trade catch up :)

gosh the weeks fly by quickly don't they.....and then I  feel like blogging becomes a chore and don't know where to start so another week goes by.....

however, I have recently done some trades which I would like to acknowledge...over on the Forbidden Path Ning group, I participated in an atc swap ...... Winged Children.........I haven't swapped in ages so it nice to get making again and I scored a lovely partner in Angela Kennedy who sent me these beautiful atcs which were so beautifully and lovingly made.....

Angela sent this little sweet watercolour one.........

 

and funnily enough I did something similar with one of my faces.....

 

 

mine.....

 

 

 

 

new andy skinner stencil....

 I have also recently participated was in the Fb group The Studio....Altered Envelope Swap ...

 

this was lovely chance to doodle and play around with some paint...

 I swapped with Kathy Childers [its lovely to swap and meet with new people...ive missed that...]

 

 

Kathy's lovely envelope.....

 

 

 and the back with a very pretty tag....

 

and mine....

 

front

back

 

using twinkling h2o's and more andy skinner face stencils...:)

 

I also sent Kathy a fused plastic patchwork doodled atc.....

 

 

and a quickie card made from gelli scrap paper and some washi....

 

 thank you ladies for the swaps....

 

 

and other news? well too much for this post ..I will leave that for another day ...hopefully not so long this time....xxx

Summer of Color 2012.

Strawberry Lemonade is the the theme this week...dont know why i leaave things til the last minute....had this card i really liked so i chopped it up, sanded, gessoed and used a mix of golden paints, new prismas[more about them later] and ws crayons...i love the colors on this one...

Summer of Color 2012.

The lovely Kristen from Twinkle Twinkle is hosting Summer of color this year based on ice cream colors :)i really enjoyed looking at last years and there have been some wonderful contributions so far this year.... i have been making mine ..atcs.... but have not posted them here so thought id better do a catch up post.....
week 1 was ....Rainbow Sherbet.... traded...


week 2 Mint Chocolate Chip ....

and week 3....Baseball nut...

im looking forward to next weeks Strawberry Lemonade Punch.....

Turquoise swap...

Turquoise is my favorite color a the the moment and I was lucky enough to participate in a Turquoise atc swap a few months ago, organised by ros.

i received these little beauties back in the mail just before Christmas...


these are mine i sent off, some asian papers inc tissue, kimono scraps and gold choccy wrappers collaged and inked with turquoise [id been wanting to try inks and bought a bottle specially for this....



i really loved the background and didn't want to cover it too much so stencilled a circle with gesso and used one of my typo birdy stamps. i softened it with some Lumiere powder.

Thank you to everyone who participated, i didn't do many swaps last year and it was really lovely to add them to my collection, thanks Ros too for organsisng it.....

so hows all your new years resolutions going.....?

im purging like you wouldnt believe.... and it feels so good !

im tackling my bedroom which has become a bit of drop off point for everything and every time i think i m getting to the end i find another bag of stuff to sort out. so far i have sent off 4 bags of material to friends, [ im a bit of a collecter of curtain fabric :( ], a big tub of books and garbo bag to the op shop, 2 bags of rubbish and another bag of papers for the recyclying. i took a pile of mags in work as well....
Im sorting all the girls keepsakes, school reports, photos etc into their own big tubs as i go too. That way when they eventually leave home they can take them with them, well thats the plan anyways....

Im determined to have a 'nice' bedroom this year and will repaint after i have done all the sorting...sooon i hope !

The Stamping Queen ATCS

I received some lovely goodies for the design team challenge at The Stamping Queen this month.
I couldn't wait to get started!

I am slowly building a bit of stamp collection and mostly the ones i buy are background ones or text/alpha ones that i will get multiple uses from.

When i first saw this stamp, i must admit i panicked a bit :)

How was i going to do 4 different stamps using that one image?I didnt want them to look all the same... [i hate making 2 of anything the same, comes from my days of making 200 wedding charms a day for two years LOL]
Its such a cute image. He has such a pretty face doesnt he? To start with, that's where i went with it...........i turned him into zetti girl!

I had loads of fun designing different do's and playing around with eyes etc...

IN-D-VID-U-AL

Catwalk Queen

Then i multiple stamped the image so i ended up with a filmstrip and painted with my new aquabrush [oh why didn't i get one these before, its fabulous!] and water soluble crayons. The background is tissue, painted and gessoed by La Lucy and ...

