Christmas Marie ATC

The season is fast approaching and wherever I go, Christmas decorations and displays are not far away. I had to get wadding today for the large quilt that's ready to be quilted so off I went to Hobbycraft, where I was greeted by the first Xmas carols as well as Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer (which then hung around in my head for the rest of the day, not good!) but no wadding large enough. Needless to say I did buy some other things and then went to Haddington where the Fabrication shop came up trumps with a 50% cotton, 50% bamboo wadding. A new one for me, however it was gorgeously soft and thin so seemed ideal for hand quilting and beading.

But I'm getting away from the topic. I have made my first (and hopefully last!) Xmas ATCs. The one above is part of a set of 3 I made for the Christmas Marie Antoinette swap on the site dedicated to her. Tried to achieve first of all the shape of a tree ornament and then a bit of holographic effect by printing the Marie image (from one of my vintage postcards) onto a transparency and then layering with gold fabric. I was quite pleased with the effect but the scanner was far less keen!

A small charm heart was attached (from LostArtCreations) and the ATC was edged with a gold knitting yarn. The colour theme for this card has a lot to do with that for the Colour Groupies as I made all the ATCs at the same time, but I'm not showing you the cards I made for them till they are safely received and at the moment they are done but not yet mailed!

Holy Cow

The latest issue (no. 20) of the ATCQuarterly magazine arrived today and that meant a quick check and yes, my ATC for the Outer Space challenge theme had been published. Hurrah! You can see it underneath and you can read about how I made it on a previous blog.

And of course the new theme was set and it is: Cows. I've only ever made one previous cow ATC for a swap but that was quite a rustic one. The words that jumped into my head for this challenge were Holy Cow! No idea why, but perhaps they were inspired by the papal visit to Scotland today!

So I went to work and once again managed to locate the cow fabrics I used for the previous cow ATC. They consisted of a cow fabric as well as a transparent fabric with cows. I'm almost sure they were a gift from someone as I can't honestly believe I bought them. They have proved to be most useful however. The background for the ATC is a machine quilted gold lame fabric to which I glued a vintage image of a church. I added the little cow and transparent bits of another cow, both front and back (of the cow!). The little cow received a gold halo with gold beads. The final additions were the words Holy Cow! (done with my Dymo writer) and a gold cross charm (from Lost Art Creations). The edges were finished with gold satin stitching.

Skinny Pages for Trinka

As I had made the paper-collage background for the Artchix Butterfly ATCs of the previous post I put it to some more use making one side of my skinny pages for Trinka. The skinny pages are sized 4 x 8" and we exchange them every month with another artist of the OhMyGothic Yahoo Group. Trinka had no specific theme for her pages but one of her likes are women's faces and because I like these too I went with them for the two sides of my page for her.

The faces I used come from Renaissance paintings and at the top is the first one with the butterfly background. I added an additional butterfly as well as the vintage text that reads: Of beauty is thy earthly dower.

The other side of the page features another left-over fabric-paper collage and again I have added two butterflies as well as a vintage velvet flower (from Lost Art Creations). A little crown charm was also glued on as well as the vintage text: Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

Arch for Karen

On the OhmyGothic Yahoo group it is time for our latest and in fact our last arches! Karen is getting the Time for Tea arch which could be seen on an earlier post and I finished my second arch for her today. I only needed to put on the back as it was more or less complete before I went to Belfast.

One of Karen's preferred themed was Gothic Architecture and I used one of my photos taken at Rosslyn Chapel printed on fabric (from Crafty Computer Paper) which was put onto a green velvet quilted fabric background. The arch for some reason made me think of knights and I knew I had a suitable image. It just took me awhile to find it but it came from LostArtCreations and was in vellum. I cut it so that I could lead it past the arch and stitched it down. I added a star like charm (also LostArtCreations) at the top and beaded it.

I found suitable text in French: Je ne l'oublie pas (I don't forget it) which in my mind sort of refers to the promise of loyalty knights had to take.

