More Postage People ATCs

I surprised myself in finding time to finish these ATCs over the weekend...something nearly always crops up that seems to put pay to my weekend arting, but other than the usual washing, ironing and cooking(some yummy egg and bacon pies for Sunday lunch)and playing wall tennis with my grand-daughter later in the afternoon, time was my own!


Oh....did I mention the 5 dozen scones I made for morning tea on Saturday for my hubby's staff member's ??.... they had a sale on so I thought I'd encourage them to sell more vehicles if they had something yummy in their tummies....I hope it worked!
Of course, it helped that we went to my daughter's for dinner Sunday night...saved me having to decide on what to get for it myself!
These Postage People ATs are such fun to make.


The first, and hardest part, is finding the stamps. Here in Australia, we don't have many "faces" stamps, although there has been a few of Movie Stars come out lately, but I was fortunate to have had a small number of them sent to me by a fellow swapper from over-seas last year.
Once I have the stamps sorted out, finding images is almost a full day's task for me....I have sooooo many images on my PC that I almost need a packed lunch and a thermos of green tea to get thru' them....LOL.
It also helps to have a stack of back-grounds at the ready...really handy for quick creating!


Finding the right embellishments is the next hard task...I like to try to use up stuff laying around on my desk-top...and there's ALWAYS heaps of THAT there...vbg.
Then I spend an hour or so going thru' the fonts in Publisher looking for the most suitable for each ATC....and sometimes do a search for better ones.
Scanning and editing the finished products take another stretch of time but it is soooo satisfactory to see them all eventually done and up for all to see.

TREE of LIFE

I have finally gotten around to up-dating here... where does the time go??? Monday comes around and before we know it, Friday has arrived!!
Of course, it doesn't help when your PC is not co-operating either!
I changed my Anti-virus application and it fouled up my modem, but eventually my nice providers helped me with it and we are back in action! When things like that happen it makes one realise just how much one relies on this monster!

This is an altered Papier Mache torso that I did for a swap. I used twigs from my Jacaranda tree for the "wings" and Sphagnum Moss for the nest. I applied Golden's Texture Paste for the grass, and the leaves are a type of satinny ( is there such a word..vbg)ribbon that I bought on-line somewhere....and wish I could remember where! I shaved the twigs ends to sit flat on the torso, then applied them with Golden's Heavy Gel. It is finished off with some copper coloured Rub-ons, which I outlined with dots, and then finally, a coat of Royal Coat Decoupage Sealer.

ANOTHER FABRIC BOOK PAGE

This page's theme was "Jeweled House".
Several years ago, I hand painted and stamped some calico and have had it sitting around waiting for a good reason to use it...and this is the reason!
For the houses I used Collection's chipboard house frames,covered in "Textiva" (fusible film). The two larger rooves are cut from cardboard. The front one is covered with dot stickers and the back page one is done with re-enforcing rings,then I coated them with Bronze Lumiere and rubbed over with Walnut Distress Ink, and the small one has gold star stickers, treated the same way, as I ran out of the dots and rings.
I then added the diamantes to them all.
I used various images of children,two of which are from "Collections", and added a piece of mica to the large front and back houses and wire mesh to the smaller one.Then a squiggle of green Kindy Glitz on the sides of the houses and more diamantes embedded into them with some larger flower embellishments to finish them off.
Then I added the Kaiser Rub-ons to the sides of the front houses to balance the layout.
The image in the house on the back is of a little girl with her dolly's pram and a bit of "serendipity" happened here... I didn't realise until after I finished the page entirely and was checking it out for faults (which I am sure to have made) that the application of the gold painted scrolls and flourishes actually make the dolly's pram look 3D!
I left the threads long and dangling when I ran some machine stitching around the edges and threaded some beads onto them to add more texture to the whole page.

MIXED MEDIA MARIE

I finally managed to find some time to finish this project yesterday.
The frame is a 4 x 7 inch stretched canvas,reversed.
After gessoing the canvas, where I built some up at the top left and bottom right corners for texture, I used a wash of Golden's Light Magenta,then stencilled some Phthalo Green thru' some sequin waste, which, when dry, I re-stencilled over that with White.
When all was dry, I sponged on some Quinacridone Magenta sparingly and painted the inside edges of the wooden frame with it as well.Then I gave it all a thin coat of Golden's Fluid Interference Oxide Red.
I adhered some flocked burgundy and gold embossed, wire edged ribbon to the background.
I painted the porcelain half doll white, only colouring her cheeks and the rose, as I felt that would accentuate the "lavishness" of the character's "encoutrements" more.
I added the German Scrap Border and lightly distressed it with brown Stazon ink.

