Progress Report

Popped into visit Barb today for an hour or two with Lucy... we took her a container of papers, scissors, glues, atc blanks, images etc., as she is getting cabin fever/itchy fingers to get creating again.. we are setting a record here, its the 4th time we have been into see her and the 5th time we've seen her since Feb 1 (usually due to distance we only get together annually LOL)

She is much better each time we visit, has had the initial plaster off the leg and arm for re-xrays and a new lot of plaster back on.. they are due to come off permanently in a couple of weeks.  She will then be staying at her sisters for a further six weeks for on going physio therapy.

She still doesn't know the fate of her artwork we made that weekend.. .though they have finally tracked down where the car was taken to, so hopefully they can get her stuff out of it soon.  In case its gone forever.. this is what her art looked like from that weekend...

Barb - Broken and Unbowed

I am doing a 'guest' spot here to update Barb's friends and followers to  her status after her car accident last week.

Barb, along with myself, Glenda and Lucy spent a lovely three days up at Tocumwal on the Murray arting and enjoying each others company.. Monday morning Glenda, Lucy and I headed to Melbourne and home, and Barb headed off to Bendigo to spend some time with her parents

Glenda, Barb, Lucy, Bevlea

About half an hour out of Bendigo Barb had a horrific head on with a fully laden B-Double (semi towing another load).  Her Rav 4 is a complete write off, but luckily all the angels and side airbags were on her side, and she has survived to tell the tale.

photo courtesy Bendigo News

She was airlifted to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne suffering from a broken leg, wrist, sternum, shoulder blade and large gash on stomach.  She now has a plate in her leg and has been transferred this week to Epworth Rehabilitation.  Today is her birthday, so thanks to the girls on PaperArts, Lucy and I went in to visit her with some goodies that I purchased from the collection that was taken up.

Opening the gift with Lucy

We took in 12 helium balloons - one from each person who contibuted, a beautiful hat box filled with shampoo, conditioner, deoderant, tissues, bath sponge, perfume (So Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker), a nice new nightie and a bigggggg box of choccies

at least she still has her sense of humour!

A LITTLE CREATIVE SOUL MUSE-IC

My dear little grand-daughter, now 11, created this fantastic assemblage at a school holiday play day yesterday. She mainly used old broken toys and a hot glue gun ( for the first time). It sits on a toy tambourine which is 31 yrs old.....same age as her mother!....a bit of serendipity as well as creativity!!

 I think it's FABULOUS  (I'm not at all BIASED...vbg) and I hope you all find it that also....and be sweet enuff to leave a cawment on it...she would be thrilled!

Dr. Music

PLAY TIME CREATIONS

My sister and I have had such a great time together these past six weeks but sadly, the time has come for her to go home...tomorrow!
I am going to miss her so much...it will be some time before I shall adjust to being alone again.
However, I have been able to actually get some more play-time and here are the ATCs that I got done.

A few Weird Ones

                                       A bit on the cute side from my norm.
                This one was last month's WTA and is going to a new home.

 I used an off-cut from a cog die-cut 

on an embossed back-ground for this one.

These are for our PaperArts Group's January swap. 

The theme is "Altered People".Can you figure out who they are?

This shows who's under the lion's head ATC.

Do you need more clues as to who it is? 

This next lot are more of my sister's creations. She has really had a great time but is pleased that the stash/mess won't be at her place.....LOL.

What I have done recently...

It's not much, but I have managed to fit in making some ATCs for our Paperarts monthly swaps.
This time of the year, altho' supposed to be peaceful and joyous,  has it's down moments for me....seems if anything's gunna go wrong, it will now!
Added to which, during the hotter months, my mostly calm nature tends to explode into fiery mode! (no snickering allowed here by my friends!)

To top off all health issues around me, I have been waiting for parts for my NEW stove-top (gas burners) since OCTOBER!!!....yes...I did say NEW stove-top!
Seems we have VERY BAD POSTAL SERVICE between HERE and SYDNEY as I have been told THREE times that the parts were posted out. apparently they have FINALLY arrived and am now waiting on the appliance man to come but still not sure if they will fix the problem.


Oh, why couldn't they have just replaced the stove-top in the first place!!??


However, I HAVE managed to make some beetroot relish, chili jam and mango relish on the ONE jet that DOES work!


Anyhoo....here are the two different ATCs I made at least five of each of...hope you like them.
I have a spare of each if anyone would like to trade. Just email  me if you are interested.

The left one's theme was "Mother's Sage Advice" and the other's
 theme was "Anatomical with a Twist".

Playing with my Sister!

