25th Birthday Dinner Photos

I'm not really intending to put too much info about my life on this blog, since it was really created just to show off whatever craft pursuits I happened to be creating, but I figured since birthdays only come once a year a few photos should be fine. :)
It's my birthday this Tuesday, so I arranged to go out to dinner with some friends last Saturday. We just popped down to the local Malysian restaurant then came home for cake. It was a great night, lots of laughter and good company.

Donna, me and Sarah mucking around for photos, first at the restaurant and then at home.

It's not a birthday without cake! Benny made me a rasberry swirl cake with pink icing.

Benny and I relaxing after a great night out.

Pretty Colours and a Ladybug

I have quite a few different art trades coming due soon so of course today I spent making totally unrelated and unnecessary art! :( I should probably just be happy to be getting some craft done. I'm starting to slip into the terribly unmotivated stage of unemployment where you spend the whole day playing the Xbox or just wandering around the house in your PJs.

So the LO above is really just a quickie, it's for the Boxx weekly challenge. This week we had to use at least 4 different colours and have the word 'colour' in the title. I do have such a paper fetish. I went into my local scrapbooking shop today just to hand in my 2 challenge LOs for the month and pick up last months and I STILL walked out with a new sheet of paper! It's pretty and sparkly, you'd want it too. ;)

This little ladybug ATC is the result of my playing around with different mediums and techniques. Rubber stamped ladybug, watercolour pencils, kindyglitz over the top of the shell so it's a bit raised and sparkly. Background is acrylic paint with texture paste so it's bumpy and rubber stamps. I'm not sure whether I want to trade this one or keep it.

An Odd Collection of ATCs

So I've created a odd assortment of ATCs over this weekend. Besides finishing off 12 of the Roaring 20's themed ATCs for the Addicted To Scrap swap later this month, I also created the following three cards.
The above card was a request for a 'zombie couple in love'. The idea was so far removed from what I normally do that I just had to give it a try. While it's pretty cartoony, I'm happy with it.

So this card is the result of a request for a whimsical frog. I love frogs of all varieties, so I couldn't pass up a chance to draw another one. It was fun to use less realistic colours too.

This last card is the result of using up some line-art I had lying around from another swap I took part in. It's also a lesson on drawing in the background before you shade the main character - I've got the lighting coming from the top right rather than through the window, hence why it's a night scene rather than day.

I've also been working a bit scrapping Sarah's belated engagement present. It's making progress, slowly, but there's a lot of pressure for it to look good (only from me, I think Sarah will be happy anyway).

Mothers Day Card and Roaring 20's ATC

I received an email from my mum today saying she has finally received the Mothers Day card I sent her. Seems even express post takes 1.5 weeks to get from Australia to China. I think my mum is the only person I make cards for, except for the occasional one for my partner, Ben. Here is the card I made for her this year:

There's a pretty big shadow on the card because it's actually four layers of paper tole. We have a background layer, the sheet music layer, the piano layer and then the man layer. It's from a stamped image, and I coloured each layer with watercolour pencils. The image was then mounted on black paper, which was mounted on the cream card and then the card was edged in bronze ink. The rubon phrase was added as the final touch. Mum is very happy with the card.

This is the card I made her last year for her birthday. Very happy with the way it turned out. She almost threw it in the bin though, because she didn't realise it was in the package along with the gift.

I've been playing around with some ideas for my coming trade at Addicted to Scrap. The themes this month are Roaring 20's/Vintage AND autumn, so I want to get started early since 24 cards will take a while to make. My first attempt at the Roaring 20's theme is below.

I felt that it was lacking something though. After getting some suggestions from some of the lovely people over at ATCsforAll I made a second version. I think this one is more what I'm going for, though I really did like the background in the first one. Not sure if I could manage to do it again though, it was a bit of a fluke.

Which one do you like the most?

Gypsy Ladies

There's a Gypsies and Vagabonds swap currently going on at ATCsforAll that I just had to sign up for. I really like the bright colours and dancing, so I tried to capture those elements in my cards. I think these have a bit more detail than my typical work, so I'm happy with that.

