Happy Post - ATC's July 2011

I had some happy post this morning which makes up for the bills etc that we found when we came from our holiday on Tuesday.

You may remember that I entered an ATC swap with lenna over at creative swaps and today the return ATC's arrived.  However, the first thing to catch my eye was the lovely stamps on the front of the envelope!

Plenty of blue here too which is the colour that I chose to use for my Colour My World ATC's.

Three lovely ATC's based on the theme of colour arrived.  Blue, green and pink.

This lovely card has been made by Sue E and is called "Tickled Pink" which is lovely.  In the UK we have a charity called Tickled Pink which raises money for Breast Cancer Research which I support so this is very appropriate.  There is so much on this card.  Very textiles based with braids, buttons and a stamped butterfly.  Lovely.

This card uses my favourite colour of Blue and was made by Barbara J from Wheaton IL.  It is called "Change of Seasons".  Very graphic design and I really like the textured paper which has been used.

Finally, a green ATC which is called "Seafoam Green" and uses lovely textured paper as the background and punched butterflies and leaves.  A yellow gem plus "Fly Free" written down the side.  I am flying free until 5th September when term begins again.

This card was made by Jo J from Indianapolis, IN.

Now, I have taken part in several different ATC swaps and nearly half have had the same surname of Johnson!  They are all different people, but still quite a coincidence I think.

I will now email these lovely ladies to thank them for their cards and put them in a file that I have for my ATC's.  Eventually I want to display them when I have collected a few more as I like to see work that has been sent to me and actually make items out of swaps that I receive.

Many thanks to lenna for organising yet another great Creative Swap.

xx

Creative Giveaway

I first took part in a Creative Swap in about 2008. 

It was to design and make a bag for a bag swap.  I still have the bag which was sent to me as part of the swap and in fact all of the swap items are still with me and I make a point of "making" them into something to show them off.  I have tried to find the pictures but when I started my blog I was perhaps not very organised with my tag words so now they are "buried" within my blog.  Never mind.

I did find this one though and the link here where there is a full post on this.

This was another recent entry in 2011 and I did make some extra versions for my card box at work.

So, getting back to the aim of this post.  Lenna, who hosts Creative Swap blog is having a 1000 post giveaway and if you would like to join in, it only takes a minute to click, then pop over.  If you are interested in making ATC's, scrap booking, art jounaling, texture work and much more then this is worth looking at.

1000 posts.....crikey!  That is a lot of typing and in my case a lot of potential typing errors too!

Click on the badge in the margin at the top of my blog.

xx

ATC July Swap - Colour my World Blue

I have signed up to take part in the Creative Swaps Colour my World July ATC swap.I have decided to focus on the colour blue and various shades of blue. I decided to make three and three others will in time be sent to me. I used pre-cut ATC cards as I know that they will be the right size.

I put the cars through a sizzix bigshot with an embossing folder with flowers and vines, which I thought would make a good base. I then used watercolours to lightly put a wash over the top of the embossing. gave a depth of colour. Some white is showing through and I hope that is ok as I have sent them off and then had an awful thought. I am very new to ATC etc, well I hope they are ok.

I then punched out some flower shapes and highlighted petals using a sharpie pen. Some navy blue tissue paper was added down the left hand side using PVA to give a bit of texture. Some 3D paint was added into which I pushed some beads.

Using the computer I printed out some text and added this to the cards. A hand stitched button to give a crafty/textiles angle to the idea.These ATC cards also come with envelopes so these were also passed through the sizzix machine and a light wash of watercolour added.Then to finish off I added my details on the back using the printer and some lovely blue textured paper. They were sent off today and will hopefully arrive at Lenna's house within a few days.

I really like making these little works of art and I would like to sign up for another very soon.
Some good news, I took my damaged laptop into PCWorld today and they have sent it off to have the screen fixed. Hurrah, just hope it does not go missing. oh I am such a cynic, sorry. Then Sophie left my brand new glasses in the building Society today at a cost of £188 pounds. I have emailed an employee who gave me her card when I opened an ISA saying I would be in early on Monday. I so hope they are still there, I have not even worn them, I have waited two weeks for them. They are still in the packaging and I only asked her to hold them so that I did not drop them whilst writing out a cheque. So you gain with the one hand and loose with the other. There you go.....

