Wednesday Stamper - Children

The theme this week for Wednesday Stamper is Children and of course I had to use one of my new Juxtaposed children stamps by Melanie Sage. Stamping on textured water colour paper is not the greatest idea but I loved the colours on this scrap and just had to use it for this ATC!

Yesterday I made really good progress with my metallic fabric inchies - they are fiddly but a lot of fun. I have all the bases done now and quite a few finished with the rest just needing embellishment. As soon as they are all finished I'll upload some pictures - they are pretty sparkly!

Today in the mail I received a replacement blank jigsaw so that is my next project - I feel so bad messing up the first time round so I will be taking a great deal of care numbering the pieces and linking the right names this time. Thanks to Elaine and Annie for getting me the jigsaw!

PS I'm doing a lunchtime post as I am flying to Perth tonight for a training course tomorrow. I'll be back tomorrow evening.

Think Monday - Think ATC - Smile

I haven't had a chance to make an ATC for the current Think Monday - Think ATC theme of SMILE (it changes today so this is very last minute!!) so I am using an ATC I made for a swap last year with the Juxtaposed Group. She has a small smile happening!!

The images are all from Melanie Sage's Juxtaposed limited edition series. Talking of these, the latest couple of mini plates have recently arrived and look great - I must cut them out and use them soon!!

Spent my spare time yesterday doing the finishing touches on my jigsaw pieces for the swap - what I want to know is how can finishing touches take so long??? I obviously don't make decisions about embellishment placements quickly enough! I had a whole pile of other stuff I was also expecting to get done yesterday but needless to say it didn't happen...

A very warm spring day here yesterday - it motivated me to to get out all our summer clothes out of storage and to do the big annual wardrobe clean-out. I am quite excited as Joseph has decided to chuck out a really nice old cream wool sweater that I am now going to use for felting experiments!! I can't wear wool, so all my sweaters are cotton which is no use in the felting department.

I'm off to have breakfast and then to finish a series of fabric postcards.

Think Monday - Think ATC - Slide Mounts (& Other Stuff Too!)

So far I have had a great Sunday! The current challenge on Think Monday - Think ATC is to use a slide mount on an ATC. A few years ago when I was in Brisbane for the Stamping Down Under Convention I was lucky enough to find a very old box of plastic slide mounts while on a foraging trip through some op shops with Gaye Triggs and some other stampers. As a result I have a lot of slide mounts to use!!

I decided to do a very bright ATC this week so I have coloured the plastic mount with Adirondack Alcohol Ink (Wild Plum), Schminke gold powder and purple Moon Shadow Mist. I've used a favourite Hero Arts text stamp on the frame and also on the backing (also coloured with the alcohol ink and the mist) but it isn't overly visible. The stamped layer has been painted with Golden Green-Gold acrylic paint and glazing medium. This is my favourite colour from the Golden range. The stamp is also a favourite and is by Melanie Sage from her "Juxtaposed" limited edition range. I've punched out numerous size holes in the top layer so that the wild plum layer shows through. Not sure why I did it - just one of those "on the spur of the moment" things I guess.
I have also finished my six tissue paper "studies" for a swap I am participating in with the Surface Design group. Basically we had to do six inch squares using tissue paper as the main element - other than that there were no real restrictions. I've gone into a bit of detail regarding the technique in case any of the people I am trading with are interested. I started these ages ago when it was still quite cold and wintry and I was wanting to achieve an old rich but worn leathery "in the firelight" look. I have only uploaded one of the six as blogger is proving to be very uncooperative this afternoon!

I have used some of Dale Rollerson's Frescoes and Fragments techniques as learned at her workshop in March. My six pieces are all slightly different but are made the same way - a piece of crumpled tissue paper (I used printed kraft tissue paper by 7Gypsies) have been fused to coffee coloured felt. I have then sprayed them with various Adirondack Color Washes (butterscotch, pesto and wild plum) and walnut ink and mopped and sponged them until I was happy with the colours. They have then been sealed with Mod Podge and then sprayed lightly with gold and black webbing. I have cut out images of wine bottles from some decorator napkins and lightly painted the back of the top ply of the napkin images with diluted acrylic paint so that they would show up on the dark background. Once the were dry I used Mod Podge to adhere them to the tissue/felt layer. They have then been stamped with text and postmark images in permanent black ink and sprayed with gold Moon Shadow Mist. I fused vilene to the backs and stitched around the pieces. They are nice and light for international posting and can easily be mounted once they get to their new homes.

I have also finished another Lutradur & Lace experiment that I started a couple of weekends ago. I painted the back with gesso and it didn't seem to matter what I did to the front, it stayed too pale for my liking. I have used a huge range of paints, inks, shiva sticks, color washes and moon shadow mists on this one trying to get a colour intensity that I was happy with. These experiments are the result of a challenge on the new Fibre & Stitch yahoo group for subscribers to the new zine. On this one I used the embellisher to secure the lace and muslin pieces to the base rather than a sewing machine and I think it has been an interesting result. I would definitely use lutradur again as a base for the embellisher. In the end yesterday I also used color washes and moon shadow mists to colour the back as well. I finally think it is OK and I will use it as a base for fibre ATCs or postcards. The scan has come up a lot darker than the real thing. I quite like the texture of the back, hence the urge to try more embellishing on lutradur.

I'm off now to do domestic stuff and hopefully, later on I will get a chance to do some more work on my giant jig saw exchange pieces. So far all I have done is select backgrounds and images - I still have all the fiddly bits to do! Jenny Crossley is one of the artists in this exchange and she has finished hers - have a look here - it is stunning!