Spinning Around...

...oohahahaaa... tis always a bad sign when my blog post title makes me snort... spinning around... cos I have a spool to show you... ahah! Anyways... enough of me and my clever wordsmithery (ahem...) So... another show sample, this time featuring on of my favest types of Art Parts, the Spool. These are such fun to play with, really simple to put together and there are sooo many different things that you can do with them. As with yesterday, a list of ingredients for starters:




Art Parts - Spools, Florals, Leaves & Pocket Watches
Dimensional Rose Art, Live & Make Art & Make Mine Mini Art Stamp Sets
Gold Dabber
Lost & Found Paper
Clearly For Art - Clear
Grungepaper
Gold Dabber
Coffee & Jet Black Archival
Idea-ology - Tassels, Foliage & Memo Pins
Wild Honey, Forest Moss & Vintage Photo Distress Ink
Glossy Accents


So, to start with cover the two flat circles that will be the top and bottom of your spool with Lost & Found Paper... blend the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and then use an emery board or a bit of light sandpaper to smooth off the edges. Use Wild Honey Distress Ink to blend lightly onto the "stem" of the Spool. Ink up the long border from Make Mine Mini Art with Coffee Archival, carefully roll the "stem" along the stamp, picking up the design until you are back where you started; repeat at the top of the stem too. Cover teh insidey bit of the Pocket Watch with more paper, stamp sentiment onto more of the paper and mount on 3d foam and pop into the middle. Using Gold Dabber, pounce onto the frame of the Pocket Watch so it leaves little peaks and is textured... dry with a heat tool. Once completely dry, gently pat the Coffee Archival ink over the top of the paint... you will see the ink stick to the little peaky textured bits... this gives it a fab faux rusty look.




Stamp the large flower from Live & Make Art 3 times onto Grungepaper and the small one, once. Cut out and colour using Gold Dabber and the same technique as just mentioned. You will have fabby rusty looking flowers. AS with the "rose" tutorial, on flower one, snip out one petal and bring the two edge petals together, glue and clip together til dried. Repeat this technique on the next two flowers, cutting out two and three petals respectively. For the small flower, snip away just the one petal. Once all the glued petals are dry, snip the bases to neaten up and assemble into a layered flower, using strong glue to stick the layers together. Pop the centre from one of the spools into the middle of the flower, ddab with Gold paint and attach a little Idea-ology Foliage piece to the middle.



Finally, stamp some mini butterflies onto Grungepaper, colour both sides with Wild Honey Distress Ink... stamp more butterflies onto Clearly For Art, dry, cut out, heat, curl, glue over the top of the Grunge one and pop them onto the assembled spool. The ickle Memo Pin has been made into an Epoxy Embellishment. This is one of Wendy's techniques and I think it is fab... use a little punch to make little circles - I have punched out patterned paper for this... Pop a strip of red line tape (or the like) onto a craft sheet. Lay the Memo Pin onto the craft sheet so the back of the circle is flush with the sheet. Pop the punched out piece behind it. Now fill the Memo Pin up with Glossy Accents... leave to set completely... how cool!!!






Anyways... I am bursting to tell you all about yesterday!!! Cor blimey and thrice alive... we had the best time!!! We had a Groupon voucher jobby for The Bird Of Prey Centre - CLICK HERE for deets - and oh boy, what an experience it was. From start to finish the guy who was our "tour guide" was full of information, telling us the names of the birds, where they usually live, a little about the birds background, how old they were, what their temperaments were like etc and his whole demeanour just enthused and you could see that he truly loves his job - so refreshing to see and hear such passion for these amazing creatures. So... to start off with we went and met some eagles, yes, they were a little bit scary... and there was THE cutest owl EVER called Mikey... and a really snooty looking Lanner Falcon called Clyro who did this... just as I was taking his pic!



After meeting up with the scary looking Red Faced Eagle... although he wasn't quite as scary once he was sitting on my arm (!) much... we went off to the arena and got the chance to "fly" some of these most beautiful of Gods creatures... starting with a sweet and teensy little Barn Owl who LOVED me so much she pooped on my foot! Then came Disney, a rather bossy Owl who was more interested in showing off to start off with but she did come and land on my arm and made some really cute noises!




And then... the one I fell for... called Marshall... just have a look at his most beautiful face... and I learnt stuff too... I didn't know but if an owl has yellow eyes he is most likely a daytime hunter... and if they are golden they are most likely to be a night-time and crepuscular hunter. (I actually did feel ever so slightly chuffed that I knew that crepuscular meant dusk!) Marshall was really entertaining and he just lurved flying in for the little tasty snack of day old chick legs (I know, ikkk, but... tis nature ... )



And finally, here's Sniper. He is a juvenile Harris Hawk and he was really funny... he kept swooping off in to the nearby trees and then launching himself out ready to land on the gloved hand and have a little snack. All of the birds looked really happy and you can tell that they are so well loved and cared for. All in all it was a really grand day out... and all that fresh air... well, a little nanna nap on the sofa was called for!



Right then... enough of my wafflings... time for me to get off and resume the mammoth task that is clearing out and cleaning the Room of Stash... oh dear, I may be some time!!! Thanks for looking... TTFN

Hels x