Marie's "Gown" is made from wire-edged ribbon,trimmed with embroidered roses.
Her crown is plastic and once lived on a hair pin....which my grand-daughter is yet to miss...vbg.
She has a "diamonte" necklace and also some on the gown trim.

The vintage flowers are off a 1950-60s hat, found at an op-shop yonks ago, with gold painted die-cut swirls added.
The glass bead fringing was taken from the bottom of a cheap cotton hand-bag also found at an op-shop.

MIXED MEDIA TIP-IN PAGES

I am in a Mixed Media book page swap in one of the groups I belong to, where we make up a page in the recipient's theme using fabric as the base.
This is the one I have done for Bevlea. Bevlea's theme is Bird Houses. As you can see I have done two totally different styles with these pages. I am not normally a "flowery" person but the bird houses demanded that I put them there...LOL.

ANOTHER TIP-IN

This one is for my friend Lucy who chose Vintage Paris as her theme.
The page with the word PARIS on it is the front .

A KIND KREATIV BLOGGER AWARD

Well folks,for the life of me I can't figure out how I deserve this lovely award from the very talented, "many hats-wearing" Susie Jefferson but I am very happy to grab it with both hands and "wear" it with pride on my blog!
Thanx Susie...I now have to try harder to learn about Blogging to be truly worthy of it....LOL

I also have to follow the rules of this award and select 7 wonderfully clever people to award it to....so...let's see who they will be....Ummmm....

1. First up is easy....my dear friend Bevlea without whom I would never be sitting here in front of a glaring monitor and typing this up,let alone accepting an award for it!!
Bevlea is also responsible for me accumulating...nay.. amassing HUGE amounts of papers, stamps, inks, ephemera, tools....big and small, and all the rest of the stash that we paper nuts end up with, just so I can make a few little cards called ATCs!
Thank you Bevlea for being my rock.

2. Another good friend, Linda, deserves this award also...she is one talented chick, but I don't know if she will accept it. Sigh!...one can only try...vbg

3. My friend Kelsey from the wild west of this country, probably doesn't need introducing...I am sure her talents have reached around the world...eleventeen times!!!...LOL

4. Kathy,is another very talented new cyber friend, whom I would love to meet personally one day, and maybe I will if our plans to go to the States come to fruition next year.

5. Diana's blog, is so worth the trip to; she has wonderful eye candy there to keep you there for a while.

6. Here's another lovely lady who does beautiful art. Martina has been to visit me personally in the past and I have admired her work for ages.

7. Sanna does some of the most incredible art in all sorts of medias. She has been known to be hard to beat when it comes to getting in first for a trade or two...vbg



The Rules:

List 7 things that you LOVE
Link to the person who has tagged you
Choose 7 more bloggers to give the Kreativ Blogger Award to
Comment on those 7 blogs to let the recipients know you chose them


7 THINGS THAT I LOVE


1. Knowing I have "friends" all over the world.
2. Being computer savvy enuff to be able to communicate with them.
3. My family...even tho' they give me the "willies" at times!
4. Enjoying a yummy roast pork dinner ..preferably with family or friends.
5. Making and baking cookies with my 8-going-on-30 yr old grand-daughter.
6. Being thin, Now...when WAS that!!!...probably before the roast pork dinners and baking cookies days!!!....LOL.
7. Last but not least....at the end of the day, a hot shower, a good book and a cosy bed to curl under the doona in...of course, this is only during winter...forget the hot shower and the doona in those sweltering months of summer!...vbg

PLAY TIME!