S is for Somebody

We're moving fast towards the end of the Alphabet in our Round Robin Alphabetica swap and this month I'm making S and T pages for Debby whose theme is vintage children. My first page was going to be S is for Sepia but someone else had already made a page for someone else's album with that title so I decided to find a different S word.

I made a fabric/paper collage and there seems to have been a lot of interest in that process as I've received various e-mails asking for details. I have just written an article describing it in depth for a Dutch magazine (ARTspecially) which will come out either in October or January. When it has been published I will put a full English translation (the article is in Dutch!) on this blog with pictures of the process so keep an eye out!

For Debby's page I used a paper napkin which she had send me for my birthday in August and I painted the page using ecru and orange Dye-na-Flow but I had used them too sparingly and I felt the page needed a bit of a lift so I sprayed it with Tattered Angel (a sort of red/orange shade) Glimmer Mist. This is not permanent on fabric but is fine as long as you don't wash the item in question. As this is an album page it won't matter. I also used a vintage image from the newspaper (an recent article on children at play in the early 20th Century) and vintage music text which included the word Somebody several times.

I added the glitter S (from Glitterbugs) and a vintage velvet flower (Lost Art Creations) which seemed to have been made for this page. The Somebody text was added with a 7Gypsies rub-on alphabet sheet.

Renaissance Gothic Arch

Our theme for the Gothic Arches Challenge this week is Renaissance and I whipped this one up very fast as my mother is still here so there is not much time for my art and I must readily admit that my fingers are literally itching to get back into my studio!

Making this art certainly relieved this feeling somewhat!

The background is a previously made fabric/paper collage which had the theme of Venice and a stamp of a detail of Botticelli's painting. To this I added a detail of Michelangelo's ceiling painting, showing just Adam, to go with the definition of Renaissance which I also added. One of the definitions reads: "a coming to life again, especially in art". The image is from a vellum sheet by LostArtCreations.

Finally I layered the arch with Timtex and watercolour paper and stitched around the edges with gold zigzag stitching. To the top I added a charm (also LostArtCreations).

I've said it before but it is so true that I will repeat myself. Sometimes having to make art really fast does wonders for it and these arches are a case in point!

Cat Gothic Arch

I did not play in the Gothic Arches Challenge last week as the theme was patriotic and my feeling of nationality is very confused. Officially my passport says I'm British, but really I live in Scotland and by birth I'm Dutch. I'm no longer sure who deserves my loyalty!

But this weeks' theme was irresistible as it is Cats and I have combined it with the July Image challenge on the Lost Art Creations Yahoo Group where we are given an image each month and it's up to us what to make with it. The image was of a vintage boy, dressed in a sailors' suit.

It made me think of ships and of course ships used to have a ships' cat to kill the mice and other vermin.

The background for this arch is watercolour paper and I added the top layer of a sea-themed paper napkin, using Mod Podge. I cut out the vintage boy which I had printed out onto photo paper and stuck it on with the same Mod Podge and I added the sailor's hat to his outfit. This too came from the same napkin and was applied in the same way. The cat was cut out of a vintage book and placed underneath the boys' hand. I added a shell German Scrap border (from Alphastamps) and some star fish which were adhered with Diamond Glaze. The whole arch was then stitched onto felt to give it more substance.

The text: Jolly Jack the sailor boy and the ships' cat was added with a Dymo writer.

Lost Art Creations Fabric Pages

The quote for the above fabric page: Man is the hunter, woman is his game.

I'm making great progress in catching up with all my outstanding projects and I had fun with these pages this week. They are for a swap on the Lost Art Creations Yahoo group and of course use LAC images. There are 5 of us in this swap and we're each making 5 original pages. Terrie, the owner of Lost Art Creations is going to make the fabric covers and our pages will then be inserted into this fabric book. I can't wait to see how it will look when finished.

