Lotus Blossom

A summer memory as winter hastens on apace - we've had several mornings with heavy frosts and an orange fog alert last weekend.

This card uses the Set of 9 Flowered ATC stamps from Art Neko. It's been coloured and sitting on my desk for a while, and I made a mess of the first background that I tried it out on. So today I simply used a stencil from TCW (it's meant to be a Navaho design, but I think it works for ripples) and misted with blue and gold sprays. The image itself is stamped on watercolour paper, heat embossed and coloured with Winsor & Newton watercolours. I finished it off with some large sequins to mimic the leaf shape (cut from a scrap of polished stone background mostly used for frogs) and some clear sequins and bling.

We had pancakes for dinner the other night - and one of them came out of the frying pan with a perfect little heart on it. We usually have them with freshly squeezed lemon juice and sugar, or warm maple syrup.

Summer and Winter (and autumn...)

A couple of cards using Art Neko stamps - I just love this snowman with his pail full of stars. I'm still trying to create a card that matches the idea in my mind inspired by one of the Mary Poppins stories - this one was for a technique challenge on Splitcoast to fill in the background with black dots, but it comes close to it.  I also feel a re-read of the Mary Poppins books coming on if I can find time.  I think the second one might be my favourite in the series but it's time to refresh my memory. I know I already shared this card in my October favourites, but I thought I'd tuck him in again into this post.

And I went for a summery feel with this sweet little mouse sleeping on a bed of strawberry leaves. It was the little teddy-bear tucked under the quilt beside the mouse that really got me here - and the nightcap!

I did a photo-tutorial for the pillow top background a couple of years ago - here it is:

And a couple of autumn photos. The tree with berries was growing in the community garden in Midleton, I was struck by the deep contrast between the glowing berries in the sun and the shaded part of the tree It almost looked like two different trees. The leaves were hard to capture as they were swirling in the wind; I spotted them on Sunday morning as I walked back from collecting a delivery of wool which was waiting for me in ParcelMotel.

A miscellany

I spotted this utility box art a couple of weeks ago, and have been waiting ever since for a day when there was enough time between an earlier bus on a different route and my own bus for me to get off and take a photo, then get onto my own bus. Yesterday was the day. This one is called Deer Dance.

The next two photos were both taken around work. I'm assuming the black and white one is done using some sort of stencil or mask - to great effect.

And the other few photos were taken the last time I went to visit my dad, walking down the Liffey from Docklands station to get the coach. The Jeannie Johnston is now temporarily closed for refurbishment, but I'd certainly like to visit it when it opens again...the lion and the unicorn are on the Customs House. I did take a couple more photos of the Jeannie Johnston but they're not sharp enough to be worth uploading. There'll be more opportunities.

I'm not sure what those fittings are called that the boats used to tie up to. Seeing them and the bollards brought back memories of when we used to visit and walk along the quays as children when there was still a fair amount of shipping moored along there, including the Guinness boats.

October Favourites...

I had to go back to November 2014 to find a header photo for this month. Not much happened last November in terms of photos, apart from a visit to St. Catherine's Park...so we have a mandarin drake in Phoenix Park.

And a few favourite cards...meet Printy the Snowman. And I love the bottom snowman. He is from Art Neko, but he's not one of my design team stamps, I loved him so much that I bought him myself, so that I could use him as much as I liked with stamps from other companies. With his pail full of stars, he reminded me straight away of the chapter in Mary Poppins when Mary and Mrs Corry take the gold paper stars that the children saves from their gingerbread and pasted them into the sky.