Love, Paris!

I make no secret about my love of Paris, even though I live in the North of England I sometimes manage two trips a year if I'm lucky!
We often spot the Eiffel Tower from various places around the city although it isn't often we get very close to it! 

My journal page started as my pages often do with some mop up ink from a tag I made(that's for another day!)

 I also had my spatter brush to help me clean up some black paint I had been spattering!
I used a variety of stencils, That's Crafty hearts, Dylusions and TCW and a Sarah Naumann Paper Artsy stamp!
I used my new favourite stamp from Crafty Individuals by Ellie Hargreaves and then reached for an image, there were no appropriate paper dolls so I looked through some old papers (so old I can't remember whose they are!) and found these cute birds that are looking upwards towards the Lin Brown quote and the tower!

I am joining in with Elizabeth's 'Hearts' theme at Art Journal Journey
and also..
Country View Challenges - Splatters, Splashes and Drips 

The Funkie Junkie Blog Challenge - Love Is All Around

Thanks for looking, Chris

T Stands for....time to play!

Hi everyone, I am still knee deep in things to sort out in my craft room but I have space to play!

Today however I am going to show you something that hubby and I have been doing together!

Not my photo - from internet

A little while ago we visited the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester with our friend. I used to visit weekly when I retired and hubby was still working, since then it has been refurbished and now has a large restaurant with windows all around to show views of the surrounding park.

We picked upside leaflets, one of which was advertising art workshops every week in term time!
Our friend, who says she is not artistic, decided to go the following week, as she is making attempts to find social opportunities following the death of her husband.

I wish we had been able to go as she came back with a lovely needlefelted mushroom. The following week we were also unable to attend and she told us the topic had changed to printmaking. Her reports of this were not so favourable but we were very interested.
She couldn't make the following week but we did!

We took the inspiration from a temporary Cezanne exhibition for our etching print.
I made a big mistake and kept mine simple - hubby chose a Cezanne
self portrait

We used silver card for our interpretation.
However much I tried I could do very little to create something interesting...

 ...and I clearly haven't got the pressure correct either! Hubby on the other hand started well... 

... and finished with this!

So, we all went last week!

from the internet

We started with lunch in the gallery, no huge sandwich for hubby this week, he had soup! I opted for falafel,coleslaw and beetroot hummus, which came on a huge flatbread! It was delicious, but I couldn't manage it all!
It is here I will also show you my qualifying drink to join Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T Stands For Tuesday!

Our friend doesn't want to be on photos so this is just mine, we all had water to drink!

The printing technique this time was lino cutting, once again I made a bad choice and hubby really enjoyed doing his!Our inspiration was from the tapestry gallery.

 Hubby's choice

I chose these flowers from a Grayson Perry tapestry from his 
series of tapestries The Vanities of Small Differences   ..about class differences in Britain. This is 'The Upper Class At Bay' I have give you a link as I am sure it will explain more than I can here!

From the internet

If only I hadn't been distracted by the fence, which is what I eventually went with!

This what I ended up with..

...hubby added different colours to his..and wow!

It was still wet when I took this.
It was quite a busy class with some very talented folk..

Add caption 

 This was the last workshop of the term so we are hoping to go back later in the month!

Thanks for looking, Chris   

A tag, a page and a rainy day!

I'm sure we have got away without the really bad weather some folk have had here today but it has been a mixed day! It seemed that every time I woke up in the night it was raining against the window and I could hear the wind. When we got up it was very dark and remained that way with rain going sideways in front of the kitchen window throughout most of the morning...hubby delayed his trip out to get the Sunday papers!(we opted out of church today!)
I spent some time on my tablet catching up with commenting.
Suddenly the skies cleared and we had around an hour and a half of sunshine before...clouds started to form and we had a massive thunder storm!

I was busy in my craft room, first some more mundane sorting, I really have hoarded some stuff!

Then I set to making a tag for Tag Tuesday - the theme is 'Black, White and Red'

I spotted this colourful free paper when sorting through some old mags.
I made two tags then ripped the patterned paper to fit. 
I stamped the white tag with some text from a Crafty Individuals stamp the cut off part of a circle cut in red and added a die cut umbel! The words from a Tim Holtz small talk book were mounted on red before adding!

My journal page has taken a few days to put together I started with some brayered paint then added stencilling, stamping, a little bit more brayering then more stencilling and stamping. I stamped randomly with Leonie Pujols Clarity set of hearts before adding some tape, and the figures, one of which had been part of a card I made for hubby, and the sunflower stamp which fell out of a packet while we were sorting one of cupboards! I mounted the girl to match, I think I even found the paper which had been sprayed on the back with bright yellow.
The words were also from the card and I made another scrappy rectangle to put at the bottom!

I am entering at Art Journal Journey and Elizabeth's 'Hearts' theme

I am slowly catching up with everything although it will be a while yet until I am able to comment as I go!

Thanks for looking, Chris

Share The Love ....

..at Try It On Tuesday! It will soon be Valentines Day so we are in a romantic mood and the TIOT Design Team all have different aspects of love to show you!Please do take a look here.

I have made a journal page as I have been making a lot of cards recently and was keen to get back to my journal.

I started by stamping my favourite Crafty Individuals background stamp in the middle of the page and then added some spatter using the same ink. I started by stamping the quote directly on the page but didn't think it showed enough. I just happened to have been sorting out some envelopes so I grabbed red one and stamped the quote and tore it out. I had already cut out the book text heart (taken from my Arthur book) it had a name in the middle that I wanted to cover so carried on with the red envelope and a small punch to make lots of hearts to scatter on the page.
The doily was in my scrap bag and it was always going to be this couple - who have been together through good times and bad.
They have no need to be attached all the time, just happy to be with each other.

The TIOT challenge runs for two weeks and I hope to see what you make,remember, make anything you wish a long as it fits our theme!

I would like to enter at Art Journal Journey and Elizabeth's 'Hearts' theme


Thanks for looking, Chris 

T Stands For.....Thoughts of Spring

Hi everyone. I had a few problems last week - I still keep forgetting that I can only comment when I am on Chrome if I use my phone or tablet for commenting, so lots of comments went unpublished before I realised!

Today we went for a walk at one of our favourite places - Dunham Massey Winter Garden.
There were lots of signs of Spring, although there was a nip in the air!

 Snowdrops aplenty

 Lots of shoots around too

 It won't be long before this is covered in greens! The volunteer gardeners were out in force!

 I love this fabulous display of winter iris and snowdrops

 These two were just taking their ease when other couple came along, suddenly the new drake charged at this little lady and with a lot of quacking all three took off leaving a a lone duck!

 One hardy little snowdrop

 Lovely to see early daffodils

 Now, although we ate before our walk...no photos, but I do have something to join with Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T stands for Tuesday!

On Friday hubby and I went to a printing workshop at our local art gallery! We went early so we could have lunch first  but it took ages to arrive and hubby is saying 'Cheese' because he wanted to get on with his meal..and so did I!
He had a cheese and pickle sandwich, mine was a sweet potato and hummus wrap! Our drink water.

I'll show you what we did in another post!

Thanks for looking, Chrisx