WOYWW #630: Eco-dyeing !!!

I know I said I might skip this week's WOYWW but here I am again! I simply have to share my new obsession: eco-dyeing. I had known about this process for a while, but I was put off by the need to boil things in the kitchen for hours - all the set-ups I'd seen involved open pans and complicated contraptions and I told myself I didn't want to steam up the kitchen and I didn't have the right equipment, ingredients, etc. etc. - basically making excuses. But then I realised I can do it on a smaller scale, put it in a pot with a lid and use clips instead of sandwiching it between planks of wood or whatever. So here's my "work desk" this week, ie. the kitchen counter and the cooker. (yes, that is the same rose I bragged about last week, poor thing, but at least it had the chance of being immortalized in an art project and there are dozens of buds coming through and this first one was already on the way out - call it premature deadheading!)  

This was my pot cooking for 1.5 -2 hours - I think the cooking time could be reduced to just around an hour, but I'll experiment a bit more. There are some rusty screws, teabags and some white vinegar thrown in for good measure (in addition to the alum I pre-treated the paper with) weighed down with a piece of broken clay pot, but it's not an exact science - anything goes! 

I had the best results with the marigold I collected from the garden and a tree we have that has very dark red leaves. My initial papers only had hydrangea petals, but then as I got more adventurous, my prints got more grungy and more exciting! These are just some of the results of the past few days of experimenting (and of course, these are all double-sided): 

Even my cover sheets came out looking pretty cool and interesting!

I have enough papers now to make a couple of books - I might do that. For now, I'm just having too much fun making more papers! 

This pretty rose will be my next victim, though I'll give it a few more days to enjoy its beauty before ruthlessly cooking it. I must say I feel a bit bad about it, but it's no different from eating salads or cooking vegetables, right? I mean I never felt bad about cooking a carrot. I guess it's about destroying something beautiful that's giving me second thoughts. Which is why I'll wait until it goes downhill, then I don't need to feel  guilty about it. 

Happy WOYWW! Did you see Murphy on Julia's post? How adorable is he? xx

WOYWW #629: This and that (another scattered post)

It feels like I haven't posted in ages, but it's only been two weeks. I've been working in short bursts keeping my creative juices flowing with the help of some challenges on Facebook and Instagram - more about those later. Here's a desk shot for WOYWW #629 taken a while ago. Since then my desk has gone through many transformations, getting progressively messier. 

First things first though, my overseas ATCs have arrived all the way from Australia and the Unites States! How exciting! With proper postage stamps too - none of those disappointing electronic printouts that Royal Mail uses these days. Wonderful ATCs and postcards to brighten up my day! Love Susan's shiny gold butterfly on the happy yellow background and Felicia sent me not one but two beauties! The quirky one made me 'giggle' indeed and I just love the glitter in the birdie one - one of Felicia's signature moves. I took a separate photo of that one as the glitter didn't show up in the group shot.

And if these didn't spoil me enough, this little masterpiece came from Debbie, in loving memory of our Shaz - thank you so much Debbie - it's such a perfect memento and I'm so glad I met her in person two years ago, not realising that would be my one and only chance to see her. 

Right, so onto my challenges quickly. In the Mixed Media Emporium Facebook group, the monthly theme for July is watercolours, which are not my preferred medium, even though I love watercolour effects. It's just that they never seem to do what I want them to do - they're so temperamental - you know where you are with acrylics but watercolours have a mind of their own! In the order of appearance below (1) silhouette with brushos (2) texture effects with distress oxides on labels (3) negative painting with ecoline fluid watercolours (inspired by Nina Ribena). 

Another challenge I took part in was over on Instagram, called #fodderchallenge I didn't do all the prompts, just a few of them that took my fancy. You can see them below (these are more in my usual style with acrylics):

I've also got myself a wax seal kit - why didn't I get one earlier? I could have used them for the mail swap! I got the letter 'S' as they were out of 'Z' - to match my fake name (Susan) but then I realised it covers my tag-along surname as well (Smith) so perfect! I've a got a few more designs on order. They're not just for sealing envelopes, but they could be used on all sorts of projects. Here I used them on some envelopes I made from my tea dyed papers with some gold gilding wax to highlight the raised areas. 

So that's it! Nice to be taking part in WOYWW again this week. I might have to skip next week again - see how it goes. I'll leave you with this rose shot I took yesterday - I know I probably shared an almost identical one last year, but these colours never cease to amaze me! 

Happy #629! 

WOYWW #627: A bit of a scattered post and more ATCs!

Sorry I had to miss last week - I ended up working on my day off. That was the pay off for the bank holiday - there's always a pay-off! I'm back today with a bit of a scattered post - it's been a scattered couple of weeks. I've been doing this and that, fluttering from one project to another. I'll show you just a few. 

This was my desk almost two weeks ago. You'll be glad to know that I have since cleared it, though it got pretty messy again pretty quickly, so why bother?

Here I was ironing my tea-dyed papers - I love that little travel iron, it's so handy! I've made a ton of these papers and tried a new technique as well dying inkjet prints letting the inks run, which produce a pretty cool distressed effect. You can check out a tutorial here. These were my initial results and some plain ones too:

Another thing you can do is print directly on tea-dyed paper. I've printed these end papers for an altered book I'm planning to do - and that's as far as I got! 

What else? Oooh, you gotta see this! I saw this cool technique from Birgit Koopsen on Instagram where she uses gold Pan Pastels on a gelli plate - what can I say - mind blown - I had to try it! Here are my results: 

I've also been catching up on challenges in the Mixed Media Emporium Facebook group. One of them was ATC coins. I'd never created coins before and I must say I struggled with this format a bit, but managed to come up with these in the end. When you don't know what to use for focal points, just slap on some TH paper dolls - they always seem to work LOL! 

Talking of ATCs I've received some delightful beauties in the second round of my swaps from Heather, Chris, Lisa-Jane and Lyn (Spyder) along with some lovely little note cards, holders, ephemera etc. Thank you ladies - getting these in the post always made my day and put a smile on my face. 

I have a few other projects in the making - but I think I've kept you long enough - I'll show you next time. For now, there are just these photos to share. 

An amazing cloudscape from a few nights ago:

My beautiful hydrangea with huge flower balls (they're even bigger now)- the summer house still under construction in the background - hubs working on the insulation - had a little accident stabbing himself in the wrist narrowly missing his arteries - ended up in A&E but he's ok! I told him to take it as a warning to be more careful - a bit like when I fell down the stairs two years ago. I'm being very careful around stairs now! 

Some mood lights installed along the fence and the new flower bed leading to the summer house, by DIY extraordinaire hubs (without any accidents this time). I only showed him a picture in a magazine and bang, a week later we've got the lights going - he was trying to explain the technicalities of how the wires are connected, which went straight over my head - all I'm interested in is that on/off button LOL. (Similarly, he wouldn't be interested in my cooking method - all he's interested in is the food to stuff in his face. Yeah, we're old fashioned like that.)  

And that's all for today! Fingers crossed for "freedom day" June 21st - though I don't really see what all the fuss is about when we can already do most of what we want to do. We're hardly in "lockdown".  A few more weeks wouldn't make any difference. Let's just hope the vaccines are working! I had my second dose on Saturday - feeling great so far, not even a sore arm, but I'll be a bit jittery for the next two weeks. Not sure I would want another round of the AZ until they sort out the clotting issue. 

Happy WOYWW!