Bunny rabbits and faraway castles!

What am I like? Considering I used to blog every Friday no fail, I have let things slip. just a bit.. last time was June I think!

What have I been doing.. well,  I have just listed my latest Needle Doodle/embroidery hoop art on my Etsy shop.  

Here is my original watercolour painting which it originated from....

These needle doodles take such a long time to make and sew. The process starts with very carefully drawing the design onto calico fabric, which is a natural and slightly uneven cloth and makes a steady hand and eyes quite key! Sadly my eyes are a bit wonky these days, and I need new glasses as mine are worn out and bent from a certain Old English Sheepdog called Dottie Dollie who decided that they made a tasty treat!

Next of course is all the sewing.. takes ages and ages...hours,  but what a good excuse to sit and watch things on the TV which I normally wouldn't take time to do. I have some vital equipment I need before I get started.. a needle, threads, beads, etc, and most importantly.. a pot of tea.. ha ha!

When the sewing is complete, beads, applique and other embellishments too, I have to hot glue it into place in the wooden embroidery hoop and hot glue a thick calico backing onto it, which I stamp and sign.

Phew, I feel worn out now! Now I am off to start another one!

Have a happy week Peeps! Suzie xxx

Dancing Butterflies and Doodles of Dogs!

Hello all you fine Peeps!!  Well, what a beautiful day it is here.. sun shining and warm, bees buzzing.. almost dare I say it... like Summer!  What a glorious start to June!  Today, I have been sat out in the garden nursing a poorly arm, luckily not the one I draw with though. So I have been creating a series of doodles of my Old English Sheepdog called Dollie and my lovely little rascal of a Jack Russell Edwoof.

In my drawings they are called Dottie Dollie and Mister Edwoof Tedley! What fun they have together! Or on their own for that matter!

 And just for now a peek at another in progress, one which I will finish today, as you can see the mouse is unfinished as yet, well I hope it looks like a mouse to you all anyway! One thing I love about Old English Sheepdogs is their big mahoosive black noses, I just love them! And Dottie Dollie is the first one out of a total of five which we have been lucky enough to have in our lives over thirty odd years, that has a tail, and I love hearing the thump, thump when she wags it, and she wags it a lot as she is a happy little girl!

I have done all in all so far... mmmmm... yep..six drawings in this series, but I am keeping the others all to myself for now!

Well, better get back out into the sun to do some more doodling!!  Until next time, love to you all.

Suzie xxx

Fairy Magic and Chatty peeps!

Hello everyone again!!

The lovely Rachael Carver of  binkyroo dolls and crafts who is the very talented lady who designed and developed the Cd-Rom for Creative Crafting World 'At the Bottom of the Garden' for which I did all the artwork for,  gave me a lovely interview which she did for her blog  http://binkyroo.blogspot.co.uk/

And here it is! Please do try to ignore my fizzogg with it's simple grin! ha ha! 

Away with the Fairies - An Interview with Suzie Sroka

Since this blog is for arts, crafts, and pretty much anything design related, I decided to do my very first interview. So I sat and thought for a moment who would I love to interview and the answers I came up with were all impossible, most are no longer in the land of the living - Clovis Trouille, Cary Grant, Vincent Price, and Elizabeth Taylor to name just a few, and the others, well, I'm far too unimportant for them to want to talk to little old me. But I did have one woman who is just as fantastical and spiritual as the above mentioned and that's Suzie Sroka, the lovely lady who drew the wonderful images for the Crafting CD-Rom I designed for Creative Crafting World, At the Bottom of the Garden.  

Interview with Suzie Sroka

Suzie Sroka

Q. What are your favourite things to paint?

A. I love painting children and people in general, although I also love to paint the occasional dog or animal, and I really love painting whole scenes with all of the above in them!

Q. Who/what are you inspirations?

A. My childhood is mainly my inspiration. I have many memories of that time, and can remember vividly how I thought and daydreamed. I think because I spent some of my childhood in Nova Scotia in Canada, and the rest in England, I remember it so much more as it was so varied. I just remember the magic of being a trusting, believing child, open to magic. I absolutely adored reading Enid Blyton's 'The Faraway Forest' and 'The Enchanted Tree', I used to want to believe those things could really exist! I also used to love nonsense verse too.

