A busy weekend

Easter has been fun - despite the heat and humidity and thunder storms and craziness at work, I actually got a lot of work done.

TMTA's theme this week is Texture Effects. I made an ATC made from a background of scrunched up newspaper, lightly covered with gesso for extra texture, and dry brushed with copper and gold acrylic to pick up the shapes and texture of the newspaper.

I used an image of Virginia Woolf, and once it was down on the card, it seemed to need simple embellishment - a black ribbon and an gold charm holding a leaf pressing. I was quite surprised at the way my subconscious constructed this - it wasn't until the leaf was glued down that I realised it was rue, and then I had my theme for the ATC.



This week's Inching Artists theme is Words. These inchies were cut from a very precious piece of scrap paper that I've been using under my craft work for months, letting it accumulate layers and layers of paint in that perfectly random way that can only happen with scrap paper.



And lastly (how productive have I been this weekend? Chocolate is the super-fuel of the creative mind!), I have a fabric ATC that will be zooming over to WA fro a one-on-one exchange with Debbi Baker. It's a piece of velvet (I know! I said I'd never use that stuff again!), with a layer of blue foil netting stitched over the top, and a motif in buttons, beads and sequins set in the middle. It was fantastic fun to make.

Think Monday: Think ATC

Twice in a row! I'm on fire with the organising and the doing of craft this week.

The theme this week at TMTA is Transparent Art. I took a transparency of an antique daguerreotype of the moon - it's mottled and golden in that beautiful way that daguerreotype photographs are. (I had to use the word twice, to make it worth looking up the spelling.)



The image is over a background of pearly iridescent ink, which of course, doesn't show up in the scan, but makes the image really glow. I took the words from an ancient dictionary.

I love using transparencies, but the hard part is finding original ways to frame the very obvious edge. This time, I put my new sewing machine to the test, and it blitzed through the plastic and card with no problems, even when threaded with horrible, snagging metallic thread. Oh metallic thread! You look so fine, but you are so evil. Same problem that I have with velvet, I think.

Think Monday: Think ATC and Inching Artists

I managed two challenges this week; I'm quite pleased with myself.

This week's theme at TMTA is Fashion. I went for a playing card type of concept, with a glamorous girl whose waistline fascinates and frightens me. I'm not really one to suffer for beauty, unless the suffering involves glue and scissors.



And for Inching Artists, there's a numerical theme.



I really love these inchies! I love them because I used something from UNDER THE MAT. Under the mat is the place where I shove scraps that are just too good to throw away - but I never use these goodies fast enough, and my mat develops hillocks where the stuff has piled up. That's why it's always cause for celebration when I drag something out and use it. This time, it was the cover page from a sheet of Stampers Anonymous unmounted stamps. I cut the numbers out, lacquered them with Dimensional Magic and stuck them down onto a sheet of scrap paper that I slathered with gold paint.

I really need to seek out some swaps for Inchies - I would like to make more. Any suggestions for Inching communities.

Fabric Postcard

The theme this time was "Veil". I chose it, and then was spectacularly stumped by what I should make. I fooled around with some chiffon, and made some burnt, embellished sandwiches, and came up with this:



I don't know about it. It's kind of gone beyond my comfort zone. And velvet? Why did I work with velvet? It shrinks and shreds and changes size and it leaves black fluff everywhere and it is completely evil. On the other hand, the postcard is kind of eyecatching. I think I like it. *is confused*