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!

Blue Marie ATC

On the Marie Antoinette Swap Site we have started a series of ATC (Artist Trading Card) swaps featuring Marie in different colours. We've done cream and Red, White and Blue and now it's time for blue only.

Blue seems to suit Marie very well and me too as I had many blue fabrics and accessories to chose from. In the end I settled for a batik blue fabric, ironed it onto Fast2Fuse and then stamped it with 2 different French-themed stamps. One a fleur de lis and the other with text stating Paris. I used blue Versacraft ink. On top a wide blue silk ribbon was stitched and on top of that again, a smalled scalloped edged ribbon.

There is only a limited amount of Marie images available, all taken from paintings done during her lifetime. I choose one of these and used Photoshop Elements to make it blue. This was printed out onto a transparency and stitched on as shown on top of the card. I then added the text: Marie has the blues! using my Dymo writer.

The cards were finised with satin stitching (in blue) and size 11 blue seed beads. An additional embellishment consisting of a blue flower bead, a smaller darker one and a seed bead was the last element I added. All the cards are fairly similar so I'm showing you just one here.

Marie ATCs Published

Marie Antoinette was the order of today as not only did I receive my returns for the Cream Marie ATC Swap (they were super gorgeous!) but the latest issue of the ATCQuarterly Magazine (issue 23) landed in my mailbox too.

Sadly there will only be two more issues of this mag before it ceases to exist but on the positive side a whole spread was dedicated to some of my Marie ATCs. They were all made for various swaps on the Marie Antoinette Swap site and it's great to see them looking so wonderful in the magazine. I wrote the text but the lay-out was entirely done by the magazine and they did a fabulous job!

Red, White and Blue Marie swap

Well, at least something creative has come out of my hands today and about time too!! I'm showing you only one as they are all more or less the same. The ATCs were made for a swap on the Marie Antoinette site and the only requirements were to use red, white and blue (the colours of the French flag) as well as Marie on the cards.

I started with a white fabric with silver stars and ironed it onto Fast2Fuse. I then remembered I had bought some transparent ribbons in blue and red for another project and put them to good use, stitching them onto the white background. The image of Marie (from Alpha Stamps) was glued on (using my Xyron Creatopia) and the quotation Toujours dans mon coeur (always in my heart) was stitched on as shown. Then some rub-off red swirls were added as well as a self-adhesive blue sparkly heart.

A white fabric was ironed onto the other side of the Fast2Fuse, the edges of the card satin stitched in the appropriate colours and the finally the red, white and blue beads were stitched on.

Cream Marie ATC Swap

There is a backlog at the moment as there are quite a few things I need to show here but other things keep getting in the way. As I have already mailed off the ATCs for the Cream Marie Swap on the Marie Antoinette Swap site it's really high time to show them here. I had to take a photograph of the ATC (all the ones I made are more or less the same with small variations in the background) as the beading is so three dimensional.

The requirements were an image of Marie (naturellement!) and that the ATC was to be cream in colour for 85% at least. I used a cream fabric backing fabric, stitched on a large variety of cream laces and then added a stamped image (Cherry Pie Stamps), which was stitched and embellished. The edges of the ATC were satin stitched and then beaded with transparent cream coloured size 11 seed beads.

Spring Marie ATC Swap

Today I went to a Christmas party, postponed from December because of the weather at the time. And what was the first thing that greeted my eye when I opened the curtains this morning, yes, you've probably guessed it, snow!!!

Fortunately it wasn't enough to keep me at home and the party went ahead as planned.

When I came home I finished off these 4 ATCs for a swap on the Marie Antoinette Swap site which made me feel a bit more springlike as that was the theme. The background used came from the same fabric - paper collage I used for the Artchix Sweetheart ATCs of a few posts back. The Marie images originated from a digital collage sheet and the bird came from the Collage Birds collage sheet from Alpha Stamps. I added 3-D pink roses which is why I had to photograph these cards rather than scan them. The cards were mounted onto watercolour ATC blanks and I had distressed the edges beforehand with a Distress inkpad. Finally pink beads were stitched around the edges as I'm sure Marie must have loved beads just as much as I do!

Eiffel Tower Heart

My large quilt has come to a temporary halt while I think about what to do next and try out various ideas. I always know when I've reached such a stumbling point as I start to look for a displacement activity. A friend of mine finds that in her case she wakes up with an urgent desire to start cleaning her house but this has never happened to me, as you can tell clearly just by looking around. However stressful my creative time may be, nothing can persuade me to start dusting!