The quotation for the above card is as follows:She only said, "My life is dreary,He cometh not", she said;She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead"

All the images I used for the female focus points on each page (which are 4.5 x 6.5") are from LAC Belle Epoque sheet (in vellum form) and when I was rummaging for the fabric that I used on the Striped Inchies (see previous post) I came across this other lovely one with pink and brown stripes which reminded me of old interior wall paper, maybe from the Belle Epoque times.
I layered it up with Fast2Fuse and machine quilted it and then cut out my 5 pages.

The quote for this card is as follows: She stood, a sight to make an old man young.

The theme for the swap is Quotations and I sat down with a book of quotations to find suitable ones to accompany the images. The majority of the quotes I used are from Tennyson. Then I looked for other images to further illustrate the quote.

The quote for this card: A daughter of the gods, divinely tall; And most divinely fair

I also used vintage lace (also from LostArtCreations) in the background of each page. To some of the pages I added more images (all from LAC) and to others also rub-ons. I was not sure if these would work on fabric and lace, but they looked great! I beaded around each Belle Epoque lady with size 11 seed beads and the final decoration were the little buttons I added to each card.

The quote for the above page: Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move, This cannot take her; If of herself she will not love, Nothing can make her: The Devil take her!

I ironed a backing fabric onto the other side of the Fast2Fuse and finished the edges with a beige transparant ribbon (from Threadart).

L is for Loved

The other page for Sandee, this time using an adjective starting with L, came together a lot more quickly, as I immediately thought of L is for Loved and by great good fortune the image provided by LostArtCreations for our June Challenge featured a vintage bride and groom. What could be better to show Love! I used a velvety damask fabric as background and layered it up with wadding (batting). I overlaid this with a piece of vintage lace and also sewed on a strip of vintage lace along the bottom edge.

The LostArtCreations image was printed out onto glossy photo paper, and this was stitched onto the above background using a machine zigzag stitch. I was looking for a dreamy athmosphere to accompany this vintage wedding so overlaid the entire page with a white transparent fabric with sparkles. I then added pink size 11 seed beads around the image to pick up on the pink already there as part of the image.

The dictionary description of loving was glued and handstitched on with gold thread as well as the glittery gold heart. Two more hearts were added (self-adhesive vellum).

Quite a sweet page but I love it nevertheless!

Gothic Arches for Linda E

My partner this month on the OhmyGothic Yahoo group is Linda Eustace, the winner of the PW Quiltie Competition (see sidebar). Her only specification for the arches were vintage, love, romance and I can certainly do that, as these are my favourite subjects too. I combined her first arch with the LostArtCreations May challenge too. Terrie from LAC provides us with a downloadable image which then use in our challenge. This month it was a lovely soft image of a mother and daughter, dressed in dreamy, pearllike clothes. I printed this out onto photo paper and glued it onto one of my fabric/paper collaged backgrounds which features roses and other romantic images in rose-like colours. I added beads to their clothing to look like pearl and added the fabric text La Alegria (Joy) from a now discontinued Artchix Studio sheet, and surrounded that with size 15 pink seed beads. At the bottom I glued on pink Dresden scrap (also from Artchix Studio) and one was also added at the top. These were also adorned with the same seed beads. The card was mounted onto felt and oilcloth and all the layers are connected with pink satin stitching.

I used the same fabric/paper collaged background for Linda's other arch and on this arch you can see I also used some stamping in the background. The Love text stamp was a free gift from the Craft Stamper magazine. To this I added a fabric image from one of my very favourite Alphastamps collage sheets, called Lovers and vintage text which reads: Do I not Love you?

The whole arch was mounted as described above and to the pink satin stitching I added size 11 pink seed beads. At the very top I added a very decorative brad (available from Alphastamps).

Arches for Shirley

I've missed chatting to you, but really there was no new art to show you as this week I just had to get to grips with all kinds of admin, the bane of an artists' life. I think I've got it under control for now but helas, this is a never-ending source of frustration!!

