The Hen Night

It seems the big day is looming now! I went to Cork for the weekend and had a little hen night with my family. We hired a stretch limo and took off to Kinsale for dinner. It was such a fun night!

The limo collected us from a city centre hotel - here's Jessica (my brothers girlfriend), Me and Jill (my sister) all dressed up and waiting for our car!


This is Me and Eithne (my birth Mum)


Jill and I once the limo arrived.


May (my adopted Mum) getting stuck into the champagne!

The Silly shots....

we really did break the cuffs and need rescuing!!

And finally waiting for the limo to take us home....




Thanks again all of you for a fabulous night to remember!!!!

xxx

Look at Me!

I was lucky enough to meet and have my photo taken by Anita Mundt at the Halloween Mega Scrap. Anita is such a lovely, thoughtful person and a very talented photogrpaher.

I just had to share the amazing photos she took with you, and recommend if you ever get the opportunity try and book a shoot with her. I believe she is hoping to return to Ireland in the spring so if you're interested contact her through her site ~ http://www.anitamundt.com

Unless you're a successful model you probably don't feel completely comfortable in front of the camera, but somehow Anita manages to put you completely at ease. Just talking with her for a short while she uncovers your personality and highlights elements of your personality in her work, making you feel right at home in front of the camera.









ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANITA MUNDT PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN www.anitamundt.com

Anita is also responsible for the great photography challenge site - Her Space, My Space, His Space which is well worth checking out for some inspiration.

Birthday Card

This is a slightly unusual card, but I really like it.





It started life as a mini canvas and ended up as a birthday card for the very sweet Karin. Playing with inks on the canvas was fun, and layers of colour built up quite easily. I also wanted to get a feeling of nature, dimension and texture on the piece and the elements came together well. A boring card backing just wasn't good enough, but the embossed metal sheet coloured with alcohol inks was the answer to that problem.

TFL x

Those Eyes

Well I keep saying I want to play around with photoshop more but never seem to have the time. But this I managed to do in a few minutes in Picassa, and it was great fun.


The original photo was a not particularly flattering photo of my lovely sister Jill, and I thought what can I do to improve this.... Well Jill (as you can see) has the most stunning eyes, so I decided to focus on them, blowing out some of the detail and keeping the image to a simple two colour combination.

I love the result and must find the time to play with a few more photos soon.

Celtic Girl

Well this is the third and last of the tiles left over from my kitchen. I started this piece so long ago and couldn't seem to finish it. Anyway I finally managed it last week. Its an image transfer decorated with alcohol inks and stickles. The celtic embellishment is handmade to compliment the celtic style and the tile was finished by drilling holes and threading ribbons through to hang it up.



I wanted to give this to someone and I thought it was just perfect for the lovely Anne Lise - a very talented Norwegian blog friend of mine, who loves things Irish ;-) so its on route to her. If you get a chance check out her blog she has some fabulous creations on there.

Paper Making

I was excited to take a paper making workshop with Hungarian artist Tunde Toth a little while ago. She has been making paper for 11 years and runs Kozo Studio and Gallery in Kilkenny, Ireland. At this absorbing workshop we learned the basics of paper making: preparing the pulp, creating the paper sheets, adding texture and fibres to the paper and also some colouring techniques.

Many of us work with paper on a daily basis, adding colour, design techniques and embellishments, forgetting the beauty intrinsic to the paper itself. Tunde's class brought me back to basics and reminded me to love the paper for itself - not just as a means to an end.

Paper sheet textured with a wire comb:


Paper sheet with rafia and natural fibres inlaid:



Plain Paper coloured with Fabric Dye:


Textured paper coloured with fabric dye:


Textured paper coloured with fabric dye and poster paint:


Coloured as pulp with dried flowers inlaid:


Coloured as pulp, book-jacket style:




Crazy fibres as book-jacket hinge:


Plain paper with silk fibres inlaid:


Plain paper with inlaid dried flower designs.

Little Book of Ladies

This is a little mini-book I put together a while back. Its a 3D accordian style and quite tiny - only 6cm square. There are two layers of pages, with the images set behind the first layer to give a depth and frame to the individual images.

Another Colourful Card

Once again I haven't managed to blog in too long, but I haven't really been making much either. Anyway finally I got some energy back this evening - I cleaned up my craft space, finished a few projects that were too long outstanding and even got to tidy my blog!

Here's a card I made some weeks ago for a special friends' birthday - the background and beading is hand-done, and I wanted to keep the rest of the layout simple to focus on this.

Birthday Card

Don't know whats happened the last month, I haven't been crafting much, but what I have done I just haven't got around to photographing and publishing. Anyway I'll try and catch up over the next few days.

First up here's a birthday card I made for Annamarie who had a birthday in September.


I had great fun playing with the soft tones and colours - the stamped image and the background paper are both hand coloured.

Bookbinding - Part II

I attended another workshop with Sandi Sexton at the weekend. She really is a lovely lady and a fabulous teacher.

This time round we made 2 books. The first using the japanese stitch technique.

I made this book with a beautiful marbled front and a coordinating back and ribbon, which really did look good enough to eat. Its approximately 11 x 15cm in size to give you an idea of scale. I can't wait to make more books using this technique.






The second book we made was an accordian style book - I used this fabulous designer paper for the cover and a heavy textured paper for the inside to give it strength. The finished book is approx 8 x 12 cm




Finally, I was so energised and inspired after the workshop I picked up some gorgeous handmade chinese paper on the way home and made this little accordian book. Only 6 x 8 cm.