Dragonflies.

Been very hot again today.... I've been playing near York (a couple of hours drive away from home) and it was really too hot to be on a bowling green. When I say 'playing' I use the term loosely - Today was not one of my better days...... but there you go, game's gone now and there's nothing I can do about it... but it does make me feel bad when I think I let my team mates down.

Anyway, enough of the self pity!

The theme at Big Art Adventure this months is 'Dazzling Dragonflies'.

My card stock has recently become very depleted so I took the opportunity to make a greeting card.

The background paper is from Elusive Images and the dragonfly stamp was courtesy of this month's Craft Stamper magazine. I stamped the image in white ink onto some vellum. Once dry, I cut the images out and added the tiny pink beads for the dragonfly's body, then used some glitter round the edges of the wings. The glitter caused the wings to curl slightly but I like the effect so I've left it!

Finally I layered some fabric flowers in co ordinating colours and added some ribbon.

Mother Nature

I suppose many of us could be forgiven for thinking Spring had arrived here judging by the lovely weather we had last week and at the beginning of this - once again we were fooled! Despite the blooming daffodils and other spring flowers Mother Nature dealt us a blow with some really cold winds, very heavy showers and grey skies!

I have completed a piece today and have submitted it for two challenges.

The theme at Awfully Big Art Adventure was set by Patty and it was to 'alter cutlery'.

Heather had set a theme of 'Mother Nature' on the Saturday Surprise blog.

Having viewed some amazing pieces of altered cutlery on other blogs I managed to dodge the husband before he put locks on the kitchen drawers and found a couple of old forks. Unfortunately, the forks weren't old enough because they were almost impossible to bend!! (They must have been nickel plated.)

Undeterred I managed to bend the tines on one even if it wasn't to the shape I wanted!

I alcohol inked the fork using 'Lettuce, Meadow and Ginger' inks. I made Mother Nature in the centre of the fork with a Sculpey head (smudged suitably using a felt pen before colouring the mouth and eyes), and made her hair from a collection of fabric leaves wound onto long wires. The wires I then wound to create arms and legs. I added a sparkly dragonfly a shell shaped flower with a silver ladybird charm and the words Create and Grow which to me represent Nature. Finally I put the little foam bird onto the top of the fork with a few tiny twigs and a piece of green wool to try and represent a nest.

This was one of those things where I was quite surprised that it turned out not bad for a first attempt.

Box

I was sat there on Thursday looking round the crafty space for a cardboard box when the postman arrived. The kind people at the electric company had sent me 2 free low energy light bulbs - I wasn't bothered about the bulbs but was more interested in the packaging!

The bulbs were contained within a cardboard box measuring 6" x 4".

Tossing the bulbs aside I thought this little bit of cardboard was just the right size for me to fiddle with so I could take part in this week's Awfully Big Art Adventure which had a theme of 'alter a blank'. I had been really excited at being put onto the front page of ABAA with my milagros heart and then disappointed last week when I hadn't found time to take part in the challenge again - so I was determined that one way or another I would find a box or something to alter this week!

After moaning to my lovely postie that the box wasn't in mint condition (those nasty people at the electric company had glued labels and stuff on it and one of the sides hadn't been folded under properly) I decided to make a 'Memory Box' with it.

I covered with some mulberry paper that had a 'raindrop' design on it and added some antique lace round the entire base of the box. On the top I used the same lace and made a 'bouquet' of fabric roses, blue and cream organza ribbon , with a gold and pearl wire flower bunch. I finished the bouquet by cutting out a cardboard bird. A chipboard 'Memory' sticker finished the top of the box and a fabric rose onto the front conceals the velcro 'hook and loop' fastener underneath.

Milagros Heart

Looking at the blogs of two of my very talented friends recently, I thought ' I'd like to have a go at making one of them!'

'One of them' was something called a Milagros Heart and it was this week's challenge on 'Awfully Big Art Adventure' . I have to confess that I didn't know what a Milagros Heart was until I saw the explanation on Jan's and Maureen's blog.

The word Milagro means 'miracle' and in Latin American countries such as Mexico and Peru, milagros are small metal religious charms which are pinned to wooden statues or crosses of various saints.

I made the heart shape from mountboard and covered with paper from the 'Once upon a Time' paper stack then added some Enchanted Gold embossing powder round where the picture was to be sited. I thought this image of the Madonna was so beautifully serene and hope it is up to the mark for the ABAA challenge.

Once I'd placed the image onto the heart I then triple embossed the whole piece. The metal embellishments were originally intended as corners for scrapbooking. I added the metal cross and the metal heart with wire to two of the metal corners and put them at the top of the heart shape, adding the third corner to the bottom of the heart.