Once again I have been a bit slack keeping up my blog.
The Easter holiday period has been a blur of comings and goings...us going to visit my folks over the Easter period and my grand-daughter coming to stay for a few days, leaving just in time for a BIL to arrive, who in turn, left before some friends arrived for a quick over night stay on their way home from their Easter holiday!
It was lovely to see them and we not only had a yummy Chinese dinner out, but we girls had an hour or so play before bed-time while the boys exchanged their veiws on the world!
My friend had never played with beeswax, so I set about changing that. We quickly went thru' my box of scraps and spare images and both made an ATC...here is mine.I used scraps of two paper napkins as the background,a Zettiology Collage image of Mona,some of my printed harlequin paper and butterfly wings and the gold paper border is part of the negative left overs from using a crown punch.
It is entitled "Mona Tries Collagen".
Unfortunately I didn't get to scan my friend's ATC.

See what happens when you eat too much cake!

This is my latest ATC, made for our monthly PaperArts group swap, the theme being "Marie Antoinette".

I used images of a period gown and one of Character Constructions Stamps of Marie and Photoshopped them to size.

The background is hand dyed canvas sprayed with Moon Shadow Mist, and has a Silver Krylon Pen resist.












I made a slash in the neck line of the gown image and put Marie's extended neck through it so that when you pull the crown up, the head comes up with it.

Heart-felt Healing Doll

After the Victorian fires which occurred in February, at the instigation of Keron Lee,http://thecolourguru.typepad.com/
a group of people volunteered to make Healing Dolls to be handed out at random to some of the victims in the hope that they would find some solice in knowing that there are many people caring about them.

This is one of several that I made.

The faces were printed onto an old cotton pillow case that I applied to some freezer paper before cutting to A4 size to be able to go thru' the printer.

The central heart is cut from some hand made felt and I tea-dyed the heart fabric to age it.

A BEESWAX COLLAGE

This is my latest tute on Bevlea's and my Techniques blog......
http://2cre8art.blogspot.com
It is done on a canvas board, first layer being torn magazine images covered with white tissue paper that has a pattern of gold cherubs over it.

The white tissue paper "dissolves" into the BG but the gold cherubs form a resist and show up quite well, altho' that is hard to see in this image.

All embellishments are adhered with beeswax, no other form of adherant was used.

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER

Back in January when Bevlea was here on her annual holiday, we both used the same ATC background with this image of a woman on it as a challenge to make an ATC for each other.
There was a little difference in the colour of the BG but they were both cut from the same sheet of hand dyed paper.
Mine is on the left,Bevlea's on the right.
Mrs Percy has a 3D mounted fan and the ship is off a paper napkin.

TWEAKED QUILTIE

With a different orientation and
a few different embellishments,
this is a slightly smaller version
of my previous quiltie.

This one was made as a "book page"
for a group swap.

It has a cardboard backing,which is
covered with a credit card techniqe
painted paper, and then
Cuttlebug embossed.

The wings are silver German Scrap and
the little metal, glitter covered crown
was originally on the end of a hair pin.

I printed the text onto silver Laser paper.

My apologies for the poor quality of
the image but the silver paper,beads
pearls and glitter are not favoured by
the scanner.

Are We Related?

For February, our paperarts group's ATC swap was Ancestors.

Of course, I couldn't do a "straight" one..had to have my satirical sense of humour show out ...again!

This is a print of an old photo. I PhotoShopped the Gorilla heads onto Father and his children, used a yellow Embossing Gel Pen for Mother's hair, her buttons and brooch and also for the hankies in the pockets. Also used a pink one on the baby's dress ruffles.

I also rubbed the background over with Shabby Shutters Distress Ink.

My First Blog Award!!

I'm excited!!!

A "blogger" friend of mine, with the impossible-to-pronounce-unless-you-know-how-name,which sounds nothing like it's spelt... Diana O'Cobhthiagh very kindly awarded me with this sweet award.

Very fitting as it's from a very sweet and talented person...check out her blog ...

http://docobhthaigh.blogspot.com

I am to award this onto 5 other deserving people,so I shall do my best to do so

For those of you that receive the award,these are the guidelines that came with the badge:

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these kind writers."

The following ladies are my friends,(one is very special..you know who you are!), fellow group members and talented artists..all people that have helped me along the path to where I tread now......some of whom I have met physically and others just on the net....thank you dear friends for all your encouragement.

I present you all with this award..

