Dark Fairytales

The latest swap I'm taking part in is for dark fairytales. While most fairytales are pretty dark anyway in terms of storyline they are generally illustrated in a very bright and colourful way. This swap specifically required the images to be darker. I went with Snow White, the Pied Piper of Hamlin and Little Red Riding Hood. I'm hoping the returns will be a nice addition to the collection of fairy tale cards I already have.

Red and Ribbon ATCs

I had my monthly live trade with the Addicted To Scrap group today. It was a bit sad as the store is closing down on the 8th of August. The girls have decided we will continue to meet at a coffee shop though, which is good news. The theme for this month was "red & ribbon" which had me a bit stuck. I'm pretty happy with the design I ended up with, except for the flowerpots.

Currently working on some trades over at ATCsforAll.com and some layouts that I'm hoping to enter into the Gold Coast show. Also stressing over arranging an engagement party. It's damn hard to do when we live in a different state to where the party will be held! Please wish me luck. :)

Inchies and ATCs

This post has a lot of pictures since I've done a lot of work recently. First up is a set of Pick-A-Theme Inchies I recently completed for a swap. The themes were sunflowers, coffee, flowers and oriental. It's been quite a while since I've done inchies, but I'm happy with the way they turned out. I will be receiving 24 ladybug inchies in return. :)

I offered to make a custom ATC for a lady I had requested a trade with and her chosen theme was mother and son. You can see the card below, done in watercolour pencils.

Finally, while I was once again trying to tidy up my craft desk I decided to try to turn some of those stamping technique samples into ATCs. You can see the results below. The teddy card was a combination of playing with stamps and playing with coffee for the inchies.

Forever Scrapbook LO and some ATCs

I was finally motivated to create another scapbooking layout. Its been quite a while since I made one of these. I saw the papers for this one in Riot Art and Craft and just had to buy them. I was concerned about getting the journalling to fit witht he paper, but I think it works quite nicely. I'm thinking of entering this one into the Gold Coast Show which is at the end of August.

Also, while cleaning up my desk I finished off a couple of half-finished ATCs. Here there are:

Acrylic Blossoms

Vintage Suprise

Spring Blossoms

May Pick-A-Theme ATCs

Here are the latest set of ATC's I've been working on. The top set had to be hand-drawn, while the bottom set had to be hand-painted. The majority of ATC's I've created since 2005 have been hand-drawn but I really enjoy painting and have recently started to spend some more time practicing. I think it's starting to pay off as I think this is the first time that I've prefered my painted cards over my hand-drawn ones. What do you think?

More Gesso Girls and Some Stamping Techniques

I received an email on Tuesday from my LSS advertising a stamping workshop they were running. The last time I can remember going to one of these would have been about 10 years ago with my mum and I have a storage container full of stamps that I'm simply not using, so I decided to head on down and check it out. Besides, you can't really go past $10 for a 3 hour class. I was suprised by how many of the techniques I already knew, though now they are done using more snazzy (and expensive) materials/supplies. The last time I did a class we still heated our embossing powder over a toaster! I found it funny that Karen taught the watercolour marker technique using special markers and a blending tool. It would have cost about $50 to buy the equipment. When I first learnt this technique we just used normal textas that were scribbled onto a ink pad lid and then painted on using any cheap old painting brush and some water. LOL Anyway, you can see all the little technique sample I created and got to bring home below. I think my favourites would have to be two using the brayer on the gloss cards (the purple and orange samples). I had forgotten how much fun that it, pity mum has the brayer and stamp pads.



I have also managed to grab some time to finish off some more of the gesso girls I showed earlier. These are a lot more normal or natural looking than the first three. I had fun with them but not sure if I'll do any more.