Good Friday fun!

I had a fab day yesterday! My nephew is down so my sister invited us to a BBQ on the beach. We went to Priory bay which is a wonderful little secluded beach that most of the tourists don't know about! It's so pretty there, you walk through the woods to get there and when you step out from the trees you see this beautiful expanse of blue sea that makes you feel you are somewhere in the Mediterranean rather than the good ole Isle of Wight!

(blogger would not put this photo up the right way!)

This is my son and daughter

My hubby and me, rare for me to get in a photo!


My toes!

The view from my beach towel!

The kids having fun

Hope you all have a great Easter weekend

Sami x

Truthful Journal

I managed to complete two journal pages on Sunday morning. I did these in my truthful journal, which is a journal I handmade (you can see how I made this journal in this post) to use for 'truthful' journal ling...whether good or bad, its honest, how I feel right at this moment, journal ling and art.

For this one I used Tim Holtlz tissue tape as a border, a grungy background stamp, Dylusions paints and sprays and a stencil. Once I had done the background I could see a face in it so I drew it!
For this one I used an old map as the background. (little tip: Don't tell the staff in Oxfam that you want to cut up the old map you are buying!! I had picked up a selection of old road maps they had in there and didn't realise the price on one of them was £15!! I said I didn't want that one as they were only to cut up for art work...I didn't think she was going to let me buy them, she was horrified!!)
I used Dylusions paints, stamps and tissue tape. I used a letter stencil to spray through which gave a nice effect. The layering came out a little heavy and covered up most of the map so I drew on some more map lines. I cut out a person from a magazine and stuck it down and painted over the top then removed it to get the silhouette.
TFL,
Sami x

Calendar pages-finally!

I am so late posting these again, I thought I would be more organised this month!

I started Aprils page a while ago but wasn't really happy with it. I then recieved some wonderful goodies from Carolyn in a swap I was part of. Amongst the stash she sent me was this wonderful tag that she had made which I thought would be perfect to include on my calendar page. The tissue wrapping paper the goodies were wrapped in was lovely as well so I stamped flowers onto it, cut them out and stuck them on my page.

I drew a silhouette image of a girl with an umbrella and stamped some more flowers on the page aswell.
This is my completed March page.
Check out the other awesome calendars over at The Katherine Wheel.
TFL
Sami x

A mothers wish

Here is the painting I did for my daughter at the weekend. She has been asking me forever to do her a painting for her bedroom. She wanted a fairy painting (probably more flower fairy than this!) so here is the result.

'a mothers wish' (subtitled 'Mummy and Shelby')

Mixed media on canvas

I used water colour crayons, acrylic paints, twinkling H2O's, stamps, Tim Holtz tissue tape and a mix of music and text sheets.

TFL

Sami x

Paige's dream

Here is a little something I finished last week. I couldn't post until now as it was for Paiges birthday which we celebrated yesterday at our monthly swap.

This canvas was inspired greatly by the work of Tam over at willowing.org. I have done a couple of her courses and they have been fantastic.

The canvas was A4 size and I used water colour crayons, acrylic paint (Dylusions), water colour pencils, Tim Holtz tissue tape, stencils and stamps. 'Paige's dream'

Thanks for looking,

Sam x

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Postal goodness and Mothers day

My parcel arrived yesterday from my spring swap partner Carolyn. The spring swap was organised by Jamie over at Lyrical Journey. The idea was to make a new blog friend and send a little something to them in the post.

I recieved all these wonderful things in my parcel- a handmag tag (which I am going to use on my april calander page!), lots of images to use on my journal pages, two beautiful photos that Carolyn had taken (which will go up in my craft room when we move back home), lace, buttons, a flower, 2 stamps, a chocolate bunny (which I had to fight my daughter for!) and 2 felting needles. I was overwhelmed with all the wonderful stash goodness! So much thought had gone into the parcel it made my day! BIG thank you's Carolyn! My husband has just arrived home from Tesco with a beautiful bunch of flowers for me for mothers day! The kids had already bought me a DVD so I was not expecting flowers as well.

My two beautiful, wonderful children also made me this 'Diploma of mummy-ness'! I love it! They always make me a little something on mothers day whether its a painting, a poem or a song and these are always my favourite gift.

If you are celebrating mothers day today, have a good one!

TFL

Sami x

Spring swap

I have not posted all week because everything I have been working on is for other people! But my spring swap partner recieved her gift yesterday so now I can post it. I was paired with Carolyn and I spent ages looking through her wonderful blog, deciding what to make for her. I was very lucky as we seem to have lots in common so I decided to make an altered art wall hanging.

I started off with some thick carboard that I cut into four pieces. I covered each piece with old text and music pages before using gesso over the top, rubbing off the excess.

I did the first layers of paint (Dylusions) and added some Tim Holtz tissue tape.

I built up the layers using more paint, dylusions spray inks, stencils and stamps.

The houses were stamped onto sticky back canvas that I painted in the same colours and then stuck onto each piece. I made the flowers with circles of the canvas, added the chipboard letters which I had painted and stamped and the metal embellishments.

I stamped my favourite stamps all over some kraft wrapping paper so that Carolyn could save the paper and use the images for her art work, included a little note and sent it off. This is the first swap I have ever taken part in and I really enjoyed it. I have done paintings for friends and family but have never sent my art off to someone I dont know, I was really nervous about how it would be recieved, but I had a lovely message to say thank you!

I am looking forward to doing more swaps so if you know of any let me know!

TFL

Sami x