A NEW YEAR....A NEW BEGINNING!

Hi all you lovely blog watchers, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas time and are ready to take on all the good times and the challenges that a new year presents.
I have actually been making ATCs again !!! Creating is great therapy when recovering from surgery. I had a full knee replacement the end of November which was the best impetus to find something I could do with my hands when sitting down most of the day.
So...here are some of the ATCs that I have made over the past few weeks.

The above are available to trade if anyone is interested.

The following have already been traded

Thanx for taking the time to pop in...would love you to leave a cawment or two.

I'm back.....maybe!

 HELLO FELLOW BLOGGERS

Can you believe I am actually posting again???....I have just spent some time looking back at my posts and the wonderful cawments (comments) from all of my on-line friends and fellow creative artists, and it appears that this has injected a desire in me to get back into arting!

As you will no doubt be aware, I have been AWOL from my blog AND creating ANYTHING for three...NO...it's over 4 years now, but I still find time and much pleasure in looking at others arty work. I do want to get back into my studio ....firstly to wipe away 4 years of dust and then find the time to sit and let my crazy, demented mind run loose and create some more wacky ATCs.

A lot of life has happened since I was last here, the worst of which was losing my eldest daughter three and a half years ago, after several years of her being quite ill. She was to come care for me after the accident but was too ill to do so, so we moved her from Queensland to here where I could look after her. During that time I was not up to arting at all.

May 2016, my sister and I went on a river cruise in Europe, from Paris to Barcelona. It was my gift to her for taking care of me after my accident...a few years in the coming but eventually worth waiting for! What a great time we had together...lots of wonderful memories for us both.

Over the last three year span, we have also had further renovations done to our home which caused more interruption to my "me time". I found out (the hard way) that one can't leave tradies on their own... it's like sending a boy out to do a woman's job!

We have had a lot of paving done and then had the front veranda tiled...and I                                  LURV it! The place actually looks finished now.

Last year, I did get up to my studio about 5 times with a girl friend, where we made tassel dolls out of our porcelain half dolls, but unfortunately life took over again for us both and that also stopped happening.

Two years ago, our very elderly parents went into care in Melbourne. They moved down there from Bendigo as I have a sister and brother there to visit them more often than I can. Prior to them moving, we were going back and forth to Bendigo about every month, taking it in turns with my siblings. From then on, it was back and forth to Melbourne instead!

Fourteen  months ago, my father passed away, 11 days after his 95th birthday.
Around the same time, a very dear friend passed away whilst on holidays in Europe with her husband. Two funerals in one week was very stressful!
Then, a few weeks later, my mother-in-law also passed away in Sydney at the age of 99 and a half.

Not long after that, I had an op on my left foot, which meant no climbing stairs for me during my recovery time....which is now over but still causing problems at times. OMG! Growing old sux....but it's  definitely  better than the alternative!

Soooo.....fingers crossed, I soon get up those stairs, blow away the dust bunnies, check if my arting supplies haven't all dried up and died and see if I can remember how to play!

                                               Happy arting everone!




Just as a side, thought I'd show you one of my half dolls that I made into an ornament. She is atop of a wire Christmas tree decoration, with added old lace and feathers. I made a little bird's nest out of copper wire and added a "mushroom" bird to it.

Clowning around

This little fellow I made for a friend's birthday. I used a Christmas bauble wire ball that opened for the body and he has the hands, feet and head of one of those cheap china dolls that one tends to find in an Op Shop after Christmas.

His collar is made from two different die-cut sheets of paper, one a harlequin I printed and the other from old newspaper print. His hat is a party popper cut down a little and has a tiny red jingle bell at the top. The frills around the base of the hat are tiny patty cake cases.

He has just had a clown fish for his dinner....LOL and says he's in fine shape cos there are no THIN clowns  to his knowledge anyway!

Altered Paintbrush and some Cage Dolls

Hi again folks.

As you know, I haven't been doing much "arting" up in my new studio these past two years, but I thought I should show you what I HAVE been able to get done.

Not having much time to play has not been of my own choice....family dramas and life in general has played a large part of my lack of "Mo-jo", but here we go with a few things I do have to show you.

Our PaperArts Group has had an Altered Paintbrush swap for the Mixed Media theme this month. I have used a paper-clay molded face but added magazine images for her eyes and mouth.

This is a close-up of her face.....I am finding it hard to send of to her new owner.....but mainly because I have had to work out how to make her stand. 

I may have to concede that she doesn't want to and add a hanger to the back of her head.

While on the subject of dolls...which I guess this paint-brush character would fall under the heading of such, I also have been smitten (always!!) by Santos Cage Doll.com but am not in the position to buy one as they are not only expensive but the postage cost is the killer!

So, my next images are of some that I bought in kit form from RetroCafeArt.com
I have managed to finish a couple of them but still have one waiting on my desk to be completed.

This one's cage is covered with harlequin paper, which I printed, backed with a medieval styled patterned paper and spotted paper for sleeves, crown and neck trim,which I also printed. I added  lovely vintage cotton lace for cuffs, puff sleeves, waist trim, behind her "crown" and along the hem of her dress. She has a paper face, which is one of my faves from Deviant Scrap  but I am afraid I can't recall from which designer.  My apologies to whom it may be. She has a little paper flower trim on her waist. Her arms are articulated at both shoulders and elbows.

