Happy Holidays

Butterfly Postcard and Digital Art

Digital postcard. The butterflies were from the Naturalist Library and the text, stamp and marks from a vintage postcard. Painted background

Flower drawn on my tablet then grown in the garden below.

A picture drawn on my tablet blended together with a photograph.

Big Nose Reindeer, SPA - Angel, Collage

The reindeer was drawn on the tablet. [Samsung Galaxy Note]

The postcard, also digital was done for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge - Tiny Angel.

The woman has a tiny angel in her hands [click on the image for a better view]. I used a vintage postcard for the background. The woman's clothes and her background are my designs/art work. The angel was from the Graphics Fairy.

It's a long time since I've used a 'real' sketchbook, I did this last week but forgot about it. The sections with the birds are pieces of wrapping paper. I used letraset aquamarkers for the tree.

New Fabrics

More of my 8" fabric swatches from Spoonflower. In the past I have used postcards and vintage papers for collage and I thought it would be nice to have them on fabric for applique. Use bondaweb or wonder under, cut them out and iron them where required. They could be written on or stitched on. Since getting the swatch I have altered it, I'd designed it for a 8" swatch but I decided it would be more economical as a fat quarter so the lined and squared papers are wider than shown above.

I love how this blue swatch has printed, the colours in it look really nice. The starting point for this one was a brown faux snakeskin bag.

This one was a collage in a sketchbook.

Click on the images for a closer look and if you wish to purchase fabric it is available at Spoonflower.

Mail Art

I started with a vintage envelope above and just layered with a vintage image from the Naturalist Library of entomology. It was nice to start with, so I didn't want to overdo it with too much decoration.

Below is a vintage postcard and I've layered with lace and handmade art buttons.

Goodbye 2012, Happy New Year

A little creation I put together for all my blogging buddies - click on the image to enlarge - 

 it says 'sending you greetings .... Happy New Year'

Thank you for visiting my blog this past year and thank you for any comments you may have left.

The flower postcard was from the Graphics Fairy, I just changed the text. The other postcard was my own.

Hope to see you in the New Year, Linda

Boats - Collage, Rolling Stamps 72-75

A recent visitor said she quite often has problems with my blog freezing up and not behaving and I was wondering if anyone else has had problems too?

Pages from sketchbook 15, all about boats, sea etc

The boat above has been painted on fabric and a stitched outline. I attached the fabric to the page with stitching after I ripped the page out of the book, then reattached the page with hand stitches.

Below is a collage of vintage postcards and a found image. I removed the card backing from the photo by soaking it in water and then peeling off. It doesn't always work to well, hence the ragged look.

A visitor said she quite often has problems with my blog freezing up

Rolling Stamps 72-75

I've used textured wallpaper for all of these, some are the same wallpapers but different sections of it.

See my article in Cloth Paper Scissors about making rolling stamps, free download here

People Book [41]

Altered Book, collage, vintage postcard

The last of the Tag Book & Illustration Friday [Satellite]

handmade book using recycled envelopes and packaging decorated with doodles, vintage postacards, found images, tags

below - before decoration

the whole book

Illustration Friday - Satellite

My idea for this subject is satellite tagging, for tracking animals. I do admit that my tag on the frog does not look at all like a satellite tag. If you want to see what they really look like - google 'satellite tags'

Tag Book [p47-49]

the doodles on the page above were inspired by a '50's' design

handmade book using recycled envelopes & packaging decorated with doodles, recycled greetings cards, vintage postcards, tags, found images

Tag Book [p22,23,24]

Hand made book from packaging, envelopes etc decorated with doodles, vintage postcards, greetings cards, tags, magazine images, music, tickets etc

Tag Book [p17-21]

recycled envelopes & packaging, vintage postcards, doodles, tags, handmade tags, doyley, found images

other side of tag

Tag Book

I finished another sketch book a month or so ago, I shall call it my Tag Book. The book is made with one of those Zutter binders [makes holes at the side & attaches the metal thingy] which I bought last year [& havent used much]. The papers in it are all recycled - envelopes, envelopes inside out [nice patterns on these], packing papers, wrapping paper, card - all things to do with packaging. On each page I have doodled a pattern or drawn a picture, added a tag or two and some collage which includes quite a lot of vintage postcards. On the pictures above, the first image shows what it looked like after I had put the book together but before I started decorating it, the lower image after decorating, plus an image of the tag. Three more pages below, showing before and after views.