Instead I made a little fabric heart for a competition on the Marie Antoinette site. We were giving our pattern (the size is 6" high, by 9" wide) and of course the heart had to have a French theme, although not specifically Marie herself. I gathered up every supply I could find to go with the theme in the way of images, beads, ribbons, buttons, trim, chain, wadding etc. and set to work and here are the results. At the very top of this blog is the front of the heart, and just above the back.

I also added a chain laced with pink ribbon as a handle, and hung yarns with large beads at the bottom as you can see above.

Finally you had to be able to fold up the heart and this is a shot of the closed heart. So that's it, a beautiful heart instead of a clean house. But then that is a sign of a wasted life. I have a wall tablet that says so, thus it must be true!!

Christmas Marie ATCs

Whenever I finish a project or even part of a project I take some time to "clear the decks" as John calls it, in typical nautical speak. I try and catch up with swaps and other small art projects that are overdue on my To Do list. So this morning I finished my cards for the Christmas Marie ATC swap on the Marie Antoinette group. The requirements were that the card had to have some Christmas-like elements as well as Marie elle meme.

I used a fabric paper collaged background in white and turquoise, that are very winter like colours to me. I also used Christmas themed rubber stamps and napkins to convey Christmas. I added images of Marie that I had turquoised up using my Inktense pencils and a waterbrush.

A transparent fabric with silver sparkles in it was added covering the entire card and I then quilted around the Marie images. Holes were punched at the top (using my Crop-a-Dile) and eyelets put it so that I could add a bit of a fringe. This also makes the ATCs into ornaments that could be hung in the Xmas tree if so desired!

This afternoon I made a start on sewing my blocks together as even I am curious to see what this quilt (mentioned in the previous post) will look like!

Marie Antoinette Tags

After the ATCsyesterday, time to show you the Marie Antoinette tags, again made for a swap on the Marie Antoinette Swap site. This time the tags had to be fabric and as I had made a large fabric background already I used this to make the tags too. The other requirement was to use either images of Marie herself or something Paris related. As you can see I used transparencies of the Eiffel Tower on two of the tags and 3 small fabric images of it on the other tag, combined with Marie. Of course, Marie Antoinette herself never got to see the Eiffel Tower as it was build well after her time in Paris, and she probably also never ate cupcakes but after the Marie Antoinette film they too are for ever associated with her, so I added them to the tags too in both a large image and in the shape of the yummy cupcake ribbon! Delicious. Some sparkly embellishments were the final touch.

These tags are completely different from the tags I made for Lenna's tag swap but I enjoyed making them just as much and I have to be honest and admit that the texture on these fabric tags lifts my heart just that little bit more than just mixed media ones. And (I'm whispering this!) I love the girly colours! Probably the reason I love the swaps on the Marie Antoinette group.

Marie ATC Swap

The site dedicated to swaps with a Marie Antoinette theme has been relaunched (membership is restricted, although there are occasional openings) and to celebrate we have a wealth of new swaps going on.

My favourite swaps will always be for ATCs so of course I clicked to participate in the Marie ATC Swap. The only requirement is that a Marie image has to be used. I decided to combine this swap, with the next Colour Groupies ATCs (colour combo Rose and Cream) as well as with a tag swap, also on the Marie Antoinette group. Sadly however my calculations fell a bit short and I was unable to squeeze any extras out of the background I made, so only 3 Marie ATCs, 3 tags and 3 Rose and Cream ATCs were made. But I was pleased with them all.

You will be able to see the Colour Groupies later once they reach their destinations in September(they are completely different from the Marie ones, apart from the background) as well as the tags but here is Marie in all her glory. Strips of rose themed fabrics were ironed on the Fast2Fuse to make the backgrund, the image was printed onto cardstock, made into stickers, using my Xyron Creatopia and text, a rose embellishment as well as size 11 seed beads were added as shown. Due to the very 3D roses I had to photograph rather than scan these cards but I hope you'll still be able to see the details.

Summer in Paris ATCs

Today has been one gigantic explosion of creativity. No idea what suddenly came over me but whatever it was I need more!!

