working with ephemera

or seeing what can be done with paper, maps and newspaper. I am thinking about the transient nature of flowers and enjoying sticking, gluing, tearing up strips and all that as well as working with cups of tea, both for real and otherwise. It's the day to day, mundane and what is around rather than looking for some Holy Grail.

Consequently I love things that aren't that precious, rare, and sought after. Rather, it's about turning something discarded into something else through some kind of transformation. I have collected the dead roses heads, left over from my birthday bunch, and continuing to enjoy the quality of dried rose petals. I have tipped out the fruit from the gloriously kitchen golden goblet that once housed the bananas and now it's filling with incredibly romantic faded roses, and the soft peachy tones of the papery petals.

I intend to make a papier mache cup and saucer, and instead of tea, the cup will be filled with gold and inspiring words of wisdom. The cup that cheers!

it started with an idea....

I bought a fabulous book a while back called 'Ribbonwork The complete Guide' by Helen Gibb and started playing around with a very simple petal idea.. and then I found some tatty little fake flowers, which looked pretty good when incorporated into the petal (which I made in layers) and then I went into the garden and snipped a bit of clematis and wound it into a wreath, and then decorated this with my new flowers.

Then I looked in a book by Sue Reeves which had some fabulous totally over the top type fabric wreaths and took this up into the hills at the back of Buxton to absorb (with OH and a flask of coffee). Saturday night was spent painstakingly putting all this together and I am really pleased with the result!

This evening I tackled another unfinished knitting project, made from old bits of yarn, which I then pulled off the needle and backed with bondaweb and made a lovely knitted hanging heart which is like recycling recycled stuff. I quite like the idea of working with something and turning it into something else. It means I make quite a mess.

experimentation

Why is it that I always want to try something new? These past few weeks I have been making cards, houses,dolls, crochet stuff, painting, drawing and I think I have been pursuing a certain kind of emotional response. I love Julie Arkell's work

Warm, cosy, comfortable, funny, poignant and colourful. The colours are a little odd - I am not going for obvious bright splashes but something more subtle, like the almost random selection in my crochet blankets.

And then I have been keep a daily facebook link to my influences for the day like these: