More Notan inspired designs

Put three different coloured sheets one on top of the other and cut through all three layers together. Then have fun arranging the pieces you’ve created.

Add a few doodle decorations if you like.

Use camera settings, photo-editing or Photoshop to play around with different effects.

Have fun!

And then there are the offcuts to play with….

Great for greetings cards.  And I’m wondering about printing some out on canvas. They remind me of 1960’s designs. I think they would look good in a child’s bedroom or playroom, do you?

Click on any picture to see it larger

There are quite a lot of You Tube tutorials about creating Notan designs – This one is a simple one to get you started.

Advertisement

Silly Saturday: Meet Pete

Hi Everybody, I’m Pebble Pete

The cheeriest chap you could hope to meet

The beach is where I spend my days

With my crew I like to play

We often meet up on the shore

For fun and games, never getting bored

Riding on the waves in the clear blue sea

You’ll find the Stone and the Shell family

I will introduce you to everyone

So you can join in with our fun

Whether in the sea or on the sand

I want to welcome you to Seaside Land!

 

poem by Judy E. Martin

photo by Sandra Dorey

 

Welcome to another Silly Saturday!

I just LOVE working/playing/creating with Judy. I sent her the photo of a pebble and she not only created a fabulous fun poem but gave him the perfect name. I’m always excited to see what Judy does with the images I send her.

Judy and I have been thinking about creating a little ebook of our characters and we thought Pete was just the right character to introduce the Stones and the Shelleys and possibly take up the role of narrator, we’ll have to see where he takes us.

AND

Hot off the press

The first batch of cards have been printed!

They are blank inside and all come individually packed with an envelope.

What is it about seeing ones work in print – it’s thrilling!!!

The guy who prints the cards hadn’t read the poems at first as he gets so many to do, but as he was checking through the proof he read them and just couldn’t stop giggling – he was still laughing as he was telling me how funny he thought it was. Lovely to get such a spontaneous reaction.

The cards will be appearing in my Etsy shop soon.

You, my lovely Daffodil followers, can have them a little cheaper at mates’ rates if you send me a message via the Contact Me Page.

I do hope you are having a wonderfully Silly Saturday – if you are doing anything Silly, I’d love to hear about it!   😀

 

Silly Saturday: Maggie Dreaming

Maggie fancied trying something new

And thought about what she could do

Dancing around a steel pole

Was becoming quite dull

But what, she hadn’t a clue

 

In her mirror she struck a new pose

Standing on the tips of her toes

With a graceful demeanour

Like a beautiful ballerina

She imagined being the star of the show

 

poem by Judy E. Martin

Edwina’s Episodes

~

Judy and I have teamed up again to be Silly on a Saturday. Our Maggie has started to dream of new areas in which to expand her talents….. I wonder where she will take us next ….. any ideas of what she might get up to?

~

Encouraged by your wonderful comments and support I am getting some of the Maggie pictures printed on Greetings Cards. I’m wondering how many to print? If you would like to buy one/some, it would be great if you could let me know by email.

Which picture you would like and would you like the cards with or without the poems?

Direct from me they will sell at £1.90 with poem and be 8″x6″ and at £1.50 without the poem, measuring 7″ x 5″.  Postage will be added depending on quantity.

I will put some cards in my Etsy shop, but they will have to sell for a little more there to cover the Etsy costs.

Please go to the Contact Me Page to send me a private message if you would like any of the cards – thank you.

Here are the Maggie Pictures to choose from, click on any to go large:

Hi, I’m Maggie!

From the top left

1. Ballerina
2. Stretch
3. Pole Dancer 1
4. Pole Dancer 2

 

Playful Butterfly

 

When I took Little Miss M and Little Bro to the park, after school yesterday, there was a Red Admiral butterfly that seemed to want to play with them. It kept fluttering back to them, around their heads, landing near to them: on posts, the grass and the climbing net – this went on for at least 10 minutes – it even landed on Little Bro’s arm at one point.

A school friend joined in and all three were first chasing, then leaping and dancing around with delight, then creeping up slowly and at one point the butterfly was on a post and all three were putting a finger on the post edging closer to the butterfly to see if it would hop on, totally focussed on that moment when time seemed to stand still.

 

Magical, utterly magical.

But – did I have my camera with me – no!

A beautiful memory to hold in my mind’s eye.

As I was writing this I remembered that over 25 years ago, when I was doing a City and Guilds Embroidery course, there was a competition

to create a greetings card with butterflies as the theme.

(apologies for the quality of the photos, something has gone wrong with my ‘Photos’ programme and I am unable to do any editing – so far long phone calls to Apple, whilst they have tried to sort it out – with more to come)

We had to show our folder of workings as well (click on any photo to see it bigger)

and after much experimentation, this was the card I submitted into the competition, it has lost a few star sequins

these were some of my experiments made on thick watercolour paper

Well – I won!

