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.

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:

On topic, by a technicality

This week's theme at Inching Artists is Lace. Mine don't look very lacy, do they? But they have a secret.



These are made from the Lutradur and Lace technique in the first issue of Fibre and Stitch Magazine, and I think I may have buried the lace a little deeply. It is there - scraps of broderie anglaise layered with gauze and painted with acrylic paint and iridescent inks. I was going to burn the layers back with the heat gun, but on sample pieces, the gauze proved extremely heat resistent. I embellished the squares with some varigated thread and a bright bead.

I've also signed up for Joanne's Inchie swap that she runs each month, and this month the theme is Children


I've never gone in an inchie swap before - I'm really looking forward to it.

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 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.

Inching Artists: Holes

Holes are the theme for this week at Inching Artists. I made an ATC with three inchies, and each inchie has two windows punched into the layers. It's a simple design, but satisfying to execute.

Inchies and Presents

Ah. I see from Inching Artists I have lost a WHOLE WEEK! I though the theme for this week was Housies, but that was actually last week's challenge.

Well, I had lots of fun making them, anyway:




Oh well, I can get on with the new theme now.

I was very lucky to receive goodies in the mail:


Two fabric postcards from the Quilty Conscience swappers - the one with the hearts is needle felted, and made by Coralie Barker. The dreamy blue and silver one is by Debbi Baker, and is painstiks under organza, and delicately beaded and edged in silver. Very inspiring stuff. Debbi also sent the lush ATC made with painted lutradur, and because she's a lovely person who thinks of these things, she also included some samples of Lutradur to play with. (Thanks, Debbi! I'm really excited about having a go with those soon.) That's Debbi's decorated envelope that the goodies are sitting on.

I've got my own postcards on the boil. This month we're using Beryl Taylor's painted paper fabric technique as the basis for our designs, and I've been trying this and that and think I've landed a design I'm happy with.

And my NaNo effort moves apace:

Inching Artists

This month at Inching Artists the theme was Tryptichs. I've left it to the last minute as usual, despite having a couple of weeks. But it was fun!

Inching Artists - Rust

I'm hopelessly behind schedule here, but Inching Artists has miraculously not been updated yet, so I'm going to sneak this one in past-deadline.

I used hand-painted paper with a rusted, corroded look. Actually, it's scrap paper that I've been hoarding, I really liked the random way paint was slopped over it. Also used lead light tape to highlight the words - that tape seems to get mottled and tarnished very easily, but I really like the colour.

Inchie Challenge: Mirror, Mirror

This week in Inching Artists, the theme is "Mirror, Mirror". It was a tough one - I had to wrack my brains to find what I wanted to say about that. I chose an image taken from a stained glass window - I like her introspective expression. She's reflecting.



The buttons are battered, but shiny. And one day, I'll remember that gold doesn't scan well, and avoid using it. (Yeah, like that's going to happen. Ever! I love the look of gold too much for that.)

ETA: Why is Blogger suddenly giving me instructions in German? *is puzzled*

More inchies!

Thank you to everyone who commented on my ATC - this is the best part about starting a new blog, all the new people I'm getting to meet and the chance to catch up with a few old friends too.

This is a procrastination post - I have a deadline to meet. Is it procrastination if I planned it ahead? I made these inchies earlier in the week, so that I would have something to post when I knew my concentration would be wavering.

This week's theme at Inching Artists is "Under the Sea". Technically, these inchies aren't inspired by things under the sea, but things on the shoreline. I plead artistic licence on that matter.



They're made with scraps of hand-painted paper stamped with a hand-carved spiral stamp that made me think of crashing waves. The gold foil I saved a long time ago, and I'm glad that I could finally use it, because it got a bit crunched up, which in this case, worked well. And the words come from my favourite source of amazing words - a torrid pirate romance novel. It has all the best adjectives. And it is truly, truly hideous reading. When I bought it at the thrift store, I was caught in the act by someone from my tiny town. We chatted politely, but I've always wondered what she thought of me - the cover of the book is exceedingly lurid. It's a real bodice-ripper.

The art is getting smaller

I'm going to sound like a creaky old woman when I say this: I remember when people started making ATCs, and a canvas of 2.5 by 3.5 inches was so tiny after working on books and cards. An ATC seems like an acreage now that I've worked on my first Inchie.



It's made from a tiny scrap of crazy quilt - I'm making some CQ ATCs right not also. I made it for the Spiral challenge at Inching Artists. I hope it's not hideous, and that I haven't broken some unwritten rule by making mine from fabric, because I'm going to post a link to it at the Inchies challenge.

Here's one of the ATCs - the silk ribbon binding looks terribly wonky in the scan. It's much better in real life. Really.