It is lovely weather here today, do I dare to hope that we may actually have a summer this year, shuushhhh, perhaps we should only hope and not say anything out loud!

Take care

xx

Vintage Card Swap

I recently took part in a creative swap with Lenna. Due to work (as always) I have not been able to take part in one for some time. Once you commit to a swap you do need to see it through so I waited until I could submit my entry. In fact I was early with it. I did post about my entries some time ago.

My entries can be seen here.

Below are the cards which were sent to me in return.

The above is a lovely card which uses a range of papers. I love anything with flowers such as roses on it and the lace at the bottom is real, along with the buttons too. Created by Leslie.
This one also has lace as part of the design and a fabric swatch at the bottom. The colours tone in with the card above. Created by Trish.

The lace theme is continued with the final card. This lace looks vintage to me and the little girl has a delightful face. I wonder who she is? Created by Margriet.

Again, the colours blend in with the ones above. i think the selection that Lenna sent me has been thought about very carefully. I will now need to think carefully how I will present them. I have always displayed work that I have been sent as part of the creative swaps and hung them around my house. These lovely cards will also be displayed and put on show.

Many thanks to Leslie, Margriet and Trish for their lovely work and to Lenna for all of the hard work that goes into organising the swaps.

xx

Vintage Note Cards - Creative swaps

It has been some time since I last took part in one of Leena's creative swaps. Work has mainly gotten in the way, (I first took part in 2008, click HERE to see my other contributions) but at Christmas I decided to sign up for a Vintage card swap.

A large group of us needed to create three cards and we would in turn receive three cards back. I have made an extra one for the swap host Leena.

When we signed up we were also emailed a PDF with images that we could use to actually create the cards. Not having any vintage images within my own picture collection, I decided to use the ones on the PDF. The two cards above used two images of ladies using a sepia film. The card on your left is attached to a patterned clear velum sheet and an edging of pure cotton lace has been attached down the side to link with the lace on the dress in the picture. The other card is also presented on velum which has a rose on the front, a length of light brown ribbon and more lace .

The above card is on landscape with cream flower design on craft paper. The next vintage illustration is then added in the middle. To frame it I have then added more of the light brown tape down either side.
The final card is also on landscape and has a rose velum background added. More goldy tape and the image had some music along the bottom so I re-added that to the card as well.

We were also asked to maybe add design to the envelopes. No being too sure what to do here without it looking awful, I decided to keep it really very simple and then promptly forgot to take photos of them, doh! Sorry, it has been quite a two weeks lately and I am so tired I am not really sure where I am at the moment. You know that exhausted feeling.

They have now been sent off to Leena in America and then swapped with someone else's and I hope that they are ok as they are a completely different style for me to do.

Many thanks for the visits and comments for my i-touch cosy. The fabric was a fat quarter and I am now on the look out for some more!

xx

UPDATE: My cards have now safely arrived and are now featured on the Creative Swaps blog. They have been beautifully photographed.

Creative Swap Delivered to me...

Do not forget to enter my 300th post giveaway here. Just leave a comment!

I got home from work this week to find a very large white padded envelop sitting on the kitchen table. It was all the way from America and was the return swap from the 12" x 12" quiltie creative challenge that I had entered. It has been made by Barbara Roberts who lives in Florida. (I need to email her after writing this post to say thank you). The colours are lovely and there is a piece of fabric on the back with the details of how this quiltie was made. A lot of hard work and thought has gone into this quilite and as with all of the quilites that I have received I shall either put it in a frame or hang it up somehow. I do not know who has received mine yet and hope that it has not come all the way back to the UK which would be rather ironic wouldn't it?

The edge has been finished with some lovely braid so a lovely frame may be the answer. Some of the embellishment is 3d so I shall probably leave the glass out. This is a lovely piece of work and it will look lovely on the wall in our house.

I was lucky to be voted as one of the runners up and in the parcel from Lenna were some lovely stickers and gorgeous cross grain ribbonwhich I love using. Thank you Lenna I was not expecting a prize or anything like that, it was a lovely thought.

PS Remember to take part in my giveaway which ends on 17 th May @ midnight.
xx