As Punk As .......

Although I was only ten years old when the punk thing hit the UK, I was absolutely enthralled by it.  The music, the clothes, the sneering, sweary rat featured man on the telly.  It was all a bit 'out there', and different - and my parents hated it.  That was good enough reason in itself.  My girl crush (and still is, if I'm honest) was Siouxsie Sioux.  I'd have given my right arm to look like her (and still would!).  

I progressed to being an out and out rock chick - and  for years and years I have loved any style of extreme music. I have been lucky enough seen more bands live than you can shake a stick at and have been to festivals and travelled abroad to see favourites.   My musical tastes are a tad eclectic to say the least however - in the past three years I've seen Take That, Rammstein and Public Image Limited and will happily listen to anything from Mike Oldfield to Faithless!  How's that for a mix-up?!

Some thirty odd (and yep, most of those years have indeed been very odd!), later, and I still adore punk music.  I'm very lucky in that my partner has the same musical tastes as me.  We spend long happy hours trawling the internet and the TV looking for old videos and getting excited about old, grainy archive footage of the seminal bands in back street pubs before fame and notoriety took over. 

To my mother's horror, we have a huge framed print of Johnny Rotten at the top of the stairs at which she casts her eyes heavenwards every time she sees it!  

So.......... erm....... I'm not expecting the best of reactions to our new piece of wall art which will very shortly grace our living room!  

We had a large Union Jack canvas which had been sitting around unused for a while since we re-decorated and decided to 'alter' it a little.  So - with a mixture of collage, archiving ink, chain and padlock, some old studs from a broken leather belt, safety pins,  a couple of die cuts from my very clever die-cutting machine, some wood filler and acrylic paint - we created this one-of-a-kind canvas.  

I know it won't be to anyone else's taste but ours but who cares?  We had fun doing it and I love the fact that no-one else will have one like it. Another plus of course is that we upcycled something which was just sitting around. 

Carrying on with the musical theme of this post - Let me introduce you to the man's leather jacket!

Believe it or not, this jacket attracts loads of interest and admiring glances every time we go out and in the most random of places!  We once had a middle aged bloke come up to us in Wilkinsons telling us that he thought the jacket was amazing and a woman telling us that her husband would love to wear something like it, in our local shop.  People have stopped us in the street asking where they could get something similar and someone even offering him cash for it.  He won't part with it however!   The band logos were hand painted on with acrylic paint through die cut stencils and it took him ages!  Like the canvas above, I guess you have to be a follower of the gendre to appreciate the appeal.  I've suggested that he should set up a small business customising leathers!   

Now then -  for those of you of a more delicate nature, here's a card I made earlier today.  

Awww - nothing punk about this is there?!  

**wink**

Yours, anarchically!