Another Body of Work......

More Torso ATCs!! Cannot explain the attraction of these. One of my contacts said that she thought that if they were 3.5 x 2.5 ins at the longest/widest part you could call them ATCs. MMM. But as she also said, if you don't want to trade one don't ask!! Anyway that's all of those for now until I get some new mountboard!!

Torso ATCs

Saw these on the Scrapz blog. I'm not 100% sure if they can actually be called ATCs given that the size of an ATC is a rectangle which these aren't of course. However just a bit of 'armless fun (must stop making that joke it is really BAD), quite like moving away from the constraints of the straight lines as I tend to get a bit linear when working inside a regular framework. Anyhow this is the first batch, have a few more drying to post later. I would be up for swapping these they in my flickr trade album but would like a like for like swap. Oh and not sure where all this 'LOVE' stuff keeps coming from - I am the most unromantic person I know (well apart from my OH). I don't know, Sian has got a case of the pretties and I've got the love bug. Whatever next?

More clay heads.....

Did so many of those clay heads I'm now on overload!! The blue mermaidy one is called 'Sea Spirit' had great fun playing with her hair but although my makins was a new pack it seemed a bit dry and was being most unco-operative. The background was a bit of stamping I had done previously which I put some extra bits on and then added some of the rather silly little fishy embellies. The bit of blue background is something I picked up in the pound shop designed to be used to stop things (ie ornaments) slipping around on your highly polished furniture. No use for that in my house so inked it and then sealed with clear EP as being plasticy it was going to take forever to dry. Was very careful with heat gun in case a) went up in smoke b) knocked me out with noxious fumes but seemed OK but I wouldn't want to encourage anyone to do anything dangerous lol but another interesting texture to work with.

For the second one, 'Happiness', I again used some card I had stamped up before with some extra stamping for the background, leaves and the clay head - I think she looks a bit like a 'cameo' head. I have been playing with sequin waste as a stencil, either to ink through or just to add versamark and clear embossing powder - it gives a nice texture. Still haven't got it perfect but am getting there. The text is a transfer - I've had some computer transfer paper for ages - quite chuffed I managed to reverse the text, print it out and basically make it work. Unfortunately it was the opaque sheet - quite frankly I think you might as well do it on a piece of paper because you can't see through it. However this was the 'practice one' to see if I could make it work. I have some clear sheets to try as well but I'll probably have forgotten how to do it by the time I decide to have another go. Seriously, I think I might use it to do some text for a Flickr ATC swap I've joined - the ATCs have to have text as the main feature and this might work quite well for one or two.

Chalk and cheese

Well, today's efforts couldn't be further apart. First we finally have a runner for the hand drawn challenge swap with Paula - weeks ago this should have been done. I have to face it I can't draw (so Paula don't feel so bad aboutthe image transfers - that's how I feel about drawing!! I tried to do things from 'life (strangely, NOT the cheetah lol) but gave up and copied from a picture in the end. I just cannot do all htat pencil shading stuff. A bit of smudging is the best I can do.

So back to the bits of clay for me. Here are two very odd little cards, - I'm hoping that if I ever win one of her clay ATCs the host on the current DC challenge will like one of these. I'm not sure if they are very kitsch or rather naff.

I've really been going off at all sorts of tangents today - trying out something different I saw on a web site, thinking about another project with lots of beading, painting some of my clay heads, buying even more stamps.... (somebody stop me).... still more of that tomorrow, the rest of today's output isn't ready to upload yet but as I'm at work tomorrow it will give me someting to put up tomorrow evening.

This week I will be mainly making......

ATCs with resist emboss backgrounds. Or at least seems like it. I've also been busy with the clay and it's all nearly dry now and ready to start painting so I expect I shall start adding those bits to the ATCs as well. I have made a couple of things using the colours in this ATC as I'm trying to get it right for another project - ATCs are so useful for tryng things out on a small scale and I hate waste!!I think this combination of greens and orangey coppers works quite well together so am going to have a go at making the background for the new project in a mo.

Round Robin No 2 - Remember Cairo

Also finished and posted off the next of my round robin art journal pages. The theme for this one was memories and I got all tied up in knots about why I chose the pictures I did etc etc - had too much time to think about it that's the problem. Anyhow, it's basically my favourite type of collage/decoupage, everything plastered together with heaps of diluted pva to make a nice flat page with the photograph mounted on top to give it a little dimension. I uteed the photocopied image to make it shiny and then cracked it and distressed it - not sure it worked too well, think maybe I need to actually try some proper crackle stuff. I would have really liked to have added some real photo corners but couldn't find any round here and I'm not going shopping anywhere else for another week. I'm sure there are some in this house somewhere... Just thought, think I have got some 'pretty' ones, could have just coloured them in. doh. Too late now!!

I dare you swap (3 and 4)

You really need to read the last post first - if that makes sense!!

For the something altered I decided to make a fridge magnet using a large jigsaw piece. I gave it all a quick coat of pva for protection and am quite pleased with the way it turned out. I think the sayig is funny but I hope the recipient has a sense of humour - I suppose it could betaken the wrong way. I've got another nearly finished that will be looking for a home soon.



I had already made up a house shape with slide mailers - I was going to do an Alice in Wonderland/Living in a mad house thing for myself (think the kids were driving me mad that week) but decided I would use that as it had sat there for weeks. Started off kind of grungy and then got a bit prettier. Used resist emboss again (I'm loving this technique) and some image transfers, stamping etc. Attempted, rather unsuccessfully to put UTEE in the alcoves of the slide mailer (prefer not to think about it). Still you have to try these things and on the whole it came out rather well even if there is a slightly bizarre collection of styles used in the making of it.