The Colourguru

Quilted Angels

While this may seem a funny title for a Christmas Page.........I spent the non working hours of this day (4am - 7am yesterday & 10.30pm - midnight!!!) working on the babies quilts for Christmas.  Ellie's is all but finished, I am just attaching the binding...........but I have only just finished the quilt top for little Toby's.  I got the fabric ages ago, however I got stuck on the whole gender thing........things for babies seem to be either gender specific.....or pastel.........& I couldn't get inspired.  I eventually ended up using the fabrics that I started out with anyway.......so that was all wasted productivity time........oh well.......who can figure the mind of an artist?!??!

This patchworky pieces on this page are the colours I have used in Toby's quilt......the image is from an art friend (?Suze?) & the card is rubbed down with Harrison Bell gold leafing powder.  I spilt it on my work table the night before last & it's migrated everywhere.....it is hard to clean up, I will just have to throw out my plastic cover sheet over my table, so I just turned the page over once I had stuck the images on, & rubbed it all around in a circular motion.  It (of course) looks much nicer in the flesh..........soft & etheral.

The 12 days

When I started this calendar, I had originally thought to perhaps do the Twelve Days of Christmas (a more modest project given the time of the year!)  I was interested to find out that I have blissfully lived in ignorance my whole life thinking that the afore mentioned '12 days' either ran before Christmas into New Year or was the 12 days prior to Christmas Day, but no.......it isn't, in fact traditionally, the Twelve Days of Christmas are from Christmas until the beginning of Epiphany (January 6th; the 12 days count from December 25th until January 5th). In some traditions, the first day of Christmas begins on the evening of December 25th but the following day is considered the First Day of Christmas (December 26th).  (I have included a whole lot longer explanation if you are interested to read it, in the continuation...........but for now, on with the page)   SO, with that fallacy destroyed, I simply decided to include which ever of the 12 days I felt artistically inspired about.......& politely ignore those I didn't.........Maids milking & Drummers drumming aren't doing it for me right now...........but that may change as the days go on!

Star Light, Star Bright

This page was one of those ones that evolves, and you add & add to it, and you are never quite happy with it.  I started out with the stamp from Above the Mark (which I love), but it didn't come up as nicely as I'd hoped on the paper I had chosen for a village background.  Then I thought.....I'll emboss it to give it a bit more dimension...........hmmm........not really moved after that........I started on my night sky..............which is a combination of fuzible webbing & embossing powder melted on to paper.  My PT art buddy Kelsey told us recently of a technique she used with hemming tape.....& it reminded me of how I used to do this to create snow on christmas cards & random foliage on big trees.........after I botched that up a bit with embossing powder everywhere, I had blown the 'stars' (silver glitter) away & generally were just left with a blotchy looking black patch instead of the wonderous sparkly black sky I imagined when I started.  Oh well.....add paint, add oil, add some jewels & my dreamy girl & here it is!!     Off to church now, Princess 'L' is to be the star of the show today as she is prayed a blessing over by our Pastor.  More below & pics later.

Star Light, Star Bright

This page was one of those ones that evolves, and you add & add to it, and you are never quite happy with it.  I started out with the stamp from Above the Mark (which I love), but it didn't come up as nicely as I'd hoped on the paper I had chosen for a village background.  Then I thought.....I'll emboss it to give it a bit more dimension...........hmmm........not really moved after that........I started on my night sky..............which is a combination of fuzible webbing & embossing powder melted on to paper.  My PT art buddy Kelsey told us recently of a technique she used with hemming tape.....& it reminded me of how I used to do this to create snow on christmas cards & random foliage on big trees.........after I botched that up a bit with embossing powder everywhere, I had blown the 'stars' (silver glitter) away & generally were just left with a blotchy looking black patch instead of the wonderous sparkly black sky I imagined when I started.  Oh well.....add paint, add oil, add some jewels & my dreamy girl & here it is!!     Off to church now, Princess 'L' is to be the star of the show today as she is prayed a blessing over by our Pastor.  More below & pics later.

Star Light, Star Bright

This page was one of those ones that evolves, and you add & add to it, and you are never quite happy with it.  I started out with the stamp from Above the Mark (which I love), but it didn't come up as nicely as I'd hoped on the paper I had chosen for a village background.  Then I thought.....I'll emboss it to give it a bit more dimension...........hmmm........not really moved after that........I started on my night sky..............which is a combination of fuzible webbing & embossing powder melted on to paper.  My PT art buddy Kelsey told us recently of a technique she used with hemming tape.....& it reminded me of how I used to do this to create snow on christmas cards & random foliage on big trees.........after I botched that up a bit with embossing powder everywhere, I had blown the 'stars' (silver glitter) away & generally were just left with a blotchy looking black patch instead of the wonderous sparkly black sky I imagined when I started.  Oh well.....add paint, add oil, add some jewels & my dreamy girl & here it is!!     Off to church now, Princess 'L' is to be the star of the show today as she is prayed a blessing over by our Pastor.  More below & pics later.

