Garden Wall Postcard

My final painting for Jean Fine Art Flowerpot 4" x 6" swap. I really enjoyed stretching myself with this swap both by trying out a larger size and by having to create a more complete picture than I usually do. I'm looking forward to the returns for this swap as some amazing art has been entered.

Hyacinth Macaw ATC

I had a few hours spare so pulled out my book on parrots to use as a reference for this card.

Frangipani Pot 4x6

Here is my second card for the Flowerpot 4" x 6" swap. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, though the water effects are hard to do. Acrylic paints again, I think this one took about 3-4 hours.

Tulip Vase 4x6

As you probably know, I've been enjoying trying my hand at acrylic paints recently. I figured that only working on the small ATC scale could be a bit limiting though, so signed up for a 4" x 6" flowerpots themed swap. I hadn't really counted on how much longer this larger size would take me! This is the first card I have created:

More Lighthouses

Here are two more ATCs I painted of Byron Bay lighthouse. They will go in the post tomorrow.

Lighthouse ATC

A lighthouse themed swap was started over at ATCsforAll.com just a few days after Ben proposed to me at the Byron Bay lighthouse, so of course I had to sign up. :) It's taken me a while, but here is my first card. I still need to rush through two more and get them sent out ASAP. Reference photo was one of mine.


In other news, I just got a call to offer me a temporary job! Only three months to begin with, but it will at least give me some experience and money. YAY! :)

Attack of the Undead... and Ladybug ATCs

I have had some time to finish off a few cards I started before heading to Melbourne last week. Firstly, we have a set of three for a Zombies, Vampires and Other Undead swap. I chose to do Frankenstein's Monster, a zombie and a mummy. All done in watercolour pencils.

I also found another ladybug swap, so I had to sign up for that given my love of the little bugs. It's actually a pretty mixed-media card and each ladybug has dimensional magic on their shell to give it a hard gloss coating.

Edit: I was looking at the ladybugs again before I sent them off and decided that they weren't quite finished. A quick extra few stamps of some leaves and some white gel pen accents have given them that bit of pop they were missing before, I think.

My engagement party!

Just a quick warning that this post if photo intensive. I wanted to show off some of the best shots from my engagement party on Saturday night. It was such a fantastic night and great to catch up with so many friends that we haven't had a chance to see in a while.

We'll start off with some family shots:



Photos of my lovely fiancee and I:

Photos with friends:

Showing off all the lovely cards we received:

Engagement Venue

Ben and I checked out the engagement venue with Charles today to finalise numbers and decorations. The place seems very nice. It should be the right size for the number of people we're having. I've included below some photos of the outside of the building we took while there. We decided to carry out the purple and gold theme with the decorations inside, just some balloons and table runners. Bit upset that the dress I've bought is blue, since it wont match. The dress itself is nice though and I'm happy to finally have something to wear. We also booked the cake today, we're going with a chocolate sponge with butter cream and raspberry jam inside, covered in pure chocolate icing. It wont match the theme, but I'm thinking of buying some decorations to go on top maybe.