Chestnut and Fern ATCs

This is the latest colour combination for the Colour Groupies and unusually it has really taken my fancy. I do tend to prefer the more in your face, bright, combinations of colours whereas this one is a more subtle and calm one. But that's what I love about our monthly ATC swap. It presents a challenge!

I started with a chestnut coloured fabric from my stash and ironed it onto Fast2Fuse. I then found a yummy green velvet like fabric in my collection and I decided to use it for a bit of experimentation. Some weeks ago I bought some fabric from Ann Hill during an Embroiderers' Guild Area Day in Dumfries and she gave me a sample of a new fabric like substance (sorry no name!) which you iron to the back of your quilt sandwich and then you iron it, which makes it shrink and it pulls the fabric on the top (in this case my green velvet) together into pleats. Well I just loved this (and must order more!). I'd only a small bit of green velvet left and the pleating made it smaller so I cut it into 4 pieces and appliqued each piece onto the chestnut background. I had done the quilting with a green metallic thread and also used this for the appliqueing.

Paper images (from Bmuse) were stitched onto this green velvet and I beaded around the edges. A flower brad was added to this as shown . The edges were finished by hand using a buttonhole stitch.

All the cards are more or less identical (I have used ribbon on some to border the applique) so I'm showing you only two. They have been received by the Colour Groupies (Caryl, Debby and Lenna) and the one just above is here with me!

Black and Beige ATCs

Our colour combination at the select Colour Groupies Yahoo Group for September is Black and Beige and although I did think at first this was a bit sombre, once I got going (quite some time ago now!) I discovered this combination was great for adding that touch of vintage. I used a black velvet, machine stitched background for these ATCs to which I added a torn square of fabric in various tints and shades of beige. I choose a variety of images to add to the ATCs, according to the tastes of Tristan, Lenna, Debby and Caryl. All these are from Bmuse and are in the shape of their wonderful fabrik-paper. Suitable text was found for each card and covered in sepia Accent. I added a vintage trim on the bottom, which was painted with gold Glimmer spray. Beige size 11 seed beads were added and the front was layered up with the same beige fabric as backing. The edges were finished with buttonhole hand stitching.

Of course I had to make one for my 100 ATC project too. It's no. 83, entitled: The thoughtful Face

Bronze and Maroon ATCs

The colour combination for this month's Colour Groupies ATC Swap was bronze and maroon and I have to admit this was not the easiest combination for me. I did however remember I had some bronzy metallic fabric and managed to locate it somewhere in my stash.

I layered this up with wadding (batting) and machine quilt it with a decorative stitch (and yes, it was really temperamental fabric, but I subdued it eventually!). I added some deep red (maroon) fabric strips on top, also by machining. I then located some suitable images (all from Bmuse) and stitched these on where the maroon strips crossed each other. Maroon size 11 seed beads were added around the images as well as vintage buttons and suitable text from my vintage books. These first two are fairly alike, one with a transparency and the other one paper, and went to Caryl (Fruitful Promise) and Debbie (Abundant Harvest) .

On the other two cards I used images from Bmuse's so-called fabrik/paper, which is still paper but you can hand and machine stitch through it very easily! The With the book open one went to Lenna as I know she and Steven like to read together so it seems rather appropriate and the Automobile one went to Tristan (boys and their toys!). I was so pleased when I found the text Modern Automobile.

Of course I also made one for my 100 ATC project. This is no. 89 of 100 and is called: Return Tonight? I think the ? made this ATC!

Gothic Arches for Caryl

By coincidence, Caryl and I are also paired up for the monthly Gothic Arches exchange in the OhMyGothic Yahoo Group. Caryl had no theme so I just went with images that sort of grapped my attention as I was leafing through my collage sheet collection, and this is what I came up with.

The first arch, called She was loved! is made on a background of brown velvet which I machine quilted with one of the decorative stitches on my machine. I added a lovely picture of the Madonna, not because I'm in the least bit religious (I'm not!) but because I love the painting this came from. The image is a fabrik paper one from Bmuse. This was stitched on with gold thread. I added a lovely vintage blue trim and a vintage blue velvet flower (both from LostArtCreations). The star charm at the top is also from LAC. I then mounted the whole arch onto watercolour paper and stitched everything together with a zigzag stitch and turquoise tread. I added gold beads around the edges. I realized when the arch was finished that the colour combination is brown and blue which is also the next one for the Colour Groupies ATC exchange next month. I've made these ATCs already (pictures at a later stage!) and that must have influenced this arch subconsciously.