Close-up of her face and the lace I used.

This next image is of  a shrine cage doll that I began to assemble whilst at my friend Bevlea's  place a couple of months ago. I painted her "cage skirt" cream and distressed it with a sanding block, then covered the rest of her with some beautiful blue tissue paper that Bevlea had coloured and stamped and gifted it to me for this doll. Bevlea also just happened to have the right coloured trim for her waist-line too...thanks heaps my dear friend, you helped to make her beautiful!

As birds are my favourite winged animals, I used her shrine for a nest. I adhered some music paper into the shrine then added a plastic egg, (thanx again Bevlea)which I painted blue and then Bevlea helped again by supplying a sweet little crystal to hang from the end of the egg. Unfortunately, this doesn't show up well in the photo. I found a little blue bird in my stash (much to Bevlea's disgust,I NEVER throw away ANYTHING as one never knows when it will be needed...vbg).

I used a molded paper-clay face (I have a box of them I made yonks back Bevlea...vbg) and tried to make it look a bit like a Santos Doll's....not too convincing I'm afraid but I am happy with her, and that's what counts.

I love the little blue birdie ...keeping his eye on the nest.

This is a close-up of her face...I shall have to try harder next time. Her crown is wooden and came in the kit.

And last but not least, here is a close-up of the shrine and the nest. I made the nest out of fine wood shavings. Pity you can't see the crystal.

I have been attempting to art again!

Oh my!!! Will wonders never cease??!! I finally have something to add to my blog. I am taking part in Marion Bocklmann's Annual ATC swap again this year, unfortunately having missed the last two years due to my accident injuries in 2012.

I have also made a few other things as well, and will try to get pics up of these after I add my entries for Marion's swap. This year's theme was "Bird People", which birds just happen to be one of my favourite themes to work with, so I hope these meet with approval. This is the Drake family, and as usual, there is always one little black duck in every family. 

Please note that Mrs Drake has had a "special do" just for this family portrait,  but I do think father could have taken more care with the razor!

 

Here we have Heron-aldo and his partner Flamingko participating the world championship Flaminko dancing. Such a handsome couple! I do believe they are worthy of winning the Gold Cup, don't you?

 

Ms Pea-henny is always careful to keep her future offspring close at hand. Too many times eggs are eaten by the two-legged, wingless creatures that roam the bushland for such culinary delights.

NOT DOING MUCH ARTING, but....?

I'm afraid I have been neglecting my blog for some time now but life has been hectic around me for a few months. 
However, I have managed to enter a couple of our  paperarts group's ATC swaps and am working on making some other swap items.

         This first ATC is from December last year. 

         The theme of the swap was "Steampunk Women".

At the time of this swap, I was still unable to use scissors as I      
   had had an operation on my hand so this one is a digitally
     compilation with rusty cogs and other findings added. 

 This month,January 2013, our theme was black and white only
   "Zentangles", which was a bit of a challenge to us all. 
    But it certainly took us out of our comfort zone of
                    "cut and paste" ATCs.
I apologise for such a long way to scroll but I used to be able to upload pics and display them side by side but for some reason known only to blog-land, they will now only load one below the other. 

                  

At first glance, each of the same design may appear to look the same as it's corresponding ATC but I found it difficult to make them EXACTLY the same so I decided to pop them all up here so the
                     differences can be seen.

BEEN PLAYING AGAIN!

Amongst all the busyness of my life at present, I have been able to find a few minutes of an evening to release my "mo-jo" and finish off the excess "Vintage Children" ATCs that were our last PaperArts  ATC swap.
I ran some of my rusted paper through the Cuttlebug to emboss them then distressed them a little more with Ranger  Distress Ink.

The old photo images were printed out on an adhesive backed transparency sheet, then I attached them to adhesive backed foil tape, which then gives the appearance of them being somewhat like the old "tin-type" photos.
I used slide folders on two of them, edged with copper tape and the third one is a tiny photo frame. I added a tassel to that one and vintage cotton lace to them all.


This next lot of ATCs were born from images and stash that has been even more cluttering up my work desk! However, anal retentive as I am, I couldn't stop until I had used all of my tiny frames that I have been hoarding FOR-EVA!!!

  

I cut up an old calendar to use for the backgrounds and used my new Bic texta type pens to add colour.

The Key to The Past

Our Paperarts Yahoo Group's bi-monthly Mixed Media swap for June was Hanging Houses.

We made one for each participant and one for ourselves.

This is my offering.

It is approximately 7 inches tall...a WEE bit bigger than required so I hope I am forgiven for that. 

I used part of a COLLECTIONS die cut CHIPBOARD for the house and corrugated silver cardboard for the roof which I distressed with Alcohol Inks.

I printed vintage images onto transparency sheets, backed them with silver tape and adhered them to the back of the cut-out shapes.

I added copper wire for the hanger and a key charm.

There is a little image in the "washer" window frame which is hard to see here. 

It is entitled

"The Key To The Past"

                                 
   

Body In A Cage Returns

These are the wonderful ATCs I received from Marion Bockelmann's Annual Swap.

Ingeborg Miko    Marion Bockelmann    Ulrike Kauffmann

Thanx once again for this great swap Marion, I look forward to next year's event.