Memories

and

and....

You cant its see it very well on here, just a bit o' sparkle on the bottom... i bought an embossing pen and used some 'stuck on you', [powder glue, you heat melt it] Once its melted, i rubbed on some stampee foil that looks like water. Place it b/w paper and run it though your laminator. When its cool, rip it off and it leaves the foil where you embossed. I saw it demonstrated at the Stitches and Craft show on Thurs but that will be a later post! The whole background is all shimmery...



I was on a roll now and had some fun turning the film strip into a window, which led to this...

My Place

Masking tape background, gessoe, watersoluble crayons and then cooked it [unintentionally] and it bubbled.... happy accident as it looks like sandstone, here's a shot before i cut the window out...


No matter how i photoed or scanned these they turned out quite dark. It is more a honey color in real life. I christened my new Alpha Plus markers [from my family for my b'day, they are a cheaper version of copics] for the climbing rose bush.

This whole process has made me look at stamps in new light and they were lots of fun to alter....

Some of the other lovelies Barb sent me I've used for a shabby chic swap...




Images here and here....
Text words here...
Kath's lovely lace background and Jan's sweet flowers....

Remember to be in the draw for these and the other 8 Atcs, you need to be a customer at The Stamping Queen this month.....

Cant wait to see what the others do :)

more halloween not so goodness...

Uncle edward was such a cool dude....

Auntie Agnes' cookies always tasted funny....... i could just imagine her lacing them with things she shouldnt !

both traded...

Auntie Bertha had dreams of being a supermodel....

oh for legs like that and working knees!! lol

traded

the backgorund is the credit card technique.... i used aqua , then black and finally gold ... the paint was still a bit damp when i gelled it but its given a soft fuzzy effect as it picked up some of the paint.

its such a lot of fun to do...

images for itkupilli and someone on flickr , wish i could find the link...

Fused plastic.....

for the last few weeks i have been playing around with fusing grocery/shopping bags etc. its not that fumy and the fp makes great surface to work on. being plastic of course, its so tough and durable too.
ive uploaded two tutes [on rhs], one on making the plastic... i did mine with 8 layers but you can do it with four.
The second tute is how i decorated it and how to piece it togtether [mainly because its not as hard as it looks!]
if you are not sure of anything, you can always email me too!

Here are the atcs i made but i think some notebooks or journals or lucys wallet would be wonderful too.......


1/6


2/6


3/6


4/6


5/6


6/6

These are all for trade and what id really like is some fused plastic ones back in return, but you dont have too!!

Just found this even better tute for fusing the plastic...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dorsner/3546922434/

Let me know too if there are any glaring omissions or mistakes or you have trouble downloading,[i changed it to pdf this time so it should work ok. [fingers crossed]

so do you think....

this is purple enough!!!lol!!

Charlie and i are painting her room and this is her feature wall. Dark isnt it? We painted a sample as we couldnt wait to see what it looked like. Her other three walls are white so it should look really luscious. The reason we are waiting to paint is because of the huge hole in the wall i am trying to fill , [taking ages for the filler to dry.] Done in a fit of pique when she was about 10 and been covered with a poster since then!

And from the million, trillion 'whites' out there, she picked white, straight from the tin. It was so hard to get blended. still looks a bit streaky but 3 coats is all i am doing :(

I've had 5 days off this week which has been nice to get all those odd little jobs done but very sad too.

We went to the funeral for Luke and Rachel on friday. It was huge and terribly heartbreaking.

It was the saddest thing to see the two hurses, a black and a white one drive side by side, down the street lined on both sides by all their friends.

I havent felt much like creating but made this atc for a door challenge

Its not quite as dark as the scan or as pink on the door. I really liked the quote too.

Cricket, that what i meant to tell you. We a brilliant family night at the MCG last Sunday. It was so much fun and we won which is always good!! None of us had been before and loved not only what was happening on the fields but all the fun going on with the crowd. The Mexican Wave and bouncy balls trying to avoid security were all part of the fun. Next time we will stay down as we didnt get home till 2 am [thanks to the brilliant parking inspectors who take your money to park your car but are not there at the end of the night to deal with the traffic trying to leave!]
took us 45 mins just get out of the car park!
All i all, we have been enjoying the 20/20 and one day matches.

so, off to work i go tomorrow, hope its not going to be too hot.......

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....