At the end of the day I could cross off 3 items of my to do list which is a very good thing as yesterday I added 2. The two I added will require a lot more work than the 3 that have now disappeared but still the satisfaction felt wonderful.

These ATCs were started the day before yesterday and as you can see I could not resist using some more of that sparkling transparency. It's my new favourite supply and as per almost everything I guess I will put it to good use while my fancy for it lasts. I tend to flutter from one new thing to the next, and I guess I (and John!) can only be grateful I don't do the same with men!!

The ATCs were made for the Marie Antoinette Mail Art group and had to feature both an image of the Eiffel Tower as well as of Marie herself. I found (just where does all that stuff come from??? Do I buy fabric in my dreams?) that I had a pack of 5" square samples all featuring travel, travel texts, travel posters and yes, the Eiffel Tower. So I made a medley of them all on a background of Fast2Fuse, quilted it with zigzag stitches and then cut this background apart into ATC-sized pieces. The images come from Alpha Stamps fabric sheets Young Marie as well as Off with her Head.

After covering the entire ATC with the above mentioned sparkles I added hearts and flowers as shown, ironed a fabric to the back of the Fast2Fuse and zigzag stitched around the ATCs. I made 4 for the swap (including a hostess one) and one for me to keep, seen above.

Tea for Marie ATCs

There are some swaps I simply can't resist despite the fact that I should dedicate all my time to making quilts for my exhibition coming up next year. The ATC swaps on the Marie Antoinette site are a case in point. This group, dedicated to making art inspired by the French queen, produces wonderful work and I myself love playing with her images so I caved in once again, and joined the Tea for Marie ATC swap. The requirements are that you use an image of Marie herself and for this swap a teacup also has to feature.

Above is one of the cards I made for the swap. In total there are 3 and they are all different but they are alike enough so that this one gives you a very good impression of what they all look like. I made the background specially for this swap. It consists of a fabric-paper collage on calico (muslin) and onto the calico I pre-stamped images from Plate 50 Marie Antoinette by Cherry Pie Art Stamps. The Marie face you can see on the card is from this background stamping. I also added a good lot of sparkle to the collage for good measure.

The teacup is from a sheet of Victorian scrap. It's a modern sheet but made using material from the old archives. Every teacup on every ATC is different. The blue flourishes are made from self-adhesive felt, and the green leaves (a representation of tea!) come from a rub-off sheet. I layered the cards with a fabric backing and added size 11 seed beads around the edges.

I also made one to keep for myself as seen above and it has been made in much the same way apart from the fact that the teacup on this card comes from a paper napkin and the image of the young queen from the Alpha Stamps Young Marie sticker sheet. The text on all the cards is made on my Dymo writer and although I used adhesive tape I also stitched on the text, just to make sure!

Spring Marie with Bird ATC Swap

As I told you Spring has definitely sprung (together with the clocks at midnight) as far as swaps are concerned and the Marie Antoinette Swap Group is no exception! I used the same background for these ATCs as I did for the Alphastamps Spring ATC ones because I made quite a large piece (not at large as Lenna made hers though, check that out here) and also because the collage worked out so well and I felt I needed to make more Spring themed art.

On top of the fabric paper collage I mounted a transparent image of Marie herself. I actually glued this on! Quite revolutionary as far as I'm concerned. I wanted to test my Xyron Creatopia (bought from Create and Craft before Xmas) as Xyron now produce a fabric adhesive cartridge for this. And I can report it works wonderfully well as long as you provide the Xyron with room temperature and by that I mean usual room temperature not the 16 degrees Celsius of our cottage. It prefers things a bit warmer and when you give it that, the glue works simply great. I have already used it for applique on a small quilt, and although I also stitched the pieces concerned down afterwards, it cut out that tedious Bondaweb step. More about my Xyron when I post pictures of that piece (made for a challenge by the Thistle Quiters) in the not too distant future.

Back to the Marie ATCs. One of the requirements was to use a picture of a bird as well as one of Marie and I added lovely birds that came from a paper napkin, adhered with Mod Podge (it was definitely my day for playing with glue!). Vintage text and a corner embellishment (self-adhesive!) was added and the finished pieces were mounted onto watercolour paper. I had distressed the edges of that with sunshine yellow beforehand.

At the top of the blog are the cards for the swap and just above is the one I kept myself entitled: La joie du coeur.