Q. Which of the 12 featured designs is your favourite?

A. Well that is hard to answer! Can I have 3? The sunflower pixie, the sleeping fairy and the kiss, but at a push I would choose the pixie with the sunflower.........or the sleeping fairy!! I used to be indecisive, but now I am not too sure.. ha ha!

Q. How long have you been drawing and painting? 

A. As long as I can remember, from the time I could pick up a pencil and scribble it has been there. Years ago I remember a teacher showing my Mum a picture I had done, it was of a ship, it was very detailed with portholes and people looking out of them, deckchairs.. everything, and the teacher said that I was excellent at drawing, but that it was a shame I had to spoil it all by painting it! I never forgot that, and still feel nervous and terribly lacking in confidence whenever I pick up a paintbrush! 

Q. Do you remember your first commissioned piece?

A. Yes, I do, I was asked to draw and paint several children wearing billboards. Each bill board was from a deck of cards, it was for a card club. I enjoyed that one! 

Q. Crafting CD-Roms are a completely different format to a print of book. How does it see your artwork on cards and boxes, does it have the same impact?

A. Well, it is completely different, but it is still a thrill to see my artwork on anything! I am pondering having a go at writing a children's book myself, and that would be a challenge.. I have a few ideas swimming about in my imagination right now! I also have a little Etsy shop and am working on some digi stamps for that at the moment!

Q. Do you have a studio or a specific place you draw/paint in?

A.Well I have a studio which doubles up as a dining room too when we need it, this is not ideal as I need to tidy everything away when we do! I also love the breakfast room which is just as well, as I was actually stuck in there with four dogs when I was working on the artwork for 'At the Bottom of the Garden', as we had workmen in the rest of the house at the time! Sometimes if it is a really lovely day, the garden is rather appealing too, as I can watch the butterflies dancing and the bees buzzing!

Q. Do you have any guilty pleasures or a routine that you go through before you sit to paint or draw?

A. Not really, but I do love to listen to music when I am drawing or painting, it takes me into another world and affects mood. My guilty pleasure I suppose is that I like the music to be quite loud! I enjoy a varied choice of music, it would be hard to find something which I didn't like to listen to. I also love to eat midget gems and Licorice, I have loved licorice since I was a small child!

Q. I know you have several dogs, do they let you paint in peace?

A. Most of the time .. yes! On occasions no!! Generally they are quite good, and get on well together. It was a bit difficult when I was drawing and painting for this CD-Rom as being locked in the breakfast room with 3 Jack Russells and A large Old English Sheepdog puppy is not ideal, but we all managed!

Q. Most importantly, do you believe in fairies?

A. Ha ha, well of course!!! I used to look for them when I was a child, and was tired out often in the day, as I would lie in bed with my eyes very barely open, trying to fool the fairies into thinking I was asleep, because we all know they won't appear if you are looking for them! I was convinced if I waited long enough I would catch them flying about my bedroom and tiptoeing across my bed!! Nowadays, I believe in most things that should not be there! I have never given up on that childhood magic. In fact as a child I disliked magicians, as I wanted 'real' magic only, I wasn't about to be fooled by someone pulling a rabbit out of a hat! I have a strong spiritual side, and am always open to possibilities, after all just because you can not see something, does not mean it is not there!!

One of Suzie's paintings from At the Bottom of the Garden

That was fun Rachael, thank you!  If you pop over to Rachael's blog, and go to her last blog post before our interview, you will see that she is involved in a very worthy cause,  just click on the link below to be magically transported there! She is indeed a special lady!  

http://binkyroo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/charity-sponsored-sew-fighting-cancer.html

Right, off  I go! Until next time, keep happy and much love! Suzie xxx

Exciting News.. My artwork on Create and craft TV!

Hello Peeps!

