lots and lots of atcs!!

ah! catching up time!

i've had atcs received for two different swaps since i last posted any, so i'm going to post them together.

the first was the typical alphabet swap, GHI round. i was organizing, and ended up in two groups just to keep the numbers even, so i made two of each letter.

G is for games

a piece of a game board for a background, paper pieces from games (the top two i inked with stazOn to add colour), the mini playing card (from skybluepink), bingo sticker, bingo chip, and colourful game pieces. i put glossy accents around the edges of the pieces, but i'm kinda eh about it....

see! boardgame!


G is for gate and garden

the gate is made from thin flexible plastic (i think it was supposed to be a very thin cutting board) and i did a solvent transfer with a blender marker to transfer the gate image onto it.

the garden behind the gate! a bunch of flower stamps, all inked with nick bantok water based inks, and then an embossed butterfly that's green, and kinda hidden. you can also see the backs of the gate pieces, and the black button thread i glued on to make the hinges.

the ends of the thread are caught between the front and the back, you can kinda see the bumps

H is for hands and hearts

palmistry hand stamp from alpha stamps stamped with red and then embossed, and then pink ink embossed around the edges. the colour varied by how much heat was applied, so i played with that a bit, you can see some lighter spots. and the glittery purplish pink hearts are fun brads.

H is for halloween

mostly just an excuse to use halloween goodies! rub on transfer for "halloween", and the bats are stamped and embossed. the polka dot paper is glued to mat board, so it's raised from the background.

I is for india
i was gonna do something else for I, but after i planned out the india chunky page, i realized i already had it all worked out, i might as well use it for this!

silicone transfer of a punjabi newspaper, and it wrinkled a bunch as i tried to dry the cardboard backing, so that adds texture. painted over it with pink, and glued it onto another piece of card. everything's the same as the chunky page, except that the henna hand is teal instead of pink!

i wrapped the henna hand around the back, and added some gold foil.

I is for icon

i'm so in love with this one. i saved all my templates so that i do this again.
rubber stamp from invokearts stamped with black stazOn, then a stencil was cut for the rays to glue them, and then foil was applied to the glue lines. another stencil was made for the gown, which was stamped with blue pigment ink and then embossed. the edges were all inked and them embossed with silver. i added the red heart grommet (stupid crop-o-dile big bite messed it up a bit), and glued on the gold crown.

and that's it! a lot of them were more involved than i'd thought they'd be, but it was to experiment with different ideas.


and then the other swap was a no paper allowed atc swap, that i was super excited to organize. i'd been thinking about it for a while, but hadn't had the time to organize it.

i was in 3 groups, so i had 6 partners, and i ended up sending everyone 2 cards, because the second one was easy and fun!

i did a set of 6 cards and sent one to each partner. (soon to be 7, because i'm going to make myself one too!) they're all solvent transfer (blending pen) scissors with stazOn ink lace, stitching, buttons and ruler on a frosted plastic base. the scissors are photocopies from craphound.

when held up to the light you can see through the atc







and then i did three sets of two similar cards.



these two are metal flashing tape that's embossed with the craftster crochet skull symbol, attached to the same plastic backing as i used in the scissor atcs, then painted with adironback alcohol inks. after they were dry i punched holes in them with my crop-o-dile and crocheted into them.



these two are bubble wrap with acrylic paint in each bubble. i cut holes in the bubbles from the back, and inserted the paint with a cat medicine thing that i found on sale at the pet store (i forget what it's called). one bubble on each has a little snippet that says "art" on it. once the paint was a dry as it was going to get, they were glued onto the plastic base with goop.





the back plastic is the solvent transfer again with a picture of a gate, then the red transparency, and then the front layer is actually a piece of a HUGE b&w negative, from an aerial photo. and again, stamped with stazOn, cause i'm obsessed!


i was really happy with how they turned out!

mods, portland and ttv!

the last few weeks have been really crazy with family stuff, everyone's been away, and then back and then away again and back, now they're leaving today for another longer trip, and i've ended up running tons of errands for everyone else who's super busy! in addition to that, i've had several friends come to town that i rarely get to see, so i managed to squeeze in two really lovely meals, dinner with my childhood friend ariel and her boyfriend of several years (who i'd never met!), and her family, who i also adore, and a lunch/dinner thing with my friend liz, who travels the world and inspires me with her combination of creativity and action! they were both so fabulous to see, and it was definitely worth the lack of crafting this week! (the constant errands - not so much worth it!!) there's so much to catch up on, alphabet atcs and non paper atcs, a fabulous gift that came in the mail ages ago, the most amazing wedding invitation and my rsvp, books i've been reading, the ttv pics with the polka dot dress, techniques i've been trying....