I have been working on several large projects as well but they will remain my secret for now. However I did get around to making my arches for the monthly swap in the OhmyGothic Yahoo groups where we swap 2 arches with one other artist each month. This month I swapped with Shirley and she has a wide range of things she likes so it wasn't difficult at all to come up with her two.

The first one uses all Alphastamps image and stamps. The background was made for another Alphastamps project and features Pen and Ink clear stamps. I added a stamp from the AS Numbers clear stamp set at the bottom and a paper image from AS Chalkboard collage sheet. The arch was layered with watercolour paper which I have adorned with oilcloth (also Alphastamps) and everything was sewn together with a satin stitch and a variegated thread.

For Shirley's other arch I choose to use Lost Art Creations products on a pre-made paper/fabric collage featuring flowers and greenery. The image is a vellum one from LAC Artist Muses sheet. The quotation: Suddenly she started, and seemed to listen, is from one of my vintage books (The Broad Highway) and at the top I've added a peace dove (also from LostArtCreations) and at the bottom a lovely fiber from an LAC fiber pack. The back and edges were finished in the same way as the other arch.

Dream pages for Angie

My partner for this month Journal pages exchange on the TipTopJournal Yahoo group is Angie. She has no theme or colour choice for her album so the choice was entirely mine. I started by having a look at my fabric stash and doing some sighing about its chaotic state. My copy of the Studios issue of Quilting Arts magazine arrived today and compared to those oh so organized places mine simply looks like a total tip. Actually it is a tip!! As soon as I try to clear one thing something else catches my attention and away I go, creating more mess. It must be a build in design fault in me.

But it does mean I discover new "old" treasures almost on a daily base. Today it was the fabric which became the background for both of Angie's pages. It's a lovely soft green with a woven pattern of leaves and flowers. I can even remember that I bought it in a beautiful shop in Amsterdam which sells reproductions of old fabrics imported by the Dutch East India Company. Here is the website: Dutch Quilts.

I layered up this fabric with wadding (batting in US) and covered it in a wavy machine stitch. Then cut it 2 8x8 pieces from it for the pages. The first page (see above) sets the theme of Dreaming which just arrived in my head, together with butterflies. As to me butterflies are like our dream carriers. I added a quarter section of a vintage hankie to the page (from Lost Art Creations) and sewed on an image of a dreaming lovely (from an Artchix fabric sheet, now sadly discontinued). She was given 2 copper German Scrap wings (Artchix) .I added two butterfly faux postage (also from Artchix). I found the lovely text: I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

Finally I used a Monarch butterfly stamp from Alphastamps and stamped it 3 times on a transparency, using blue Staz-On and sewed on the resulting images as shown.

I beaded around the image, the wings and the butterfly postage with size 11 seed beads in blue and green.

The facing page is for Angie too, of course, but also for the monthly Lost Art Creations challenge in which we are given a free image to download and we then make a piece of art with it. You will have to be a member of the LostArtCreations Yahoo group to play. I loved the beautiful woman we were given this month and printed her onto glossy photo paper so I could use her. As background around her head I added an image of a machine embroidered piece I made ages ago. It was inspired by a picture of a gazania. For a quilt I made (Gazania Galore) I scanned in the finished embroidery, changed its colours many times and printed it out on fabric. The one I used on Angie's page was one of the left-overs and colourwise seemed to fit the page so well. I sewed this on and also the lady, using a small zigzag stitch for her. I added the Dream word (from a commercial fabric), a vintage blue velvet flower (also Lost Art Creations) as well as a self-adhesive butterfly. I then added beads to the centre of the flower, around the Dream word and as a radiating halo on the gazania print-out.

Paris Gothic Arch

Oh yes (or should that be Mais oui!), the challenge on the Gothic Arches site this week is Paris!! Oh la la, what a treat. I first visited Paris while still in secondary school (I lived in The Netherlands at the time so it was just down the road!) and have continued to visit it over the years. Even worked there for awhile (for a British courier company).

I already had a background from one of my fabric/paper collages which included a vintage map of Paris as well as vintage French text.

