She had wings ...

... but sometimes she was scared to use them.

 Since doing the CHSI Stitches I've been having anxiety dreams virtually every night.  The dreams are full on, fast paced, technicolour Hollywood couldn't make up this storyline of jumbled together action and images. They are waking me up (or it could be the cough lingering on my chest and / or he sinuses lingering in my head) and I lay there with a what the  .... was that all about???????

So here is my take on an art doll, she isn't funky or quirky or arty, she hasn't got riot girl striped legs or punky hair who glares at you on the bus with bright red lipstick and Goth girl heavy Kohl make-up .  No, she is a shy shabby style peg doll, who takes the window seat on the bus, takes out her crochet, lays it in her lap and stares out of the window dreaming about what ifs. 

Lots of layers of PaperArtsy paint and paper on the heart, sanding and scratching and flicking to get the distress look.  The wings are a MDF butterfly, crackle glazed, distressed and stamped.

Her dress is a piece of muslin stamped with various PaperArtsy A6 plates, her hair is some thin linen floss and her arms are rusty wire. 

As she gets off the bus at her stop, he swings her basket of crochet, gives a tiny skip and a flap of her wings and although its a bit scary not walking on the ground, she smiles to herself as it feels good and exciting to take that step and try out the what ifs.

Hugs
Jo
xx

Fish cakes

I made a card, I don't have anyone to send it to, but yes I made a card!

Actually I made a card to have a go at potato printing for the Craft Stamper, Take It Make It Challenge. 

I selected my potato, didn't have many big ones in the cupboard and this was at 6.00am, so that dictated how big my stamp would be.  I knew I wanted to do a block stamp and then a "shape" over the top.  It needed to be a simple shape so fish it was!

Carved the shapes and let them dry a bit to let the moisture and starch evaporate so they would hopefully give a cleaner less sticky stamp.

Taking some card I cut a 6x6" square and added a rough layer of Lake Wanaka and then Beach Hut PaperArtsy Fresco paint.  I stamped the ship from Hot Pick 1202 in Aquamarine Archival Ink in the middle and then second generation stamping around the edges a bit to fill in the gaps and add some texture. 

Then I took my oblong potato stamp and used it with Space Cadet Fresco paint.  Then using Ice Blue I stamped my fishes.

I needed to reduce the size of the card so it would fit on a square Kraft Card blank. 

I then distressed the edges and used Peacock Feathers and Vintage Photo Distress Ink along the edge, added some stitching to frame it and then stamped fish using WOW Primary Lagoon Embossing powder and the letters from Words Plate 2 from PaperArtsy. 

Quite quick and reasonably "clean and simple" for me!

And why fishcakes? Well, fish and potato of course!

Hugs

Jo

xx