Today has been such a beautiful day......

So blue! And the temperature has been up to 23 degrees - lovely.  

I have been at a funeral this afternoon (yes,another one!) for a colleague - a great funeral, warm and full of love and a real celebration of her life. I think I am 'funeralled' out! Vale Fay.

Painting class this morning, although I did not paint, but drew and coloured in with pastels for a new technique (resist) a plate of cooked trout!  We will see what becomes of it when I add the watercolour! I painted a fish last week, using a new technique of adding tissue paper and PVC glue (sound familiar all you crafters?) for texture, and scribbling over my painting with ink and nib, and of blocking off some parts of the page with tape and then lifting it after I had painted in some of the background to create a faux background.  This is going to be good for my craft I know it but at the moment my crafting ability seems to be at zero!

Here is my fish!

I have done some crafting - here is an attempt at a vintage card using an image from some of Meg's Garden papers - Designs Galore:  Old Fashioned Christmas.  I cut out several of the images and coloured them with SU inks and a watercolouring pen. The background papers are from K and Company - Die-cut Mat Pad Glad Tidings.  I used a doily and coloured it with Distress Ink Antique Linen, and swiped some of it on the white parts of the images as well to dull them a bit.  The card is SU Cherry Cobbler, and the ribbon is left over from last years presents. 

The two cards below were made last week from a magazine I purchased which had some freebie papers and die cuts (sort of - I had to fussy cut them out) and I really just copied what was in the magazine as I had run out of steam at that stage and couldn't think to help myself. 

Then I though I would play with some alcohol inks at the weekend and made some background papers which will appear in the future.  I also put some onto a metal sheet (and some stamping tile and glass) and then stamped onto part of the metal with some StaysOn black ink using the SU stamp set - Merry and Type.  I then fussy-cut these out and 'hung' them onto the card (SU Tempting Turquoise). I practised tying the small bows by using a fork as a bow-tie and attached them and added a bit of gold with some Copic pens.  I put some ink around the edges of the TT card (SU Melon Mambo) and layered this up on some background paper from a magazine (unknown) that matched the colours and layered this onto MM and then put the whole on a commercial white card blank. The die cut label is from Sixxix and the ink is SU MM, while the sentiment is from WMS set - Tiny Trees. 

This card below uses the same set and again is alcohol inks but residue put onto a scrap of SU Whisper White.  It had a nice subtle look.  Again I fussy cut and this time used Smooch Gold but it got smooched as well!  I 'hung' these with a gold pen onto another piece of SU WW, and got it crocked! The sentiment is from the same set and stamped in SU Black. It is backed onto gold and then SU Calypso Coral.  The background paper is scrap from last year and the ribbon is a Vandoras Christmas parcel tie. They are not that good - sorry but I thought I had better show that I was doing something even if they are second rate!