Secret Santa gift received, Rosslyn Chapel and ATC no. 78

Yes, as you can guess from the title, this has been a busy day. First of all, the Secret Santa gift I made for a fellow Alphastamps Design Team member has safely arrived with Sarah, and according to her blog, she really likes it. Good news, and it also means I can show it to you on my own blog too. Here it is: Needless to say, it uses all Alphastamps images and even the text is from one of their collage sheets. The background fabric was bought in Cabbage Patch fabrics and I choose it because it features a thistle, the symbol of Scotland, and I realy wanted to give this piece a bit of a Scottish twist. It was free machine quilted and hand beaded. A vintage flower was also added to the mix, with a hand beaded centre.

John and I paid a visit to Rosslyn Chapel today. I read in the paper last week that from January 2nd you would no longer be allowed to take photographs in the chapel due to Health and Safety regulations. Apparently several people have fallen over the uneven stones, while taking photographs of the ceiling. So this was the very last week you were still allowed to do it and even though I have been to the chapel several times (it's only 20 minutes from where we live) I did not have my super duper Canon EOS 400D camera at that stage. So we went again today and I took pictures to my hearts contents. I also turned out it was not very busy which made it even better.

I first visited after we moved here 12 years ago and it was totally deserted, in fact I was the only one there. The chapel was not covered in scaffolding yet and there was no shop to speak of. It had a truely peaceful and (although I'm not religious) holy athmosphere, eminently suitable for meditation and you could loose yourself in wonderment at the fantastic achievements of the stonemasons who build the place back in the 14th Century. Two years ago we went with my mother in August and after Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code was published and it was a real squeeze.

Today there were very few people and most of those were taking part in a guided tour. So I took more than 80 pictures, three of which I'm sharing with you today. I'm pleased to see that there are no people in any of the photos! The Christmas tree looked lovely in the beautiful surroundings. The chapel still functions as such although no longer as the catholic one, it was originally build as. The sculpture is stunning. Almost unbelievably that it was done by human hand, and the variety is breathtaking. More pictures in future and you'll probably also see them appearing in my art.

Finally I finished my ATCs for a Fairy Swap on the Mailartist list. I used as my background fairy images from an image CD The Fairyland Collection by Hinny Bop Designs (bought from LexCraft Supplies) , which I printed out onto cotton fabric. On the first 3 I added the images of the flower fairies, also on fabric, and from Altered Pages. The transparency on the last one is from Artchix Studio. I then added suitable texts to them all, and a butterfly charm. The fabric was mounted on Fast2Fuse and a backing fabric was ironed onto the back of this. Finally I finished the edges by zigzag stitching while at the same time couching down a knitting yarn.

I know I haven't made any ATCs for my 100 ATC project, but don't worry, I haven't forgotten it and I will definitely continue till I've reached the full 100 although it's going to take longer than I thought as I'm not exactly making one every week. But whenever I make ATCs for various swaps, I make an extra one for the project. It's ATC no. 78 of 100 and is called: Do you believe in fairies? The transparency is again from Artchix Studio.