Nothing between me and the Sea #2

Joining in with Scrap Happy June, hosted by Kate at Tall Tales From Chiconia

Still a work in progress: more beads have been added and some shells were first glued with PVA and then sewn on.

I’ve placed the seahorse there for the photo – I think that is where it will go, but it is not sewn on yet. I am so enjoying having the time to immerse myself in stitching. I drift off into another dimension and an hour or more goes by without me noticing – bliss.

This will be my second “Nothing between me and the Sea” piece.

You can read about the first one here.

The pattern for the crocheted seahorse can be found here.

Happy Scrapping!

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Play

I had my ‘Play’ photo and post all set up and ready to go and then my sister Caroline sent me this photo of her dog Bentley, taken last Summer, which of course stole the show!

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Hide and Seek

Summer fun for dogs

In tall corn

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Joining in with Ronovan and his haikumily – prompt words this week: SUMMER and FUN

and our 52 week Photo Challenge prompt this week is PLAY.

As far as I know it is the only Weekly Challenge with the prompt words set out for the whole 52 weeks, allowing for photos and posts to be prepared in advance. That’s what we like about it.

This is my PLAY photo:

In the 16 for 2016 Challenge inspired by Cathy at Nanacathydotcom, I wanted to make 10 types of handmade beads and last week I gave myself a PLAY day and got out the Fimo Polymer Clay

Loved it – just me and the clay, glue, scissors and thread – takes me back to childhood. I made 5 types of beads and a few buttons using Fimo, and then some paper-and-thread beads.

As I tell you about it I feel like an excited child running to Mum.

“Look Mum, look what I’ve just made!”

POLYMER BEADS

There are some truly amazing and complicated designs using Polymer Clay on You Tube, but I wanted to do something quick and simple. So I rolled some thin ‘sausages’ of colour, then wrapping them inside a flattened ‘sausage’ of clay and then another. I cut that into slices to stick on the outside of a ball of clay.

Then roll around in the palms of your hand and it all merges together

More playing around and I came up with a couple of other ideas.

As an experiment I wrapped embroidery threads around the Fimo bead. I got very excited about this – do you like them? I can’t find any like them on the internet, but of course there might well be some. The threads are not damaged by cooking the beads in the oven at 120°C .

How to make them: Put the bead onto and thick darning needle or cocktail stick. Poke one end of the thread into the Fimo to secure and then wrap round pulling into the bead. Do a little squishing and shaping and the take off the needle to cook for about 20mins.

Idea number two was to put some Hamma Beads into the clay to see if they would melt.

The bead on the left has ordinary plastic beads, the one on the right uses Hamma Beads.

Once the idea of embedding beads struck I just had to try some more

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More playful experimenting produced another type of bead using paper.

PAPER BEADS

Crumple some old magazine paper to make it more absorbent, then put in a tiny bath of PVA mixed half and half with water (which I think creates a Modpodge substitute).

Then squeeze out and shape into a ball. Before the glue has dried wrap round with embroidery threads pushing the end into the paper with the blunt end of a needle to secure. Make a hole through the bead with a darning needle or a cocktail stick and leave to dry.

Our 52 week Photo Challenge is devised by 4 fab photo fiends: Cathy, Jane, Melissa and Me

Come and PLAY with us this week or join us next week when the prompt is:

REPEAT

repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat

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just leave a link in the comments

 

 

Ideas

Do you ever feel plagued by ‘good’ ideas!

I had Life Coaching a few years back with Duncan Coppock (brilliant by the way! If you give him a call, say hi from me – he put a part of my story in his book) and together we worked out questions I should ask myself when I am struck (yes that is how it feels) by a ‘good'(?) idea.

‘Do I really want to begin this project?

Why?

How does it relate to my long-term goals?

Do I have time to do it well?

Am I ready to make this commitment?

These questions have been up in my workroom for years – do I ask myself these questions ……. ever?! No!!!!

I have now put them in a more prominent place, above the kettle in the kitchen – AND I need to add another question:                                                                             Is this the most important thing to do today!!!!

The hearts are the latest ‘good’ idea – I wanted to make one for each of my grandchildren for Valentine’s Day – What was I thinking – I have 8 grandchildren!!! and I only thought of it a few days ago.      

After spending far too much time experimenting to get these hearts right, time is running out – SO, for the Valentine’s Day, Big Sister and The Twins who live a 4 hour drive away will be getting these dingly dangly hearts. The eldest is 5, so she gets the one with the beads, the twins are only half past two, so no beads allowed.

(I had hoped to get a pattern and tutorial together to add to my free patterns – too ambitious! But it will come … maybe in time for next year’s Valentine’s Day.)

 

Phew! I just finished them today in time to get them in the post, complete with Swarovski crystals and miracle beads.                                                                              I might just have time to do some heart badges for the other 5 by Saturday ……

GARDEN DIARY                                                                                                                    The veg trugs just outside my front door were weeded, they are jam packed with self sown parsley and rocket, I graze as I go.                                                             And I found a few more snowdrops peeping up, I’m SO pleased to see them. They are a bit late but they are there, that’s the main thing.                                                 A few cyclamen and anemone blanda are in flower.