What I See Spread

After the vintage page yesterday I concentrated on my Sketchbook Project today and as all my paints and sprays were still out in my half of the shed a bit more playing with them was on my agenda. I did discover that the pages of this sketchbook are not really up to being messed about with and the next time I fancy using paints etc. I'm going to do it on watercolour papers and then glue it into my Sketchbook. As it was, I managed not to make too much mess but had to glue additional pages to the back of the ones I had sprayed to make them a bit more substantial and prevent the paint from showing on the reverse.

I used scavenged images from an advertisement in a glossy magazine (it was a Swarovski advert, so suitable as I love their beads!). On the right hand side I added the detail of a face and over painted and sprayed it using the Crafty Notions sprays as well as gold and bronze liquid acrylics. I added a fabric butterfly (using fusible web) and 3 purple self-adhesive dots. On the left-hand side only the eye from another face was added. I used Lenna's clear tape transfer method again for this. The text: "I see what I love and I love what I see" was painted and glued on. This was scavenged from a Louise L Hay Affirmations daily calendar.

The final touch on both pages were postage stamps in matching colours. Last week, in the interest of scavenging (is it still scavenging if you pay for something? I decided it was.) I paid a visit to a wonderful postage stamp shop in Edinburgh. I would willingly move in there and spend the rest of my life rummaging around. The only shame is that the No Smoking rules here in Scotland mean that the shop no longer reeks of tobacco and pipe smoke like it did when I first visited some 10 or so years ago. The moment I opened the door to the shop immediately brought to mind both my grandfathers, one of whom smoked cigars and the other a pipe. So nostalgic! I really miss it but of course it is a lot healthier without the smoke clouds. The first time I visited was to collect stamps for my Postage Stamp Quilt shown underneath. We've just hung it in our corridor and looking at it 10 years after it was made, I love it all over again. One day I will revisit this method!