Useful or Beautiful

Hello all!  It's so long since I've been here that I've almost forgotten how to write a blogpost!  My apologies for the long silence, both here at Words and Pictures and in terms of visiting... it's been a busy old time lately.  I've got a quieter time coming up, so hope to do some catching up with the crafting world now.

I simply couldn't miss Celebration Time over at A Vintage Journey today, though - it's a challenge celebrating our our sixth birthday.  Can you believe it?   Your projects don't have to be all about birthdays or big events.  Our host, the fabulous Brenda, also wants to know what you are celebrating in your crafting and creativity at the moment.

Well, I'm just celebrating being back at my craft desk by playing with lots of my favourite things... crackle, rusty wire, tiny houses and, of course, some words.  There are lots of glorious projects to enjoy from my fellow Creative Guides.  Do check out all the things they are celebrating, and we hope you'll share with us what you're celebrating this month.







You can see the rusty wire, words and tiny houses in that main picture, but maybe not the crackle, so this photo is just to prove that's in the mix too!













It all started with this gorgeous paper from the new Stamperia Forest collection.  It reminded me a bit of a William Morris print...














... so I thought it would be perfect to combine it with one of the most famous quotes on my new House & Home collection for PaperArtsy on some of Tim Holtz's Tiny Houses.













The words are stamped in Peat Moss Archival ink, which turned out to be a perfect match for the soft green of the leaves.













Apart from a splatter of paint which unhelpfully turned the word 'house' into the word 'horse'...














... I really love how the combination of words and pictures (and 3D objects) works.














And around the back of the tiniest house, you even get a reminder of whose words they are...













The roofs are cut out of corrugated cardboard, and have had a random application of Ranger Opaque crackle paste.  Over that, I blended Walnut Stain Distress Ink to highlight the cracks and darken the edges.
















I also blended the Walnut Stain ink onto the corners of the houses to give them a nice distressed look.  You can see the difference it makes from the clean cut look of the un-inked papers...













... to the inked edges with a vintage weathered appearance.














I added some metal accents - cogs are definitely useful things, so they work as a contrast to the beauty of the raspberry vines.















And this Muse Token seemed appropriate to go with the words.













And of course the other main metal accent is my much-loved rusty wire, twisted and twined around the centres of the houses.















Around the foot of the houses, I glued delicate strands of green moss to "ground" the houses.








As it turned out, when I was photographing these on the mossy railway sleeper in the garden, you can hardly tell the moss is there!

But there's another thing to celebrate here... the arrival of the symptoms of spring - both in the greenery (look at those lovely delicate grassy stems) and the weather which allowed me to get outside for half an hour!

I really like that you can just turn the houses around if you decide you'd like to get a proper look at those lovely papers without anything much getting in the way!

















I hope you like these tiny houses as much as I do.  They were certainly a lovely way to try to get my creative energy flowing again at the craft desk.















It's always tricky coming back from a consuming rehearsal process and getting back into the swing of crafty things.
















But with A Vintage Journey's sixth birthday to celebrate, I had the nudge I needed to get my fingers messy again.

Having some of my new word stamps to inspire me was also really helpful... the quotes always trigger ideas for me.

In fact, I knew even when I was collecting the House & Home quotes that I wanted to add them to some houses.  I'm guessing it won't be the last time you see some House & Home words on some little houses!

We hope you'll come and celebrate with us this month at A Vintage Journey.  Remember, your projects can be about celebrating your own creative journey - not just birthday or anniversary celebrations.  We can't wait to see what you are celebrating.










Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I'm very much looking forward to doing some visiting over the next week to catch up with all of you.

Celebrate your journey of life.
Laila Gifty Akita

People of our time are losing the power of celebration.  Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained.  Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state - it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle...  Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Abraham Joshua Heschel

I'd like to join in with the Anything Mixed Media Goes theme at Bleeding Art Challenge
I'd also like to share them at the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog where it's also Anything Mixed Media Goes
At More Mixed Media it's Anything Goes with an optional twist of Green