Easter Hoop

Just before I launch into my description I wanted to share a story which made me feel good.
A few weeks ago we had a new postman, a cheeky chappie with an infectious grin. I realised almost immediately that I used to teach him when he was an eight year old. We chatted and he seemed pleased to see me too. He was the kind of child who came to school because he had to and just wanted to be a bit silly. No malice to him, just a normal little boy who found learning a bit of an unnecessary part of his life. I liked Adam and tried to make life as fun as possible. At the end of the year I had a lovely letter from his parents thanking me and saying that he now didn't mind going to school etc.
This morning I photocopied the letter and gave it to him to show his Mum. He grinned like a little boy again. Oooooo my Mums writing looks just the same, he said , and held it carefully because he didn't want to crease it. Made me smile too.

Anyway, Katrina Rollings came into our lives yesterday and gave us yet another refreshing idea to play with. I stored it in the back of my mind and got on with washing tidying etc. When I was in the spare bedroom tidying away some craft boxes I just spotted an embroidery hoop, and, Ping!! an idea blossomed. So here it is.
I started by cutting lonnnng triangles of paper left over from my theatre project. I rolled them round a skewer, glued them and wound wire around them to make beads. I glazed them with PA gloss glaze.

Next I used Katrina's baby wipe method to paint onto white card. loved the technique because it was quick and I like quick! I used 2 different colour schemes on one piece of card mimicking the colours of my theatre.

I stamped various Lynne Perrella images onto the card with Versafine in Sepia. I then die cut some of the images using Lin Brown's die and reversed each one to be able to glue back to back. I also added a dragonfly PA die and cut out a rectangle. I used Treasure Gold to highlight around my shapes.

I threaded ribbon onto a large needle and threaded my beads, some PA beads and a few others as well as my glued and stuffed images and a couple of skeleton leaves. They are there because of the lovely Julie Ann and her last blog post where she used leaves.

I wrapped my hoop up in bandage and painted it with the same fresco paints in the blue range that I used before. Then I wound wools and ribbons around it. 

Finally I tied my three hangings in place and Abracadabra….another finished project.

The hardest bit was taking a photo to show it off. Decided upon a garden setting.

Pleased with it and thanks to Katrina, you gave me another fun playtime.