Alice ATC Book

As part of a "Secret Swappers" group on UKScrappers we have a few projects going, one of which is an ATC book on the theme of Alice in Wonderland.There are 14 of us and each person picked a theme within the theme and made 14 ATCs. These will then be sent to our talented host Rebecca who will assemble one of each in a little book for us. Having seen some of the other ATCs Im really excited about getting this little book back.

For my theme I chose keys, locks and playing cards. I had some gorgeous paper from 7 Dots Studio designed by one of my favourite mixed media artists Anna Debrowska-Pecocka called "Wonderland" Alice themed grungy paper. Some of the papers have a playing card theme.

For each ATC I cut two pieces so I could glue 3 sides together leaving the top unglued. Before I glued them I inked 14 chipboard keyholes and 14 keys. I cut a hole in the front piece of the ATC so when i attached the keyhole to it you could see through the hole. I then attached the two ATC pieces together. I cut 14 small rectangles and wrote a quote from Alice on the front and signed the back, punched a hole in them and attached them to the keys with thread. I wrote pull me on all the keys. I printed another alice quote out ("There were door all round the hall but they were all locked") and attached it to the front of the ATCs around the keyholes then slipped the rectangular quote inside leaving the key hanging out.

So if that makes any sense, here they all are together...

I put some of the keyholes dead centre but others I placed depending on the pattern of the paper and the oddly placed keyholes are my favourites. Here are two of them...

The one on the left is my favourite :o) Once you pull the key this handwritten quote comes out....

And turn it over and you see my name and the number on the back...

So I hope my fellow swapees like them and as I said Im really excited to get the little book back...

Siân :o)

Time of my life...

As part of the Rock ressurected Circle Journal Im participating in I received a CJ and the theme was lyrics created in an art journaling style. I discovered art journaling late last year and I've really taken to it. I've always written diaries I find it cathartic and therapeutic and as all scrapbookers will relate to its a great source for remembering your life by looking back through old diaries. But diary writing can be tedious and hard to keep up every day and sometimes there just needs to be more to it than writing - writing doesn't always express exactly how you feel - often there are no words. That's where the art comes in. A splat of paint sometimes says more than any amount of words could. The way it drips down the page as if in sync with your feelings.

Art journaling is great for privacy too as depending on what you create only you has to know its true meaning. Only you know what you meant when you sprayed, painted and stamped your feelings all over the page.

Best of all its not something you need to have a special talent to do. Yes, some people are better than others at it but it is something anyone can learn the basics of.

But back to the reason for the post. I had to create a double layout (each page 8x8) in art journaling style about some lyrics that mean something to me. I collect lyrics - I love words and how powerful they can be especially in song form - so I had a lot to choose from but it didn't take me long to decide once I really thought about it.

I chose Green Day's "Good Riddance (time of your life)"

I added the first verse and the chorus to the page then I wrote something on why I chose it...

"This song reminds me that life is a journey. Good & bad experiences make us who we are. Life is precious and short and at the end I hope I can say I had the time of my life"

I used a gesso base and covered it with green and yellow paints, I used a lot of white in the middle to blend the two together and was pleased with the final result. I used some Tim Holtz stamps, a tattered angels spray and a bottle top to stamp the circles.

I added large pics of the band and logo then I added two "polaroids" of two of my tattoos as a line in the song is "tattoos of memories". This is the only place I wavered from the colour scheme. I just couldn't change the purple butterfly to any other colour. Its messy in places but I figured its art journaling - its paint - it can't be perfect :o)

So although I like it what really matters is that the CJ owner likes it and I hope she does. Its a gorgeous CJ.

What have I been up to lately?

It has been brought to my attention that I haven't blogged for a while, so if you're reading Rebecca, yes you are to thank for this post :o)

Craft wise I have a lot on at the moment, and ME wise I feel terrible. The two obviously don't mix so when it comes to blogging what I've done that really is bottom of the pile. But as I like to look at other blogs its nice for others to be able to see my stuff too.

Im currently doing:

• A tag swap - theme "hexagons"

This is the backgrounds (though I re-did the last one)

First tag is called, "Someone else's eyes"

 

 

Second tag is called, "The Bad Daughter"

 

 

The last tag is called, "A teenage philosophy"

Im also participating in:

• An ATC swap - theme "Alice in Wonderland" - to be blogged once they are finally finished
• A frame swap - each person uses a Tim Holtz configurations box or similar and decorates it in their partners theme.

 and a number of circle journals (CJs)

• A Rock themed CJ
• A general themed circle journal
• A pair journal (like a CJ but there's only two of you) the journals are called "Turn it up!" and "Attitude".
• 2 art journal CJs - the theme for my first one is "word play" I will list words in the front of the journal and its up to each person to choose one or more words and create an art journal page based on the word(s)

I've also finished my first ever piece of "mail art". This involves creating a postcard in any shape or style and sending through the post "naked" ie not covered up so the postman can see it, to a person on a list specifically created for this type of art.

Well I think that might be it... feels like I've forgotten something.... Im sure it will come back to me. In the meantime here are the tags i did for the April "whatever" tag swap...

 I've nearly finished a few other things so hopefully it won't be too long until I blog again...

Later potata's....

