"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...."

November has been such a busy month ! Besides completing a few more paintings I have had other things going on   in my world ....
Firstly, my painting "The Ploughing Match " was very kindly included in the November edition of the Sussex Living magazine . This was great as it's distributed in my village and surrounding area.

 Then in between painting I've been making a few things ready for Christmas. I enjoy the challenge of making things out of bits and bobs and it always makes me think of my childhood days, eagerly watching the children's program "Blue Peter" and rushing off to find an empty toilet roll and some sticky back plastic !
My first task was to make a paper mache train. Instead of Christmas crackers this year I thought a bright sparkly train would be more fun as we have 2 young children visiting .  Each truck will hold a bag of  surprise goodies for each person :)

Paper mache Christmas train

I then decided to make something festive to go in the garden. Out came the hammer, nails and tin snips . It didn't take long to find some old pieces of wood and with a bit of paint and added decorations ( made from an old biscuit tin)  this was the result.  I'm going to "plant" them in a large container with some sprigs of holly by our front door... :)

wood scrap snowmen and tree

After all the hammering and sawing I thought I would head off to make something a bit more genteel. A good rummage through my material box resulted in enough oddments to make some Christmas table mats. Our old ones were looking a bit faded and not very festive so I went for a simple tree design that seemed to work rather well :)

Christmas tree table mats

Finally (unless inspiration hits in again) I made a tree topper. I like the old fashioned Father Christmas figures and wanted to make something similar. It's only about 7 inches high so it was a bit fiddly in parts!  I could have used polymer clay for his face but I thought paper mache would be a more traditional material and more challenging (I enjoy a challenge) . I attached his head onto a cardboard cone then added the clothes etc.
He didn't turn out too bad and I learned a lot . It was a fun and interesting project from the initial design to working out the best ways of getting the results I wanted...

Father Christmas tree topper

Soon I celebrate my Birthday and then it will be Christmas...I'm wondering what will be more exciting...the presents or the packaging they come in! Ho ho ho!
   
                                                                            *****

Complete guide to painting in acrylics

On another note I am pleased to announce that my painting "He loves me, he loves me not" has been published in the "Complete guide to painting in acrylics" by Lorena Kloosterboer .... exciting days!

"He loves Me, he loves Me Not..."

The book contains work from 97 artists and is available from Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Painting-Acrylics-Lorena-Kloosterboer/dp/178221187X/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0MGXEQWCFYBG8J14612V