Tangles

I am completely addicted to Zentangles, I find them very therapeutic, building up all those tiny little patterns to make a bigger picture, as I have come to the end of my first book I thought I would share a couple of my favourite tangles.

This is the last tangle in my book

I have just been given a new book "Time to Tangle with Colour" and have a brand new tangling book to play in, can't wait to get started!

Where have I been???

I can't believe I haven't blogged since April, where has time gone?  I had been busy with my Mum and Dad's 50th Anniversary, arranging a party for them and putting together a 50th Anniversary Scrapbook which was good fun but quite emotional with all the old photographs.  

We had a great holiday in Kefalonia, beautiful island & very hot, had birthdays and was lucky enough to get tickets for the Olympics!

So now it's time to get back to crafting!  I have been taking some inspiration from Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday videos, www.donnadowney.com, one in particular from March using texture paste  and a stencil, Caran D'ache Gouache watercolours and Pan Pastels.  I used a very coarse paste, I think it would have been better with a lighter one.  I filled in the background with the water colour and went over the paste with the pan pastel.  The centre piece is stamped in versa mark with pan pastel over.

Donna Downey Weekend

A couple of weeks ago I was very lucky to be sent on the Donna Downey weekend for my Birthday which was organised by Creative Moments in Yeovil.  The weekend was held at the Custard Factory in Birmingham.  I set off before 8am to get to Birmingham in time for the class at 10am.  There was an accident on the way up which mean't my junction was closed, I had to come off the motorway one junction early, lucky I had Tom with me, he redirected me to where I needed to be.

The Saturday was Scrapbook Day.  We made Donna's "Vintage Chic" album, a mix of card board pages edged with inka gold and layered with muslin, burlap, flowers, book text and frames.

The second project was a scrapbook page made using two canvas heart sheets.  The canvas pages were torn, one horizontal and one vertical then woven back together, hopefully getting the heart back together in the right place!

The classes finished at 4pm, off to find my lovely hotel!!!!  I arrived at reception in the middle of a stag weekend, I couldn't understand a word the reception guy was saying to me, not sure what I am agreeing to!!!!  Alexa arrived a bit later to rescue me, we had an interesting evening in the hotel bar!!

Day 2 is an Inspiration Day, using Pan Pastels which I was really looking forward to.

First class of the day is Speckled Nest.  Donna taught us how to draw and paint the tree and make it look like bark.  The leaves were made from wetting and crumpling card stock.

Second part of the day was the Pan Pastel class, I now love Pan Pastels and had to buy a few!  It was a good introduction how to use them and shading etc.

We covered the canvas board with a layer of tissue then dried completely.  Used a crafters workshop heart stencil and the red Pan Pastel for the heart with black shading.  After spraying with fixative we covered the rest of the board in turquoise and finished off with flourish and word stamps.

We also had an evening class - She is Strength Poppy Collage - I think this was my favourite of the whole weekend, closely followed by the Pan Pastels.

After a very long and enjoyable day it was back to the hotel, hoping for a quieter night.

Day 3 was Art Journal Day.  We were given one of Donna's Fabric Journals which we filled with lots of paint techniques.

Image transfer

This was a good exercise, taking a small part of a magazine picture and  building up  around it so you can't see where the  picture starts and ends.

And finally some general pics of the Custard Factory and Donna.

Donna, Me, Alexa and Emy

Thank you Donna for some amazing classes, and Creative Moments for organising and to Mark for sending me!

Oh and I just had to share this entrance to the car park, crushed cars!!!

Fun with the Glitter Girls

As it was half term last week and Sarah was working I got to spend a lovely day with Ellen and Grace crafting in my house.  They had canvas's to paint, masks to decorate and badges to design.  They both started off with their canvas pictures of boats on the water, then of course Grace had to add GLITTER!!!  We had glitter everywhere, on the canvas as well as added to the masks, but I have to say they did a great job.  Grace asked me for a small pot so she could collect the glitter from the table and make up her own colour!  My carpet is still sparkling!!!

And after a hard days crafting, we got to go to Frankie and Benny's for tea!