Some more felted ATCs

Just a quick little post before I go over to Annie's for our weekly get together (to do arty/crafty stuff and of course to chat and share our week's happenings). I finished these three little felt ATCs while sitting in my tiny little "donga" room in Laverton on Monday night after dinner. I made good progress on two others as well but I'll wait until they are finished before I post another scan of them. With these three the colours are a bit off! The cupcake base is actually a very hot pink and that orange flower is not THAT orange!!!

And today's mail bought my July Calendar Girl card from Sandy - such a lovely bright postcard to receive on a grey and rather wet and dreary day!

PS For anyone outside of Australia, a "donga" is a slang term for a very basic prefabricated portable building - used a lot in remote locations. They started off as modified shipping containers but have gone a bit more upmarket (comparatively speaking!!) these days. Google will provide you with some examples!

My Sunday

Most unusual for Kalgoorlie but we have had a wet weekend - perfect for staying indoors and playing with creative stuff! I finished four of my felted ATCs (my husband Joseph just shakes his head and looks at me as if I might have suddenly lost the plot!) and started heaps of other things.
I did get this little house finished - it is stamped with one of the lovely images from the new Oxford Impressions Family Man plate and the crown is grungeboard - love using that stuff. The crown has been painted with Super Copper Lumiere paint and then brushed with Black Soot Distress Ink to tone it down. I think it is a nice sort of metallic look.

Last night I finally watched "Marie Antionette" on DVD - I really enjoyed it! My purpose was to prepare for a Marie Antionette themed fabric postcard swap. Lots of ideas bubbling now...

Travelling with work tomorrow (just to Laverton a few hundred kilometres up the road) and I'll be back on Tuesday evening. See you then!

Wylde Women Award

Found out this morning that the lovely Viv has passed on a new blogger award to me - its the Wylde Women Award that was started this month by Tammy Vitale . Thanks so much Viv! I am thrilled that we found each other in the blogosphere and get to brighten each other's days!

This is how it works:

1. You can give it to as many bloggers as you like and of course you need to link to their site.

2. You also link back to Tammy's blogsite
(http://www.TammyVitale.com/)
so she can go visit all these wonderful women.

Purpose of the Award: To send love and acknowledgment to women who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.

Now of course I can think of tons of women who blog who fulfill this criterion but I am going to pass on this award to two new bloggers - Gaye and Kasha - both of these wonderful wild women live on the other side of Australia to me so I am very glad they have started beautiful arty blogs which brighten my day and provide a lovely way to stay connected! If you haven't visited their blogs yet, make sure you do.

Today's art is an old piece that I made for Somerset Studio using a transfer of my favourite photo - I have used this photo so many times! Today it is cold and wet here - good chocolate weather so thank goodness I don't have to squeeze into one of those ridiculous laced corsets.

And I was cleaning out my photos and realized I hadn't shared this beautiful sunrise from a few weeks back. As usual it is just a quick snap from our back yard so street lights and power lines are part of the scene! It was one of those sunrises that stays beautiful for quite a long time.

Beautiful Mail & A Productive Wed Night

I received some terrific mail in the last couple of days - the beautiful home-themed canvas from my friend Gaye (I love it and I see that the texture in the corner Gaye!!) and these gorgeous cards and ATC from Dianne Mahoney (who doesn't have a blog but who should so we don't just see it in magazines!!) I have positioned the ATC on top of the card in the scan as the delicate embellishment on the card did not survive the journey unfortunately. But I love that beautiful background.


This is a bit of quick post as I am really tired tonight and I'm going to go to bed early and read but I thought I would share a progress shot of the felted ATCs I started at Annie's last night. They are for a swap and are made with my Clover hand felting thingo rather than my embellisher. They will look a lot better when they are finished - there is more felting to be done, plus of course some stitching, beading and edge-finishing but I was pleased with how quickly they came together. I am using merino wool from The Thread Studio - fabulous colours!

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!

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...