Friday Night!!!

So glad it is Friday night!! Have I mentioned how much I love weekends and the freedom they bring? I am planning on a wonderful weekend - minimal housework, a bit of cooking, Zach back after a week in Perth, a 50th birthday party Saturday evening and a whole lot of creative fun!

I finished this postcard last night. It is a variation on one of my earlier "music" themed postcards - this one is for Joanna and is accompanying a swap package for which she has been patiently waiting (for quite some time!) and which was mailed today! I hate guilt - it sits heavily on me!

I just received this fabulous envelope from Laurence Rocher in France with these two gorgeous Zentangle ATCs! Thanks Laurence!

And to fill this post up a bit more, this is an altered book spread from a while back. I still like the fact that I managed to keep it simple! Something that can be hard to do with altered books! I think half of the appeal of altered books for me is the fact that you can have text poking through everything if you want to!

Now I am off to work on my fabric inchies - these ones are for the latest Aus_NZ Quilters exchange and the theme is "plastic". I am having so much fun melting and playing with all sorts of plastic surfaces. I'll post pictures this weekend.

Mixed Media Monday - Monochromatic

Here is my piece for the Monochromatic theme over at Mixed Media Monday this week. And no surprises that I have chosen a green themed piece. The image (Cherry Pie) is stamped on green tissue paper and adhered to painted and stamped canvas. Venus is stamped with a Ma Vinci alphabet and the background is water-colour paper that has been painted, sprayed and stamped.
And I thought I would share the canvas I have in the current Somerset Studio - it ("Dreaming of Provence") is at the top left. I have been reliably informed by both Annie and my husband that they wouldn't have picked it as mine! Not quite sure what that means...but I was pleased it was selected as I enjoyed making it and it was the only thing I sent in (I usually wouldn't bother to only send one piece - the odds just don't seem that good!!) Below is a scan of the canvas as well. The wonderful patterned fabric tape at the bottom of the canvas is by 7gypsies - isn't it gorgeous? It was sent to me by Stamping & Papercraft a while back as part of a Stamper's Challenge article - I am obviously going to have to find an Australian stockist! I really do love nearly everything 7gypsies makes ( the nearly is in there in case I have missed the potential one thing that doesn't appeal to me :))

PS Needless to say that I love wavy copper tape too. And printed tissue paper (also 7gypsies). And Moon Shadow Glitz Spritz as used liberally on my painted painted background.

Think Monday - Think ATC - Colourful!

This week's theme at Think Monday Think ATC is "colourful" and that was of course irresistible! I've used a Paper Artsy stamped image and painted a two tone background. Added random doodling, dimensional paint dots, rick rack and an embellished button (which I coloured first with Alcohol Inks as I couldn't find any very small yellow buttons in the thousands of buttons I have!)

Good colourful fun! I've used one of the brightest patterned papers in my stash as a background for the scan but unfortunately the button has meant the scan is pretty blurry.

And today's post bought this lovely "foliage" themed fabric ATC from a fellow Western Australian - Cait Gordon (who incidentally is an awesome art quilter and who hopefully will have a blog VERY SOON!). Cait has a quilt in the upcoming 2009 Quilting Arts Calendar which is very exciting. Hopefully Annie and I we will find a way to meet Cait sometime somewhere - Bunbury and Kalgoorlie are unfortunately a long way apart!

A Tweet Little Canvas for a Friend

This is a little canvas that I have made for a friend (on the other side of Australia) as part of a small group exchange. She loves the colour teal (so do I) and trees/birds so of course I had to use my wonderful (relatively) new Hero Arts tree stamp! I really do have the doodling bug lately - but I can't recommend doodling with a white gel pen on canvas unless you really enjoy getting very frustrated. But it was one of those situations where you get so far and just have to keep going.

PS And as an addendum to yesterday's decision to drop out of the Take it Further Challenge - I feel as if a load has been lifted off my shoulders - now, how ridiculous is that? This was something I had joined for myself with no pressure from anyone. Says something but I don't think I want to face that particular something.

And another PS My wonderful Queensland friends Gaye Todd and Kasha Rolley have both recently started blogs - if you haven't found them yet, do yourself a favour and go and check out their beautiful art!!

Some Weekend Art

Well, despite my best intentions, my double Sunday post did not happen - I got carried away cooking and then reading instead! The canvas at the top of this post is for Patti B and is a one-on-one exchange through the CreativeChix group. The idea is to exchange house themed collages on a canvas board, minimum size 8x10. I had a lot of fun with this one - I did lots of painting and scraping back, stamping (with paint), adding fabric, chipboard, printing onto fabric, rub-ons etc etc. I got myself trapped with a couple of decisions I made early on but I decided to just go with them and to improvise...

And I think I have finished my postcards for the current Quilty Conscience swap - it was my turn to choose the technique/theme and I went for paint (which had to be incorporated in someway on the fabric postcard). I sort-of feel as if I should add something else to these but at the moment I have decided to treat them as finished. This may change before they are mailed! I roughly painted lightweight fabric (using Golden acrylics mixed with fabric medium), stamped it with the Hero Arts tree and text images, stenciled a bird image (cut from a stamped image - just to make things a bit tricky!), machine stitched some of the branch outlines and then doodled with gold pen before finishing off the edges.

Yesterday I also finished a small canvas for another one-on-one exchange but I have decided it needs "something else" so I won't post that one yet!

After much vacillation (and self-flagellation too!) I have decided to drop-out of the 2008 "Take it Further" challenge. I don't drop out of things but this one has no impact on anyone else in real terms (the art was for myself) so I have decided I shouldn't be too hard on myself! I hadn't managed to do anything for the June challenge and July was going to be just as problematic. No ideas and no inspiration from the alternative colour scheme! Perhaps I have the winter greys....

I am also wondering whether I should also drop out of the Aus_NZartquilters monthly journal quilts as I am several quilts behind there as well! Once again it doesn't impact on anybody as the quilts are for me but it does make me wonder whether I have a problem doing stuff "just for me"! I am incredibly motivated by a posting deadline!! And I know I am not alone there. I think I will give myself another few weeks with the quilts to see if I can catch up seeing as a couple are half done!

Think Monday - Think ATC - Stone

Once again I am participating in the TMTA challenge right at the end of the week but at least it is something I just made (even if it is from bits previously stamped!!).

The challenge was to use "stone" somewhere on your ATC so I have used a favourite stone angel image from a limited edition Juxtaposed stamp collection and the tiny text in the background is a Julie van Oosten Collections stamp. I'm having a personal revival thing with metal duct tape too and I am enjoying covering the back and wrapping my ATC edges with it so expect to see more of the same for a while! The cardstock background is painted with a Golden acrylic wash.

I've come down with a cold this weekend which is bit of a poo seeing as I have managed to stay pretty healthy so far this winter. Having a thick head is not conducive to concentration or focus it seems, as I discovered this morning that I left the lid off my black gesso when I stopped painting yesterday afternoon. That's bit of a poo too as it was a lovely consistency before and is quite sludge-like this morning!

I'll probably do another post later today as I have a whole day today to create! Such bliss even with a thick head. Plus the sun is shining brightly even though it is very cold and that always makes me feel a lot better! Mind you it was VERY cold wandering around our town's monthly Trash N'Treasure market this morning.

Mixed Media Monday - Dance

Another quick post - this week's Mixed Media Monday theme is "dance" so here is my collage, made quite some time ago! It is a combination of vintage sheet music, a floral decorator napkin (serviette), stamped Oxford Impressions image of dancers , sepia ink, some dried flowers, brads and a large "gold" clef.

My plan is to get back to posting more regularly next week - no travel happening and hopefully lots of arty stuff to share! Wish me luck...