Well here I am with some very exciting news!  I have been working on a lovely project with the wonderful Lynda Chapman from http://www.creativecraftingworld.co.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=61 and have been a very busy bee drawing and painting fairies, pixies and embellishments galore until sparks were flying off my pencils and my paintbrushes were wilting with exhaustion!

All for a brand spanking new Crafting cd rom 'At The Bottom Of The Garden' which is to be featured on a four day deal on the Create and Craft TV channel, starting on Monday 13th May.. so watch out for that!  The crafting cd will have all sorts of goodies, including backing papers, templates and digi stamps too! The lovely Rachael Carver ( http://binkyroo.blogspot.co.uk/) has been working like a whirling dervish  to develop the crafting cd and the marvellous Elaine Wheeler (http://wheelerscraftiness.blogspot.co.uk/?spref=fb)  has been creating some gorgeous cards using some of the digi stamps.  Here are some of Elaines cards she has made using this very versatile cd..... I love the way the embellishments have been used to give a 3D effect!

This digi stamp can also be found here http://www.creativecraftingworld.co.uk/downloads-and-printables/digital-stamps-digistamps-a-kiss

Lynda has been working her socks off getting all the demos, etc., ready for the show next week, I am not sure that she has actually had any sleep!

There are fantastic reproductions of my original artwork in crystal clear 300 dpi (which means good!) and so much much more!

Lynda will be showing my originals on TV

Digi stamps which allow you to paint them, crayon them or whatever you want to do with them! You can re-size them too, just think of the possibilities! Use the embellishments to bring your cards to life and give them form and dimension.  Let your imagination soar like a bird!

A digi stamp! 

So peeps put that date in your diary... Monday the 13th May for four days on Create and Craft, check here for times  http://www.createandcraft.tv/tvSchedule.aspx?mediaId=10, and you can even watch it on your laptop or pc too!  Pop along and see Lynda, she is highly watchable!

Love to you all! Suzie xxx

Coming soon to my Etsy shop! Digi stamps! :)

Hello lovelies, hope you are all well and happy?

When our mutinous house behaves itself again, and we can find our possessions once more (or even reach them!), I intend to concentrate a tad more on my Etsy Shop. I am afraid to say it has been really difficult getting on with anything in a thorough way in the chaos of a building site!

Anyhow, here are a couple of digi stamps which I have been tweaking for my shop.  Digi stamps are a very versatile tool for a crafter to use as they can be resized as desired and of course can be used as many times and in as many ways as you can imagine! Not just for card making at all, as you will see in my photos, I have used one to transfer onto calico and then embroidered it. This will be mounted in an embroidery hoop and popped onto a shelf in my shop soon!  http://www.etsy.com/shop/thecockeyedartymiss

As you can see, I need to do some work with my watermarks! Anyway, until next time Ta Ta! :) 

Suzie xxx

Hello Chaps and Chapesses! :)

Hello all you lovelies! I can hear you saying "who the heck?"... I know I haven't posted for an awfully long time and have most likely faded from blogland's memory as a faint dot of mist, soI must try to write a post a bit more often from now on! I used to do one every Friday, no fail.

What have I been up to? Hmmm let's see.. well.... I have just finished a new needle doodle for my Etsy shop 
but it just needs the backing put on before it goes on.. here is a little peek of it....

I have been a busy bee this week as I have also painted two ACEO's for my shop too, and once I have tweaked a couple of bits and bobs I shall be putting these on too. These are only diddly little things and measure only 2.5 x 3.5 inches each.

This must be my shortest blog post ever, and anyone who remembers me will know that I waffle a tad on occasions! Before I go out into Poulton for a meal with the long suffering George, I shall leave you with a picture of our latest family member, our 12 week old Old English Sheepiedog.. Dollie Dottie Daydreams or Doris as I sometimes call her! She is cute hey?

Next time I will put a pic of our other doglets too.. Bertie, Peggy and Edwoof, or Eddie or Ted as we call him.
We have also been sooo busy doing up yet another house, and this one is a mess believe me!

Anyway peeps I hope you all have a very Happy Easter and ta ta for now!

Suzie xxx