A Note to Santa

This page has been primarily made with pens & chalk on a Hot off the Press paper.  When our son (the new dad featured above) was about 8 we moved into a house on 22nd of December.  His primary concern about this new house was that the house we were moving from had a 'chmnee' for Santa to come down, and that the house that we were moving into did not.  He suggested with a seriousness that only an 8 year old can muster.....then we will have to leave the key out for Santa to get in!  The door handle is from 7 gypsies, the tag is from Collections & the key is a genuine old one (from a clock I think, it is quite small)

A Note to Santa

This page has been primarily made with pens & chalk on a Hot off the Press paper.  When our son (the new dad featured above) was about 8 we moved into a house on 22nd of December.  His primary concern about this new house was that the house we were moving from had a 'chmnee' for Santa to come down, and that the house that we were moving into did not.  He suggested with a seriousness that only an 8 year old can muster.....then we will have to leave the key out for Santa to get in!  The door handle is from 7 gypsies, the tag is from Collections & the key is a genuine old one (from a clock I think, it is quite small)

Naughty or Nice?

The background of this page is the 'flip side' of yet another Cosmo Cricket paper (funny that, I often like the flip side of fabrics too!)  The vintage images are from a little celebration cut out book that I have & the rub ons are from Wholy Cow (by Basic Grey)...I LOVE these rub ons & have already used them on so many things including the front of my 2007 diary. (in white)  Things are manic at the moment, but that's to be expected at this time of the year, but only 12 more sleeps until we go on holidays!!! YAY!!! Tasmania, here we come!!!!

Trim the Tree

Only 12 more sleeps until I can be 'Mother Christmas' ooooo I love it........esp. with my new grandbabies for the first year.  They certainly make you feel younger, they are SOOOO special.  My kitchen is full of wrapping, my art studio floor has all bags of presents that I have 'accumulated' through the year (I commence my Christmas shopping in January) & I am beginning to load the stockings & fill under the tree with wrapped presents.  I absolutely KNOW, commercialism is NOT what Christmas is about, but for me, there is nothing better than to give.......and THAT is what it IS all about!  To give to our loved ones, to give to the needy, to give to the unknown.  I would encourage you to go to your local shopping centre & take a tag off one of those big trees that are organized to give to charities to distribute presents to the needy.  Go out and buy a SPECIAL gift......give your BEST, give of your self........then wrap it beautifully & take it to the tree.  There is an amazing sense of fulfillment & delight in helping someone unknown.  It's like a pleasant little secret.  I have involved our children in this since they were very little.  I am proud to now see them doing this themselves.  Although I know that I TOTALLY over do Christmas, we CANNOT forget that there are others that need us to give them a helping hand to salvage some of their pride & self respect. 

This page involved the 'sacrifice' of a couple of snips from my Christmas wreath! to make the 'branches' for my ornaments.  I TOTALLY obscured the text.....then I covered the letters of 'fourteen' & felt obliged to add a number somewhere......oh well........the over all page looks ok!

Let them Eat Cake

Well.............this piece kinda evolved.......as I said earlier, I am using the Cosmo Cricket Christmas Postcards in this project & it was they that dictated the original size.  One of them is a piece that has snow flakes on it & the text, 'I'm dreaming of........' well the 'White Christmas' doesn't work here in Oz (see 'All about the Land Downunder' catagory in the side bar if you don't understand what 'Oz' means).  On the day I was creating this.........it was 41 degrees Celcius with bushfires raging across our state!!  So I thought, hmmmm, I'll add cake to it!  The colours didn't work, I hated it, I added some more stuff to it, I STILL hated it.................FINALLY I threw the whole mucking fess into the bin & started again!!  Now it is on Basic Grey 'Fruitcake Stripe' and it is much happier!!!  I have used 'Alpha Structures' letters - painted & waxed, Scrapbooking Scene numbers, & frinkles to embellish.  The recipe stamp is from Paper Artsy & the definition is from an old dictionary........a great 'find' at only $1!!! (LURVE to find a good bargain..........it is sooooooooooo satisfying for such an accomplished shopper! LOL!)