For the next arch I came across a rather severe looking woman on one of my Paperwhimsy fabric sheets. She looked so serious that I just had to have some fun with her. I added the top hat and the shoes which both come from a Paperwhimsy transparency and found the text La Valse excentrique ( which translated means The eccentric waltz). It came from a paper text sheet from European Papers. I'm sure she is definitely not amused by her arch but I hope Caryl will be! This arch was finished like the one above and I also added a Swarowski crystal at her neck (from Austria like the waltz) and a flower on her head. That bit of orange was just what the arch needed to make it look complete.

Pink and Orange ATCs have landed

The 4 ATCs I made for my fellow participants in the Colour Groupies group have all safely arrived at their destinations in the U.S. and Canada which means I can now reveal them here.

But first of all I just had to nip outside for a minute and take this photograph. It's stunningly cold but I had to capture it for posterity. What a beautiful planet we live on! Can you believe the colour of the sky? And it tones in so well with the orange bit of our colour combination this month. Hot pink was the other ingredient. Very suitable for Valentine month.

All the images I've used are from Bmuse and are printed on fabrik-paper which is still paper but which can be stitched and used as fabric. I've coloured in the images with colouring pencils. The background is my hearts fabric/paper collage specially made for this love month! I did some hand stitching on the cards. I also added an orange vellum flower (also from Bmuse) to every card as well as a self-adhesive sparkling heart (from Paperchase).

I can't tell you how much I enjoy these colour swaps every month. My fellow players are all so wonderful and this will probably be my favourite swap in 2008. I hope we can keep going after that too!

CC October ATCs

And today as promised it's the time for the October ATCs. I have to admit here that I'm not that keen personally on Halloween and don't like the associations with pumpkins or witches (very sexist in my opinion!) but on the other hand I'll do ghostly and macaber every day of the year, not just Halloween. I'm also very partial to skeletons and ghoulish apparitions. So October is ghost month as far as I'm concerned.

You will see this reflected in due course when I upload my Journal Quilt for this month but I already used part of the collage I made for that. I've put it into these ATCs and there is still a fair bit left over so that I can indulgence my ghoulish taste in the future. It's actually not that easy to feed my taste for the undead but there are a few suppliers who seem to share my taste in this direction, one of which is Bmuse. All the skeletons on these cards are from a transparency, produced by them. I made 5 for the CC Swap and of course could not resist making one for my 100 ATC project. This is no. 74 (and was actually finished on the 27th September) and is entitled: Some Old Lover's Ghost. I can tell you I'm over the moon with the quotations I found for these cards. All from old books of quotations and found by simply looking in the index under Ghost. The French text on the left hand card above really translates simply as the Everything passes quote on the card next to it. Sounds so much better in French. But then so does almost anything! The French card also features soldiers dating back to the French Revolutionary times from a much treasured (by me!) vintage book.

As for the text and card above, Some lover indeed!! Notice in the background you can see spikes in the top of his head, which come from a napkin I discovered online. I do really wonder if anyone would sit down to dine with skeletons and ghosts peering at them from their napkins but they've been produced so there must be demand!! At least it means that it's not just me who is just the tiniest bit peculiar!!

More Summer Garden ATCs for Lenna's Swap

I had a look at all the lovely, wonderful ATCs made for the Summer Garden Fabric ATC swap organized by the gorgeous Lenna Andrews and being ever greedy for more fabric ATCs decided I wanted to make more than the 3 already send to Lenna. She generously allows us to make the ATCs in multiples of 3 so I've made another 6 (plus 1 extra for Lenna) which will go in the mail to her on Monday.

After learning about my win yesterday, I seemed to take off on a huge doze of adrenalin and I worked away fiendishly the rest of the evening in my studio.

The first set is from the same fabric collage as I used for Bev's album, with images of pansies and other flowers. To this mix I added some absolutely adorable flower fairy pictures from a paper sheet from Altered Pages that I painted with Pearlescent Acrylic Paint in blue to tone them in with the rest of the collage. I added small transparencies (3 from Bmuse and one from Altered Pages again).

I made an extra one (see the top of this blog) which has become ATC no. 64 in my 100 ATC project, and is called P is for Pansy.

From the remnants of another fabric collage (the one for my May Journal Quilt) I made another 4 cards. This time I added transparencies of flower girls from a Bmuse sheet which again seemed to be made to go with my background. I added quotations which are from a vintage book, which celebrate the sun. Appropriate enough for these sunny yellow ATCs. Here is a detailed card to see how it's done. All the cards are stitched onto a paper background at the very end, using a zigzag stitch on the sewing machine.

Flower trims and Orange + Purple Swap ATCs

I'm pleased to say I've arrived back safely, no major hold-ups with the plane this time and I'm over the moon to see my studio again, I really miss it when I'm away specially my sewing machine and computer. It's like being without an arm. The dogs also were jumping with joy to see their "mummy" so happy times!

