Wave

Two paintings in one week! Of course now I have run out of gel medium so I will have to answer my creative needs another way until a new tub arrives, but it is good to dip my toe back in the water. Even if it does feel indulgent. I have 4 big jobs needing to be finished by the 25th so the pressure is on!

Eco Business and Upcycling Competition!

This week I have put up a 5 part series on running an eco business over on the Makers Online Community Blog, featuring fab people like Lynsey of Swirlyarts, Evie of Milomade and Teresa of Mimi Pearl. Find out where to source eco friendly packaging, DIY craft displays and producing eco freindly products from scratch, Lots of fab expeience straight from those in the know!

We are also running a fun competition to create something beautiful out of something worthless - enter the trash to treasure upcycling competition and win a whopping £200! Get creative and good luck!

Flight

I've been desperate to start new pieces of work for a while now. My paid work is good and pays the bills and feeds the kids but doesn't feed the soul in quite the same way. I feel like I am heading towards something but scared I will miss the boat if I don't start start preparing now. So here we are, quite rough and ready but real and exciting. Sadly the camera doesn't pick up the layers and textures and subtleties that are hiding in there. I know what it means to me, I always wonder if viewers feel the same thing.

Guilty Pleasures

I spent many an hour rifling through my nan's button tin when I was little, it was an old rectangular battered metal tin and it made a really satisfying noise to just run my hands through the buttons. I would empty them out, sort them into type and colour and put them all back again. Who needs Barbie's and playstations and all the childish entrapments of modern life when you have a tin of buttons? Children today just don't know what they are missing out on. Actually my kids do. Both of them love going through my boxes of beads and buttons and feathers and all manner of crafty stuff. My other half thinks I just love to hoard junk. But then I think his love of bicycles along with his boxes of weird mechanical bits and bobs, and the mysterious parcels that turn up through the post suggests he understands it more than he would be prepared to let on.

Handmade ceramic buttons from Penny Spooner

These are my latest aquisition from Penny Spooner who I met at the Wemake Fair last month. (Note to designers who make buttons - pop them all in a pot and sell them loose if you know I will be there as I am guaranteed to buy some).

Handmade ceramic buttons are the best of all types of buttons and I discovered them first at a textiles show about 9 years ago (above) so much I can't bear to use them. I have decided to make my own when I can afford a kiln and find some free time so I can use them and then make more.

Charity shop finds.

Acid Brights from Paper Fish

Market stall finds.

Pearly kings and queens.

Handmade ceramic buttons from Hodge Podge Arts

What are your guilty pleasures? Things you like to buy 'just because'.