Bevlea Ross http://soularts.typepad.com/

Glenda Laing http://glendasgazette.blogspot.com/

Lucy Leatham http://artitudebylucy.blogspot.com/

Kathy Carvellas http://kcn2cats.blogspot.com/

Marion Bockelman http://bockel24
blogspot.com/

TIME FOR LOVE

This is my "homage" to the day for love...

These love-sick cherubs are on a hand dyed watercolour paper background,with Kaiser Rub-ons over a strip of black & white checks at the bottom,with some teeny-tiny red hearts between each swirly thingy.

They are looking at a "love button" thru' cogs on their eyes....they are very one-eyed about their love for each other...LOL

A CHALLENGE TUTORIAL on 2cre8art

This QUILTIE is this month's (February) challenge tutorial,made by me.

You can find all the instructions for it, and information on the challenge on my sister blog http://2cre8art.blogspot.com

I do hope you can join in on the challenge.

A QUICK OVER-VIEW -read about them below here.

FROM MY DESK

I'm sure you all know the saying "Necessity is the Mother of Invention"..??...well January's PaperArts swap was just that for me!

This incessant, unrelenting heat-wave that we are experiencing at present,plus too many visits to doctors this past month,one being to try to knock out the Bursitis that has taken up residence in my hip...I had two more cortisone injections this morning plus a bi-opsy on another incessant problem; a rash on my foot,(and the other reasons are not fodder for here at present)....let alone getting the normal hum-drum things done...like eating, washing and sleeping...hard thing to do when the hip you lie on is the sore one and which is not easy anyway in a furnace.... made for me having to make ATCs for this month's swap... in a hurry!
However, how can one hurry when one's muse has gone on strike???

Oh...and did I mention the "apple bandit" that played havoc in my studio for four days???
NO ?...OK...this furry, four legged critter which insists on taking up residence in our roof, just beside a window in the studio that is from floor to 2 foot off the ceiling, so there is a wide gap for it to slide up into the roof area when open!
And at great cost, we have had him transported to better pastures..or should I say roof areas, three times already!

Anyhoo...as possums do, he was scrabbling and scratching around in his nest...which has all mod cons...air con in summer and heating in winter 'cos the vent for same is located in the floor at the base of the window...close to parks, low traffic area.... and and all this for no rent!..he's not silly...vbg
This must have put him in a playful mood 'cos he managed to knock down a heap of "stuff" from the shelves of stash in my studio before pooping on my lap-top,which luckily was closed at the time, and the in floor there...and then on my desk and the floor in the pooter/printer room !

So, it was time to call the big white hunter,who just happens to go by the name of "Possum". TRUE....but apparently it didn't originate from his talent of catching the critters...it is a left over from his youth. Something to do with the speed of which "possums " can run up a tree!!!...if you get my drift.(think about it...vbg)

Anyhoo..."Possum" in his short shorts...another left over from his youth....arrived with the trap and I supplied the delicious apple and the trap was set up in my Desk-top and printer room, cos that's where the first pile of possum poo was found, and we went to bed that night feeling safe with the thought that we would have him in the morning.

Not so!...the little blighter was apparently hungry for a midnight snack 'cos the apple was gone and the trap was empty!

Soooo..back came "Possum", still in uniform (short shorts)and reset the trap in my studio where the second pile of poo was found.

Around mid-night that night, I heard the clatter of a spoon in a bowl coming from the kitchen which is located opposite our bedroom with only a 4 foot hall between.

I quickly checked to see if hubby was still in bed and hadn't gone out for an early breakfast, (I leave the table set for him...saves me getting up and playing maid early in the mornings)and, Yes...he was still there pushing out zeds, so my thoughts immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was our home invading furry critter out looking for a midnight snack again!

So I poked hubby hard enuff to wake him...he is a VERY sound sleeper...and we raced out to the kitchen to find the critter up on the table eyeing off hubby's breakfast orange!

Of course, it quickly jumped down and hid under one of the cupboards so we went to check the trap...and the apple was gone...AGAIN!

O-KAY!!Hubby is very clever at what he does but doesn't do much other than his chosen work, so I set the trap with the trigger set at "hair-line" position and the apple strapped on the hook with a rubber band and off we went to bed again.

I bet you can you guess how surprised I was when, in the morning, I found the rubber band dangling from the hook and the trap...EMPTY!!!

