Not a happy bunny!!

I have been off line for two and a half days thanks to my unmentionable server, isn't it an awful feeling - no connection to anyone, the fact that it doesn't actually affect your real everyday life has nothing to do with it but your cyber life just closes down - how silly, anyway I've just got back on line and i won't swith off until bedtime, lots to catch up. The worst thing was that the night before it went off I had signed up for a 'Encrusted Crazy Patchwwork' course, that was due to start the next day. The atc I have posted is a thank you one i received from a fellow Ratty Tatty papers person, I think it is lovely and uses my favourite technique with the napkins, and I must add that since the course I have enough napkins to cater a wedding.

Playing with Tyvek

The last workshop of Ratty Tatty Papers came thro' today and I enjoyed painting and heating pieces of Tyvek , it takes colour well and they stay vibrant when heated, one piece, I zapped with a heat gun and added gems in the 'hills and hollows, then mounted it on to two layers of silk, I think this will look good framed, i'll mount the whole piece onto another piece of the beige silk then get a bigger frame.

So Brave!!

I am having a big, craft room, clear out and being really good by throwing out all those bits I kept but have never used, I've filled bags with rubbish, where does it all come from!!, anyway I have done about one third of the sorting but at least have a clear work space and clear computer desk, I really must have let things go, I'll finish off the other storage units gradually. Had a lovely day at Telford on friday at the Crafts4crafters show, Wendy came over from Wales and we had a good spending day, so I'm throwing out to make room for the new stuff. The MAMMA group has started an altered art swap and the first was an altered cd with an oriental theme so here is mine, collage and stamping with ultra thick embossing and lightly embossed paper beads. As I was writing this I suddenly realised I hadn't seen the cd for a couple of days - panic!! - luckily I found it safely tucked away in the scanner.

Altered ATC

The Jan/feb challenge in New Inspirations was to make a matchbox shrine from an old atc so I found an old one I had, took it apart and made this matchbox shrine, the front is the old atc which had been embellished with the friendly plastic sun, I printed off the picture, embossed an old tomato puree tube for the roof,reapplied the sun and added some shells to the base and there you have it - a 'Shrine to the Sun'

ATC swaps finished

Have finished the last set of ATCs, they were for a blue and silver fabric swap, I had a bit of a panic as I found that I didn't have that much blue fabric or silver braid etc so out came the embellisher machine to make some blue felt for a background and a flower to add to that which I had, hopefully they are ok for the theme. Now it's on to lesson five of Ratty Tatty Papers, this weeks lesson is working with different papers so will pick the bit that appeals to me the most.

Odds and Ends

I am still finishing off my committed atc swaps but over the weekend I managed to make a book to put my tags and arches etc in and then turn a photo bag, that i had bought, into an atc bag - I have put the photo here.

Doorways

This weeks theme on ABAA is Doorways, this reminded me that I had an atc which would fit this theme, I then decided to redo it but as a gothic arch, it is fairly simple with collage and stamping but it certainly is a doorway.

'Half Term'

This week we are having a break in the course work on Ratty Tatty Papers so I am having a change and catching up on some ATC swaps that I have committed to,I've managed to complete two sets and have one to go, the set pictured is the Vintage Romance Fabric Swap. Despite my better judgement i have used some vintage lace on a couple, I found it in a charity shop in Whitby, it was very discoloured and I soaked a small piece to see what would happen, it did lighten a little and that is what i used, the pink flower and leaf on the 'romantic' card is from Viv, I am feeling very good letting go of some of my stash - admitted a very small part.

ABAA Challenge

I was inspired by seeing that Jan had entered a 'Milagros' heart for the ABAA challenge and thought I would like to have a go as it was something very different, but what to use?, then I opened a little drawer and found some silver wire hearts that i had bought last year so I coloured one with alcohol inks and mounted it on gold card, then I found a (hopefully) suitable picture put it on to mount board and triple embossed it, added a gem heart and fixed it to the backing. Milagros are small religiuos charms that are found in Mexico and Peru, the word Milagros means Miracle.

Disaster Piece Redone.

As the original piece is still behind the cooker (glad I gave you all a giggle) I have had to re do it, hopefully it is as good as the other would have been. I have put up 4 pics that show the process I went through to get to the finished piece, it involved a print on soluble paper, stitching, nail varnish and dissolving the paper then fixing it to painted tissutex on felt. This time I didn't let go thro' the drying process.

More Course Work

This week it was using soluble paper in different ways, I first made some small moulded pieces by using the wet paper on rubber stamps - see the tag, it has a crackled piece under the bird. The second piece was well on the way to completion and I took it into the kitchen to dry it with the hairdryer, I let go of it for a second and it blew down behind the cooker and guess what - we can't move the cooker- so it's back to the drawing board, just hope the next piece comes as good as the first did!

One Lovely Blog Award

Connie has passed this blog award on to me and I am passing it on to Ati in Norway- her Blog always has a lovely piece of stitching to check out and it would be lovely to enjoy a cup of coffee with her .

Extracted!

Nothing to show at the moment, I've been suffering very bad toothache from a loose tooth that I was desperately trying to hang on to , anyway a very gentle Dentist removed the problem this morning and i am pain free at last so hopefully will begin to feel productive again.

Back to Zetti

The theme for this weeks MAMMA swap was Zetti so had to think back and sort out the zetti rubber stamps, anyway managed to come up with a couple that will hopefully fit the bill. later today I'm going to start playing with water soluble paper for lesson four of my course - what will emerge I wonder.

What a day Cont'd

Just taken this photo looking down our garden (4.20pm) - sorry it looks a bit blue.

What a day!

Our fellow bloggers in Australia are apparently experiencing high temperatures and we in the UK have a white out, we haven't seen so much snow for a long while and apparently more to come overnight. My pictures today are 2 ATCs that I made using the technique in my magazine that was given to make a book cover - I used - scrim,tissue,cord,glue,paint, punched flowers and a couple of buttons , they turned out well but a lot of work for a little ATC.