10 year old art critic

Me to her: "do you like my bird box?"
"yes, it's lovely, but where's the bird?"
" it's there in the picture"
"no, I mean the one that belongs in the nest"
"well, maybe it's already flown away"
"then why does it say fly?"
"um... (help me help me) because it needed instructions"
"oh"
"and Mummy"
"yes?"
"your l looks like a 1"
honestly, I don't know why I bother, really not...

Thank you!

Many many thanks all of you who've posted pictures in the 'Dress Up' challenge and for the Emails from those of you still working on your creations. I've so enjoyed reading your Blogs and am delighted to see such wonderful crafting on show. From whisky boxes and suitcases, to a doll complete with shoes and a hat, fabric, lace and paper, I love it all!! you inspire me over and over! I'm looking forward to February with great excitement! Mx

Calling all 'Dress Up' players

Since my last post I've received a number of mails from Bloggers wanting to play along. I've attached a button on the side bar setting out the idea behind 'Dress Up', anyone can play and I'm just aiming to complete a dress by the end of each month. I've attached a comments box, if you leave your link then your page can be viewed. Enjoy!

Ready for the runway

After much um-ing and ah-ing I've finally managed to get my first dress completed. It all started off rather badly but I kind of like the end result! I plan to back my dresses with a page of text and hang a mini price tag with the date on each one. I still haven't managed to do anything more to my box/cupboard and I think it'll be part of the ongoing project (to do list...)

I made some paper ruffles and added some lace circles and vintage buttons.

The background needed a good going over with antique ink and some metallics to tone down the colour

To create the background I gessoed some card, rollered on some acrylic and
stamped randomly, I then spent the next hour trying to get rid of the pink! I've
no idea why I put it there in the first place, just one of those
things!

There are now five of us in the monthly 'Dress Up? challenge and I'll post links as soon as the other gals have their creations on show.

Patty

The results of our latest QB5 challenge of charms and brooches have started to arrive and just look at these little masterpieces from Patty I love my birds nest a lot! I can see myself having a go at these. Patty stamped a colour card to attach it to, inspired!

Patty altered a playing piece for her second charm, so teeny tiny and gorgeous!

And a rose brooch, I wouldn't even know where to start making something like this! so beautiful, thank you so much for your box of goodies Patty!

A note to the 'Dress Up' gals, I have my first one completed and will post tomorrow!

Complete canvas

I found a small bird for my canvas as I figured there's not a lot of point in having a perch without a percher. It's so badly wired that it tips forward everytime the front door closes and by mid-afternoon it's beak down and in dire need of assistance, I've added rewiring to my 'to do' list...

At the risk of looking Herman Munster-ish I glued a drawer knob to the top, kind of fits the colour and well, why not?

I had a couple of questions about the canvas and on this occasion I did actually take a pic of the starting point. I usually gather a pile of old bits of paper and start ripping and gluing. Once you have a rough 'canvas' shape then get sewing, I tend to use a mixture of plain and zig-zag and just go where I like. I do have a free-motion quilting foot for my machine (which would be easier) but that would involve reading the instructions and then following them which is more than I'm capable of right at this moment.

This is the point at which most of my friends say they think they'll mess it up or they don't want to cover up the backing papers. The trick is to just GO FOR IT, use waterbased crayons to lay a bit of colour down, when you have an idea where the piece is going you can add acrylics, a bit of stenciling, stamping, whatever. I usually remove more paint than I leave on which is the beauty of water based products!

Charmed for sure

In an earlier post I mentioned our latest QB5 swap of charms and brooches and
just look at these little beauties that arrived from Linda Teeny tiny detail on
her charm with a bee hanging at the bottom.

A super gorgeous felted flower brooch! I'm afraid my pic doesn't do the colour justice

A little bit of Anthropologie tucked in the parcel

All wrapped in angel tissue! Thank you so much Linda, you made my day!