Opus Gluei 87 "Key to my heart"

Where has January gone?  I was all set to make a scene for the 86th challenge, and the days went, the challenge changed.........I'm behind already and its only week 4 of the year.  Ah well, I can only improve.

So instead of the little scene I had planned, no not a tantrum (I gave those up just recently), here's my offering featuring hearts rather than keys.  I was going to have layers and frothy bits and glitter and bling, but I used pink instead.  I think I'm failing the glue test, either that or I'm still so relaxed and in holiday mode that two colours are all I can manage.

Next time............

...keeping out of mischief...

Usually on holidays I spend long hours reading, or countless hours playing patience or solving sudoku, but THIS year I've been breaking tiles and making mosaics instead.  Liz and I have been very busy recycling old stormwater terracotta pipes into little masterpieces to hide in the garden.  We think they'll be ideal to support citronella torches, or rest a candle on (in a terracotta saucer), or maybe a plant in a pot.........  Here's what the pipes look like in the raw.....

We've made six, and I've added a photo of a finished one in situ.  The garden behind it is a mixture of dietes and violets (and a weed or two) so the mosaic has some stylised dietes on it.  When I was weeding I found a ceramic ear from a broken dolls head, or maybe a quirky tea set (?? who knows?  I'm not the original gardener) so its hiding amongst the dietes petals, but you have to look hard to see it.  Liz says its like a signature, something that makes the finished product mine alone.  Certainly no-one else is jumping up to take the credit, so mine it is!! 

This has been over a week of the most enjoyable time I've spent in ages..... quiet mutterings when two pairs of hands hunt for the perfect shape, sighing over having to wield the hammer to break up more tiles into handy pieces, taking it in turns to make restorative coffee.....  Celebrating the work of kindred spirits.

More grouting to be done and then I'll have to find those torches that are hidden in the garage and see if it was a good idea after all. 

New Year again

......and there were Christmas cards I should have sent, WOULD have sent, if only I had spent less time cooking and more time in the busy room.  In a rare fit of tidying, I also made a start on culling the many bits and pieces I put aside "to look at" and kept because there's a picture or a colour that caught my eye.  I loved the textures and patterns in some of the paintings in the brochures from the National Gallery, so before finally putting them in the recycling bin, I pulled out just a few and used them here.  Black, of course, and my favourite image of this time of the year - the peaceful dove - combined in layers and a wee bit of ribbon.  Found another use for the big punch that gives me a luggage tag shape, and only just remembered that there are several hundred REAL tags in a box of other really useful things....... 

Hope this qualifies for the "year" bit Poobahs, now to make something else a bit more "happy" or maybe something related to "baby".  Could also show you the "new" thing I'm in the middle of but its still a mess 'cos its a mosaic piece for the garden and they never look any good til the grout goes on.  If I get it finished in the next few days, weather permitting, I'll post a picture of it, I promise.

Special destinations

I've been lucky enough to have made several friends across the world through the simplicity of paper and the entries of this blog, and every now and then comes a chance to send something across the ocean in thanks.  I like to think of these other women always in good spirits and smiling at their world, but of course like me, they have great times and grumpy ones, smiling happy days and dark miserable ones too.  We never know what mood our readers are in, just as they never know what lies behind the posts or the comments we make.  

I love to open my browser to find notification that a comment has been left on one of my posts, but I never open that email because I want to read the comment where it was added - thus many a time online begins with "I'll just check my email and then I'll start dinner..." - and ends much later while I follow threads of conversations and comments from my distant friends.  It got me thinking about the importance of keeping in touch, and how small things can make a difference. 

The cards in this posts today were made for people I've never met in person, yet.  There's a lot of meaning in that one tiny word........who knows what lies ahead?

Special destination 1:  This card used a piece from the La Creme stack which came in the post many many months ago.  I was aiming for something elegant and rich, but as always I am seduced by the paper and probably don't add enough elements.  Paper designers go to so much trouble and I often cant bear to show only a tiny piece, but maybe this was bit too much?  Its felt-textured too, so I continued the richness with silver gilt paper and ribbon.  Even the rik-rak is velvet.....

Then I got a bit carried away when another of the TE kits arrived in the post and I ventured back out into the rainbow.  

Special destination 2:  This card is still a celebration of the fabulous floral paper, but I did allow a bit of room for some restrained greens.........  More ribbon (you should see how much lies spooling in the corners of this space) and a butterfly of sorts, just because.....

The two greens came from the 2010 August and September kits, and the floral DP has a lovely linen texture and is from a collection called "Restoration" which also came with the September kit.   This is one paper that I'm hoarding every last scrap to use.