My sister is here with us at present recovering from an operation on her feet, so to keep her mind off the associated pain, I introduced her to ATCs. She was not sure how she'd go at first, but by golly...she has been bitten by the bug and sometimes doesn't even wait for me to sit with her but gets into my stash of images and produces little works of art on her own!

                 I shall display some of them here and hope that you will be kind      
                     enough to cawment on them. I know it will make her day!

                                   
                The last image shown is an articulated paper doll...her very first!
                      The lady beetle card opens to show the sunflower inside.

Finally...New Stuff!

My apologies to those of you that have stuck  to me, I've been having a very full-on time over the past couple of months, which is still an on-going situation for a while yet!


However, I have been able to find a few smidgens of time in-between life's tasks to make a few ATCs which I thought you might like to see. I  have been trying to use up some of my gazillion images that I have been saving...so that has been a bit of a challenge as well.


So, here they are...don't forget to click on the image to enlarge.

  
The top three I made when visiting my dear friend Bevlea in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago.     
I would appreciate some complimentary comments as all I have been getting lately have been SPAM...even tho' I have an anti-spam message  on my blog....grrrr!

IS IT A BIRD?

Had another play day with Marci yesterday. Once again, we didn't get much done other than working out how to use her Cricut and Marci making the hard decision as to which of my virgin stamps she wants to add to her stash....eventually!

However, I have discovered that just having a like-minded friend around, my MUSE comes back and demands to play.
Before it was time for Marci to leave, I did begin to make an ATC out of scraps on my desk....using the piece of toilet paper that I cleaned the alcohol ink off my brush after painting the half doll the other day...which resulted in a yummy variation of one of my fave colours...orange.
There  was enough of the paper to back two ATCs so before it was time to put the dinner on I actually got two finished, and because my muse was not satisfied for me to sit back and rest on my laurels after dinner (so to speak...it was actually my butt I was sitting on...vbg), I sauntered back to my den and made up another ATC before my eyes told me it was time to sleep.

I often have nights of insomnia, and last night proved to be one of those...along with a semi-serious case of heart-burn (signs of old age), so after tossing and turning for an hour, I eventually got up and had a goodly dose of Bi-Carb soda which caused several relieving burps! By this time I was wide awake so I made a cuppa (Chai) and was forced (muse pushed me) back into my den, where I not only made another ATC, but went thru' a box of scrap images that has been accumulating for-EVA, and threw....yes!...threw some out! By 3 am I was ready for bed.....again!

All that being said...I guess it's time to show you the end result of my day's...and night's creativity!

This is the first of two that are the same that I made in the afternoon.
The wings are 3D mounted.
Lurv that orange paper!

The ATC on the left began life as a  medieval woman transferred onto the music sheet. I gave her a new face, head and a handful of eggs. The fish are 3D mounted.
The other one was also of a medieval woman image transferred to old newspaper but had the same image printed on transparency as an overlay.
The nest and birdie are 3D mounted.
This face image is one of my favourite images.It is a Teesha Moore collage sheet image
but I added the glasses in Photoshop.

ANOTHER TYPE OF BIRD

On Tuesday, my new play-mate, Marcia Smith, came to play with me. Actually, there's more chatting done than playing but we both managed to do a wee bit of arting.
Marci managed to make a mountain of paper-clay doll heads and body parts and I began toying around with a half-doll and a wire tea-light candle holder in the shape of a Christmas tree.

Today, I actually got it finished, and she is nothing like I started out to do.
To begin with, she had PINK clothes which clashed with the coppery coloured fabric that I made her "gown" from, so she got a doing over with some alcohol ink. What magic stuff that is!

I was originally going to use a purchased bird nest and sit it into the tea-light candle holder but it didn't look right sitting on top of it, so I wove a nest of copper wire around the holder, glued it in place and then added some shredded paper and feathers before gluing the little mushroom bird on top of it all.

I had the meshy strips in my stash but as they were white, I gave them a dose of alcohol too...ink that is...vbg. Then it still looked like it needed more oomph but I had to think about what to add to her...until I saw the feathers that I had used in the nest were still on my desk...and the light went on!

Of course, she had to have a feather head-dress too. I found some narrow braid to cover the feather ends around her waist but as it was too white, it got a dose of the  ink as well. A blingy flower on the head-dress finished her off just in time to get her photo taken before the sun went down.

More Crowing!

                Due to a small number of participants in our Felt ATC swap,
                             we are now to make two different ATCs each.

                   I decided to keep to the one theme so here is the first one's mate.
                                            Once again I padded the wing
                              but unfortunately it doesn't show up in the scan.

Crowing Again!

               This month our ATCs are to be of FELT and done in a naive style.

