Scrap Birthday Card

This is a card I've made for a friends birthday which corresponds nicely to the presents I have made her. I used the left over fabric from a purse (the pokadot fabric) and the blue fabric off-cuts from a flower brooch I have made her. I had to chuck in a few colorful buttons for good measure. I hope she likes it.

Car Booty

Here are a few pictures of the goodies I came away with from my local car boot at Cheltenham racecourse. I love this car boot and recently it has been worth giving up my sunday lie ins. This week I managed to pick up a lovely collection of vintage mother of pearl buttons, at least an inch wide. I'm going to use these as center piece for my vintage button necklaces. I also picked up a couple of old family photos of a wedding. These were only 20p and i felt very sad that someone's happiest day of there life has ended up in a car boot! Hopefully i can give them a new lease of life in one my ephemera collages. 
I also managed to buy a couple of wills, one is dated 1803 and I think the other one is dated earlier looking at the handwriting but I can't seem to see any date. The handwriting on the will pictured below is fantastic. The will has been slightly damaged due to age but style of handwriting is stunning. No one ever writes like this any more. However I think I know why....... I have found it almost impossible to read. I'm not sure what i'm going to do with them but I just love the writing.
The second will belonged to a Rev John Bell again amazing handwriting and legible. It's quite strange reading someone's will but you do learn a lot about someone from it
I will keep you posted on what I do with all my goodies.  

Vintage Paper Collages

Recently I have been collecting a lot of ephemera which I have picked up from car boot sales, charity shops and used book stores. I thought it was about time I started to have a play with what I'd collected. I had also bought a couple of small prestretched/prepared canvas which I was planning to paint on but the thought of that still terrifies me so I thought why no try a collage. These were all just made up as I went along, I had no real plan. I think I like this making process, for me, if I think about something too much I'm scared to try something new in case I ruin what I've already done. That's why I think using recycle materials is great for me as well as I know i haven't spent huge amounts of money if it does all go wrong. Plus i love old worn faded bits of paper, it's like your giving them a new life. The picture bellow is the first collage I did it's 5 inc by 7 inc. I used some old music, part of a dress making pattern and some paper made from tobacco. I also love buttons and recently came across a jar in an antique shop which was calling to me so I thought I would include some to add some colour. I just wanted to play around with the composition and look at the positive and negative space left from the layering of the paper for this first one.



I was quite pleased with my first attempt so decided to try a bigger image 8 inc by 10 inc this time. Again I had no real plan but wanted to include some coloured and pattered paper. I also tried some subtle stamping in gold which doesn't show up well on this image. I also introduced some ribbion at the bottom with some ricrac for more colour. This image seemed to develop into a scene of flowers soaking up the sunshine which I love. This was all made up of recycled paper including the flowerd which were on the back of a letter from my band would you believe. They look quite retro. I do love the colour combos.

This canvas was a small one 5 inc by 7 inc again. I wanted to include a little more stiching on this one so started with a very simple background and started to introduce some vintage maps as well. I love that even though you are using very symilar technquies you get a very diffrent look to each canvas. I'm definatly going to be making more of these as it quite relaxing and you can really take your time building an image.