To this I added a vellum image of a gothic church entrance as well as a gargoyle. A Parisienne with that certain je ne sais quoi that all French women seem to possess was stitched on, and the text Regardez-la, which roughly translates as "Look at her!". All images are from Lost Art Creations. A fleur-de-lys charm (also from LAC) formed the finishing touch. The arch was zigzag stitched onto a watercolour backing with variegated thread which picks up on the colours in the arch.

And no, just in case you're wondering, I did not make this one today. It was made for a swap but due to the fact that there were less participants than anticipated I did not need to send this one away so it was languishing in my folder waiting for the right moment. Which arrived thanks to Keron. Merci beaucoup!!

Camelot spread for Terrie

I've finished my spread for Terrie in our TipTopJournals group. Terrie's album has the theme of Avelon, The Round Table, Kind Arthur, Camelot etc. You've got the idea by now. As I'm the one who determines which artists swap with each other each month, I had a bit of advance notice that Terrie would be coming next. So when I was at the Peebles second-hand book sale at the beginning of this month and discovered an extremely dilapidated children's book with a cover which looked like the mice had given it a good go but which was about King Arthur I added it to my pile. .

I set to work and made a fabric collage in the usual way (as posted on earlier blogs) and used torn pages as well as torn bits of the cover in my collage. From the resulting collage I cut 2 8x8" pieces and for page 1 I added gold trim (after all, these were quite regal pages) to 2 of the sides. I also adorned the page with a fabric image from the Pre-Raphaelite Women sheet from Alphastamps which I surrounded with a ribbon (also Alphastamps) and size 11 gold seed beads. The 3 gold artbits and the red rose in the bottom left corner are from LostArtCreations (Terrie's own shop!)

The other page has the title for the entire spread which is: The Queen in Peril and I've added the queen herself in the shape of a fabric image (Caroline Otero sheet from Alphastamps). I adorned the Queen with many jewels i.e. beads. The little queen image, part of the collage, received a gold crown (LostArtCreations). This page was also embellished with the same trim at the bottom so that the 2 pages run into each other when they are side by side.

Celtic Gothic Arch

It's really lovely when you can combine 2 different challenges in one piece of work and of course, it saves a lot of time too. Today was such a rare occasion. The theme for the Gothic Arches Challenge was for something Celtic, in honour of St Patrick's Day tomorrow.

I used to live in Ireland (Limerick) back in the early Eighties, so how could I not participate in that one.

We were also given our monthly challenge image from LostArtCreations which featured the lucky Irish four leaf clover so I immediately printed out this image twice on watercolour paper and then overlapped these two so the four-leaf clovers fitted around the outside edges of the arch. I loved the arch already at this stage.

I added a vellum image from LostArtCreations My Love collage sheet. The lady is wearing a green dress as you can see, so she immediately became Irish in my mind. A search through my Quotation book produced the text: Ireland taught me love was best, which in turn lead to the heart button at the top. The arch needed a bit more sparkle so I put some green Swarowski crystals on with my hot-tip applicator. It's a bit hard to see them on the scan (they are in the centre of the clovers).

The arch was mounted on felt and another layer of watercolour paper and then zig-zag stitched around the edges with green thread. It took about 1 hour to make and it became one of my favourite arches immediately. Occasionally speed helps to produce better work (although not always, unfortunately!!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all my readers!!

LostArtCreations Gothic Arches

I did not think I would have any energy left to post on my blog today as I have been teaching in Glasgow but the gods were really kind to me and made the M8 into a relatively quiet drive rather than the mad route it usually is. So plenty of time left to blog!

Our LostArtCreations Gothic Arches swap has been reduced to 3 so rather than having another 2 more to make, I can show you the 3 that I had already finished, before mailing them off on Monday. The theme for the swap was Gothic. All the images as well as the charms (or artbits)are from LostArtCreations, of course. And if some of my participants of today's class are reading this, they were sewn on with beads but also glued with that tile adhesive so they would not move!

