First time for Gothic Arches

The Gothic Arches theme this week is 'Crowns'. I've really wanted to make something for this weekly challenge, because the arches I see each week are really beautiful.



Unexpectedly, I made two.

Productivity of this level is a bit shocking, frankly.

Inbox and Outbox

Point the first: Quilty Conscience postcards are done and posted. The challenge was to use painted fabric. I used vilene that I had dyed and over-painted with acrylic, then stamped, then stenciled with xpandaprint and then embroidered. *falls over exhausted*



Point the second: I've been very lucky, with many gorgeous 1-4-1 ATC swaps arriving in the mail. It's so much fun, and I'm getting to swap with a lot of new people.

From Left to right: Diane Whatford, Roz Veevers and Jude Wagner


Lisa Manyweathers and Janet Hamblin


Roslyn McGechan and Ann Lawton


Point the third: I've made a couple more of my own to send out, using quotes from Peter Pan:


All business now attended to! Now, to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics!

Skinny Book Swap

Here are my pages for the skinny book swap - it's been a while since I had to make a large number of anything, and I completely miscalculated the amount of time I needed to get through. But I survived, and I really enjoyed making the pages - I played a lot with my pastels to get the shading on the earthbound angel's halo, and for the edging. It's the first time I've used my own handwriting in my art, too - that was fun and a little bit daring. And Stephanie was invaluable help with trimming edges and cutting things to size. She's a mathematical whiz. *hugs* Thanks, Steph!



The back was just pure collage fun - I got to use some gold paper edging, and a lot of gold paint. Bliss!



I'm really looking forward to the rest of the pages coming in to me - then I can decide how I'm going to bind it, and make some covers.

Debbi and other Quilty Conscience people - I am so, so sorry for holding you up another week - the postcards are all but done, they just need edging. A thousand apologies for being such a slacker.

Treasure from the mail man!

Treasures and delights have rained down upon my head! I love getting arty mail.

I'm really excited to have the first few pages for the Angelic chunky books swap on [chunkybookartists]. It's the first art-book swap I've gone in for a few years, and I'm really looking forward to it.
From left to right: Teresa Crouch, Ann Spiteri, and Carol Sweeney


Some [Stamphappy] 1-4-1 ATC swaps:
From Gwenyth Zwaan, and in a beautiful envelope with a lovely quote by Goethe.


From Sharon Batchelor, in a beautifully made folder with some German scrap tucked into one pocket.


From the left, cards from Narelle Cox, and two from Kaeren Sutherland


Again from the left: Rikki Showell, Pam Addicott and Julie Price


Here's what I've been up to, in between frantically finishing my Quilty Conscience postcards:
This one was a challenge to myself to make an ATC using only rubber stamps.


Guess what I bought? A white gel pen! Hooray! Let's put it on everything!


I also bought a big wooden box to put my pastels and pencils and watercolour tubes in, so they're all a lot easier to get to now. Hence, there's a lot of pastel shading on these cards. Pastel shading, and more gel pen. (Actually, I had to hide the white gel pen from myself. Seriously, little white dots are even more addictive than Shiva stiks.


These three are studies for what I'm going to be doing on my own chunky book page:


Now! Back to sewing! Sewing, sewing, sewing, because the postcards were due 16 days ago. *hangs head in shame*

TMTA and Inch by Inch

This is a super quick, middle of the night post, for two challenges that are closing soon.

For the first time, I've been organised enough to get something in for Inchbyinch, where the weekly challenge is Black and White

I would like to note that it was a very hard palette for me to use - I had to drag my hand away from the gold paint. Also, I may be unintentionally breaking the rules by using sepia images. *frets*


Secondly, TMTA's theme is Tickets. I've tucked a ticket under this little girl's arm.


And that's it for me - it's far too late to be up and blogging.

Stamphappy 1-4-1 Swapping

The 1-4-1 ATC swap on Stamphappy is loads of fun - this week I received a gorgeous card from Val West, with bright colours on gloss cardstock.


It came in the most adorable little folder, which is just the nicest touch to a surprise gift.


