TMTA - Nostalgia, Awards & A Bit of Fun

This is my "Nostalgia" ATC for this week's Think Monday Think ATC challenge. And guess what? The nostalgia doesn't extend to the hairstyle!!

Over the last couple of months or so I have received awards from some lovely fellow bloggers and I haven't acknowledged them here until now. I want to thank Eva, Kelsey and Sephi for the awards but I also need to apologise for being so slack about it. I haven't passed the awards on to specific blogs because there are just so many I love and read whenever I can, so consider yourself awarded - you are all inspiring!

And now for a little fun - have a play with this little widget - change the brush size and colour and make art!!

Wednesday Stamper - Two Tone

This is the ATC I made tonight for the current Wednesday Stamper theme of "two tone". Just a bit of fun using a painted Golden Green Gold background on textured gold flecked paper, a darker green stamped collage image by Oxford Impressions (from the new Family Man plate) and the word "approved" (by 7gypsies).

PS I love the little puffy gold stars I used but I am nearly out of them and can't remember where online I bought them :(

Calendar Girl Postcard

Yesterday I finished my Calendar Girl postcard for July. As you can see from the calendar image below, the colour scheme this month is pink and while I don't have any issues working with the pink the image was VERY pink and a much lighter shade than what I would normally choose!

So I have adapted the colour scheme a bit for my tastes. I've used some fabric paper I made "a la Beryl Taylor" as the background and the vase and flower have been cut free-style from pieces of silk fusion that I made. It was the first time I had cut a detailed shape from the silk fusion and I learned that it doesn't necessarily hold together very well!! Fortunately the applique process addressed that minor hiccup.

I debated long and hard about embellishing the flower more (say with beading or some hand-stitching) but decided in the end that it would look too busy on what was meant to be a more graphic look.

More Inchies!

Where have I been and what have I been doing since last Thursday - well it must be the cold wintry weather but I keep losing myself in books lately and it means I don't have as much art to post as usual! Last week I read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini and oh, my goodness, it made me realize that I should never ever complain about my life. It was an incredible read - very powerful and moving.

On the creative front, I have finished my inchies for the next fabric inchie exchange run by Kathryn Robertson through Aus_NZQuilters. This time the theme was "plastic" so it was open season for lots of experimentation. The ones at the bottom of the picture were way too dimensional for a good scan but I am feeling slack and can't be bothered taking a photo. This is my contribution - 9 different styles, from top to bottom:

1. Synthetic lace fused to felt and painted with Citrine Lumiere Paint, overlaid with green sequin tulle and stitched with synthetic fibre.

2. Borders Bookshop plastic bag pieces fused together and then fused to felt. These have been topped with Angelina fibres (ironed into a sheet and cut into small pieces) which are trapped under white fuzzy dot tulle. Layers have been stitched together grid style.

3. Red plastic sheet fused to felt, topped with textiva strips (which have been ironed together and then “decorated” with a wood burning tool), a plastic domed sticker and stitched around the edges with plastic metallic thread.

4. Plastic wallpaper painted with diluted acrylic paint and fused to felt. Hand stitched edges with an overlay of organza and a plastic flower jewel.

5. White and gold striped plastic bags fused together and then to felt, topped with large black plastic “rubber” stickers and small plastic ear-ring stickers.

6. Black and gold stretch synthetic sequin fabric fused to felt

7. Colourful fabric fused to felt with handstitching in gold thread around the edges, topped with small pieces of Lutradur which has been painted and had holes melted in it with a wood burning tool.

8. Plastic upholstery fabric with distressed pieces of painted Tvyek stitched on top using plastic metallic thread. Inchie edges are coloured with acrylic paint and dimensional copper paint squiggle on top.

9. Toffee paper wrappers fused to black acrylic felt and backed with purple chiffon, stitched, then ironed to distress. Small pieces of plastic drinking straw stitched on top.

These were great fun but I am glad they are finished as I feel like working on something less fiddly. Today I am going to finish my Calendar Girls postcard for July. I started it yesterday afternoon before I went to a lingerie party and I had planned on finishing it last night, but once again I got stuck in a book instead!

Think Monday - Think ATC - Games

This week at Think Monday Think ATC the theme is "Games" so I am posting an ATC I made a while back that uses a jigsaw piece as an embellishment and a playing card background.

And last night at Annie's she traded me a Foliage ATC - isn't this just stunning? And I don't think I have ever seen more wonderful edging!! And I love the gilded silk fusion background as much as I love the felted leaf.

Mixed Media Monday - Let's Have Tea

I am posting this piece for the current Mixed Media Monday theme of "Let's Have Tea". It was made some years back and was published in Somerset Studio. It is a collage based on a nail polish remover transfer I did of a gorgeous tea themed photo. (12 July Note - sorry, I left the word remover out when I first typed this! Apologies to those that thought I had a discovered a new technique!) I really love transfers although it occurs to me that I don't very often post stuff that is based on them! The background stamps are from Oxford Impressions and the lace is virtually antique - I had it in my sewing basket for many years! Mind you I still have fabric from my teenage years so it isn't just lace that I have hung onto!

Yesterday I continued to work on my inchies and they should be finished in the next few days. I also made this fabric ATC for a trade with Carole in NZ - it is a variation on the ones I made recently for another trade but this time I think I did a better job by adding some hand stitching and extra embellishment.

Inch By Inch - Keys

I haven't been participating in he Inch by Inch weekly challenges for a while, but this week the theme is keys and as I have some new tiny little keys that Joseph found for me on one of his trips to Perth, I had to spend a few minutes creating an inchie!

In Misty Mawn's Art Retreat class she used glossy magazine pages to lift off paint and I found my pages ended up looking really interesting so I couldn't throw them out! This inchie uses a bit of that painted paper as a background and it has a little gate image stamped on it - it is the perfect size for an inchie. I don't think I have ever used it before - it was in a grab-bag I bought many years ago when I was less selective about my stamp purchases. And I love that cute little key even if it has resulted in bit of a blurry picture!