but the most urgent thing to update on is my trip to portland and silverton last weekend (most urgent because i never got around to posting pics from my LAST trip to portland in march!)

i went down to attend angie and her hubbie's "BabyQ", aka a baby shower and BBQ all in one (such a cheesy name!!), and also got to spend some time with the amazing kittypam and her mark. it was a super quick trip - leaving very early saturday morning, and arriving back home late monday night, but i'm so glad i went.

the baby shower/BBQ was so much fun, and angie's place is BEAUTIFUL! she's out in the country, surrounded by fields, and the property has chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys and peacocks roaming around everywhere, and goats on an island in the middle of the lake. (did i mention there's a LAKE?) it's so gorgeous, and so peaceful, but still close to lots of stuff. i'm completely jealous.

about to pop!!





on sunday we went for breakfast in silverton, and then wandered around a bit. for a small town, there's a lot of craftiness! there's a bead store, with quite a lot of selection, a yarn store with some really amazing wools, and my favourite, a sewing lounge! it's called snippets, and just opened recently, but how fun! it's actually in the same building as the yarn store, they're open to each other, and there's a coffee shop upstairs. it's a gorgeous old building. i did a bit of shopping, despite my telling myself that this wasn't going to be a "shopping" trip! but really, how could i resist a yard of the most perfect woodgrain cotton at snippets?



angie took a few pictures of me doing the ttv photos, i'm going to post them on the thread on craftster so that people are less confused about what i'm doing!


there were american flags EVERYWHERE though!










after a bit of a lazy afternoon, and looking over angie's inherited serger for her, i headed into portland to see mark and pam. we had a mellow evening, and on monday morning we went for a brunch before pam went to work. angie was able to come at the last minute, and it was fabulous. i so wish i'd had more time to see everyone!

i adore these two. so much.

and angie's so incredible.


after everyone else went off to work and stuff, i started to leave town, but detoured to collage instead.... how could i resist, really? i knew i'd end up there!

i restrained myself, really! not much in the way of ephemera or paper, just supplies and some stamps. i totally scored on the fabric paints - they were all regular $10 and were marked down to $2! i bought a few things that i'd been actively looking for, a stylus for embossing and the tool for batiking, and stocked up on a few things (stazOn remover for $4 instead of the $8 i pay here), and then the stamps. a few were from the clearance, and then i bought three different heidi swapp stamps - i love her stamps, they're totally funky designs, and they're CHEAP! i got the chandelier, the heart and the clocks (because i can't resist clocks!). and i picked up the bam pop number set, to go with the alphabet set i caved and bought from story kits a few months ago.




though short, it was such a good visit! (and i didn't spend too much money!)

the last chunky page!

i took some TTV portraits today that turned out kinda neat, especially after i edited them a bit in photoshop to adjust the contrast (red polka dot dress? VERY cool in high contrast!!) however, i don't have permission to post them publicly, so i won't post them here unless they say i can. (hint! yes or no?)

in other news, my last chunky 4x4 page was received today!

this one was quite a departure for me as well, so bright!


the background was painted pink, and then i did a medium transfer with a punjabi newspaper and rubbed off a bunch of it before overpainting with a watered down orange acrylic. the henna hands are an image from the dover sampler, but i made them pink in photoshop, and then did an image transfer (like a packing tape transfer, but with actual transfer material). the image, the postage stamp, the bindis, bits of gold foil and the scrap of sari/saree fabric are all pretty self explanatory! the writing says "art" in hindu. i went to my favourite independent fabric store, it's run by a family that's been in business for over 20 years, and asked them to write out the word "art" in punjabi and hindu. i used the hindu one since the background is a punjabi newspaper. i think the writing on the stamp is hindu as well, since that's the national language of India.


the fibers, with printable shrink art images of the henna hands, an elephant and ganesh. more saree/sari scraps, and lots of colourful fibers.


the back. i found this paper at ruby dogs on the last day, it's GORGEOUS! super delicate, with the image of ganesh and the gold foil. and i added a scrap from a salwar kameez with beading on it. ganesha is known as the "patron of arts and sciences", which makes him even more appropriate for the page.

it's kinda different, but i had fun with all the bright colours. i usually try to stay away from really specific cultures in artwork, because it makes me uncomfortable (ie, all the geisha images you see, japanese or chinese art, etc), but i hope this was respectful enough.