Marie Antoinette and Roses ATC Swap

I'm waiting for some supplies in order to carry on with the large quilt and therefore grapped the opportunity, first of all to do a little bit of tidying up in my studio and also to catch up with other stuff on my To Do list.

I don't do a lot of tidying up in my studio and when I do it's not so much tidying as moving stuff from one place to another. I've accepted long, long ago, that chaos seems to be the only sort of organization that works for me. I need to be surrounded by beads, threads, fabrics, magazines, postcards, rotaty cutters, scissors, button boxes and lots of other things in order to first of all be happy and secondly do any work. But occasionally my work space gets so invaded that there is no other alternative but to make some space!!

Once that was done I moved on to making the Rosey Marie cards for a swap on the Marie Antoinette Swap site and all the tidying up paid off as I found that gorgeous red Victorian scrap that I added to the borders. The roses can be found both in the background fabrics, the rose embellishment on every card as well as on the vintage text.

Sweet Marie Valentine ATC Swap

The snow remains the main attraction here at the moment. I'm enjoying it to the very fullest brim because who knows when so much snow will come again? It might be the last time in our lifetime and I will make absolutely sure I'm making the most of it. I might even be tempted to create a snow angel before too long!

But of course I am also making art. Those quilt blocks I mentioned a few days ago are now finished, all 200 of them and they are being sewn together. Then I only have to layer them up, quilt and bead them!!! I must have some masochistic tendencies.

I'm also cleaning up the To Do list and at the same time trying to ensure that no new items get added. That means I'm forcing myself not to sign up for anything else this year. An almost impossible task but it MUST be done!! Lenna exposed me to extreme temptation with her Love Gone Wild ATC swap so I'm hoping lots of you will sign up here so the swap will be full!!!

But there are still things to tick off that list and today I finished my Sweet Marie Valentine ATCs for a swap on the Marie Antoinette swap site. I used a fabric-paper collaged background full of love and pink hearts which was a left-over. To this I added a transparency image of Queen Marie herself which I had glittered up. Also added were transparent ribbons, sticky hearts and the Dymo made text: Marie, je t'aime (which means Marie, I love you). The edges were finished with sparkling transparent ribbon and machine stitching.

I made three for the swap of which two are shown at the top of this blog , and also made one for me to keep, seen above. Just wish the transparencies were clearer on the scans!

Celebrate Marie ATC

I've finished my ATCs for another swap on the Marie Antoinette group. The swap was to celebrate the first anniversary of the group and the theme was : Let them eat cake. Required was to feature a cake image on every card. I was recently given some napkins with cupcake images by a participant on one of my swap on the ATCsforAll site (thanks tattiekite!!) so I stamped a piece of calico with a selection of cake stamps and then made a fabric - paper collage putting those napkins to good use.

I fuzzy cut this background so that I had at least one cake on every ATC background and then layered these up with felt by stitching. I stamped the Marie image (from Cherry Pie Art Stamps) onto an acetate sheet using red Staz-On and cut it to ATC sized pieces as well. These were stitched on top of the background and a little pink butterfly was also adhered on top. Finally I printed out Celebrate Marie with my trusty Dymo writer and put it onto the ATCs.

Finally a piece of cardstock was added to the back, all the edges of the ATCs were finished with pink zig-zag stitching and a medley of size 11 seed beads were stitched on by hand.

Although all backgrounds are different the idea for all the ATCs was more or less the same so just one picture!

Marie Colour Palette ATC Swap

A very different challenge awaited us recently on the Marie Antoinette Swap Site. This time we were to make ATCs based on a specific colour scheme and here it is underneath. Of course Marie herself also had to figure on the cards and I myself decided to let myself be inspired by the thought of: Let them eat cupcakes. I know Marie never said this and in fact even her frequently quoted saying: Let them eat cake, was probably never uttered by her but after the recent film about her life I guess cupcakes will be forever associated with Marie.

By chance I had used a cupcake wrapping paper for one of my mother's birthday gifts so I went back to the remains of that for this card. The background is formed by 2 broad ribbons which were part of a joint buying project on the Marie Site, and I machine quilted these with pink stitching and a decorative stitch on my machine. I stitched a cupcake in the appropriate colour scheme to this background with a pink zig-zag stitch and added a Marie transparency on top, so that you can just about still see her face on top of the cupcake.

