In the weeks before Christmas....(Take 2)

Didn't get to do everything I wanted the other day as the site seemed a bit flaky - or could have been 'cos youngest was shooting em up via the wireless - who knows?

Anyhow, during the pre Christmas mayhem (is it really all over for another year?) I really struggled to keep up with my Daily Art Cards but dutifully left them all to be sorted and uploaded at a quiet time. When I sat down on Monday I was horrified to discover it was nearly six weeks worth! Boy do I regret not doing them as I went along now!! So far have only managed to upload until 10th December - about half way - into my flickr album (Check it out if you want to trade) the rest will have to wait until the weekend. by when, of course, there will be another week's worth. Anyway, these are a few that I think turned out OK from the latest batch.

Whilst doing this batch I was playing around with image transfers again - I had a sheet of images

that had printed out really badly but I found that they looked OK as image transfers - the 'banding' from the printer sort of disappeared in with the general distressyness. Just to say - never throw ANYTHING away!! However the one above is a collage - and you can see it wasn't a very good print. This turned into quite a nice composition, I wish I had used a better original.

When I was doing the 'admin' for this last one I realised it was my 500th ATC this year. (Yeah I know, I should get a life). I really like this lady's 'come hither' look and when it was finished I had to call this one 'Forever Amber' - does anyone else have memories of secretly reading their mum's copy? So, in honour of this dubious achievement this one will be given away as a RAK possibly with a little extra something for the 'lucky' winner. To enter leave a comment and THE NAME OF THE AUTHOR and I will do a draw on Sunday morning.

Well that's me for today, although I have something else I'm really pleased with to showcase which I shall probably upload tomorrow. Off to play with my melt pot (At last!!)

Happy New Year everyone, I wish you all that you would wish for yourself in 2009 but above all that you have health, happiness and unlimited creativity in the coming year.

Cindy xxx

In the weeks before Christmas..........

I made a few things for friends as pressies, some Christmassy some not, but like most of us was unable to keep the blogging up to date. However, I WAS crafting my socks off so now all the presents have been received and opened here are some of the things I managed to get done.

I made some calendars using slide mailers and jumbo jigsaw pieces.

The mailer one has space for an ATC which can be changed whenyou get bored.

I also did some hanging tree ornaments using doms and stampboard.

and I made a tissue box holder for a special someone who is always getting emotional (nothing to do with the wine lol)

I must apologise for this messy layout, I can't seem to edit this post at the moment and my pictures keep disappearing (think I preferred it when it just showed as code, I knew where I was then) which is a right royal pain as I wanted to get something blogged today, so I may will have to come back later. And if you received something else from me that I haven't featured here I have either lost the picture or I can't show it yet as it will give something else away lol!!

CHRISTMAS CARDS

Although I try to only send christmas cards to people I don't see (expect for a few very special friends and family) the list of people I haven't seen for a year gets longer and longer ........ I guess I'd better get out a bit more next year!! Here are a few that I made this year, I had a bit of a thing about angels.

Unfortunately work and life has been very busy lately, and I haven't had much time for blogging uploading or even checking up on what other people are doing - I'm sorry if you've kept coming back to the same old screen the last couple of weeks!!! I've been really busy doing my cards, a few little pressies and keeping up with the DAC challange, but if I can get my act together I hope to do a little giveaway to celebrate the end of the year. More details to follow. Back soon.

image transfers with acrylic gel....

Well as I have no longer got my heat gun I have been concentrating on checking out different image transfer techniques, this type using acrylic gel mediums. Over on flickr I belong to the SIS group run by Ange and all my 'samples' are shown there. Ange is setting various projects and challenges to have a go at and transfer techniques is the one for Nov/December. I have found this a very successful technique - (there should be tutorial link from the SIS site but at the time of writing I don't think it is working, however there are lots of others around). I have experimented using both inkjet prints and colour photocopies and found they both work well. To compare I have used the same image for different materials so I apologise if this poor renaissance lady is becoming a bit familiar - I shall probably tire of her soon!! This one, called Orange Beauty is my favourite from this batch.

