Travelling Shrine to Elen of the Ways

I love shrines, and when I found this little wooden photo frame for £2.00 in a charity shop I felt it would be perfect for a travelling shrine with its cut out wooden doors that close to protect the picture inside.  It took a few weeks of looking at it before I realised that this stamp of an antlered woman, called Druidess, would fit really well into the frame.

To start with I repainted the frame from its original dull grey to a green with a bit of metallic gold mixed in and then rubbed a bit more gold over the surface.  While that was drying I stamped the image onto white card and heat embossed it.  I used a mix of acrylic paint, dye based watercolours and Twinkling H2Os to get the effects and colours I wanted.

Once the paint on the frame was dry I used various other stamps on the inner frame and on the back of the frame and heat embossed them in copper.  On the front of the doors I added copper metal accent pieces to help hide the image a bit more while they are closed.  I found some vintage amber beads for the flower centres too.  I am going on an Elen of the Ways retreat next weekend and this little shrine will travel with me there.

The front of the shrine, with doors closed.

The central image;  I have left the glass in the frame to protect it.

The shrine stood with its doors opened for use.

Stamp Head ATC's

It has been a while since I joined in an ATC swap, so when Rebecca opened a swap where stamps were to be used to add heads to images taken from magazines, the internet or other places I thought I would join in.  Unfortunately, although there are some stunning ATC's from other people on the swap my inspiration deserted me and I managed five quite boring examples!

Junk Key Round 3: Day of the Dead

This month I had to make a charm for Rebecca's Day of the Dead themed key.  This was quite easy, as I already had the skull charm and sugar skull beads in my stash, so it was just a matter of putting it all together.

June Calendar Journal

I decided to do a sun with it's rays for the journalling spaces this month.  It still looks quite plain though, so I may doodle around the rays as I go through the month.

Green Knowe

As a child I read the books written by Lucy M Boston about the house of Green Knowe, and found them magical.  Years later when I had my own children I bought the set so they could read them.  However, it was only a few years ago that I discovered that Lucy Boston had lived only a few miles from where I do now, and had based the house and garden in her books on the house she lived in.

This week I finally booked a tour of the Manor House, and we were shown round by the author's daughter in law, Diana Boston, who lives there now.  It brought the magic back to walk through the rooms and gardens where the children in the books had walked, and see the artifacts that appeared in the books!  It was also lovely to see Lucy's own patchwork quilts that she made during her lifetime.

I have scrapbooked some of the photos from the day:

As you can see, the main picture hinges back to reveal the other pages hidden inside, together with a bit of journalling about the visit.

Junk Key: Round 2

I currently have Yolanda's key, which is an Alice in Wonderland theme.  I have added a printed charm of Alice, with a little silver teapot and teacup plus blue and white ribbons (the colour of Alice's dress)

May Calendar Journal

I decided to get this done early, as I will be busy up to the end of the month.  My inspiration was the bunches of May (or Hawthorn) blossom that traditionally start to open on May Day.  I painted the background and added die cut flowers (Tim Holtz Tattered Florals dies)  with stamped centres and stamped leaves around them.  I also added little stamped and coloured bees around the flowers.

Unfortunately they don't look as much like May blossom as I planned, as I couldn't find the watercolour paper I wanted to use.  I'm still happy with how they came out though.