Fiona's ATC Swap for January

The theme for Fiona's (CCswaps) ATC swap for January was Quotes. Here is mine:

Background was another mucky acrylic background that didn't work until it had sprays swooshed around on it. The puzzle pieces were coloured with distress inks, randomly stamped with a Paper Artsy stamp and edged with gold. I downloaded a picture of Virginia Wolf and played with the colour in Elements, and added the quote. I printed it on adhesive acetate.

Lizards

The January theme for a 9 person swap I am involved in was Lizards. I had a hard time with this one, but finally came up with this:

The background was made using colourwash sprays, lettuce, butterscotch and a touch of terracotta, stamped with aged mahogany distress ink. The lizard is made from polymer clay (white and green) coloured with alcohol inks. He is sprawled on a piece of paper quickly coloured with the inks that ran off, edged with aged mahogany.

Sorry guys I left out the fact that the lizard was made using a Krafty Lady mold...thought I'd better say incase anyone thought I'd made it from scratch!

Canvas

My only New Year Resolution was to use the canvases that I seem to keep buying to use 'one day'. Well that day has arrived , and lucky for me that Sweetpea on CCSwaps is hosting a NYR swap.

Here is what I did for Pauline. Hope she likes it. The little girl is my mother in law, who would have been 94 this year. No one knows where 'Molly' came from, as her given name was Elizabeth, but she was never known as anything but Molly.

The background is a mixture of several sprays, Sticky Fingers and Aileen's Colour Mists, stamped with a Hero Arts Italian Poetry stamp. I coated the photograph with melted wax. The flower was coloured with alcohol inks, and the lace with Distress Ink.

ATC's

Karen, Sue and I have managed to meet up every week this year:) We take it in turns to set a theme for an ATC each week. Here are some of mine:

Nature - Karen's C

Theme

Background from my stash, stamp (B Line Designs) stamped on vellum, coloured with chalks.

Alice in Wonderland - My theme - Background, a mucky acrylic experiment , rescued with sprays, stamps Non Sequitur. Stamped on white shrink plastic, coloured with chalks.

Time - Sue's theme

Glue resist background, stamps Paper Artsy, put together with wire and clock face added.

Instant Art Swap

Adrienne is running an Instant Art Swap, the idea being to have a stash of ready made elements for times when you need to do something in a hurry. We needed to provide, 5 ATC backgrounds, 5 tags, 5 decorated slidemounts, 5 'little beauties' 5 small images and 5 larger images. Here is what I put together:

Tip In

This month's theme for Sweetpea's Tip In swap is Paris, here is what I did.

For the front I stamped various Paris related images and embossed with clear embossing powder. I covered with lumineres,Halo Pink Gold and Super Cooper, using a baby wipe. When it was dry I placed under a sheet of copy paper and ironed it to remove the embossing powder. I then used sandpaper to distress it a bit. I found an old map of Paris on the internet and printed it on vellum, the picture I also printed out. The tag stamp is from Hero Arts . I hand wrote the words.

The back was painted with acrylics, stamped with foam swirl

stamps, an image added and Oh La La hand-written.

Altered Tin

Fiona from Art Venture sent me a tin to play with. This is what I did with it:









I coloured the tin with alcohol inks, and made an initial from copper, which I coloured a little and then attached to the lid. For the inside I used a piece of background that I already had and stamped the quotation. I then stamped out three dolls on shrink plastic, one of which I completed. The other two I have sent for Fiona to rescue :) (Along with a ransom note of course! ) I hope Fiona enjoys this, I enjoyed putting it together for her.

Complementary Colours ATC's

Adrienne is hosting a swap on CCSwaps in which we have to use complementary colours only. I choose to use orange and blue. I used direct to paper technique. Hope my swap partner likes them.

Tip Ins

The latest theme for the tip in swap was Woman. and this is what I came up with. I have had the Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire stamp for ages and hadn't used it so took this opportunity. I stamped on tissue and adhered to the background with PVA watered down. Words were randomly stamped and pictures of Ginger added. I hand wrote the quote and attached a shoe.

For the back I started by using one of my favourite poems Phenomenal Woman, by Maya Angelou, printed on my computer. The Elizabeth quote was also printed. The other quotes were hand written. When everything was attached I overstamped with a scroll stamp to bring it all together. I did two of these, very similar in different colours. I hope my swap partners like them.

Christmas Lunch

The three of us enjoying our Christmas lunch at Karen's. We all prepared one course and took along wine. A great time was had by all :)

Playdays - Geodecos

We are usually managing to meet up once a week to play, chat, have lunch, chat, exchange ideas and it is tremendouse fun.

This pictures shows Sue and Karen surrounded by bits making their first geodeco. Zeb your instructions are brilliant :)

Below they are proudly showing off their creations.

Journals

I altered these journals as Christmas gifts for my playmates, Karen and Sue..

The journals are made by Reeves and have a canvas cover for you to customize. Great value and a good surface to work on.

12 Tag Book

I made 12 tags with Trish's Advent images and have put them together in a 'booklet', which is going to Rob Keogh together with her pay it forward gift. (Still one place left if anyone interested :) )

12 days of Christmas Swap

This swap, organised by Sweetpea on CCSwaps was the highlight of the swapping year. There were lots of participants and lots of excitement when the gifts went to their new owners. I hope that this will take place for next Christmas. Here is a photo of all the gifts I received, 24, as I participated in 2 groups. Each and every one of them was a delight to open.

Thanks to all the participants and to Santa Pea and her elf helpers, Maggi and Chrissy who had the mammoth task of getting all the gifts to the right place in plenty of time for Christmas.