Tuesday 3 March 2015

St Ives Part 1

I love the excitement of arriving in St Ives, whether by train or car. Both routes give you a glimpse of that wonderful harbour scene as you're getting close to the resort..
I took this from the train as we reached Porthminster beach (foreground)...
There are four main beaches....Porthminster, Porthmeor, Porthgwidden and the harbour. There are also a few more tiny ones.
Well, the weather forecast was not good.....we expected to arrive in heavy rain. But thankfully it was wrong; the sun shone all afternoon and we were able to sit out on our balcony having a cup of tea (with no coat on!)
We rented a beautiful house from Sailingbystives......if you click on the link you can see more pictures.
Here are some of mine....


I'd be happy to stay there for the rest of my days, but we'd have to take Angel of course :-). 
Don't know what she'd make of those seagulls......
The six days flew by; lots of walking, eating, drinking, gallery-visiting, photo-taking, reading.......and just sitting staring at that view.
More next time.....

Since I got back I've begun making more collages....
I like adding these shabby leaves to my collages; they're really easy to make. I keep all my paper scraps in a box (from making inky/painted backgrounds) and simply free machine the leaf shapes onto them in a random way. 
When I've done, I just tear around the leaves - the messier the better! (The needle makes perforation holes).
I'm not a fan of straight/cut lines so I prefer to tear. I guess you could cut around with small scissors if you wanted to. 
I know you can use pre-set patterns on a machine, but I like messier hand 'drawn' ones better. 
Experiment with different types of paper.....soft (thin) cartridge works well, as does printer paper and newsprint (just tear carefully).
When they're done I lay them on an acetate sheet and brush on acrylic wax. It holds them together and gives a nice finish. I guess you could use PVA. 
Peel them off the sheet when they're dry.

Here are some close-ups....

Stitching freestyle on the machine....
And tearing....


I hand stitch them onto my collages in different ways.
Hope that helps!

Happy March :-) Yay....Spring is coming!


Be filled with Wonder and Peace.....and Cosiness

I hope you're managing to embrace this change of season. I'm so much better at accepting the end of summer than I used to be. I&...