Year 11 Formal LO

This is my entry for the Addicted to Scrap monthly product challenge. We had to use the Karen Foster School Dance stickers and background paper (I cut it up into the word strips). It gave me such a challenge, because I just couldn't get the yellow to work for me. I think they would have looked much nicer with some sepia vintage photos. Happy enough with the end result though. Still have no idea why I thought it would be a fashionable idea to wear a pearl necklace to a year 11 school formal though. :(

He Loves Bubbles

I found some time to whip up a new scrapbooking layout yesterday, amoungst a massive spring clean of my kitchen and lounge room. This one is for the Addicted to Scrap monthly sketch challenge. I was worried that Benny would be a annoyed at the photos I used since he looks a bit silly, but his love of bubbles won out and he loved it. :)

Still MORE ATCs

I have to say, you can sure get a lot of art done when you don't have a job! I decided that the best way to clean up my desk is to try to finish off some of the half-done projects I have just sitting around. Managed to get three more ATCs completed. The first two are acrylic paint over a printed image that came in a photo frame I purchased ages ago. I've had the basic acrylic down for quite a while but wasn't happy with it, so it got pushed aside. Since I've been doing more acrylic work recently I decided to give it another try. Added a bit more of my own shading to the pieces, rather than just letting the shading of photo come through. Pretty happy with the end results.

The card below was done using some line-art I had drawn for a previous swap. I've had her half-coloured for quite a while. Yeap, that is my pathetic version of a background. :)

Landscape ATCs and a clown

It was a fairly productive weekend for me, as I managed to finish off another 5 ATCs. You can see below 4 landscape cards I which I have painted in acrylics for a swap over at ATCsforAll. They are based on four of my favourite landscape cards I have received from other artists.

Based on a card by Crafty412

Based on a card by LJPaints.

Based on a card by EasyOut.

Based on a card by Lynn101.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm a bit concerned that my style for the Addicted To Scaps monthly ATC trade is too 'cute'. I decided to play around with my clown stamps some more and see if the idea I had would have worked if it had been executed differently. For the guy below I used the same background paper and technique but also scrunched it then dyed it with a tea-bag. I made sure I used more muted colours for the clown, and didn't blend them with water like on the other set. I think this version suits the rest of the group much better, so I'll have to consciously remember to stay away from 'cute' next month.

Autumn Tree ATC and Zorbing

For next months swap at my local scrapbooking store, Addicted To Scrap, we need to do the themes Roaring 20's/Vintage and Autumn. Since that means I need to make 24 cards, I thought I'd try to get an early jump on them. After the clown swap last week, I'm feeling that my cards tend to be too 'cute' for the rest of the group. Since they're all lovely ladies, no one has said anything, but I do have a very different style to the others. Anyway, I thought I'd try a more mixed-media appraoch to my work for the autumn card. The result it below. I think it's still too cute though, probably the bright colours I use, so it's going to be available to trade and I'll make another attempt later.


In other craft news I have made a Mothers Day card for my mum, but I can't show it here since I gave her the link. I'll post a photo once I know she's received it.

Non-craft related activities I've participated in recently include watching Ben roll down a massive hill. For our 7-year anniversary I bought him a gift voucher for a Zorb harness ride. Since it's almost expired (our 8-year anniversary is one month away!) he finally booked in to give it a go. If anyone in Australia has seen the 3 Mobile TV ads with the cricketers bouncing round in rubber balls - that's pretty much what Zorbing is. You can do either a dry run, where you get strapped in and tumble end over end down the hill, or a wet run, where you sit or jump around inside the ball along with 40 litres of water. You can do the wet one with up to three people.

Benny looking fairly confident at the entrance to the park.

Ben is actually in that ball, rolling down the hill. Its a 130m track and you can get up to 35km speed.

Finally, a little pale but safe at the bottom. He said it was a great experience.