An altered tag swap

I'm on a bit of a hiatus at the moment - hospital stay, operation yada yada, and frustratingly I'm not getting much crafting done. These are some tags I put together for a swap a couple of weeks ago before I went in:

 

I used my 6x6 Gelli Plate and some acrylic paints to make the backgrounds before sponging some gesso through a stencil. Then I cut a window with a Spellbinders die to place over the book page and image, and finally added some flowers and seam binding. Here's a close up:

 They do appear to be upside down, but when I get the returns from the swap I plan to bind them in one of these doovies from Tim Holtz's Idea-ology line:

 All of this writing has me worn out - back to bed for me. Thanks for looking!

Green & Gold ATCs

Last month's theme for the Darkroom Door ATC swap was Green & Gold. Those two words together always make me think of the scene from Blackadder.

Here's my "splat of green":

These ATC swaps run monthly, and you can find all the details here.

Thanks for looking!

Darkroom Door/Sizzix ATC swap

Every month or so, Darkroom Door run an ATC swap. The current theme asks us to combine Darkroom Door stamps with Sizzix products. Here are my ATCs:

 

 

I used the Sizzix Mini Sewing Room dies, papers from Scrapcake and KaiserCraft, and the following Darkroom Door stamps:

 

Fashionable



Stitched Christmas
Buttons Background
Measuring Tape Background

Participants are always welcomed for these swaps, all you need to do is get your ATCs in by the end of November. All the details can be found on the Darkroom Door blog. Hope you can join us!

Thanks for stopping by today!

A mass of ATCs

I'm part of a group that meets once a month to make and occasionally swap ATCs. One of our themes this year was houses, and I remembered I had a tonne of little chipboard houses made by Collections. Here's what I made:

This process took over two months, as I kept getting interrupted with other work and kids. I covered the houses with Collections patterned paper, and stuck them on a base that was covered with KaiserCraft papers (Base Coat or Curiosity). The base had been stencilled with a Crafter's Workshop stencil and some blue acrylic paint.

I love seeing things en masse! Thanks for stopping by today.

Paris themed ATC

The Little Bits ATC group meets once a month to chat and swap ATCs. Mostly we chat LOL

We pick a theme for the month, and Paris was a suggestion. To add to the challenge, we decided to have no Eiffel Towers at all.

He he - no problem! Darkroom Door has FOUR sets devoted to this very theme, and only one contains a touch of Eiffel. I used the image of Sacre Coeur from the Montmarte set, stamped on top of a background made with Distress Inks.

I associate Paris with grey, dreary weather and delicious food because that's what it was like when I was there a lifetime ago. I'd love to go in the spring time one day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Darkroom Door ATC swap

This is a selection of the ATCs I made for the June ATC swap at Darkroom Door:

I used three different stamps for the backgrounds (Criss Cross, Scratches and the script from the Correspondence set), an image from the Art De Fleur Montage sheet, a butterfly from the Wings set, a Kaisercraft rose, a Prima flower, a pearl and some tea stained lace. I also stamped the Montage sheet image with a couple of stamps from the Correspondence set. Each ATC was colour matched to the Montage sheet image, so there were some pink, some purple and some a rusty orange colour.

Lots of layers and sponging ink, and spritzing with Glimmermists. Boy did I have fun with these.

It's a little late for June, but you can join in the fun yourself with the July swap. All the details can be found on the Darkroom Door blog.

More Art Journal swap

Here's some of what I did with the second journal that came my way:

Having fun with this swap :)

Art Journal Circle Group

I was contacted a while ago by Lucy, who was looking for expressions of interest in joining a circle journal group. The idea was she would make a bunch of journals and we would work in them and then post them off to the next person. The theme for this swap is "What would you tell your 20 year old self?" Thought provoking topic!

This is one of the journals made by Lucy:

Stunning, isn't it?

I was honoured to have been asked - I saw some names on the participant list that made me gasp. People I had admired for a long time.

And then I got really good at procrastinating. Between that and running a household with three (make that four) kids, working plus all my other DT committments, the journal kept getting put off. A couple of weekends ago at camp, I got stuck into the two journals I now had in my possession, and badda bing! They were done. And I had some fun doing them to boot.

Here's some of what I did in the first journal:

 

Some paint, some texture medium, pretty paper, some chipboard.....I was in heaven!

I look forward to seeing these journals complete in a few months.

I'm baaaaaack!

Three and a half wonderful weeks - Christmas then seeing in the new year, and then just hanging with the family, learning to rest again.
I've got heaps to catch this little blog up on, which is going to be difficult with a shaped internet service. That's what you get when three little children get iPods for Christmas and discover YouTube I suppose!!
I'll start today with this canvas I put together for an ArtyOz 1-4-1 swap. It's a 5x7, and it was for Lucy who likes reds and creams:

I started with some Teresa Collins papers, a dressform by Collections, some red flowers from Prima and some wings and white flowers I had in my stash. A bit of modelling paste, buttons and acrylic paints and the canvas was done.

Lucy tells me I accidentally signed the back "Teresa - 2010" which is just an indicator of where my mind was! Eck! I do hate that stress I put myself under every December. This year will be different - I've promised myself.

Before I go, I'll share some of the insanity that goes on around these parts. This is my mate Max, who thought it was a little unusual for me to be taking pictures of something other than him.

