Not a lot going on.....

...except work, work, work. Stupidly volunteered to do extra hours at the library this week to run two lots of children's craft activities - stupid because its the week before my holiday and I had loads to do!! And its been the hottest week of the year so far and I am exhausted. But the activities were fun, messy and enjoyed by all.

Anyhow, barely keeping up with my DACs - here's two I did earlier in the week, still playing with image transfers because they're quick quick quick. But I'm going to miss the MAMMA challenge again this week - will have to be extra dedicated when I get back lol! Never know, I might actually get my craft room sorted.

Oh and it is my intention to post a little giveaway tomorrow night before signing off for a couple of weeks - don't forget to pop back and leave me a message.

The kindness of strangers

Oh what a lucky bunny I am. I received this art doll today from Belinda in Tasmania and 'won' it in a draw made on her blog. It is really, really exquisite, I feel very privileged to have been included in her competition and to win!! Again and again I am amazed at the generosity that can be found among this art blog community - not only to give away beautifully crafted artwork but to foot the bill for posting it around the world, expecting nothing in return. Crafters really are very nice people.

Belinda has a very interesting blog. Check it out!!

Lottery

Over at NI we are having an ATC lottery and the theme for the first draw is 'Friendship'. This is my contribution.

Must try harder.......

Have had a mare of a week with a flaky internet connection - very frustrating!! However seems Ok now (everything crossed) with no apparent explanation for the problem. However one of the consequences was I missed the deadline for the MAMMA challenge so I shall have to try and be a bit more organised in future. The theme was water which stumped for a couple of days. I have had a play with doing some wax resist work - I hesitate to call it batik!! - not entirely successfully but was fun. Have decided that's yet another reason to get one of those meltpot thingys - think my technique using an eggcup and a heat gun wouold give anyone from the H & S Exec a heart attack. Anyhow, these are the results.

A page for Susan - 'Welcome to My World'

Another member of the Round Robin group also chose the theme 'Woman' for her journal pages. In her instructions she said to show 'what being a woman means to you'. So I have chosen to take a slightly tongue in cheek look at my life, which mainly seems to involve juggling what I want to do around everyone else's requirements. In all honesty I don't really see myself as a 'Super Woman' (but I would love to be able to get away with wearing a pair of red hot pants). As I get older I find I crave the easy life more and more – just a shame I can’t seem to get away with it. However I do feel that 'real' women have a lot on their plates these days and we all need a sense of humour to get through.

Once again although there were no strict instructions given, I feel I have strayed a long way from the style of Susan's original page so I hope she likes it and that it doesn't 'jar' with anything else in her completed journal.

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.

WORDS Swap

Have spent the last few days thinking about a 'Words' swap with an ATC group on Flickr.


These are my firs thoughts, but now I know who my partners are I will have to have a look and see who will like what and decide if I need to make any more. They are all collage type, but I also managed to do a tape transfer (the key on the top one) so now I'm madly trying them with all sorts of things.

Journal Page - What Colour Are You?

The next journal page (things got a bit out of order because I was away on holiday) that I have completed is for Sian. Her theme is 'what colour are you?' and I decided that I am green. I have made the page from several layers of card and mountboard - in fact I could be rivalling Paula for creating the thickest page SO FAR for this challenge!! The background is made using resist emboss technique with some collaged butterflies over the top (I went for some orange as a contrast as it was VERY green when I had finished). The leaf is made from string and tissue paper on card, the frog is modelled from makins clay and painted (isn't he just cute as a bug?). The additional layers were required to accommodate the turning circle which has a spiral of words on it explaining GREEN from a personal aura perspective. The challenge for this page was not the individual techniques but in making everything match up. It's nearly perfect but I'm not going to give away my mistakes, lets just say the little bugs were very useful. I really enjoyed doing this one, and I have called it, 'Life is easy when you're green' (alternative title - 'Kermit got it wrong').

To visit the Journal blog and view all the pages in this challenge click here.

Maggie's Monday Musings

MMM is a weekly challenge blog set up by the wonderful Margaret with hopefully those entering taking part in a swap. I have done my first one, this week the challenge theme was 'Parisienne'. I have gone for a basic collage type ATC. Now all I have to do is work out how to link the photo to the site!!

A bit of this n that

After yesterday's marathon post will keep it short and sweet tonight. Amidst going to work and spending some time on another project have finished these two very different items. The wall hanger is a little gift for my newly arrived niece, Grace, who I haven't seen yet :0(.


The altered jigsaw piece is a fridge magnet. I think these work quite well, think I may make a few as pressies.

Gouache resist technique

Today I had a go at this technique which is part of a challenge within one of my art groups. There is a tutorial on Agnes the Reds' website.

The materials list onthe tutorial begins "Watercolour paper - 300lb pre stretched/cold pressed is best" mmm. Lost already. I also needed India Ink which I didn't have. So let's improvise.

The first thing that has to be done is some kind of image. As I am not really an 'artist' this kind of thing fills me with horror as it requires drawing. Looking at the pieces that had been completed already, it seemed to me that a very simple image would work best - I copied an image from a small stamp of a very basic little bird and started from there. I used some watercolour paper - no idea if it was hot or cold or what lol. So far so good.

Now we had to paint in the bits that we wanted to resist the ink (to be applied later) with gouache. I don't really understand this medium altho I do have it, and I'm not sure I am using it properly. Found this part quite difficult to do and retain even the few details I had. In the end basically just splodged it all over and then scraped it off with a cocktail stick in the appropriate places.

Then came adding the ink. Well the only inks I had were coloured ones designed to be used with a graphics pen that I don't have (were a bargain) so I chose what seemed to be darkest neutral one I had. I tested a bit to make sure it was waterproof, seemed OK so added it all over. Seemed a bit pale (well it would, it wasn't black) so did it again. Here is the result. I actually quite like it like this.



Now comes the really scarey part, you have to wash off the gouache to reveal the clear paper beneath. Putting anything basically made of paper intentionally near water seems rather risky at the best of times but I swallowed hard and did it. Amazingly the gouache came off quite easily and apart from looking a little soggy around the edges it was basically fine.


When it was dry I coloured it in with some watercolour paints.



I can't say I am over enamoured of this as a finished piece, but it was always more about seeing if I could do it than creating a masterpiece. (Sorry, had to stop myself laughing). But it is certainly acceptable although it would have been better with a black contrast. Perhaps I will try again using a permanent maker pen as I don't have any black ink. Question is, can I now finish the challenge by making an ATC? I don't think this is a technique I am going to be using much - I don't draw - but may have another go at the weekend.

A bit dark for me..

When I was making my clay heads the other day two of them came out as jolly little goths so I have done two cards using them (Just wanted an excuse to use my crow stamp). I have called them both 'Any colour - as long as its Black@ but of course you can't really do the whole thing black so they are just rather grungy.

A girl and a sheep........for Garden Gal

Today I had so much lovely post the Post man brought it in a van!! Some of it was goddies that I had ordered and some was artwork from others - it is all so good I don't know what to look at first.



I have to post this picture which was sent to me by Gude, a member of my daily art card group on flickr. I have often admired her whimsical characters 'girl and a sheep' who she features in a variety of situations. After some gentle prompting from me (I have no shame) she drew this one especially for me. I think it's gorgeous and I'm going to put it in a frame in my display cabinet.