another trip down memory lane with this fortnight's Craft Barn Alphabet Challenge. There are some really obscure words beginning with K. I toyed with "kinetic" because I love kinetic sculpture but it is a bit difficult to interprate on paper. Then my eye fell on "kaleidoscope". We had one when I was a child and it gave me hours of fascination. Looking at the little bits of foil through the glass at the bottom and then marvelling at the patterns when you looked through the other end. They seem to be mainly round these days but ours was triangular. If you are tempted there are instructions for making one here
So here is my take on "Kaleidoscope"
First I made some gelli prints on thin card and cut six equilateral triangles(Mr Craven would have been proud of me). I attached them with an eyelet, ensuring they would spin. I made a weathered wood background.
Here it is with the definition tag.
and this is a Paint Shop Pro digital kaleidoscope of the second picture
Thank you if you left a comment last time, I did try to visit everyone and there are some great ideas out there. So fascinating to see the coice of words.
Small rant....Is anyone else becoming exasperated with the increasing "predictive text" on search engines and such. I know what I want to say and the machine, clever though it is, does not. End of rant. Thank you.
The Big Road Trip moves on. We visited this state on our first trip to America and it hold some of the happiest memories. Remember this?
Well we found they really are blue.
Our destination for the evening was supposed to be the town of Roanoke but we stopped in for a coffee, at the Peaks of Otter Lodge , we oouldn't resist the ice cream and ended up staying the night We had a wonderful meal and stopped up late talking to some of the people who lived locally but came up to the hills for the weekend.
On the way down, and quite be accident we came across the Pat Buckley Moss Museum, I fell in love with her people and her snowy landscapes.
We were allowed to take photographs in the gallery but this may not be the case, I will remove if it breaches copyright. You can see many other paintings here (Google Images)
I bought an embroidery kit and this has hung in my living room ever since.
We returned to Virginia on the last full day of our trip and spent it in Colonial Williamsburg. What a fascinating day that was, a real step back in time, we watched a house being built with only the tools that would have been available in the 18th century and of course we voted againt Independance. My most abiding memory is the sound of a pipe and drum band fading away into the evening, a poignant ending to what had been a wonderful trip. It still brings a tear.
Thank you Marit for evoking some really wonderful memories. Here is something I made a while back but I realise now where I, probably, found the inspiration.
My letter A for the Craft Barn Alphabet challenge. My first thought was, of course, Alphabet but I am hoping to make a book of this challenge, if I get to the end, and I have an idea for the cover firmly fixed in mind. So I had to find something different, I toyed with Astrology and Astronomy but then this lept out of the old dictionary.
I had never heard of this charm before. My triangle isn't exactly equilateral but geometry was never a strong suit.
I cut the letters from gold paper with my die cutter. I remembered, from childhood, those sliding panels that used to change the picture but couldn't find or figure out how to make one (if anyone knows please tell me)
so I made a rabbit which disappears (wrong way round I know but it had to be where it is).
is the letter on the Craft Barn Alphabet Challenge.with circles in the background,( I nearly missed this ) My first choice was "windowsill" a word I have always liked saying. ( It has a kiss at the start, in the middle and a smile at the end, try it.) but it wasn't in the old dictionary I am using for the definitions. There are some really nasty words beginning with W, who knew I suffered from "wind-dropsy" I'll let you look it up, I am too polite to mention. In the end I settled for warpaint as it was a word I could play with.My old dictionary said "paint on the face and other part of the body on going to war, a practice among certain savage nations" don't know why I suddenly thought of football fans.Then I thought of how we like to don out warpaint before we do battle with the world.I gellied a background and made a war mask and searched for suitable images so here it is.
No copyright breach intended, if anyone has a problem please advise and image will be removed.
I thought I would explore a few ideas I found in my wandering...this is the link to a tutorial on making stencils with hot glue and this is my stencil and a test piece.
The I tried glue resist from here, I didn't have the Elmer's Gel so I tried a Pritt Stick, the white one made quite a good resist
the green stick less so but I still quite like it,
The third thing I tried was from Andy Skinner, well my crackle didn't crackle, (I didn't have the same products) but I really liked the results, especially as the used two acetate prints I have had for ever.
and finally I saw this, again, I didn't have the exact products so my rust became patina instead but I would never have thought of using it on fabric.(the little square)
I had forgotten just how much I like the atc format. My thanks to all the artists who so generously share their knowledge and gave me a lovely mornings play. I do which Hobby Craft would up their game, my local branch is undertstocked and over priced. Or better still Michael's and Joann's open up here and bring a little competition (and all their lovely products)
is this weeks stop on the Big Road Trip. This is what I have learned, it has very varied scenery and is a must unusual shape.
I noticed a town called Cumberland so, of course, I had to visit.
It looks interesting and it has some very nice houses for sale.
Red Crab Soup is a speciality and this recipe makes it sound good, I might try it one day.
Baltimore has one of my favoured NFL teams, The Ravens, could be something to do with quaterback Joe Flacco.
My last bit of learning is that it was in Maryland that the Ameican National Anthem "The Star Spangled Banner" was written. So I made a tag as my piece of art work.
Virginia next, better start looking out some photographs because I have really been there.
I "found" two more lanscapes in my gelli patchwork, desert sunsets.
(I wanted them side by side but blogger wouldn't play)
So delighted with my little creations, I made a little book.
Firefox and Google seem to be having trouble talking to one another at the moment, finding it very difficult to leave comments. Thank you Debbie, she is working on a beautiful rust cloth here.
Anyone found a good substitute for Google Reader yet?