RIGHT!!!...ENUFF is ENUFF!! ...I have had enuff of taking care of its hygiene problem! "Possum" to the rescue! and quickly!

He arrived, in his obligatory uniform of course, and we decided to hunt it down.
Didn't take us long...the three apples that it had consumed had obviously made him sleepy and the top of a cupboard in my studio must have looked the most inviting place to sleep them off, curled up in a ball.

"Possum" donned hubby's gardening gloves (which, incidentally, are 10 years old and still "as new")and grabbed the little apple thief by the scruff of the neck and jammed it into the potato sack I was holding.

HOORAY!! ...now I can finally clean up the rooms and we can sleep tight, with the knowledge that the critter has once again been transported to another tree...but for how long???

Next job...find someone to get up into the roof and block all possum entrances! I wonder if there is someone called "Roofie" out there???...LOL

But, I digress...let's get back to ...ATCs.

OK...dead-line has arrived!...what to do???...I had procrastinated long enuff!... into my studio (which some would call a mess) and go for it girl!

And how lucky COULD a girl be???..sitting there, in amongst the wondrous array of flotsam and jetsam on my desk, were a couple of left-over ugly ducklings that I had begun from an ATC swap last year...just waiting to be turned into beautiful swans!!

The B/Gs are of RUSTED PAPER with an image of some mythical Grecian broad who really needed a make-over, shown here.....(if you have been reading my blog you would be ready to realise that I LOVE that RUSTED paper???...vbg)

So, with beating heart and tongue out...(doesn't yours come out to watch your hands create wonders??...vbg), I picked up my treasured felt tipped Sharpie Gel pen (hmmmmm...now...where DID I get that??... I will need another one soon) and began doodling...or should that be Zetti-ing?..vbg
Then it was into my OTHER work-room....one COULD call it the printing press room.. where I can choose from an ink-jet or a laser to print out gorgeous images...and quickly find an image of black and white striped paper for her hat...it would be much quicker than drawing each one on individually!

Did I say "quickly"???....forget it!!..of course, when in a hurry one can count on things being in "go slow mode" and there was no B & W image to be found amongst my zillion images was there???
So, quickly...GOOGLE for it!

AGAIN that "quick" word must also be on strike 'cos it took ages to find one suitable, but, an hour later I had a nice laser printed B & W striped sheet of paper in my hand.

OHH-KAAAY...Cut out her hat, glue it on....

A few white dots with my INKSSENTIALS Gel pen, a couple of teeny, tiny cogs, a splash of red gel pen dots to liven up her drab Grecian style garment and a mouth cut from some floozy in a weekly mag, and there we have her!!

Oh..and some black and white paper scrap down the side...O-oh!...back to the printer...LOL..and she's done!

Now, some would say that she really should have consulted her "Fairy Godmother" before accepting my idea of "beauty", but then, beauty IS in the eye of the beholder, isn't it???....and who knows..there might just be a "Zetti Benni" waiting for her just around the corner....LOL.

And the two only took me 4 hours to make!!!...LOL

(BTW..the ones I made last year did not finish up as ugly ducklings either!..vbg)

STILL CROWING

Seems that crows feature in my life a lot lately. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the name of city I live in means "place of many crows", altho' I think they must be feeling the effects of the heat-wave we are experiencing at present too, as there are none to be seen or heard....even the sparrows seem to have gone into hibernation!

This ATC has a "peeled paper" B/G; a left-over from an earlier swap, distressed with Ranger's Weathered Wood Distress Ink and the music is a scrap of a paper napkin from my scrap box...on my desk, of course!

I 3D mounted the egg image with double sided tape then added the "nest" made from a piece of medical gauze (thanx Martina) that I adhered with "Royal Coat Decoupage Finish", which is like a mix between PVC and a fluid gel medium.
I gave it another coat of that when it was in place to give it body and to stand "up" and "out" and to shape it more like a nest, then when dry (trusty heat gun)slapped or sloshed a bit of acrylic paint on it for colour.

A black German Scrap wing, a teeny, tiny rhinestone eye and a feather in the nest finished it off nicely and he was ready to fly off to his new owner.

I hope he copes with the heat and the dust...maybe he will have to do a stop-over landing in a river along the way to cool off...vbg