Wednesday 30 November 2022
Wild Lights (photo heavy)
Monday 31 October 2022
October Favourites
Very thin on the ground. And it's not even as if I'm holding back on Christmas cards, I'll add one in here.
The first card is one of my Tyvek pieces - it was for a challenge to incorporate stitching, and I knew it would be easy enough to sew, even though I can't find my good thimble anywhere.
I think the second one will go as a Christmas card to C's friend in Maine who isn't really into Christmas. C saw a woodpecker when he was there early this month, and though he didn't come back with a photo to prove it, he did come back with a couple of the tree where he had seen it, complete with multitudes of holes.
The third one was a variation on the salt technique for a watercolour background, calling for colouring the salt first. I think I probably made both my watercolour paper and the salt too wet, because the piece wasn't ready to use the next day. It had been intended for a Christmas card but my green got totally subsumed by the colours in the salt, and it more said "sea" to me.
Assorted photos - the deer were the first morning it was cold enough for there to be a ground mist in the park. It was more visible on my side of the road, looking into the sun, but it was still worth stopping to take a shot of the deer. The rainbow is over Dublin. Thankfully there wasn't much rain that day, as I had about 22 miles to cycle each way, and really there was only a brief shower just as I was leaving my friend's house. A couple of weeks ago, on the other hand, we had amazing thunder and lightning and rain all one afternoon. I left the building in work thinking I didn't need my rain skirt, and I would just pack it so it would be accessible if I did. By the time I got to the bike sheds, the storm had started. The mass of tiny mushrooms was also in the park. At first as I cycled past I thought someone had dropped some kind of textured bag, so I stopped to look. I've never seen them clustered together so closely like that before. They turned darker brown over time - I was going to take another photo the day after C got back from Maine, but it turned out to be the day they mowed the verges, so they were all gone. The day before I'd been rushing home to get some bread made and hadn't wanted to take any time to stop. My mistake...
I will have some photos from the little seaside town up in the North where C is getting his dental implants. With no Covid restrictions this time I was able to accompany him when he went for his extractions, and I took some good photos but life is busy. And the booster shot seemed to knock me sideways, I took my first sick days from work since some time in 2019, and still feel pretty wiped out.
The header is some type of seed head, taken on a trip to Farmleigh last November.
Sunday 2 October 2022
September Favourites
I should have some photos soon. The nights are getting longer, so hopefully that will be more conducive to making a start on summer holiday photos. And last weekend we managed a visit to the Botanic Gardens before the outdoor sculpture exhibition ended.
In the meantime, this month's header is a photo from Farmleigh last October, and I have a few cards worth sharing.
The panda card was a special request from C's friend who got the sailing ship card I shared last month - he wanted something with pandas for his granddaughter, and I thought the boxed format would be fun for her. And it made me use my bamboo gel prints, which I have a tendency to hold onto as one can never reproduce the same thing twice. I shared a framed hummingbird back in July, which I made for C's birthday. He requested one in card format to bring to his friend in Maine, and I just about managed to fit it on a 7" x 5" card without it looking too squashed.
Friday 23 September 2022
An Owly Birthday
I made this card when I totally failed to find the fun fold I had been planning to use - either I didn't save it, or I just didn't look hard enough. The video by Srushti Patil calls it a Magic Envelope Card. It's a combination of a waterfall card and I'm not even sure what the other fold is called, though I have seen it incorporated in cards before. After making the card, the theme dictated that my second Oswald Owl cushion flew out now with the card, rather than waiting for Christmas. The first Oswald is here. I have one left to knit for Christmas, and then one for myself and I will have got great value from the purchased pattern.
Waterfall panels |
Thursday 1 September 2022
August favourites
August felt like a long, tiring, busy month and I'm quite happy to say goodbye to it.
I do, at least, have a few cards to share even if I have got absolutely nowhere with holiday photos yet.
The header is a photo from our Shannon cruise last September.
The metal tape art one was for the 500th MIXed media challenge on Splitcoast. I reckoned I could make a masculine birthday card for one of C's friends, and by incorporating all the other numbers, the 500 lost any significance.
Here's hoping September will be a happier month.
Sunday 31 July 2022
July Favourites
Not too many. Busy, hot (apparently we had a national record in the Phoenix Park on Monday 19th. It was 33°C, about 92°F). But I have a few cards I really liked.
The hummingbird was from a book of kirigami designs I bought in France. I didn't really have suitable paper, so I used watercolour paper and coloured it with Twinkling H2Os. It was slightly harder to contour, being thicker than ideal, but turned out well. I had planned to make it for C's birthday card, but by the time I added the flower it was too large for a card - I stuck it in a frame instead. With more time I'd have done a better job on the floor, but by then I was rushing to get it finished. The "thanks" card is a lot of offcuts from various backgrounds - gel prints, foiling and whatever else was in my box of saved strips; it's much prettier in real life.