I had made some ATCs to send, but Val's little folder made me feel sad about slipping my own cards into an envelope with nothing but a clear plastic slip. So I painted and stamped some library pockets for them.


Last weekend I had a blitz of crafting activity that may or may not have anything to do with the hard drive failure of my laptop. *is shamefaced* There's an amazing amount of time to fill when you don't have that neat little machine sitting right in front of you.


The backgrounds are newspaper, painted and re-painted to get lots of layers and depths and texture.


The stamp for the background is by Stampers Anonymous, one of those big stamps you can't live without for a nice, baroque look.



I've got a bit of a thing going on with flowers right now. And butterflies, which is a natural progression of thought, I suppose. And the moon. And I've never really let go of that fascination with the moon.


I really like doing this messy, wobbly edging with gold paint - it doesn't require great accuracy, and it reminds me of the aged edging you get on some vintage postcards.


Actually, there's quite a lot of ATCs here - it was an extremely satisfying day of work.


Two of these are returns for RAKs sent, and the others are all going out as RAKs for the 1-4-1 swappers. I haven't sent RAKs for a couple of years. It's fun!



This one doesn't really have a spot between her eyebrows. I think it's time to clean the scanner glass. Again.


One of these cards is not like the others... I had this one partially assembled for a long time, and riding the wave of creative energy, I finished it off. He's made from scraps from a zetti swap that I couldn't bear to throw away. Zetti scraps - I suppose you could call that zetti-confetti.

What I got up to last weekend

And it's taken me so long to post this that it's nearly the weekend again!

First of all, I dyed some painted silk for my Quilty Conscience exchange. I wanted a kind of pale blue, and the label on the packet said "Madonna Blue" which I took to mean a pretty sky-blue. The colour swatch seemed to confirm this.



Really, it was more like indigo. Who knew? The silk looks great, but my paint resist looks very scrappy against such a dark background. I'll have to hunt around for something different.

It wasn't an unmitigated failure, though - I gathered up some tags to dye since I had a pot of dye on the stove, and they came out very nicely. Some are plain, some are stamped with white paint, using one of my hand-carved bird stamps.


And I threw in some muslin scraps, I think they'll be handy, and will look lovely over gold.


And the best thing about dying tags is that in the bottom of the pot, when you tip the dye out, you find a whole lot of those circular hole-protectors that have drifted off the tags in the liquid. They're great for stamping on and attaching to other tags.


I made one of these pin-cushion rings out of the tab you pull from a carton of long life milk. Our tabs don't look like the one in the link, but they worked perfectly well.



I made it, and I admired it, and I left it on the table. In the morning, it was gone. And while I was photographing the replacement that I made last night, a little brown snout crept into frame. I shall be keeping this pin-cushion locked away.



Here is Stephanie modelling the ring. I think it will be very handy - I'm always putting my needle down, or tucking it into my shirt when I'm not using it then forgetting where I put it.



I made some fairy inchies for Inch By Inch, but not in time to make last week's theme. (Sorry for being so hopelessly disorganised, Fiona!) Serendipitously, I had to make a card for a friend who has come out of hospital, so they were put to good use anyway.


The first mailing group I joined once I had discovered papercrafts was Stamphappy, and I'm very fond of it - I've learned so much, and met so many wonderful people from the list. They've started up a one-for-one ATC swap, and I've received my first one, from Linda Aldred. It came in a beautiful hand-made envelope, and was posted in a tiny library pocket, that was the most adorable thing in the mailbox yesterday. The picture doesn't do it credit - foil card looks lovely in person, but is tricky to photograph. Thank you, Linda! It's lovely, and the mesh window is a really clever way to frame an image. I'll be filing that idea away! And I'll be putting something in the mail for you as soon as we're back from Melbourne.


This weekend is going to be much quieter - we'll be in Melbourne while Stephanie does some work-related education. We'll be far away from the craft table, but hopefully we can do some shopping while we're there. And it's sunny this time, too!

One last photo of my catburglar in action, with sports-style notation, because he moves so fast you can barely see him: