The twelve best things about Christmas - Number 1

 OK - I know it's still November, but it's long been mulled wine weather here!

 I've already had my first glass of mulled wine this year, at the North Pole Bar (below) - Manchester's pop-up Christmas bar complete with kitsch decor (we're talking a huge plastic polar bear and faux furs to sit on)

(photo by http://www.weheart.co.uk)

If you fancy making your own mulled wine, just add the following ingredients to a pan, and simmer for about 20 minutes before serving -

• 300mls of water, 
• 2 bottles of full bodied red wine, 
• a whole orange stuck with cloves, 
• a cinnamon stick,
• 2 sliced lemons and a sliced orange, 
• 6 tablespoons of honey
• optional but if you're feeling adventurous, you can add 2 tablespoons of Cointreau!

Incognito Heart - Inspiration Avenue Creative Challenge

 I loved this week's IAE challenge theme - "Incognito".

I'm fascinated by things that are hidden or have been concealed. 

 For this canvas I played with different ways of doing this. On the first tag I hid a note in a tiny envelope; on the second tag, one button is real and the others are faux (incognito paper - disguised as buttons!).  

For the third tag I partly concealed a heart with translucent ribbon. And finally, I had to add a little key ... to unlock all the secrets!

 This canvas measure 7 x 5 x 0.5" andwill be posted in my etsy shop today.

You can find all this week's challenge entries by clicking here. We'd love you to join in the challenge next week too - a brand new theme is posted every Monday :)

Christmas heart ornaments - last batch!

This is the last batch of my hand-painted Christmas hearts. They're all in various stages waiting for painting/finishing/packing respectively; don't they look pretty all together though! 

You can see the whole collection here.

Happiness is - in the simple things ....

This week's Inspiration Avenue team challenge was "Happiness is..."  

I've found that no matter what I've got going on in my life, if I make time to stop and notice the beauty around me, I feel happier :)

PS there's always beauty around everyone - if ever you can't see it, you just need to alter your perspective slightly! :)

Mixed media crumpled tissue technique - tutorial

As promised, a little tutorial on how I made my mixed media canvas (above) for last week's IAE challenge.

1. Take a sheet of tissue paper (any old tissue paper will do - I save the stuff from old shoe boxes!) and give it a really good crumple so it has tons of creases - the more the better!

 2. Glue it to your canvas using a 50/50 mix of PVA glue and water - let it wrinkle and bubble as much as you like, you don't want to smooth out all that lovely texture!

3. When it is completely dry, paint over the tissue - I've used a mixture of Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna acrylic paints, but you can of course use whatever colours you like/have available. It's best if the paint is fairly watery.

4. Now the fun bit! Once the paint is dry,  rub over the whole background with an oil pastel in a contrasting colour - this picks out all those gorgeous creases beautifully! You could also use coloured pencil or even a wax crayon for this step.

5. I've painted some of my collage elements - a wooden heart, a bit of old torn corrugated card, and a little wooden key - in white. I've also cut up and painted a piece of an old laundry bag as I loved the pattern and texture (and I do like to re-cycle!) 

6.Other collage elements I've added are a beautifully aged vintage book page, and a wooden button and letters (these have a very light coat of gold acrylic paint so they glisten a little  but the letters still show through). 

I've also used some scrapbook paper leftover from an old project, and a fragment of the paper that I had underneath the laundry bag when I was painting it (perhaps worryingly, sometimes I like the scrap paper underneath more than my actual work!)

7. Finally, all the elements are glued in place. Shouting "ta-da" at this stage is optional :)

The crumpled tissue technique also works really well with landscape pieces - I've also used it here -