I did promise yesterday that my next post would be brighter and without acetate, well I got the first part right colour but just can’t seem to escape the acetate. I have decided to let it run it’s course and see where it takes me so anyone out there with an acetate aversion Look AWAY NOW !

“For the last couple of weeks I have been trapped in black and white mode . Everyone else was  doing ” Spring ” but not me I was in my silhouette period and I couldn’t get out of it ! Believe you me I was loving it and it was getting a bit addictive . Finally I entered a challenge at the weekend with the theme  Brown ! This was It I thought I had finally been given the push I needed to move on ,so I entered the challenge.

Not much of a progression admittedly but I was off black or so I thought,  but low and behold what met my tiny little bloodshot eyes yesterday themethursday.wordpress.com were having a black and white challenge ! So I just couldn’t  resist now could I ?

On a piece of shiny card stock I have used one of my favourite Crafty Individuals stamps which I then embossed with black embossing powder. I cut out a little cupid with my Silhouette machine and printed another of my favourite Japanese images onto acetate . I placed this over the images and matted onto black card.

So for anyone who’s been following me lately it’s not my fault honest ! Promise to do something a bit brighter with more than two colours and without acetate…………..

Marie x

Looks like someones gone mad and given me an award and that someone is Donna over at papercrowsanddragonflies.blogspot.com.Personally  I think she has been spending too much time in close confines with her ink pads but I thank her all the same.
I really love her blog it was one of the first ones  I discovered and have been avidly following it ever since.

By accepting this award I agree to link back to her and to share seven things about myself.

1. I was born in the UK but moved to Greece 22 years ago to start a new life with my Greek husband Teo
2. We have two sons Alexis 19 and Aris 15.
3. Two mad dogs Bailey and Rosy hence my blog title.
4. Together with Teo we design and manufacture jewellery which we sell in our lovely shop in Thessaloniki Greece.
5. I love to cook especially Japanese,Thai in fact anything Asian.
6. I love even more to eat especially Japanese Thai in fact anything Asian !
7. love trying new things and fall in love on a regular basis with my new hobbies bordering a little on the obsessive. Guess what I’m in love with at the moment !

As part of my acceptance I also have to pass on this award to other recent blogs I have discovered. Well that’s the hardest part as I have only been blogging since January ! So every blog is a recent and truly magical discovery and source of inspiration to me so can I nominate everyone’s blog I have left a comment on .

At the risk of having my award confiscated I would like to pass this award on to the following people .
kissinia.blogspot.com  we started out blogging at the same time and are both newcomers
Yvonne artic-blonde-creations.blogspot.com For her support from the beginning at her great humour.
Zoe zoechaos.blogspot.com. She is always first to comment on my efforts and always makes me laugh.
Irini  craftycroppersgr.blogspot.com
Florence florenceandfreddie.wordpress.com/
Faye hastingshall2.blogspot.com/
Netty nettyscraftings.blogspot.com

Thank you all for taking the time to encourage me and make me laugh and for not laughing at me.

Marie

Yipee !

At last ! I am moving from my black period into…………brown.

For the past week I have been stuck in silhouette mode , everything I did was black , but thanks to Hels

 over at Sunday Stampers pinkleart.blogspot.com  
all that has changed. The theme this Sunday is brown and boy am I glad . It’s just the challenge I needed , I was beginning to wonder how it would all end.

My stamped image is from Crafty Individuals,  I used Ranger distress embossing powder in Vintage Photo, I distressed the edges of the card with SU Soft Suede and backed this onto some lovely silk and velvet fabric I have in my ( what is jokingly referred to as my stash ) added a piece of ribbon in brown of course and voila ! A lot of brown.

I only hope now that I don’t get stuck in well… erm a brown phase !

Marie x

A few weeks ago when I started blogging for the first time one of my entries was about how challenged I felt by challenges. Well it seems I’m over that I’m glad to say and my biggest challenge is finding the time to take part in them.

There’s no holding me back now I love them ! There are so many wonderful challenges going on all over the world with such wonderful artist taking part . I have met some amazing talented people and some of my design heroes have even paid visits to my blog and said some nice things !

This week I have been a little unwell, and let me say thank you to all of you for your kind wishes for a speedy recovery.The upshot of which is that I couldn’t take part in many challenges .So what I’m leading up to is that this next piece I  am entering for two challenges.

I feel a bit mean about it, I prefer to enter a separate piece for each one but I can see how there just isn’t enough time in the day. This particular  piece fits both perfectly. It’s quite a simple card as they all have been this week ,wasn’t really up to too much more but hopefully that will change.

The challenges are
wednesdaystamper.wordpress.com 
Their theme is take a letter so I took the letter B, liked the idea of this lots of possibilities with this but as you can see I kept it simple.
samnadia.blogspot.com
Bird is the word
Their theme is beautiful so this fits perfectly .

Hope you like it

Marie

Girls, girls, girls,…………..Now this is what I call a challenge !

My first big challenge was getting out of bed today ( I’m a little under the weather ) but I couldn’t wait to see what the girls over atjffchallenge.blogspot.com had in store this week. As soon as I saw it I got straight back into bed !Everything is a new technique to me even simple stamping so I was a bit more flummoxed than usual. Had a nap and found that my flummoxing was on the wane and so had a go.

Now these techniques to you lot of experienced,talented,beautiful,artists (can you tell I’m going for the sympathy and crawling vote )  may not be new but they are to me so here goes !

I cut two tags one with acetate and one with card and printed onto the acetate this beautiful Japanese flower design (is printing on to acetate a technique ? ) cut out a butterfly from the same acetate and layered it with a pink card butterfly. I then stamped and embossed with one of my In the garden stamps from SU onto a feather ( tricky little devils ) and there you have it.

Please bear in mind that no birds where harmed in the making of this tag .

Marie

P.s you might need to enlarge the image to see the detail on the feather

I have been playing around with Silhouettes all weekend as you can see by my earlier post, so when I saw the challenge over at inspiration-avenue-team.blogspot.com/
Their theme is Black,White and Pink, three of my favorite colours I just had to take part. I have been wanting to take part in their challenges for the last couple of weeks but have been a little intimidated by the quality of art submitted by everyone . Anyway I dived in this week ( I’m doing a lot of diving lately and caution to the wind throwing, cant sit on the sidelines forever )

Hope you like it.

Marie

Well this was a tricky one ! I loved the theme , I had the stamps, I have two sons, what could be easier !
Nope, once  again the ones that seem the simplest usually end up being the tricky little devils and this was no exception.

The theme over at themethursday.wordpress.com. is Men and / or boys .
After much too-ing and fro-ing  ( is that how you spell it ? ) and sleepless nights I decided to keep it simple.
Hope you like it.

Marie.

The challenge at The Three Muses this week is ” Ancestors ”  . thethreemuseschallenge.blogspot.com
I don’t have any ! Well I do we all do but I don’t have any photographs . So what have I done, Ive borrowed my good friend Barbara’s ,and besides her family is prettier than mine. !

The two children in the photograph are Anniki and Paavo born in Finland 1920 and Anniki is Barbaras grandmother and the little boy is her Uncle. Anniki studied Art and design and later became a photographer which was something unusual for a young woman at this time.

 One of her main hobbies was to travel and to capture these images with her camera.

She died at the young age of fifty leaving behind the most beautiful album of photographs documenting her life , her travels , her spirit and freedom .

This photograph is a tribute to Barbara’s grandmother who she never met but learned to  love her  through the photographs she left behind.