Happy Halloween

I have been unbelievably organized this year when in came to sorting out my halloween costume . Here is a quick photo I took this morning just to make sure my costume looked ok. I actually made it about a month ago but still hadn't tried it on. This year I am going as a pumpkin. I wanted to go as something a bit different then a witch and I am loving the colour orange at the mo so I thought perfect. I appliqued the pumpkin face onto a long sleeved t-shirt and then made a tu tu style skirt to go over some black trousers. I will get some better photos when I go to my friends house party tonight. It's quite hard to take a full length photo of yourself, by yourself. 

I also made a spooky chocolate take to take along to the party. I just made a simple stencil out of foil and sprinkled the cake with icing sugar. Now I just have to cake down to Devon in one piece on the train and then it's party time. Yeh!

Banksy in Bristol

Went to Bristol on the weekend to catch up with a couple of friends and managed to catch sight of some Banksy on my travels. I do love his work.

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.  

Fish Eye

02 festival London
Originally uploaded by DuckDownDesigns

This is a photo I took with my new fish eye Lomo camera which I got for my birthday back in June. It has taken me this long to develop the film which is disgraceful. However it was a nice reminder of all the things I did over the summer. This is me and my sibling at the O2 festival in London. There are five of us in this picture and you can just about make us all out. If you love cameras especially the ones that use good old 35 mm film then check out Lomography cameras. It’s just about having fun when taking a photo. I love it.

Print Workshop Part 1

I did a print workshop a while ago now but have only recently looked over what I did and learnt. These are some background surfaces I prepared for further working on which I scanned in so I could track my progress. I always get scared about ruining what work I have already done but this course taught me to go for it and good mistake can happen. I used inks, acrylic, wax and bleach to create textured bases which I worked into further. I will show you what the final outcome of the workshop was in my next post. I kept to a very simple palette to start with as I didn’t know where I was going to take it when we started mono printing and using a technique with gum Arabic. Watch this space to swee the results.

Innocent Smoothie The Big Knit

Innocent Smoothie The Big Knit 17/365
Originally uploaded by DuckDownDesigns

Once again I have been busy crafting but not busy blogging. Well these little hats are all going towards the Big Knit which has been created by Innocent Smoothies to raise money for Age Concern. For each hat you knit they will donate 50p to age concern. My mum has done this a few years running now but never passes on the info in time for me to participate. I managed to find out just in time this year and was able to knock out 10 in one week which is pretty good for me as I’m not a big knitter. I’ve tried to make each one different by stitching into them or adding beads and buttons. I only had three wool colours so though I had to make look a little more individual. It was quite good fun and I will defiantly take part next year as well. It’s great being crafty for charity.

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.