More backgrounds..

..and very little else! We've been out and about, back and to, playing with grandchildren, so very little time for crafting. I have been doing some needle felting but no photos yet,just doing this before we're off again!! 
I did these before the start of the school holidays.

I really am going to use some of these this weekend, the first was made using torn book pages,gessoed over,then, with Silkies and Distress stain used stencils, bubble wrap and tissue tape.  
The second was some very garish free paper from a magazine, torn up,gesso again, then distress stains(faded jeans and peeled paint) over the top.
I have also prepared a couple of pages using a technique from Pats blog using gesso to create texture.


I am also looking forward to trying something from Elviestudio's blog here and if you follow the link at the bottom of her post there are some fantastic clips on making backgrounds.


Here would have been piccies of the bookmarks I made for Heather's bookmark swap, but in typical pearshaped fashion I forgot to take photos LOL 


Right off to have brekkie then we're off again, whoopee!!


Thanks for looking, Chris

Lindsay's Workshop

If you take a look at Lindsay's blog here and then look at my efforts you will see why my blog is called pearshaped crafting!
I thoroughly enjoyed the day at St Helens and learned a lot but sometimes I just seem to miss a crucial point!

This was my favourite, using Ranger craft resist paper, a fabulous product and afterwards bought myself some to play with.

Such brilliant ideas and Lindsay's stamps are fantastic(I've been trying to get my hands on her fairy stamps for ages and finally managed to get some after the workshop) We also got to use some Darkroom Door and Andy Skinner stamps too.

It was great to catch up with everyone (a few giggles occasionally) and David was a lovely 'glamorous assistant' making sure we had plenty of drinks to keep our voices from seizing up!

It's Lindsay's birthday today and I hope she is having  a lovely day!

Thanks for looking, Chris

  

Morning Has Broken..

I love listening to the birds in the morning and this journal page just seemed to fit with the background I prepared some time ago, I just added some mop up paper towel, then used yet another(clean) paper towel to add some 'snowcap' paint dabber for clouds and then turned the paper towel around and dabbed 'lettuce' through a piece of lace to make a couple of bushes. I drew the tree, birds and birdhouse with Tombow pens.

I have also made some more of these.....

At the weekend we were planning to go to a Food and Craft show at Dalemaine House but when we got there it had been cancelled! Never mind...just down the road was the Alpaca Centre, smiley little things they are! Ooh! and guess what? They had this HUGE bag of clippings! Great for needle felting! Gorgeous subtle colours!

the tissue box may give you an idea of the size of the bag

We had a lunch in the Rhegged Centre then on to have  wander around Penrith, a lovely town if a bit sprawling. Walking down by the church I spied a craft shop(Penrith Crafts) - fantastic - small but very well stocked so bought myself some more Claudine Helmuth stickybacked canvas and multi medium matte gel...thought that was it, but the owner was so enthusiastic about a new product she had in that I just had to have some - haven't tried it yet, so looking forward to that today.

On the way home we decided to go to Shap Abbey, so pleased that we did. No one else around, we got a real feel of the isolation of the place, up a winding path then round to the front of the abbey which was huge, although ruined (thanks to Henry Vlll!)A lot of the original stone had been taken for building farm buildings in the nearby area but English Heritage have put signs around and you can imagine just how busy a place it must have been!

The weather stayed fine so we still had a lovely day, 

we did wonder what weather we were going to have when this was our view on Friday night!!

Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments, 

Chris

Little strips

I'm still enjoying my needle felting,

although I have been making a couple of cards and playing in my journals. A few weeks ago I bought a bag of felt bits from Abakan in Manchester, some were quite big pieces, but some were just little strips.

Thought they might come in handy for leaves etc. but then started playing...

I've since made ten of these strips in different colours and I'll show you them when I've "done" something with them.


We had a lovely time in the sun at the weekend. I was treated to lunch at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe, then 'found' a new cafe/gift/fabric shop in a side street called Warehouse 13 and bought some lovely lace. 
On Sunday we went to Fairfield Mill in Sedburgh, such inspiring work, will have to go back midweek sometime though as none of the artists were in their workshops.There is such a range there... textiles, photography, paintings, sculptures, mixed media, the list goes on...well worth a visit if you are up in the Lake District and the views around the area are breathtaking!
From there we went to Hawes and had afternoon tea at the Wensleydale Creamery mmmm....

On the way to Hawes-just had to stop!

When we arrived on Friday evening we saw this little scene at about seven o'clock, 

I was immediately transported back about 54 years..whenever I've seen tractors mowing hay or modern hay bales in black plastic it has meant little to me, but to see this scene took me back to the days when haymaking in the farming area I grew up in was a social affair involving children and neighbours.

The next morning at six o'clock this is all that was left.

We also saw some spectacular skies 

My lovely hubby laughs at me sometimes because, in his words, I have a "soppy grin" on my face when I stand at the door just looking out at such things but I am just appreciating how lucky we are! 

Thanks for dropping by, Chris.

Scrap challenge!

I think I may have mentioned........I have a problem with throwing anything away...is it called "Crafter's Disease"?lol. A couple of weeks ago I made a little book(here)to use up some scraps(I've started another too)and following that I was encouraged to take part in the Stampotique Designers Challenge - 'Scraps' set by Valerie. I already had a background page in one of my journals so I stamped Mothfab onto the back of a piece of card that I had been testing inks on. 

A flowery scrap from card making along with some scraps given to me by a friend(what sort of friend gives away scraps?-watch this space!!), some more bits from testing watercolours and a little bit of my dreadful hand writing to explain how I felt on this particular day(I had been shopping!)Hope you like it!

Thanks for looking, Chris.

Six months gone!

I can't believe it's July already and I've actually kept up with Kate's 365/2011 Journal (if you don't know already look here)
Here are my filled in June pages

I seem to have packed quite a lot into 30 days despite having a poorly hubby for most of them!! 
My July pages are about the garden, the lull is over and now the summer plants are really showing their colours now!

I've just used an Imaginisce Snag'em stamp and an Artemio flower from a set of flowers and a selection of Distress inks to stamp randomly for a background, masked off an area for Mort with a curl(Stampotique) and a wood mounted favourite of mine from Inkadinkado. The little Stampotique bird is called "Strut Your Stuff" and I just love him!!
I'm going to enjoy getting back to my garden this month!
I'm looking forward to having a look at how others see July!
Thanks for dropping by and I will enjoy reading any comments made.
Chris