ATC Club

On the second Friday of every month, I now meet with an ATC Club through a shop called Scraploot.  The teacher extraordinaire is Linda Baldock who is fantastic.  Here are the ATCs I finally finished for the very first ATC Club swap.  The next theme was Vintage Dancer, but because I was in Queensland and missed the second ATC Club meet I didn't actually know the theme.

  

The third ATC Club meet had us make a box to hold ATCs.  I absolutely love how this box turned out ... it was made using a faux rust technique ... and is all Linda's creation.  Start with a box template and put it through the cuttlebug ... it'll have to be folded to fit in the embossing template but it doesn't matter that some of the pattern is embossed and other parts are debossed (not sure if that's a word).  Paint the whole thing in black acrylic paint.  Dab orange paint in spots and dry ... you won't be able to see the orange very well on the black, but it adds depth to the technique.  Rub over the whole thing with Gold Gedeo Gilders Paste, making sure to have light and dark areas that show through some of the underneath colour.  Dab orange paint in parts again and buff when you have thicker gold area.  Rubb black paint over the edges, especially if you can see cracks in the paint.  Decorate the inside of the box if you want to before sticking it together.  Add fancy clasp to the front and decorate with black german scrap rubbed with the gilders paste ... pretty neat huh!

 

  



"Out of clutter find simplicity; from discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

~Albert Einstein~

Knave of Hearts

The July theme in the Alice Challenge through the PaperArts Yahoo Group is the Knave of Hearts and here is my take on the theme.

It's Spring down under and it's quite a pleasure walking around Hunters Hill with gardens blooming and birds tweeting.  Every day our garden has some new colour ...

  

   

"A weed is but an unloved flower."
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1850-1919, American Poet and Journalist~

Some of my latest creative escapades

The theme for September's ATC swap through the group in Helensvale Queensland is "No paper".  I cut up a chinese placemat made out of bamboo into ATC size and coated the surface with impasto using a Heidi stencil of a butterfly.  Once the impasto had dried and was transparent, I covered the whole thing in two-step crackle medium, then covered it in Ginger Alcohol inks to accentuate the cracks.  The butterfly was painted with Black alcohol ink and the edges inked with black StazOn.

Yesterday I did a Mixed Media class with Linda Baldock at Scaploot (http://www.scraploot.com.au/).  Linda's a very talented artist and I love her grungy style of art.  The class we did was called "Flooded Canvas" and here are some pics of my piece.

The piece is made on the reverse of a canvas. The inside is painted various colours, then a coat of impasto is applied, sticking in beads, watch pieces, rusty bottle caps and bits I've collected over the years, black mesh, rusty keys and a vintage photo.  Once touch dry industrial grade resin is poured over the top. My piece is not quite finished yet as I want to do some more colour around the outside edge of the frame.  In hindsight, I didn't realise the impasto would stay white, I think I would have either added more colour to the impasto before the resin or if I was making one of these at home, I probably would have let the impasto dry for a few days and go nearly clear.  Other than that, I'm pretty happy with the piece and I had a lot of fun trying something new.  If you want to see more of Linda's art, check out her blog here - http://atclindab.blogspot.com/ .

"Other people's opinion of you does not have to become your reality."

~Les Brown, Speaker and Author~

A trip up north and down memory lane ...

I arrived in Queensland on 28th August after an 11 hour drive with my mum & dad.  A few hours later it was my niece Alexis' 4th birthday party ... she's grown up so much in the few months since I last saw her.

My very cute nephew, Harry, wasn't walking when I last saw him and now you can't slow him down. At 18months of age he could also get the milk out the fridge, unscrew the lid, pour it in his cup and all over the kitchen tiles and sort of put the lid of his cup on ... what a clever boy!

It was great to catch up with family and friends, but the week just flew by.  Ferg arrived on Thursday, we celebrated my sister Sylvia's 40th birthday on the following Saturday and very early Sunday we started an 11 hour drive back to Sydney.