Resist embossing killed my heat gun...

I am very sad lady, my heat gun is no more, despite valiant efforts by OH it has been pronounced deceased which puts paid to a few things I'm working on until I can get my grubby mitts on a new one.

However, here are a couple of bits I managed to do before the end, with resist emboss backgrounds and UTEE tiles.














I was actually trying to re-create the success I had with this one that I made a week or so ago. Maybe I didn't use the right colours together for this technique or my clear embossing wasn't good enough but somehow I don't think they turned out quite so well. Hey ho, it's all trial and error, sometimes more of the latter. So with no heat gun, it'll be back to image transfers for the rest of the week....

jiggy jiggy jamming

Am taking part in an altered jigsaw jam with some friends over at the NI site. The idea is everyone sends everyone else a piece of jigsaw puzzle to alter to a designated theme. They are then returned and the originator mounts them together as a piece of artwork or may keep them as individual pieces. This is Sherry's piece, which is done in a Folk Art Christmas style. Think I might have got a bit carried away - talk about fully loaded!



A slightly more difficult theme to interpret was for Sheila. This is a shabby/homespun style - I used some cosmo cricket journalling squares to make a patchwork quilt for the background. The little house is made from balsa wood and the words are cut from a larger piece. I was going to make the heart all white as pink/red was not in the colour spec but it looked a bit flat. It also picksd up the colour of the text so I think it's OK.



Oriental in blues and gold was the request for this piece for Wendy. I made a real mess of the first tile because I glazed it but I had obviously not used colour fast ink and the image faded away - unfortunately I had stuck it on so this poor little jiggy bit had to undergo major reconstructive surgery. Turned out all right in the end and I left it unglazed this time!!



TIME PLEASE!! Viv had asked for the theme of time and I struggled a bit as I don't have much 'stuff' for that theme. Then I remembered a little wooden clock button I had picked up and found a collage image and part of a stamp - probably just as well it wasn't any bigger though or I wouldn't have known what else to put on!! The journalling could have been a bit neater but I culdn't bear to rip it off and start again. It's also nice to add dangly bits to extend the piece if you are in a position to do so (ie if you will not be encroaching on a neighbouring jam piece.) Again stumped until I remembered the feather charms - well, these are 'feathers in the broad wings of time' lol.



Finally, a piece for Jinny - Floral in a contemporary style. It also had to be brown and gold. I know this is going to be hard to believe, but I could not find any 'Brown' papers in my stash and had to colour something up using ink pads. Unbelievable. The flowers are made with a Craft Stamper 'freebie' stamp - the same image is basically layered up, and the stamens inside are made from wire and beads. Background is gold painted plastic mesh over papers, and some micro beads. Text is taken from a larger stamp and covered with glossy accents to make tiles.



I like to leave off making my own piece (or pieces) until after I have received them all back so that I can make sure the whole thing ties in together. Will post a picture of the completed piece in due course.

Renaissance Ramblings....

Yippee!! Off tomorrow for the Southern DC meet in Horsham. Not sure how many of us there will be, but have got lots of ATCs to trade.

We have to take a challenge ATC with the theme of Renaissance and this is my offering called 'Renaissance collage' (imaginative).



The main image is courtesy of the flickr collage group and I have used it again on these two ATCs to show the difference between an image transfer done using inkjet and gesso and a transfer using packingtape and laser print. The lower picture is the gesso one and I was a bit too vigorous with my rubbing and lost the back if her head, hencethe embellishment with tiny beads. Nice save eh? I've also been trying out transpaseal transfers, with somewhat less success but not bad. Someone asked to see transfer techniques so I am taking a bunch of stuff to see if anyone wants to have a go. So, won't be around Saturday - Hopefully will post piccies of our crafting day in due course.