I added a suitable coloured piece of batik to the back of the card and finished the edges with a pink transparent ribbon, and also beaded this with ivory size 11 seed beads to stay with our colour scheme. Finally a shiny embellishment finished the top of the card and to the bottom I added a little bell so that the cards make a lovely little sounds when you touch them.

All this 3D stuff meant I had to photograph the cards but I also scanned one for you in order to see the details a bit better.

Big Hair Marie Antoinette ATCs

I'm still staying with the rose theme as the background I've used for these ATCs is the same as that for the Roses ATC Swap that I showed you in an earlier blog.

This time the ATCs are for the Big Hair swap on the Marie Antoinette Swap site I'm a member off. The theme was big hair i.e. to use a picture of Marie where she displays her magnificent tresses.

I found just the picture and to make it even better it also featured roses in her hair so went very well indeed with the fabric/paper collaged background made with roses. I printed out the image onto iron-on fabric sheets (from Crafty Computer Paper) on to which you simply print the image, remove the backing paper, and then position the image where you want it and iron it into place. So simple!

I added the text (en francais, naturellement!): les cheveux profonds. I also added a pink self-adhesive sparkly heart, then layered the cards with pink paper backing, and zigzag stitched around the edges with pink thread. All the cards are subtly different, because the backgrounds were cut from different parts of the fabric/paper collage but this one gives you the general idea!

Eiffel Tower Stamped ATCs

Time for an interruption of all the garden views, specially as today we have an enormous and very frightening thunderstorm overhead, which meant I did not use the computer all day and also did not venture out. Instead I concentrated on art and finished making my ATCs for the French Stamped ATC Swap on the Marie Antoinette Art Group. This is a great group with really marvelous ATCs coming back from all the swaps I have participated in there so far, and of course j'adore Marie!

We had to use a French themed stamp as the main feature of our ATCs. I started by making a fabric/collage background on calico (that's muslin, if you're in The States). I stamped the calico (muslin) background before making the collage, using blue Versacraft inkpad and making sure I heatset the stamping thoroughly!! To the collage I then added French vintage text and images as well as paper napkins with a French theme. I used pink and yellow Dye-na-Flow paint to add extra colour as these are the colours that are very Marie Antoinettish! I also added pink sparkle.

Once the collage was dry I cut ATC-sized pieces, layered them with pink felt, added a yellow paper backing and sewed on a transparency on top to which I had stamped the Eiffel Tower image with blue Staz-On ink. I finished the edges of the cards which are all more or less the same (variations in the background) by zigzag stitching and also added a Paris charm.

Kitty Antoinette

Our latest Design Kit from Alphastamps was dedicated to paper dolls and associated paraphenalia, and I should perhaps admit from the outset that paper dolls, and in fact all dolls, really are not to my taste and if it was entirely up to me I would definitely not dedicate any of my time to them.

So this kit proved to be a bit of a challenge and I can't honestly say I'm that mad about my finished pieces but at least I did manage to complete my 4 projects before the deadline came up.

Although this was not the first piece I made, I thought I would start by showing you this one. The doll was made on a background of a Maya Road chipboard doll shape (for those of you in the U.K. this is actually cardboard and not what we call chipboard, very confusing!!). This shape and others are available from Alphastamps. I covered the doll shape in gesso and then sprayed it with Moonlight Shadow spray (Silver). It ended up by making the shape look very tanned!

The face, hair, corset shape, boa and boots came from Alphastamps Get Dressed and Doll Parts sheets and were glued on (yes, you read that right, for once I actually used glue). I added a purple feather to her hair and gave her a skirt made from Mexican oilcloth (also available from Alphastamps). After I finished she reminded me of Marie Antoinette (must have been the hair!) so I looked for a background to go with that theme. I found some vintage wallpapers in my stash, scanned them into the computer and printed them out and then glued them onto thick card and distressed them with inkpads and gesso, to make them look old again. I also outlined the edges with a Krylon gold pen. Marie Antoinette associations also made me add the text (by Dymo writer): Let them eat tuna! A little sparkly flower was also added to her corset to make her look more regal.

The doll shape was added (dare I say it, with glue again!) to the background, and the title Kitty Antoinette just came to me then and there. She does make me laugh whenever I catch sight of her! I will admit that I haven't taken these dolls as seriously as I should perhaps have done but I had a lot of fun making the samples!