Beading Insects etc.

Hi Everyone
Not sure about the weather today - it looks as if things are improving ie the snow is over and possibly even melting ? However, it's very cold and the sky looks full of snow again ! Radio reports say driving is 'tricky' - I'm not keen to go out !

My efforts yesterday where very poor - I did manage 'a go'at the beaded insect (first mentioned a few days ago) - I started with a butterfly wing and pulled it out - I didn't like the colour pattern, so made up my own. Then, I didn't like the size or the shape. In the end, I made my own and completely ignored the instructions from my book. This is OK as Im now confident on the technique and will use the pattern book for ideas.



I can improve on the technique - it's OK for now as it is. My next move is to complete the insect. I think it's going to be something other than a butterfly - not sure what ? Maybe a dragonfly type shape would suit ? I will see how it goes.

Very exciting, yet another book arrived for ME today, its another part of my 'never ending' Christmas present - I saw this book in a review and thought it would help my drawing/painting skills - it's a reference book for me and very interesting on a 'first look'. '100 Girls On Cheap Paper' by Tina Berning. I have for a long time been keen to develop a technique for painting a face. I hope this book will help me.



Every page has a different image of a 'girl'.Some pages are faces but there are lots of different style and poses of girls bodies too. I especially like the 'model like' images. I thought I would start with this image, it's called 'Napoli'. I will share my progress - maybe !



So little progress on my painting 'Just Walking' - not worth a photo ! Must do better !!!!

Lastly, to the 'die cuts'. I think after this little note, I will have covered the basics of 'die cutting FROM SCRATCH style' and can then move onto being creative about the actual die cuts. I've decided to try and bring a few examples of how I can develop use of die cuts in my work. I will share my creative experiments in the blog each week. I hope this will stretch me and develop some inspiration for future works. Perhaps, I can choose a day as 'The Die Cut Chronicles Day' - my initial thinking is for Friday.Will review this over the day. I think the last thing Im referring to is a piece of equipment called a Multipurpose Platform. As you can see, the platform allows the Big Shot to use a wide variety of dies with various layers of the platform (the platform is like a book with 3 pages of different thickness on a hinge). The cutting pad (the clear plastic bits that 'sandwich' the dies) is still used with all layers. The different layers act as 'mega shims'. I talked about this earlier in the die cuts episodes.






With the platform, there is no need to use the adapter ( talked about this yesterday ). The platform has a detailed explanation of how to organise the layers but its very simple with a little bit of experience.
I hope this brief look at die cutting over the last week or so will persuade everyone to give die cutting a go. Many brands have electrical versions of the cutting machines but I think, for me, I will only ever use a limited number of individual die cut shapes. I tend to use generic shapes or letters for further creative development as part of a piece. Having just checked on Ebay, a second hand Big Shot machine can be bought for approx. £50-£70 and a Side Kick approx. £16-£20. Dies are so varied in price that its impossible to give a simple figure. I often shop at an online shop called CuttingEdge Crafts. Excellent service and free p&p ( this always attracts me). They, in my experience, offer a great price on all their stuff. Take a look.

That's it for today. Bye for now.