Exploring Zentangles… and a narrow escape!

I started exploring Zentangles last Monday. As planned, I took my book, notepad, pencil, pens, rubber and ruler to my drop-in centre, and spent an hour or so trying out some of the simpler ideas in the book. Other users of the centre were very intrigued, and my finished tile was greatly admired. I fully…

Sunday School Ideas: The Unforgiving Servant

Last week’s Sunday School lesson was taught after a week where I’d had a heavy cold. I had to make some changes to my plans because I hadn’t been able to do the necessary preparation. However, as it turned out, the lesson went very well. The story was the parable of the unforgiving servant. Not…

A New Technique: Zentangles

So, it was my birthday the other day, and I got some vouchers from different craft websites I’m subscribed to. Now, I know that these vouchers are only designed to get you to spend more money, but hey, it was a voucher, and it was my birthday… so I treated myself. One voucher was from…

Sunday School Ideas: Wise and Foolish Builders

I love using Pinterest for ideas when I’m planning my Sunday School lessons, but so often I find the photos on Pinterest either don’t link to any kind of ‘how-to’, or they link to a website with good craft ideas but not-so-great teaching ideas. So I’m going to try and share some of my ideas…

Craft Morning: Abstract Painting Techniques

Once a month, I help run a craft morning at my church. We get together do do something creative, and have a short talk from the Bible. I help come up with ideas for the crafts, gather materials together, and I give some of the talks too. This is quite a new meeting, and we’re…

Crocheting Flowers with Friends

Over the last few weeks I and a few of my friends from church have been busy crocheting flowers, using a pattern from Betsan Corkhill’s Crochet Therapy. We all have different crocheting styles and tensions, and used different yarns, so our flowers are as varied as we are! We enjoyed crocheting together at my church craft morning…

The Scan N Cut Journey Begins…

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned my love affair with a friend’s Scan N Cut… I must have done – I love that machine. If I haven’t, or if your memory is short like mine, a Scan N Cut is a scanning and cutting machine. It has set patterns sorted in its memory which…

Art Group: Pencil Rubbing Pictures

Today I provided the art group with a bag full of objects to use in pencil rubbing drawings. There were leaves, bark, lace, shells, keys, coins, netting, wooden embellishments… the list goes on. I really enjoyed making pictures with these materials. I made a pattern with leaves, using different shades of green and a rusty…

Art Group: Oil Pastel Stained Glass Windows

I have been working on these oil pastel stained glass window pictures during the last few sessions of my art group. I designed the black outlines using Paint.net, and used a friend’s Scan’N’Cut to cut them out. In the art group I took a sheet of sugar paper and drew around the ‘gaps’ between the…

Art Group: Leafy Gaps

Today I went back to my art group after a gap of several months. Sadly, I have had to give up volunteering there for the time being as I found the pressure of having to be there (and having to stay until the end) too much. It doesn’t help that, due to the bus times,…

Character Sketches: The Lurker

I finally had time this Saturday to sit down and draw another character sketch. This is The Lurker, the third protagonist in my novel. I used the same method of copying an upside-down photograph using oil pastels. However this time I set myself the deliberate aim of making my drawing darker and edgier than the…

Art Group: Yarn-Wrapped Hearts

Today I started volunteering at an art group for fellow mental health sufferers. My role was to turn up early, get things ready… and provide an art activity. I’ll be doing this every few weeks as a volunteer and hope to attend some of the weeks I’m not volunteering too. As today is Valentine’s Day,…