Siân

Through My Window & Some ATCs

Hello :)

I've just completed an entry for a Circle Journal called "Through My Window". It was what you wanted to see through your window and it could be ANYTHING. And I was glad as although looking at my back garden, my neighbours back garden, the street over there and the East Lancs road is quite nice (believe me I've had much much worse views) if I could choose to see anything its unlikely my imagination would stop there. Instead my imagination went here...

So what is through my window? The text reads... "Through my window I see art and beauty everywhere, every colour and wonder of nature, every season and all of time brought together in harmony. I see dream upon wings and hear music that sings to my soul. I see poetry written upon flowers and under the stars a moonlit swing waits for me beneath rustling trees that glisten with magic."

The bottom two pictures are my matching sign in tag.

Now... ATCs. I joined the ATC swap in March because there was no tag swap and it was a free subject. I was itching to do something that wasn't confined to a specific subject as a lot of my swaps have had quite set themes lately. So I had to create 5 ATCs on whatever I liked. I rarely create the same piece twice and so I made 5 different ones and here they are:

1/5 - "Freedom"

2/5 - "Punk Rock Giraffe" (Octopode digital image)

3/5 - "Penny Farthing" - Stampotique image

4/5 - "The Hangover" - Octopode Factory image

5/5 - "Dreamer" - (using Anna Dabrowska-Pecocka's Dreamer papers)

Mystical Steampunk Cats???

They said it couldn't be done. And they, whoever they are, are probably right. But I have to say I think I did a pretty good job of creating a matchbox shrine on the theme of mystical, steampunk and cats. My swappee wanted any one of these themes but after some joking around on the swap thread (on UKScrappers) I knew I had to incorporate all three! At first I planned to do a large matchbox on the mystical theme with two smaller matchboxes inside one steampunk, one cats. But as often happens in the creative process something else appeared. And here it is!

It's fastened with some grungeboard hinges that i inked with Pine Needles Distress Ink. the hinges attach to two small brads. The outer box is covered with paper from the DCWV "Immortal Love" paper stack, based on the twilight series. Inside I've used hunkdory paper. I've used teal paint to cover the ends of the matchbox.

Underneath the lid is a steampunk image from Jem's Designs Steampunk for Men CD. I've inked a chipboard cog and glued it over the top and then placed a black cat on top of that. The rest is metal embellishments.

The inner part of the matchbox has three images, the middle one taken from a Josephine Wall cd and the outer two taken from a Jem's Designs Unicorns cd. I've attached the images to dark purple mirrorboard and attached them to the box with ten layers of foam pads so they reach the edge of the box. I added the tree charms to the message which follows on from the large "Imagine" on the outside (Imagine the mysteries contained within your soul)

And finally a side view complete with the usual mess on my craft table. Actually its hugely tidier than usual. Now just the wait to see if swappee likes it.

Steampunk Screen

Another swap for UKScrappers. This time a mini 8 inch high four panel screen as featured in Craft Stamper magazine. We were to create our own in the style of our swap partner. My swap partner wanted steampunk. As luck would have it I'd ordered a Steampunk craft CD that day from Jem's Designs and being quite a fan I had some chipboard and metal embellishments - not enough of course so I had to order more, you understand!!

In Craft Stamper one side was patterned paper and the other was more decorative and embellished so working along those lines I decorated one side first:

I added the smaller panels matted onto black cardstock at the end as I felt the panels looked a bit flat. On the other side I covered the panels with a background paper from the digi kit Robot Rust available at Daisytrail for Craft Artist. Then I added inked and embossed steampunk embellishments.

I took plenty of photos but haven't got the hanging of lighting on my camera yet. The first shot was taken with the flash on which on the camera screen looked a lot better. The second shot was without the flash. The first picture shows the colour more realistically.

I attached the panels with metal eyelets and copper wire.

Finally I made a card for my swapee:

Thankfully I've heard from her and she likes it. Phew!

Spaghetti or No Spaghetti?

I've just completed my latest entry for the UKScrappers Rock Ressurected Circle Journal. This month was Sarah's amazing idea of creating a box filled with records and empty record sleeves. The challenge was to pick an album we loved but whose cover we thought was well... rubbish! Then we had to create a better version.

I decided to go for Guns N Roses' "The Spaghetti Incident". The reason being it is an album full of punk cover songs and the cover is a plate of spaghetti - and Im not talking lovely spag bol either Im talking spaghetti out of a tin. Take a peek:

With it being punk, I decided to create a cover that was punk inspired. I had a look at a number of punk covers, punk art and the punk style and tried several different versions of the final cover. I tried stamping, painting, cutting, gluing... but the one I preferred the most was one I created digitally then stamped over with a Tim Holtz stamp using bright pink and bright yellow. So here's the reveal...

The record reads: "I chose this album because I love GNR and their Appetite for Destruction cover was amazing but this - yuck! Apparently it's an in joke to do with a fight involving spaghetti that the police called "The Spaghetti Incident". But it's a punk album so I've tried to bring the cover back to PUNK with punk inspired alpha and stamping. I've used bright colours associated with punk art and possibly the only early picture of GnR NOT wearing glam outfits, makeup and hair! It was the punkiest pic I could find. I defo feel less sick looking at this new cover!"

Oh and I realised after I'd finished that my record opens from the top not the side - ahh well, call me a rebel! And that's what punk is all about!

Hope you like it Sarah xx