All Sorts!

I thought I would share the few bits and pieces I have been making recently. I haven't been overly productive in the evenings as bed and a good book seemed more appealing! It must be my "end of winter" syndrome!

Anyway Meagan (my new ATC trading partner who has yet to establish a blog or Flickr album) and I traded "vintage" themed ATCs this week. I made the one at the top of this post and this one is Meagan's. It is just gorgeous and it has the loveliest background - I had to photograph it on the angle so you could see her beautiful Perfect Pearls background. Pretty classy hey?

I am participating in a very small Altered Book round robin and the first book I am to work in is Julie's and she has the theme "Forest Industry". Julie hasn't actually used an existing book but has made some glorious metal book covers and pages that are not much bigger than an ATC. They are made from a lovely thick watercolour paper (think really thick) and so they have lent themselves to some robust treatment!

I have done the backs and fronts of two of the pages and focused on birds for the first two and the environment and ecology for the second two. Julie included a bag of interesting bits and pieces for us to consider using, so my first page uses her little metal birdhouse, the vintage bird card (which I aged with inks) and a bit of her beautiful frayed silk ribbon.

My second two pages are beeswaxed and include old text and a leaf cut from a napkin. The green on the tree page is melted wax crayon. I feel as though the page is a bit on the dull side so I might add a charm or something in a puddle of beeswax. I have sprayed a bit of gold glitz spritz over the beeswax and like the way it has dried in little droplets. It remains to be seen whether it stays there indefinitely but this morning it didn't rub off when I was buffing the beeswax.

I have also made another fused plastic ATC for my trade with Jen - this time I covered the painted plastics with Golden's GAC and I really like the shiny effect.

I enjoyed sewing all the various pieces of fused plastic together patchwork style. I can imagine making a journal cover from this stuff!

Last but not least, I received this funky Calendar Girls postcard from Pat - it is a terrific take on the inspirational calendar page. I have included a shot that shows how dimensional the face is!

And Pat sent me some great napkins as well - and as it happens, I don't have any of these in my "collection". Thanks Pat!A very wintry day here today - perfect for arting and crafting inside with an endless supply of steaming hot cups of tea. Might have to make some muffins to make the afternoon extra perfect...

PS The lovely Kelsey has honoured me with an award this week (thanks!) but that will have to wait until my next post.