Buttons and Beads

Well its been a while since I started playing with buttons and beads alongside the paintings!

I love the different colours and shapes you can get..

and its great fun creating the 'flowers'

I have got some bouquets finished now..

buttonholes made with buttons are great fun to--I will be making some to match all the bouquets...

I love searching out things I can use,

buttons of all shapes and sizes...

Vintage buttons are so beautiful,,,but involve quite a lot of work...they have to be washed and dried,sorted into colours and shapes..

I use vintage materials too, this hand made croqueted tablecloth had a few stains on it , but I was able to rescue some of the individual 'flowers; to use..

reminds me of sweets in a shop--these are just a small number of my buttons!

As well as button bouquets I will be creating other items--this is my first button bling Christmas tree--the photos don't do it justice..its bling at its finest!

buttons and jewels abound!!

One of my latest creations..a huge Button Butterfly suitable for a little girls room maybe?

And I'm really chuffed with my pink Christmas tree

I am working on a new website for the button side of the business--will post here when its up and running!In the meantime if there is anything you would like creating in buttons please contact me via my usual website www.paintingmyway.co.uk

Button Oak Art Cub Workshop

We went back to Button Oak art club today to do the Birch Tree workshop..it was our third time there to teach and it was lovely to see some familiar faces again! My camera has managed to lose over 600 photos today somehow-so I have only got a few of the class...don't know what has happened to it--2nd time that's happened :-(( Anyway above you can see the birch trees taking shape ....the splattering is great fun--once you get the hang of which brush stays still and which one moves...

Gail is the organiser of the club and what a grand job she does too....we had a lovely lunch of carrot and coriander or mushroom soup with nan bread and some lovely cakes for after all sorted by Gail.Tea and coffee were supplied regularly as well....here you can see Gail finishing her painting..

Mary adding the finishing touches to her painting...

Gwyn is nearly done here too-she extended the branches out a bit further across the birches and it made a huge difference to the finished painting.

Beryl's painting was quite subtle compared to some of the other ones--but that is the beauty of this painting--it works no matter how you decide to do it..

Mel is pointing out something to Olga as she dries both their paintings with the hairdryer! We had lots of laughs with them today--was great fun...

Sue adding some branches to her trees....

We had some lovely results today..even though a few of the students found it very tiring to do..it is a very physical painting to do with lots of getting up and down to do watch me and do splattering on the birch trees...we are looking forward to going back in 2012 to do another painting--but I think we will stick to the oils then--its much easier for the students to handle I think..I forget that the majority of the students are not as able bodied as they were! Anyway judging by the comments in my book-everyone enjoyed the workshop today--I bet they  all sleep soundly tonight after I tired them out! See you in 2012 Button Oak !

2nd Christmas!

Little Lucie slept until turned 10am this morning bless her--then she got up and had some lovely toast!

The girls hadn't had their Christmas pressies because they went to Florida  for Xmas so it was mayhem here for a while when they had all their pressies to unwrap...

Lucy had to crawl into the huge bag to get her pressies out!

Hollie was sooo funny--when she unwrapped her dvd she said ''nanny Di --Ive been looking for this dvd for ages'' she was thrilled to bits .

unwrapping the play kitchen they had between them...

Grandad Bill had to put the kitchen together--not an easy job with the 2 girls trying to help him!

Lucie looks while overwhelmed with it all!

The kitchen will stay at ours and they will have it to play with when they come down.

 

It was lovely to spend lots of time with the girls--usually we are working on the Sunday when they come down to visit-so it was great not to be rushing off.We all went out to lunch at The Queens before they left for a 4 hour journey home.

Lovely Time at Button Oak Art Club

We had a lovely time at Button Oak art club today--not the biggest we have ever been to but certainly one of the keenest!

They had some problems with the boiler after we arrived but to be honest it didn't effect me-as I was busy painting the 2 pictures!
 Lots of questions throughout the demo and most of the club want me to return and do a workshop at their village hall where we were today.
 So I have to have a look at my diary and see when we can come to an arrangement-am really looking forward to going back and meeting everyone again--Janice and Catherine won the paintings-- everyone seemed to be amazed at the Winter Wonderland one and how it came about using transparent paint on the black background!