Last of the Christmas Pressies- wax canvases

Well, this is it, the last of my Christmas present photos! (I still have some more photos, but they are not from my mammoth present-making session). This is a triptych of small canvases- 4" x 5" and 5" x 5"- and is my first go with beeswax. I coated the canvases with beeswax and then ironed the image on and added more beeswax to blend. Then I dusted the canvases with a mixture of Perfect Pearls and Cosmic Shimmer mica powders to tint them- the effect reminds me of a picture I had when I was young which seemed to be printed on mother-of-pearl. I am not entirely happy with them as I would probably have added more elements and stamping, but as a first attempt, they are OK!

PS The photo was originally taken a couple of years ago with a dodgy old 1.2mp compact camera, and is of my nearest beach at Hayling Island- here is the original:

I wish we had light like that every day!

Happy new year everyone :D

West Dean Chilli Fiesta.

As the weather is still amazing here in the South of England, I am making the most of it by going to as many weekend events as I can! In the past, when we were both working, I worked on Saturdays, and was tired on a Sunday. We have many years of weekend fun to catch up on! Dan loves the fresh air too, and we have just bought a framed baby carrier so we can do some more adventurous walking without the buggy.
Today's event was the annual Chili Fiesta at West Dean Gardens in Sussex. There were 80 chili-related stalls plus glasshouses containing 280 varieties of chili! This was set in a very English garden and parkland, so made for an interesting contrast.
I am trying really hard to improve my composition when I take photos. I have a good suite of editing software, and so I am usually a lazy photographer who takes a lot of shots. This time I limited myself, and thought more about the various rules of a good picture. The main thing I notice about my photos is that I need to get in a little bit closer, so the photos you see here were cropped just a bit. I will keep practicing!
Tomorrow is a free open-air concert in another English garden, I will take the camera and see what I can come up with!

Sunset in Hampshire.

This evening I noticed how yellow the light was, and went to look outside my front door. Look what I saw! It was an amazingly beautiful yellow sunset. I don't know what that means in terms of weather, but I know that it would have been very bad to pass up the opportunity to get the camera out. I used the evening setting, and it has truly caught the luminous quality of the light.
I have just finished a small canvas, but I can't show it yet as it is a gift. I have a card to make, which is planned in my head, but tonight I am just luxuriating in the fact that Dan went to sleep at 8pm, so I have some time free to spend with my husband. But tomorrow is Saturday, so I may get some daytime stamping done!

A little taster...

...of my card for Isa's weekly challenge. I got a little stamping done last night, but more importantly, whilst I was getting the baby to sleep, I figured out what I wanted to do for Isa's 'I' challenge this week, and for the 'Artistic license' ATCs. Both ideas involve acetate, which I love working with, and this photo shows the start of the 'I' card, looking through the acetate at the background. But that's all I'm going to say for now about the stamping, as I will post all of the details when I finish the card!
What I will say is that I actually bothered to make use of the super-macro setting on my camera, and I am really pleased with the resulting photo. For once, the shimmer and shine show as well as they do in real life. Julie recently showed some photos of fireworks on her blog, and used the manual settings on her camera. The photos were amazing, and inspired me to get out the handbook for my camera. It's 144 pages long, all in English! I will start to wade through it, as the photos I take don't always do justice to the subjects, and I can already see the difference in this morning's photos. (I didn't want to bore by putting on the one I took on auto, trust me, this one is tons better!) So hopefully there will be some photos to look at in the coming weeks!
PS I needed a dragonfly for this card, and this is the stamp I have, but in my mind, I did it with the gorgeous Technique Tuesday stamp I didn't buy at Newbury, mmm, lovely!

Photos from Mottisfont

It was a fantastic day yesterday! The weather started off as grey and dull, But by the time we got to Mottisfont, it was bright sunshine all the way! Mottisfont Abbey is famous for its walled rose gardens, which in June are at their best. I visited two years ago and loved it, but this year even more flowers were in bloom. It was a real sensory experience, as the fragrance was as beautiful as the flowers themselves. I took a lot of photos, some with a view to making some background papers, and, with the excellent light we had, I had some nice results. I started a scrapbook page in the evening with a view to doing Isa's weekly challenge, which reminded me why I don't scrap as often as I used to! The time it takes to organise all of the different elements of photos, paper, embellishments and journalling means that I didn't even start on the stamping! Hopefully another evening will see it finished.
In the meantime, the new Wednesday stamper challenge is Polka dots, so I plan to ponder that and see what inspiration strikes!