Haiku My Heart Friday: Scotland Votes

An historic vote
Democracy in action
Reveals the divide.



Photo from express.co.uk

Whatever your opinion on whether or not Scotland should stay part of Great Britain or be an independent nation, you have to admire the democratic process in action.  To my knowledge, there has been little or no violence associated with this referendum. No one has died, no blood has been spilled, people visited the polling stations without fear of intimidation or recrimination.  It is a pity the same cannot be said for all countries around the world who wish to have a voice in their own destiny.



To find more haiku to savour, visit recuerda_mi_corazon.


One Down

In the parking lot at work first thing this morning:

Later in the day:

The plot thickens. Or flattens, depending on your point of view!

A Strange Thing

As I was walking across the parking lot to my car tonight after work, I noticed this:

I was quite incensed, amazed and angered that someone would leave litter behind like this as they drove off in their car.  How inconsiderate, how lazy, how inappropriate!!  But then, a strange thing...

I noticed there was a second can of pop beside a nearby car:

Even stranger than that, both cans were unopened!!

I am at a loss to know what this means.  Was it a secret signal of some sort? A joke being played on the owner of the black Volkswagen?  Or was it indeed littering, with a culprit too lazy to open the cans?!

I am most perplexed.

Put A Bird On It!

There is a joke in the crafting world that says, if you're unsure what to do with an piece of art, put a bird on it.  I took that advice to heart on Sunday when I was making some cards using gelatos and embossing, inspired by the class I took at Bizzy B last week (as described in yesterday's post), and needed to do a little improvising!

I started by using each of these two stamps for embossing - a Positive Thoughts stamp and the Hero Arts "Leafy Vines" stamp:

They are both large stamps and it is sometimes difficult to get a clear image, as was the case with my first attempt, so I ended up using both stamps on the same piece of watercolour paper. I embossed with the Stampendous "Aged Rose" embossing enamel, which gives a lovely vintage look.

The result was pretty good, I really liked how you could see a few words peeking out from behind the vines (might try to recreate that effect again in future!), except for a little bit of a blank spot on the bottom. So what did I do? I put a bird on it!  A Dina Wakely Scribbly Bird, to be exact, one that I had stamped and then painted with watercolour.

As you can see in the next picture, the stamped image turned out really badly, leaving a huge gaping hole in the centre.

No worries, I went ahead with the embossing, coloured the paper with pink and red gelatos and positioned the bird right smack in the centre of the card to cover up the blank spot.  Easy fix!

For this next card, I used a piece of white cardstock and ended up holding the heat gun a little too close to the paper, leaving one section looking a little "toasted".

To fix it, I blended Antique Linen Distress Ink on the card, then added a little Broken China as well, before adding - you guessed it! - another painted bird!

The morale of this story? Don't be afraid to make mistakes.  If there is one thing I've learned from art journaling, it is that any mistake can be fixed, you just have to keep going. You can cover it up with paint, glue something on top of it, cut it out, fold it up or ... just put a bird on it!

A Gelato Lesson

I took a class last week at Bizzy B called "Yummy and Delicious Gelatos".  Sadly, it did not involve the tasting of any Italian ice creams of the same name. It was all about the lipstick-shaped tubes of colour made by Faber Castell.  You can see some of them in bottom left corner of the photo below.

The class was taught by Daniza, who kindly agreed to let me be the 10th person when I called the day of the class to sign up.  Obviously, gelatos are a very popular topic!

We made four cards, each using a different technique that involved the gelatos, two of which are shown below (both made by Daniza).

For the most part, my cards turned out almost identical to her samples, with just a couple of notable exceptions.

The card shown below was my favourite. It involved making an image with embossing powder (in this case, the white swirly pattern, which is the "stamp of the month" at the store for September) and then adding colour using two or three shades of gelato, creating a very dramatic effect.

For my version, I positioned the card vertically instead of horizontally and added the text at the top of the card, rather than at the bottom.  Plus my colours turned out less turquoise and more greeny blue than Daniza's, but of course, any combination of shades would work with this technique.

For this birthday card

Daniza's version

I had some trouble with the stamped doily and ended up with an incomplete image (and a rather botched image in the bottom right corner, although the idea was that the stamped image should be slightly imperfect, to add to the vintage look of the card. Ah well.)  In order to hide the gap, I added a strip of matching ribbon down the left side of the card to make the blank space less noticeable.

My version

I was so enamoured of the various techniques I learned in this class that I spent a few hours yesterday making several more cards on my own at home.  I'll share those with you in tomorrow's post.

Haiku My Heart Friday: A Chill in the Air

The air grows colder
Birds gather to plan their exit
Winter is coming.

There was a different feel to the chilly air today, an ominous portent of the season that is coming. The fall has so many wonderful qualities but I must admit that I would enjoy autumn so much more if I didn't know what was going to follow it.  As it's not even halfway through September, I can only hope that the warm weather has not quite left us yet, that this spell of unseasonably cool, wet weather in our immediate forecast will soon be replaced by warmer temperatures before we must pack away the lighter clothing and open-toed shoes for good.

The older I get, the more I'd like to be able to fly south for the winter as many of our feathered friends do!

For more Haiku My Heart Friday, please visit Rebecca and the other poets linked at recuerda_mi_corazon.

We Can't Forget

For those of us who experienced 9/11/01, it remains etched in our memories.  Where we were when we first heard the news, how we spent that day and night glued to our computer and television screens, the horrific images and stories that were so unbelievable and yet, sadly, so very true.  We can't not think of that day whenever the anniversary comes around.

I found the above photo here, with an interesting article about teaching children about 9/11.  If you are so inclined, you may wish to take a moment to read my blog post about visiting the World Trade Centre Memorial in New York City last year, which you will find here.  

Whatever you do today, please take a moment to remember all those who didn't come home that day.