Here's a few happy snaps:  Me and Alexis; Harry wearing a bucket!; me, Sylvia & mum; me and Ferg; my friends and I creating at Scrapbooks Etc; me and the wonderful Lyndal with a pic made on her i-Phone ... a very cool app; the gorgeous Jill and me.

Jill sent me the link for this cool photo editing web-site - http://www.picnik.com/ - where you can do all these great creative editing features, you'll notice that 3 of the photos have a black edge around them, well you can do that and more on this web-site.

The week after I returned from Queensland, I received my second year of blogging published in a hardcover book.  Last year's book had 104 pages in it and this book has 170 ... much more active blogging in my second year.  It's so cool to get a hard copy of my blog, every time I open the book I get caught up on all the things I did last year ... like the birth of my nephew for which I was present; the first creative soul retreat I attended and fabulous workshops I did; amazing creative people I met throughout the year; the evolution of my art and growth of our dog Beau ... the list goes on.

If you're interested in publishing your blog, visit this site here - http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/ - and click on "Blog Books" ... it's pretty awesome.

Until next time, keep having fun.

"The better part of one's life consists of his friendships."
~Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States~

Alice Challenge continues

I managed to complete another couple of pages for the Alice in Wonderland Challenge being run by the PaperArts Yahoo Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paperarts/). 

The Mad Hatter

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

I had a blast making these pages up.  The Mad Hatter has an old baby wipe as the background that I used to clean up my nieces paints as she kept mixing all the colours up, it looks really cool in the flesh 'cause I covered it in Yellow Glimmer Mists, so it's all sparkly.

The tweedles background is different types of torn paper, covered in a wash of Gold Red Oxide.  I then added some packaging fabric and dried it with the heat gun 'cause I was impatient and melted some of that fabric, which gave it a really cool texture.  I used Memories Mists, glimmer mists & starburst stains for more colour, shimmer & drips . The tree has an encyclopaedia description of Tweedle Dee & Dum ... how perfect.

Until next time, keep well and keep creating ....

`Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Agreed to have a battle; For Tweedledum said Tweedledee, Had spoiled his nice new rattle. Just then flew down a monstrous crow, As black as a tar-barrel; Which frightened both the heroes so, They quite forgot their quarrel.'

Selft Portrait and Alice

The theme for this month's ATC swap with the girls back in Helensvale Queensland was "Self Portrait".  This theme was my suggestion as I really wanted to get a pic of everyone back home ... or so I hope anyway.  I'm still incredibly time poor with working full-time and haven't quite got a routine established to fit more creative time in my days yet, so my Self Portrait ATC is quite simple ... and I also wanted to use up some of the thousands of sheets of scrapbooking paper I have in my stash.

Here's the 4th instalment of the Alice in Wonderland Challenge through the PaperArts Yahoo Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paperarts/) and it's Alice herself ...

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
~Frederick Douglass, 1817-1895, American Abolotionist~

Latest creations

The Helensvale ATC swap occurred on Sunday and I managed to get my ATCs sent to Pam on time who looks after my trades, due to the fact that I no longer live in Queensland to swap in person.  This month's theme was "Aussie Slang" and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.  Here's my take on the theme.  I attempted to do the "faux tin-type" technique, but it hasn't quite turned out how I wanted as the xyron sort of created bubbles when I stuck the transparency to the foil underneath.  All the same, hopefully everyone will still like them.

Sparrow's Fart = Dawn in Aussie language!

I was going to join the Stained Glass swap through ATC World, but left it too late and was concerned the cards wouldn't turn up before the deadline.  I had fun having a play though.  I did the outline in Leadlite and the colours are with Glasslite (Glass paint).  It was fun to try something different.

Stained Glass Technique - Tree

At the beginning of this year I joined the Alice in Wonderland Challenge through PaperArts Yahoo Group.  With the move to Sydney I'm really behind on creating my pages, but here's what I've created so far.  I'm really enjoying the challenge and am even more happy that I only need to create 1 page and I get to keep them.

The White Rabbit

The Red Queen

 
The Red King

"It is a very funny thing about life - if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it." W. Somerset Maugham, 1874-1965, Novelist and Playwright