Sniff sniff, what's this?

That would look awesome in my kennel!

How heavy is it?

Quick, before she catches me!

I got it back pretty bloody quickly! He thought it was just hilarious - I'm sure he was laughing at me, the cheeky mutt!

Buttons, bows and bling

We organised an ATC swap between our group at Little Bits and the girls at Debling in Design.

The theme was buttons, bows and bling, and here's my ATC:

That's a stamp from the London Underground set from Artistic Outpost, some seam binding for the bow, and a blingy button in the centre. The papers are Girl's Paperie.

I love seeing things en masse! Thanks for dropping in today.

Sweet ATCs

These are some ATCs I made for the group of girls that meet at Little Bits.  The theme was 'Sweets' so I grabbed some Darkroom Door images from the Sweet Treats Montage sheet and stitched a border around each image:

 

I coloured some texture paste with pink acrylic paint, and embedded some edible pearls and a word from a Sweet Treats Wordstrip.

Love how they looked all piled up together:

Thanks for dropping in today!

 

This year's collaborative book

A whole month or more ago, my friend Greta came over and we bound this year's ArtyOz collaborative book. The theme was the 7 deadly sins, and each sin was assigned a different colour. We decided to make the covers multi coloured, and they turned out beautifully, even if I do say so myself!

Lots and lots of different trims and embellishments - I love running my hand over it and feeling all the different textures.

 

 You can see here, it ended up being quite a chunky book:

 Here's my page (Sloth in Sepia):

 I used an old book page stained with shellac, a piece of brown satin fabric scrunched up behind the photo, a piece of mica on top of the photo, some Prima flowers and a Green Tara flower. The Green Tara flower started life out as spearmint green would you believe? It's coffee stained.   The title was done using the Darkroom Door alphabet. Love this alpha - you don't need to be too accurate with it, it always looks good.

A huge thanks to Greta for getting me motivated to finish these covers - I couldn't have done it without your help and advice, and I loved spending some creative time with you. We should do it more often!!!

Thanks for looking!

 

Gail's tiles

This is the set of chipboard tiles I made for my friend Gail for her birthday (ahem, cough cough - her birthday was in August, but better late than never, right?):

A few friends formed a group and the idea was that on our birthday we would receive 16 tiles from 6 or 7 other people.  The year started enthusiastically, with some people even receiving their tiles early. Life got in the way, however, and here's poor Gail waiting months for tiles from me. I was determined to get them done, and a huuuge purge of craft supplies and a good room tidy later, here they are in her chosen colour scheme of cream, black and gold.

Here's a close up of some of my favourites:

Most of the products used here are by Collections Elements. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Inspired.

The day in the magical studio of felter Elizabeth Armstrong has inspired me to display more work in my own studio.

I've got a box full of work that isn't out on display, so when I was spring cleaning the other day I pulled it out and found a set of Thrinchies (three inch squares) from a swap last year. We had to use Collections products for this swap. I decided to put them on a canvas and hang them up.  Here's what it looks like:

From the top left, the thrinchies were made by : Susan Buckwell, Greta Young, Audrey Underwood, Natalie Wolfe, me and Micky Choo.

It's so deliciously dimensional.  Here's a side view:

I used texture paste and acrylics to decorate the canvas (it was almost too nice to cover up LOL), and then I stuck the thrinchies onto some stained muslin before adhering them to the canvas.

It now sits above my desk - a collaborative work that will provide inspiration for a long time to come!

Thanks for visiting!

 

Winging their way to Queensland

These were made for a swap.  The theme was a decorated chipboard shape, so anything but an ATC really.

Chipboard and words by Collections. I think I'm loving the white and gold together.  Might keep this in mind for my Christmas cards this year. Is there anyone else who hasn't started theirs yet? Hmmmmm....we're running out of time you know!

Thanks for visiting (especially Bev - you can hop off my back now LOL)

Paris ATCs

Every month, Darkroom Door hosts an ATC swap and the theme for October was Paris.  How wonderful! I put my Notre Dame and Champs Elysee sets to good use:

 The patterned paper is the back of a sheet from Websters Pages. The calico that Paris is stamped on has been coffee stained, and the pearls were coloured with Copics.

Can't wait to see what everyone else does with the theme - I love when the returns arrive :)

Dark Hour tags

Halloween today. Not that we celebrate it much here in Australia. There's usually a horror movie marathon on tv, but I haven't checked the guide yet. I'm on call for work, so I don't like to make firm plans in case I get called in.

Anyway, while we're on the topic of Halloween, here are some tags I made for a swap. The theme was Dark Hour - hope these are 'dark' enough:

They smell fabulous - that piece of calico in the centre was coffee stained before being stamped. Stamps are from a few different companies - Tim Holtz, Prima, Papercraft Studio.

I used one of my Martha Stewart punches for the border (I think it's called Iron Gate), and some of my colour sprays from Twiddleyitz - Black Tulip for the seam binding, and Walnut to age the tag itself.

Here's a close up of the seam binding bow at the top:

The button in the centre started its life out as silver, but with a little help from my E37 Copic marker, and it's looking a little amber and a much better match for this project.

Thanks for looking, and enjoy your Halloween, whether you celebrate it or not.