Jen Aburrow

Been feeling a bit neglectful of my blog this week. This spring allergy is being very stubborn but i think its starting to go now! We had some wonderful rain yesterday so that should help with the pollens too.

Apart from working, eating [lots... a side effect of the tablets, unfortunately] and going to bed early [another side effect] i am not getting much making done! However i did finally finish these two atc's for an image transfer swap.
The pics had been printed onto glossy photo paper and then i sprayed them with water and pressed them face down onto calico. Burnished them and peeled them off. They worked really well and i like the ghost like images left on the original pics too.
For the backgrounds i used Twinkling h2 o's left to go really syrupy so you get that rich metallic effect. They look a lot richer than my pics.

My original image transfer cards got lost in the mail although i suspect they may not have made thru customs as they contained vegetable matter.
For these i spent a very enjoyable afternoon, smashing flowers! It wasnt so good for the little green caterpillar unfortunately!
I found watercolor paper worked the best and layed it on a firm padded surface.
[used corrugated cardboard covered with glad wrap from my wet felting] Layed the flowers face down and covered with baking paper. Then you smash away with a rubber mallet or i used the end of my wooden rolling pin. I did this a little while ago and there werent many flowers out but i am really keen to try it again now that my garden is in bloom. Plenty of weeds too seeing as how i dont spend any time outside at the moment!
Juicy type flowers worked best and the grape hyacinths literally exploded and left behind little dark seedy bits which looked wonderful. Then i touched up a few areas with my water soluble crayons. This technique apparently works well on fabric too but i have yet to try that too. I actually found this in the Aust Womens weekly a few months ago [the one with olivia nj on the cover!}

Sample backgrounds....