It is the only competition I have ever won, so I’ve kept that folder dear to me and never used the cards – I’m wondering if I should send them now and let go ………..

……………   No, I can’t just yet.

Have you ever won a competition? Or danced with a butterfly in the park?

Never-Ending Cards

As part of my 16 for 2016 group of challenges I have given myself 15 greetings cards to make. On our half-term family holiday we had 5 birthdays to celebrate – a perfect inspirational push.

My son, E, became 40 during the holiday. (I have a 40 year old son! It doesn’t seem possible, it feels only 5minutes ago that I was 40), my sister became 60 in January, and her son was 20 just 2 days before E. So we had a 20, 40, 60 party, with my sister and her son staying with us and we were also joined by the parents of my two d-i-ls.

M and P, parents of my London d-i-l, share the same birthdays with E and my nephew.

You can see, my new go-to craft material, Duck tape, was put to good use again, I just love that stuff! Here is a link to my previous post about it:

Never-ending cards are fun to make, hugely impressive, well received but very hard to photograph.

You can see how to make them and how they work on this You Tube clip.

Update: I first wrote a post about these cards in Dec 13, here is the link.

Click here for another YouTube tutorial.

 

Happy Winter Solstice!

A time of shifts and changes – the longest night, the shortest day

– from now on the days get longer, the light returns. I am feeling such a sense of celebration and wonder –  of the seasons turning in continuous motion – beautifully and symbolically represented in the ‘Never Ending Card’.

A Magical new discovery courtesy of my You Tube feed – find a tutorial and demo here .

I was looking for a break from yarn based activities and along comes a little bit of simple magic just in time to make a birthday card for a very dear friend

you just keep turning and folding the card and more patterns and appear – like magic!

This one is 6″ square.

just had to make some more

This one is 4″ square

and now I have found a use for some of my pages and pages of black and white doodles

which are cut into 6″x 3″ and 4″x 2″ and will appear as Never Ending Cards soooon!

Party Time!

It was my birthday on Monday! I had SUCH a wonderful time. Friends and family gathered for a disco in the village hall – just like the ’70s. And I danced all night to all the old favourites – PERFECT!!!

My son made a wonderful speech and we had a couple of brilliant jives together. My daughter did a STELLAR job of welcoming everyone with a drink and then persuading even the most reluctant ones onto the dance floor. And a dear friend made a lemon drizzle cake sparkling with edible glitter and champagne-bottle-shaped candles.

There are no photos of the party as it is usually me who takes them – and then, often, I seem to only experience gatherings with a photographers eye, looking for nice shots of people and things – I decided I just wanted to party and don’t regret it one bit – I’m loving all the images of crazy dancing and laughing friends that are in my memory bank of smiling happy faces.

So I am including pics of some of the lovely cards and presents I was given (the camellias above centre, painted by my friend Anne, who gave me the card)

 

One of my sisters had JUST (supreme effort to make it to the party) returned from Abu Dhabi and brought back this AMAZING presentation box of the MOST glorious selection of dickered-up dates (I LURVE dates!!!)

the photo doesn’t really do them justice – they are amaZING!!!!!

Heaven in a box……

……and the box is fabulous with a magnetic clasp – just right for storing knitting needles in me thinks.

The ‘put on your dancing shoes and party’ card was from my other sister who sadly couldn’t make it to the party as she is head down studying for a degree in Homeopathy – so Monday night not a good one when she lives 3 hours away.

Quite a few notepads came my way – which is great because I need them all over the place so that I remember moments of inspiration AND tasks I need to complete – if I don’t write them down, I’ll never remember anything – my contemporaries obviously understand this!! I’m particularly intrigued by the ‘mousepad notepad’ lots of gorgeous patterns to be recycled as collage material once they’ve served as mousepad AND notepad – ingenious. Designer: Amy Butler

people do have such amazing ideas.

And I can highly recommend the CD, Kenosis, made by a friend and neighbour…

as a very relaxing, meditative background to any creative activity.

My daughter, as well as being life and soul of the party, gave me a wonderful momento of our very special Pembrokeshire holiday.

I had mentioned , just in passing, when we were in Solva that I had an ‘I love Newgale’ mug and must look out for an ‘I love Solva’ one.

Even better to have a personalised ‘WE love Solva’ mug – very special!

So I danced my feet off to the good old sounds of the 60s, 70s and 80s, surrounded by friends and family – what a great birthday – ‘Celebrate Good Times Come on!!!!!!’.

Huge thanks to one and all for making it so special.