Round Robin - A page for Sherry - The Seamstress

Boy these pages are HARD!! Never sure whether to stick close to the recipients style or go off at a tangent.... The theme for Sherry's page is vintage dressmaking - biggest problem for me was I don't really have any vintage sewing 'stuff' apart from the obvious, none of which is really vintage (although it should be, can't remember the last time I did any sewing).

However, I did sort of hav an idea that I could do a page that buttonned up and could be opened - mmm. yes,...well.. well probably someone more skilful than I COULD do that. I gave up (mainly because I really don't know how to do buttonholes) and did the same kind of idea but everythig is stuck down one way or another.

Sherry had placed no restrictions on colour but vintage somehow suggests neutral tones and I happenned to have some bits of material (tie backs bought for 25p!!) that I made the opening 'bodice ' or whatever with. The images were all from a selection on the flickr pool plus buttons and some pretty pearlheaded pins. That's pretty much it. I played around with the main image with gesso and acrylic gel - it's gone sort of 'bitty' wished I'd stuck with my PVA technique for this one, she looks a bit washed out when close to. Well in the end it finished up sort of like I had in my minds eye - hope Sherry likes it though as it's a bit bulky.

#Words# Swap

Decided to make another ATC for my words swap as I wasn't happy with one of them. Still stuck on tape transfers and gel medium - must get out of this rut!!Text from Midsummer night dream, tape trasnfer image and sticker alphabets for words.

Shrink Plastic...

Made these two ATCs for a Shrink plastic challenge over on DC. Tried out two quite large stamps - they worked well giving clear images but are a little bit harder to manage when you heat the SP as it is hard to heat evenly all over at the same time. However, quite useful with a large stamp as the resullting 'piece' is still quite a reasonable size.

Art dolls

I have wanted to make some little clay art dolls ever since I saw them on the

sculpy

website projects page. They turned out really well, but rather than add them to an ATC I decided they merited being put on an altered slide mailer.



I made a single and a double and they are very similar as I was playing about with some new stamps but I am quite pleased with the results. One of them is going to my new transatlantic cyber pal nayski as a 1:1 challenge and I may run a little give away for the other one when I am on holiday in a couple of weeks. I have a couple more dolls that I haven't decided what to do with. I did think they might look quite good mounted on sticks and used to put in plant pots but I haven't tried it yet. Maybe in a couple of weeks I'll try that out but I've got journal pages backing up so have to focus on them over the weekend I think.

Where'd that week go?......

Haven't been this behind with everything for ages but better get used to it I guess - the main thing that has been different this week is .......no school!! Amazing how two people who stay in bed all day disrupt your routine...

Still I digress. Have been busy crafting but somehow don't seem to have found any time to post. I am including this ATC 'Yellow Roses' which was another of my forays in to the world of image transfer.

The lady image has been done as a tape transfer and then 'taken down' by a layer of matt gel medium to take off the shine. This worked really well, but I have discovered yet another way to reduce the shine on a tape transfer - decide to heat emboss over the top. Didn't give it a thought, merrily applied heat to the ATC and was horrified to find the plastic surface all curling up and evaporatingleaving the image behind. Seriously I doubt this is a very reliable method and I think I was very lucky to be able to retrieve anything at all but beginner's luck I guess.

100 days and counting.......

Just finished my 100th Daily Art Card and I'm still doing most of them as ATCs with the odd quick bit of drawing or sketching thrown in. Not really sure how I am going to manage when my 2 week hols come around but still.

This one is called Pink Dream, and is the result of my playing with tape transfers. These are really easy to do, but the tape does leave a shiny surface to the image which doesn't please everyone. Because I usually go over my collage ATCs with dilute PVA the whole thing becomes 'glossy' so it is not so obvious. That is what I have done to this one and I think the effect is fine.

However, I have also tried out a couple of suggestions for removing the shine that were put forward on Wendy's blog. Sian suggested rubbing down with fine sandpaper or an emery board. This didn't seem to work too well, but my sandpaper wasn't that fine. I also rubbed a bit of gesso over the image and then rubbed off to try and distress. Think I might have gone too far with this one.

Ange's suggestion was to add a layer of matt gel medium to take down the shine - this seems to be working very well. I used a dry brush and added the gel very sparingly. It has really taken off the gloss from the transfer tape and looks much better. Thumbs up Ange!!

Cards for other people

I really do like making the occasional card, and am sometimes asked to make them for special occasions. However although I almost always say yes without thinking, I then tie myself up in knots worrying about what to do - especially if you don't know the recipient!! This card was requested by a colleague at work but although I'm pleased with the way it turned out, I am conscious the colours are a bit bright and breezy!! I was also not really sure about the whole Godson but - is it just one word? Still it was what was asked for. Oh well, am dropping it off tonight, hope it's Ok as I don't really want to make another one.