This is my effort.
I have added little black seed beads for the sunflower's seed and the crow's eye.
 It doesn't show up well here but his wing is stuffed so it has a raised effect.

                                                     

Birdies for Spring & FREE Templates

                      This month  PaperArts Group's Mixed Media Swap was to make a
                                      BIRD HOUSE and BIRDS SWAG.

                            I drew up the templates and we all printed them out.
                    If you would like a copy of  the template , leave a "cawment" on
                              here requesting one, along with your email address,
                                                 and I will email it to you.

                        I found it a lot of fun and wouldn't mind making another.

The orange BG is scrapbook paper. I printed out all the others from images of fabrics and old papers I have filed on my PC. All were distressed with Ranger Ink.
          I tore thin strips of tea dyed B&W gingham and plain soft orange
                             fabrics and tied them onto the strings.
         The back of the bird houses and the birds also have been covered
                             with checked and harlequin papers.

Just a Quicky & a Steampunk ATC

This month our PaperArts group's theme for ATCs was Steampunk....a very popular theme at present.
I was in two minds as to what images I would make up for this so tried out two digital attempts.

I do like this first one..the little girl on the map background, but went with the Old man Time one as I did not have enough "tassel" embellies to make up the required amount for the swap.
Her wings were included in the digital composition then I spliced them out and added mounting tape behind them.









This is another digital composition with
spliced wings  as in the top ATC. I added
watch parts over the digital ones coming
from the tap and a printed clock dial which
is attached with an arrow.
In reality, it is not quite as orange a
background as it looks here.

Altered Magazine Face Images

July's ATC swap in paperarts yahoo group was to alter a face cut from a magazine.


There are  different ways of doing this type of theme; these are my efforts. 


I found it a little bit addictive and after making the required amount for the swap, I did a few extras for my self.


 I have put the original image beside the altered one so you can see the difference.
                               Click on each image to enlarge them.

"Cool Cat"

   "Evil Is As Evil Does"

                                           
                       




               

"Got My Number"

"Happy Jack"

                             

                               

"Mona's New Dentures"

"Hard to Shut His Mouth"

                   
       

"Party Girl" #1

"Party Girl" #2

                         

"Purrfic Fashion"

"Who Am I"

                                     

"Dick Feared Flying"

   


I forgot to scan the original image for "Big Girl's Panties" but I think you will see the added stuff on it.
                                                

RETURN'S from MARION's ANNUAL SWAP

      Ingeborg Miko             Trudi Sissons            Tamara Comerford 
These are the wonderful ATCs I received from Marion's Annual Swap.
This year the theme was Mona and Friends.

I also traded privately with my friend  Glenda Laing ...this is her great "Mona's Friend".

A Digital Dalliance

A couple of days ago, a few of my on-line friends and I were having a bit of fun, bantering back and forth by email about age related woes....me being the oldest in the group, I copped most of the flak!
One of them suggested that we need not fear looking... shall I say, "mature aged" if we have a GOOD HAIRDRESSER!
This got me to thinking that this particular friend must have a GOOD one and asked if it was by any chance known as "The Restoration Centre",  as that would be the place we would have to go to if we were hoping to regain our once youthful appearance!
There we could have all of our gravity affected parts rejuvenated, but at this stage of our lives, it could possibly lead to "things" being lifted too far and we could end up with popping eyes and a goatee....albeit somewhat thinned out!


Soooo...my sense of humour being as it is, I immediately got a picture of the end result in my head and, giggling off into he kitchen to get dinner ready, I decided to put my "head picture" into being...and after spending all afternoon on it...here she is!

Except for the "eyes" and "goatee", which I sourced on-line through Google and compiled them myself in Photoshop, most other images bar the top border, are from Crowabout and the boots are from TumbleFishStudio. The top border is Pixel Music but I apologise for not knowing where I got this collage set from.

An altered Cabinet Card-SteamPunk Style

       This altered Cabinet Card, SteamPunk style, was made for our June Mixed Media swap on Paperarts.

                               There were only four of us in it and we had to use a genuine Cabinet Card.

                            Our ATC theme for June was 1950s Domestic Goddess. This is my entry.
                                       Mona's head on a 1950s Pin-Up girl's body....glasses added.

My Clever Grand Daughter

    My 10 yr old grand daughter loves "arting" with me and has taken to making ATCs using up my left overs.
                                          She actually began doing these when she was 9.
                                                              Click on them to enlarge.

                                                                                                     

Now I am proudly showing them off to the world....and she is very excited that they are on my blog and would love some cawments on them.She uses up my off-cuts very well don't you think?

Another Recycled Jewelry Doll .

"Time to Play"

                                This one is so cute! She is only about 5 inches long and I  
                                          think she would look great as a pendant.