In the background of all the arches are images from Rosslyn Chapel. These were photos I took myself and printed out onto self-adhesive cotton sheets from Crafty Computer Paper. You might remember I mentioned this on my blog but from January this year you can no longer take photos in the Chapel as too many people were falling over while looking up at the sculpture and photographing. So I went on a special visit between Christmas and New Year just to take pictures for future use and this is the first time I've added them to any work. Finally more good news as my Mr. Bunny ATC was published in the new issue (no. 10) of ATCquarterly in their challenge theme which was rabbits. Here is the picture in the magazine. All images used are from Alphastamps.

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.

An ATC for Alphastamps February Lottery and pages for Abby's Gypsy album

As an antidote to the windy and wet conditions here in Macbiehill I have made a very sunny ATC for the Lottery on the Alphastamps Yahoo group. When you win this lottery you get to receive all the submitted ATCs so fingers crossed!

For the background I used a piece of their new oilcloth fabric, to be precise the turquoise one with the oranges. This stuff is really gorgeous. It's meant to be used for wipeable items such as tablecloths for both inside and out, beach bags, tablemats etc. and the ones Alphastamps has in their stock come from Mexico and are ever so bright and cheerful. I layered the piece I had cut to ATC size up with white felt by stitching around the perimeter. Use larger stitches than usual and a walking foot if you have one. Stitch a bit slower than you usually do and things should be fine. I used a size 90 machine needle.

I glued on an Alphastamps image which came with their free gift sheet in Spring 2007 of a Mexican looking lady, holding a bottle (more cheer!) and a headcovering featuring oranges too. To this I added an orange artificial feather and the text The Broad Sunshine of Life.

I also finished my pages for Abby's TipTopJournal which has the theme Gypsies. Abby has invented an entire imaginary world for her Gypsies and I tried and incorporate as much of this information as I could on the pages. The background I used was the fabric/paper collage I used for my May Journal Quilt last year as it was so bright and cheerful and featured several images very suited to the Gypsy theme, such as people singing and dancing and playing the flute.

I printed out the scanned in collage onto canvas. I learned this from Abby so I wanted to use this on her pages. The Gypsy girl images come from collage sheets from LostArtCreations. The text was also printed onto canvas and stitched on. I added the beading and and the Life sticker as well as the rose on one of the Gypsy images. I'm really quite pleased by these, very cheerful and sunny looking pages.

Purple Passion Gothic Arch

The theme this week for the Gothic Arches Challenge is Purple. Gorgeous! I've combined this challenge with our February Lost Art Creations challenge where Terrie from LAC given us an image to download which we then use to make a piece of art with and upload it for our February competition. The image she gave us this month was us a beautiful vintage couple. I manipulated this digitally in Photoshop Elements to change the colours. By adding equal amounts of extra blue and red I ended up with the same image in glorious purple and I printed this out onto photopaper.

The background is a piece of purple velvet decorated with machine stitching. I cut out a purple heart from a purple flower fabric, stitched this on and added the couple also by stitching. I added beads to the heart. I also added a sparkling heart (from Paperchase) and a lovely purple rose. A vintage trim was stitched at the bottom as well as a purple postage stamps. The text Purple Passion was added with my Dymo writer. The back was finished by ironing on a purple backing fabric using Mistyfuse and zigzag stitching around the edges with purple thread.

Lost Art Creations Pendant Swap

I've finished my Lost Art Creations Pendant swap today. It's a 3 for 3 swap and I made them using 2 x 2 pendants. I painted the outside of the pendants with Adirondack Alcohol inks and an acrylic gold on top. The images I used are all from the Vintage Beauties vellum collage sheet and the backgrounds are left overs from my paper/fabric collages. The text is again from vintage LAC Wuthering Heights pages. They are rich with meaning in every sentence. The final LAC art bit I've used is the ribbon like fiber at the bottom. I've temporarily hung them from one of my own fancy yarns. The sparkling hearts are from Paperchase.