Painting: Rose

This painting is another one based on a photo from my America trip last year.

Portland's International Rose Garden has approximately 550 varieties of rose plant so there were plenty to take photos of during our vist. It's free to look around and you can get there on the shuttle bus that takes you all around Washington Park, which we were visiting for the zoo but the rose garden was an added bonus.

This painting is a small one and I decided to use acrylic paints as a change from my usual oils.

Thanks Portland for your inspiration and photo posing opportunities!

Nail Varnish Wire Flower

I recently saw this pin of a wire flower made with nail varnish, which led me to this video of Man vs Pin (which is my new favourite thing) which told me that the secret to getting this project to work is glue. So I had a go.

I started by making a simple flower from craft wire.

I found the best way to coat the wire petals in PVA glue was to dunk the whole thing in the container.

Some of the PVA petals kind of popped as they were drying so those ones had to be re-dunked but eventually I got a wire flower with all five petals coated in PVA glue.

Then for the nail varnish. I painted it on and found that it made the glue wrinkle like water does to paper but there was nothing I could do about that, so I'm saying it was deliberate.

The petals got 3/4 coats of nail varnish

I then wrapped the wire stalk around a hair grip and made myself cute new hair accessory!

What do you think?

Painting: Pink and Purple

Here's a new painting I did just for fun.

It's the inside of a flower and it's oil paint on a little canvas board so I thought it was perfect to go on my little easel.

Then I realised there were some other things in my craft space that matched the colours.

Like this painting I did a while ago.

I got the idea online where they had used masking fluid to block out the face and then painted over it with watercolours, but I didn't have any so I used a candle to create a wax resist.

The effect is pretty much the same, it's just not quite as neat.

And then there's this pink and purple felted rock. It's the only thing I've ever felted and I'd like to do more. 

Spreading the craft

I recently took part in a craft swap hosted by Kelsey over at Artichoke Designs.

I made something for Katie from Sweet Rustic who is from Australia. My little package took 3 weeks to get there!

Based on the aesthetic of her blog name I made Katie this pendant. I (or rather my Dad!) cut the wood and I sanded it to a round shape. Then I painted on the rose and varnished it and added some pretty pink ribbon.

I also sent Katie this pair of simple earrings that I put together.

I think the craft swap is still going on so head over to Kelsey's blog to take part.