Medieval glitz!

I've managed to get a few hours of beading done over the last couple of days....

...and am very pleased with the results so far!!

Here are some of the Medieval Tri-Fold Book samples  for my Arts Alive workshop on the 1st & 2nd November.

Remember that chequered piece made from the bits rescued from the bin?....

....I've now beaded the intersections and put some tiny rhinestones in the middle of the punched-out designs.

I also decided to "distress" a Markal tile piece....

...but with gold leaf and beads!

My prancing critter got blinged-up with some couched gold braid....

...and I've now got some prepared tissue ready to go with some gold foiling done.

I'm sure that Medieval times were very, very stinky, dirty, difficult and uncomfortable....

....but MY take on the period is one of absolute opulence!!

Artistic licence.....:-)

Philippines tags - 3 & 4

Here are the final 2 tags in the Philippines group....

....again, strips of prepared pares, fabrics and some Angelina fibres.

I added a Fimo piece in my book sample simply because I liked the look of it... :-)

The finished 4 tags were strung with some hand-dyed silk thread...

...which were then plaited to tie the set together.

I'm minded to do another couple of page spreads for the Philippines....

....maybe I can blog those on the weekend...

Have a great day.

x C

p.s.

I didn't want to do a second post today...

...but you WILL forgive me if you follow this bit down to the YouTube vid!

Going a bit senile lately, I can't remember who I was telling about this, but I KNOW it was someone who reads this blog so ...

...I've just had a snoop around on YouTube for this snippet from the early 90's..

...and FOUND IT! Yey!!!

(YouTube is such a miracle - I thought that I would never have the utter pleasure of listening to this bit of program again!!)

I remember crying with laughter when it was going out live....

...and the day after when they played it again on the same show...

...and it happened again this morning when I listened to it again!

I make no apologies for the exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!

This proves beyond doubt that a completely-losing-it- good belly-laugh is better than anything else to lift the spirits and blow the bad-weather cobwebs away :-)

ENJOY

X X  C

Philippine-inspired tags 1 & 2

I've had to think quite carefully about the items folk will actually be making during the two hours that they spend with me as the ship travels from one port to another.

I decided on a "tag book" from the start...

...as it IS a holiday and luggage labels seem like  suitable things to carry holiday memories.

I have to take most of the bits and pieces with me, but I'm hoping to pick up things like local newspapers, paper bags, wrappers, till receipts, postage stamps, low-value paper money etc on excursions.

These bits'n'bobs can then also be used to ground the memories as it were.

Obviously, luggage tags are only relatively small...

...therefore nothing TOO ambitious can be planned (and to be done in a couple of hours as well!)

So, I've gone for colour combos for the Philippines part of the trip...

...collaged, printed and stitched...

...using hand-dyed and prepared papers and batik fabrics.

Here are 1 and 2...

...blue skies, turquoise seas, shining sandy beaches...

The squiggly writing on the first one is a pre-Hispanic filipino script that I found on the net...

...I thought it would help to "place" things a bit...

3 & 4 to follow soon...

x C