I did do some textile related things while in The Netherlands though. Bought quite a lot of lovely beads and also some glorious flower trim which I acquired in a really amazing haberdashery (fournituren for those Dutch among you) shop in the old centre of Utrect. We came across this on an earlier visit by chance when we went to the Aboriginal Museum there. The shop is sort of diagonally across from this and I bought some 3M of trim last time. Would you believe it but I used it on a quilt (more about that in future posts) and was short of 2 flowers!!!

This time I invested in 5M of that particular trim and could not resist buying some other truely stunning ones. Aren't they sumptious???





While I was away I made a little kit package for myself so that I could work on the ATCs for the Purple and Orange Swap on Mailartbydesign. I made 5 as Debby who does all the organizing for these colour swaps definitely deserves one for her trouble!



Apart from one, all the images on these ATC are from Bmuse on their wonderful Fabrik Paper. The image on the centre top ATC is from a fabric sheet from Divasdeste


As per usual I also made an ATC for my 100 ATC project, this is no. 57 called Personal Tango. Again the image is from Bmuse. I spend today machine zigzagging the edges. The cards are entirely made by hand apart from that as hands were all I had available to use!!

Troi has new pijamas and more serious art

Today Troi's greyhound PJs arrived from the States as well as her snood, all in tiger stripes. Of course, she had to try them on straight away and doesn't she look gorgeous in them. Mind you, she looks stunning full stop and seems to know it too. She immediately snuggled up on her bean bag and showed the outfit off to her soft toys. Hopefully these will keep her warm during the night so that she does not wake up and wake us up at 3am. If you want a pair too, I've got them from www.greyhoundcoats.com

Now to the art part of today. I've made another Lost Art Creations ATC, called Une Courtisane, with a purple and green collaged background (I needed this for a swap on MailArtbyDesign) and added an inkjet vellum image LAC sheet Dream Girls. Added the French quotation from an old book and some purple ricrac. Love the combination of images in this ATC.

On a roll and decided to use a piece of the same collaged background to make ATC no. 50 for my 100 ATCs project. I'm now well on course as I started last May and am actually making more than 1 per week sometimes. The image is vellum sheet from Bmuse and the Some One I Love (transparency from Artchix) in the title is of course the dog, looks a bit like a greyhound to me but without PJs!

I'm in the process of making some fabric only ATCs as samples for my ATC class in the Purely Patchwork shop in Linlithgow. I'm not due to teach there till June but they like the samples in March so people can see what they sign up for. These have to be more fabric orientated as this is what Purely Patchwork sells!

I had a lot of fun putting these together! For the The more I see ATC I used an image on ExtravOrganza to overlay the pirate fabric, thinking he could be trying to find her in his telescope.




The other one, Home, is a strang mix of elements. The lady image is from www.divasdeste.com and the fish is from a transparency by www.B-muse.com They are both mounted on the compass fabric by stitching and somehow they are both going in the direction of Home if that makes any sense. It does to me!

Good News on Creative Chix Yahoo group

I forgot to say in my last post that I have won the lottery on the Creative Chix Yahoo Group. The theme was cheezy romances, with the idea to choose a line from one of these and make a piece of art inspired by this. All the art made is entered online into an album and then a name drawn who gets the lot. I can't wait for all the beauties to come rolling in. There is some gorgeous art on the Creative Chix group as we are all "advanced" artists and the art certainly reflects this. This was the card I made (transparency from Bmuse) so I get to keep this one!! All in all, a very satisfying day. Now if only my Artchix order would arrive with their delectable new goodies. I bet it's languishing in Customs as I was so excited about it all that I ordered rather a lot and thus a high value on the customs form! I try and avoid doing this but simply forgot this time, overwhelmed by all the goodies!

4 x 4 for Vickie from Bmuse

To my great shock I learned yesterday that Vickie from the collage sheet website Bmuse has suffered a brain aneurism on New Years Day. It looks at the moment that she will pull through although she is in a drug induced coma for the time being to keep her brain quiet. She is in one of the best hospitals in the USA for this kind of thing so hopefully all will be well eventually. I can't stop thinking of her, it must have been such an awful shock and for her boyfriend as well who not only visits her all the time but is also trying to keep their web businesses including Bmuse going.

One of the moderators of the Bmuse Yahoo group is planning to surprise Vickie with a book of 4x4" art made by her friends and customers which she is having bound professionally. This is my contribution featuring a Bmuse transparency. The quotation reads: Flowers grow out of dark moments.

I've been in a real Xmas mood today (despite the relentless rain!) and went shopping in the Borders bookshop surrounded by Xmas music. Indulged in some calendars, one by Waterhouse. Lovely images and when the year is over I will put them to good use in my art!
I made a collaged background some days ago for Xmas and winter themed ATC swaps on various groups and I particularly liked this one. Very simple but sometimes less is more and the sparkle and image (from Bmuse) really do it for me. So I'm keeping this one for now!