Folksy Friday - Home Sweet Home

As some of you may have noticed, I have been super happy to return home this week, therefore my folksy friday theme this week, as with my previous blog posts, is 'home sweet home'. As always, clicking on the image will take you to the folksy shop :)

Neglected!!

My poor blog seems to have been somewhat neglected over the last few weeks. I have been a little bit busy, but not with all the creative things I should have been doing, but now it is back to business.

Firstly I want to thank Rainbowfizz and Nat from Nat's Nest for nominating me for a sunshine award. I am very flattered that you both thought me a mention.

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  These are the rules of accepting this award -
  
  
  Sunshine Award Rules
  
  The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity & creativity inspires others in the blog world.
  To accept the award:
  
  Place this award on your blog or in a post
  
  Pass the award on to 12 bloggers
  
  Link the nominees within the post
  
  Let the nominiees know they have received the award by commenting on their blog
  
  Share the love and link to the person from whom you received the award.
  
  I guess we all know what it is like to write a blog sometimes, and feel like no one ever reads it, so the awards are a lovely way to show each other appreciation and spread the word :)
  
  
  So here are my nominees:
  
  
  Adventures of the Squeegee
  Bonbi Forest
  Clair Wolfe Jewellery
  Dinky Daisy
  Hamilton Jewellery
  It belongs to Turtle
  Little Scruffs Miniature Bears
  Mad About Bags
  Maya Made
  Pips
  That Crafty Fish
  Exploring the Art of Polymer Clay
  
  
  Thank you again for my award guys, and thank you Nat for helping me when I was confused!
  
  
  So what else have I been up to? Well there hasn't been too much making going on, as I spent half of last week back home at my parents. I wasn't able to see my mum on Mother's day so I went up early. It was really nice to see my folks again, and I was able to see my brother and sister and both their families too :) I was finally able to give my brother's family their christmas presents, as the snow over christmas had stopped us from seeing them. We got our gift of wines and chocolates - some of the chocolate may already be gone :).
  
  
  My niece had asked to see my old Sylvanians, and it was great fun sorting through all my old toys and school work from the attic. I was pleasantly surprised that all my Sylvanians were all still in one piece, I used to be so careful with them, it is amazing to think that they are 20 years old, and that now my niece plays with some of the same characters.
  
  
  I took a visit to my old first school too, to see my niece get praised for her great work in assembly. I was a very proud aunty! It was so weird walking into the old hall, and remembering how big and intimidating it used to seem!
  
  
  Also my mum gave me a tool kit, it used to belong to my nan, and now with all the crafts and making that I am doing, my mum thought it might be useful for me.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I love it, it is heavy, and all the tools are heavy and solid. I also love my grandad's old tobacco tins (back from the day when they didn't know smoking was bad for you), they have so much character, oh, and the old tape measure that smells of dressmaking.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I am back home now, and trying to figure out what to start on next. I am still trying to potter along using up all the resources I already have, so I don't have to spend any money. I used the last of my photo corners yesterday making cards. I have been creating with lots of cut out bits of paper and paint, these cards are prints from the original collages.
  
  
  
  I am now out of photo corners and envelopes, and I could also do with some new paper to print on, so it looks like next week I will go back to using up my polymer clay, or drawing??

  
  

Bunnies, Mushrooms, Hearts and Trees

Well it is the end of another week, and the time in between my last post seems huge, how did time fly by so quickly!

I have been giving the birds a rest this week and have tried to focus more on illustration. I have found it to be pretty trying, once upon a time I felt nothing of picking up pencil, paint, paper and glue and following my instincts, but after training as a Graphic Designer, I'm a bit out of practice. My mind now works around, 'but why are you putting that there, what does it communicate', which I think is quite useful, but it does occasionally stop me from just going with the flow. The worst thing of all though, is desperately trying to teach myself to paint again, with the knowledge that there is no 'history', or cmd z button to help me out should it all go horribly wrong!

The first pieces this week are my bunnies, 'Bunny by Night' and 'Bunny by Day', a couple of mixed media pieces featuring a cheeky little bunny eating all the flowers. Not only was I trying to get back to my painting, but I decided to throw some fabric and sewing in the mix too, hey why not :)

I am also trying to decide what scoring board to buy, so I can crack on with some card making. Do I get a plastic one? Will it warp, bend, move around too easily? Do I get and MDF one? Will it be too bulky and heavy, will bits chip off it? Most important of all, where will I find it cheapest? Obviously I ended up stumbling across a manual mechanical one that I simply cant' afford - but I still want it!

One of my card ideas is similar to this, cup stains! A little cliche, but I thought it could be quite cute to use as a note to say 'hi' to someone you would like to meet up with, that you haven't seen in a while. I seem to have incorporated a bit of hand sewing into this too!

Finally I love to doodle! The only time I relax and stop worrying about making mistakes is when I doodle. I doodle lots of odd things, such as mushrooms...

...and decorative patterns, that usually include circles and spirals, I love circles and spiral, or any organic kind of shape really. I have been drawing by hand, and made one attempt at painting. I actually really enjoyed it, it was very theraputic, but it was here that I realised just how reliant I am on cmd z. I love working digitally, but it is definitely time to get back to your roots when you begin to rely on the computer too much.

I was really pleased with the results of my tree efforts. I removed the original outlines and was left with something quite fragile and organic.

My other efforts (and the mushroom) were filled with colour using Photoshop. I love to see how clean colour fills are corrupted by my sketchy lines, they are busy, bright, and a little bit chaotic and messy.

Well Life would be boring without a little chaos wouldn't it ?

I think on my next post I will take a little break from the 'me' show and take a gander at creative things other people are doing. I will probably start by meandering through my Misi wish list...