Being Older and being strange

Hi all, 

So i began this blog two years ago at aged 57 i am now 59 and heading towards 60. I am rebelling.

Here is a list of things you may or may not know about me, I would love it if you all did a list too of the 'older you'.

59 and beyond 

1/  I adore all the darkly delicious stuff (in a fun way )

2/I change my hair colour often and its vibrant red at the moment

3/ I am refusing to be a typical old lady

4/ I have a new blog for my darker side A Lot Less Ordinary

5/ love binge watching series on tv

6/ I have a shortness of hours in the day even though i am health related retired

7/ Colour is my all life passion.

8/ I wear make up when i want to .... for me.

9/ I love my family and friends above all else - they are the world.

10/ I try to be positive always (it ain't always easy but i do )

Bonus ........ I would never knowingly hurt another soul in my whole life. 

Happy Friday my friends.  

Huge thanks

Huge thank you's to all of you for your support on my previous post. It meant a lot to me. I have always loved blogging and always come back to it. Facebook is handy and useful for keeping in touch with family but it can be a pain too. I think I will be Blogging more than FBooking in the future. I prefer it. 


I am keeping this blog for all my normal stuff and I have now added a new blog which I am working on just for my darker art and interests. Please feel free to follow.   A LOT LESS ORDINARY   Assemblage art, digital art etc  for Magical, Gothic, dark.steampunk fun etc.  If you enjoy those things. I would love a following .

Have a lovely week its my sisters birthday today I have bought her a beautiful crystal as she collects them. 

my latest digital finished today  :) 

Thoughts

I hate when people on FB or other social network platforms bring you down. I am a positive person and Its taken me many years to achieve this positive state of mind but as soon as you begin to post positive quotes etc people like to bring you down. I truly think they believe that those that post positive things have not suffered in their lives and that they are just happy and positive because life is good to them.

This is not true. Many of you know my background but many don't. My life is not all fabulous etc. I just choose to look for the small pleasures in life. For those out there that believe I have led an easy life. Here are the facts. 

1/  came from poorish background, Money has always been tight.

2/ married a man who now has no job and almost retiring age now anyway. So basically not had a lot of money ever, but then again, not cared much about it either.

3/ My grandson almost died at just 5 weeks old

4/ My eldest son had a stroke aged 30

5/ He also has an Aneurysm which is a worry every day.

6/ I have two Autistic grandchildren

7/ My mum has early onset Alz  and has had that for the past 18 years and is now in the end stages. I nursed her myself for  5 years 

8 I nursed my dad alongside my mam until his death in 2013.

9/ I am diagnosed with the following Depression, COPD, Arthritis in the spine, neck, hips, hands, knees and jaw. I have sleep Apnea, GERD and other minor stuff. 

So not a picnic, but also not the end of the world. I LOVE life, I try to live happy as much as possible, I give as much as I can give and I get love in abundance. I feel fortunate that I have been  blessed with more love than I could dream of and so yes, I will see past the darkness, I refuse to be intimidated for trying to make the world a better place.

Stay happy my lovely blogging friends, x 

experiments

One of the things I have always been interested in is creating D.I.Y versions of things to save money on art products. I got myself a lovely  a 4 plastic concertina file ready today and I am going to be trying out some experiments to find out what the artistic results are like. success or fails. I will come along and share them here too as and when I do them. It should be fun so look out for future posts.

going to try the following one for certain.

Make your own clear Gesso

https://youtu.be/cRjj3WXthEU


Have a fun weekend my crafty lovelies xxx

Day two of the Half - O - Ween   over at  LBS Designs

Having so much fun with this one. creating more as we speak. Here goes for today. I created every bit of this its all my own including background. This is the Seer. He is freaky yes ?   

Hope you like him. going witchy tomorrow with clay ….

Til then blowing you a kiss my wicked friends xxx

Half-O-Ween

Thanks Gina for pointing me in the right direction for the new Half-o-ween blog hop. I am joining in the fun here LBS Designs

It should be fun and I need that in my life. Love Halloween stuff. Here we go

First post.

One Atc and One digital piece. They have not been shared before and I just got word of the Blog hop so had to do some quick thinking lol. Ok top one is mixed media Fairy atc I made. The bottom one is a digital I made with my own images. Hope you all like them. On to the next now xxx

Click Here to go join in. x Last day today for joining in. 

Stencil and home made modelling paste

A long time ago I bought some second hand wooden wall  plaques. I painted them and put them away. Then this week I dragged them out to use with this months Altered Pages theme on stencils. 
I decided to go crazy and make a fabulous mixed media piece. It turned out pretty good. 

I began by making the modelling paste. That was made with equal parts school glue (pva here in the UK ) and paint (colour does not matter so I chose grey acrylic ) and then added talcum powder and mixed until it became the consistency of modelling paste. I l used two stencils with the modelling paste to create some patterns and rough texture in parts too. I left overnight until dry.

I found and arranged lots of metal and die cut card cogs. bead trims gems , some metal keys and a wooden clock face. I added them to the surface with Gorilla glue. 

I left two pieces for adding later as I wanted them to not be painted over. 

Next I painted the whole thing with black acrylic paste. It needed three coats. 

When dry I painted with lots of metallic paints in colours I like and then dried and coated again especially in the parts hard to get too.. Finally after drying I added some silver rub on to parts I wanted to highlight and I added the two pieces I kept back. One is a bulb that says inspire. I covered it in stickles silver glitter glue and dried. The other is a piece I made using a small frame and some card stock and some glossy accents (left to dry overnight too )  I glues these two final parts into the spaces I left for them and left to dry. Here are some close ups of the various parts. 

 The colour seems to change depending on the light but I do enjoy these tones. Hope you like it too. 

Products used 

Paints

Embellishments wood,metal,card

rub on metallic

glue 

home made modelling paste. 

For Altered Pages 2018