how to thread the thing for starters! It is covered with buttons and lights, and so far I’m only dimly aware of what they all do, but I am quite sure that before long, it will all be second nature to me. At least I’ve discovered I can turn it on, and I can do straight stitching and zig-zag, so that’s a start!!

Beatrice, our older cat, has been put on yet another course of antibiotics, and we are now trying her with a different Hill’s Science Plan diet, this time for bladder health. We’ve got to watch her to make sure she isn’t intolerant to it, because she’s been on the Hill’s gastro-intestinal diet up until now, which she is able to keep down – she has such a delicate little tummy! She seems happy enough and well enough, but we just can’t seem to get on top of the infection. I had a long chat about her with the lovely vet who calls himself “Uncle Luke” and who has a massive soft spot for Beatrice – they all love her down at the surgery because she’s such a character and such a good girl when she’s there! (I hope by calling himself Uncle Luke, he isn’t expecting us to come up with a hamper from Fortnum’s at Christmas, like Mrs. Pumphfrey in “All Creatures Great and Small” who had the overfed Pekinese and called the vet “Uncle Herriot”!!) Beatrice has started growing her winter coat and it’s amazingly soft and fluffy, but she’s way too thin underneath. We are feeding her little and often to try to build her up.

Not sure how much I shall get done in my ARTHaven this week, or how many desks I’ll manage to visit. Friends for tea on Thursday, then doctor’s appointment on Friday (another blood test to see if I’m still anaemic). I’m also in the throes of sorting out all my summer and winter clothes, to make the transition now it’s got so much colder!

Have a great week, everybody, and happy WOYWW!

Recycled Mini-Album–Sun, Sea and Sand Pt 2

Following on from yesterday, the partially-completed page was still not dry, probably because the foil doesn’t exactly let the air get at the gel medium! Anyway I thought I’d work on it as it was dry enough to handle.

I chose the Deep Red Seashell Collection stamps that I got recently, and selected three different stamps, and stamped using sepia archival ink onto cream card.

I fussy cut the shells.

Then I applied some of them to the right-hand page, sticking them down with regular matt gel medium.

The next step was to paint the sand, for which I used yellow ochre acrylic paint. The coarse pumice gel medium gives a gorgeous rough texture!

I hand-wrote some text using a medium sepia waterproof pen onto the same card I used for the shells, and added some Tea Dye distress ink.

I decided to add some Zentangles as a border to the right-hand page, and selected three from my Zentangle album. Each of these ATC-sized cards has the instructions on the reverse, for drawing the design. The designs I chose were Agua, Footlites and Float Fest.

I had done quite a bit of work on the right-hand page and forgot to take any photos – after I stuck down the shells, I also stuck down the bit of net that I’d cut off from the piece on the left-hand page, using regular matt gel medium, and then adding a bit more glass bead gel medium on top. I added some shading to the shells, using distress inks as watercolours, in Tea Dye and then some Black Soot because the brown wasn’t showing up enough. I added some text around the edge of the photo to break up the hard edge, and then did the Zentangles using my white pen.

I then added the cut out words to the left-hand page and drew a border around each using the white pen, and stuck down a couple of shells at the bottom, using regular matt gel medium. This completes the page.

Now for some detail shots. First of all, the bottom-left. You can see to the left of the shells that the extra glass bead gel medium that I added has yet to dry – it looks milky, but will dry clear.

Top-left. You can see that I have extended the Float Fest Zentangle a little way onto the page, and added the white outlines to the text pieces.

Top-right.. Float Fest and Footlites Zentangles, and text added around the photograph.

Finally, bottom-right. Again, you can see the glass bead gel medium which hasn’t dried. Agua Zentangle, and a couple of swirls to fill the corner.

I am pleased with how this page has turned out, and with the introduction of some colour into this album. Most of it so far has been very monochrome or sepia. As the family history progresses, there will be some colour photos, and the backgrounds need to reflect this so that they blend in, but I shall keep the palette on each page fairly limited, I think, and maintain the black and white borders throughout. On the above photo you can see again how the borders are revealed by the decreasing size of the pages, adding a deeper border to each page as one approaches the centre of each signature.