April Fool Photos

I thought I'd post pics of the April Fool ATCs which I received for last month's swap.  It was only a small swap but there were still plenty of different ideas of interpreting the theme.  Hope everyone enjoyed the cards they received back.

Joanne Parkin's

Louise Baxter's

Sheila King's

Mine

This month's swap "A Little Birdie Told Me" has attracted more interest - birds are proving a very popular subject this year - the closing date for this swap is 31st May, but there's still time to join in for anyone who's interested; I've already received some great-looking cards so you don't want to miss out on the chance to own one of them!

Since last weekend's residential (is it a week ago already?), I've been thinking about getting down to do some bead designing again and have been browsing the internet, books and magazines for some inspirational ideas ...... one or two things have caught my eye and now I'm letting the ideas "percolate" in my brain for a few days to see what bubbles up to the surface.  I'm thinking of new ways to combine my beads with the altered artwork, but it's too early to say any more just yet, have to see what I can come up with first!

New Swap - "A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD ME"

So here we are again, first of the month, and it's time to post a new ATC swap - sorry it's a bit late in the day, but a friend dropped by this afternoon and this is the first chance I've had to get on the computer.

For this month's swap, I thought I would choose one of my current favourite themes - birds.  As in previous swaps, you will need to make three ATCs and as the title suggests, each card should have an image of a bird (or birds) on it plus an image of a person - you may create your cards in any style, medium or technique of your choosing.  Here is a pic of an ATC I made some while back, which has an image of both a bird and a face on it - but this one has long been swapped out .....

Details about the swap are posted in the sidebar - hope a lot of you are inspired to have a go at this one ..... I welcome swappers both here in the UK and overseas, the more the merrier!

Thank you to those who joined in last month's April Fools swap - I've now swapped the cards out, they're packed up and ready to go, but I'll wait until Tuesday, after the Bank Holiday weekend, to post them out - hope everyone enjoys their returns.

Mirror Frame ...... finished!

As promised, here is a photo of my completed mirror frame.  After creating several embellishments for the frame, using a variety of techniques, at Lindsay's workshop, I was determined not to let it lie around half-done for several months.  So I made a few more embellishments, using the acrylic fragments and the bottle top, plus added extras that I found in my stash (the "dream" key and sticker, a tree charm picked up at Aintree, an oriental dragon/coin charm and a brass disc with a palmistry hand on it - I found this at the bottom of one of my jewellery boxes). 

As you can see, I've ended up with quite an eclectic mix of pieces, but many of them are quite meaningful - there's an image of Whitby Abbey in the bottle top (DH and I lived there for a year many, many moons ago and the view from our house looked straight across the harbour to the Abbey).  I was born in a Water Dragon year, according to the Chinese "astrological" system, so it's appropriate to have one on my mirror.  The buddha figure (created from a mould Lindsay had, using a mix of UTEE and Perfect Pearls) reminds me of one of our best, kindest and most generous friends, who is a buddhist.  The palmistry disc represents the interest I've had in the past in learning about astrology and palm-reading.  And of course, a cat had to feature somewhere on the frame didn't it .... considering that we are a family of cat-lovers and have shared our home with cats throughout our married life?  *LOL*

The "madonna" embellishment was begun in Lindsay's class.  We transferred a picture of our choice (mine was from one of the Crafty Individuals books) onto some adhesive-backed canvas - the image turned out quite pale so Lindsay suggested Glossy Accents may brighten it up a bit.  I folded the canvas over some card, edged it with gold Krylon, and then used Crackle Glossy Accents over the top - I was quite pleased with the final effect once it dried as it has taken on a sort of "mosaic" finish in keeping with the Italian Renaissance image.  I finished the frame off by rubbing some Gold Metallic Rub-On around the edges and between some of the individual pieces.  It's now hanging up in the hallway of our house so I can see it every day. 

A quick reminder now to say that the April Fools ATC swap is nearing its deadline, I have the cards in for this swap now so will be swapping out at the end of the week.  There were only three players besides myself for this swap, but I'm sure everyone will be happy with the ATCs they receive back.  Don't forget to check my blog again on 1st May, as it'll be time to post details of the new monthly swap then ...... I hope this one will appeal to more of you and that you'll consider joining in.

Butterfly ATCs - Pics

By now I think everyone will have received their butterflies and dragonflies from last month's swap, so I thought it was time to post pics of them all for everyone to see the lovely cards that were sent in.  Enjoy .....

Ali Brandist (Ali kindly sent an extra atc for me)

Joanne Parkin

June Benton

Lindsay Mason

Louise Baxter

Sandra Zengler

My Cards

I'm now looking forward to the cards coming in for this month's April Fools swap - still time to join in this one if you fancy having a go, deadline isn't till 30th April.

On Saturday I'm looking forward to going over to Oswaldtwistle (Dawn Bibby's Studio) to join a workshop being taken by my sister Lindsay - we're going to be creating a mirror frame (I know we're going to be using a melting pot at some stage for this one, so that's a new experience for me - would you believe I do have one, but I've not dared use it yet so it's just sitting gathering dust on a shelf)!  Does anyone else know that feeling - you acquire a new crafting tool or buy some beautiful paper, and then daren't use them either because you're scared of messing up or you just don't want to use the paper because you'd rather just look at it!?!  Anyway, must remember to take my camera with me then I can take some photos whilst I'm there.  I'll be taking my ATC stash too, so I might be able to do a bit of one-to-one swapping.

A Little Bit of "Grunge" ..... and more Vintage Gentlemen

First of all, I hope everyone has had a lovely Easter break, whatever you've all been up to - mine has been fairly quiet and I was able to spend some time creating a few cards and another page for my "grunge" chunky book (so now I have two pages completed).  Here they are .....

"Vintage Journeys"

"Heavy Metal"

Here are a few more vintage gentlemen images for you to make use of - if you fancy joining the April Fools ATC swap (details in the sidebar), remember that you can use any of these images on your cards if you wish.  There's still plenty of time to take part in this swap - the closing date is not until 30th April. 

Here is a card I made for the April Fools swap, using one of these vintage images .......

Thank you to everyone who joined in the Butterflies and Dragonflies swap - I received some wonderful cards and I'm happy to say these have all been swapped out now and flew out to you all today.  I'll wait a few days, so as not to spoil the surprise element, and then post pics of all the cards that were created for this swap.

Mia has been causing havoc again! ..... she zaps around so fast, she can hardly keep up with herself.  One of her favourite things to do is to launch herself at top speed into the kitchen (it's a long narrow one), jump onto the wastebin and then onto the windowsill, still at lightning speed.  So last night, I was there in the kitchen, making a brew, when she tore past at what seemed like 100mph and the next thing I knew there was a tremendous crash and the sound of something(s) clattering down onto the stone floor - Mia had been unable to put her "brakes" on and had collided with a jar of marbles I have sitting on the windowsill - the jar amazingly was not broken but there was a shower of marbles spilling out all over the floor in every direction - of course, by now Mia had flown out the room and was hiding upstairs ("nothing to do with me, mum"!) - what a handful Mia is, the mischief she gets up to .... we just wonder what to expect next!

New Swap Posted ...... April Fools ATCs

Well, here we are, 1st April - and so I thought it might be fun to make the theme for this month's swap April Fools (see the sidebar for more details).  I'm also adding some new images of vintage gentlemen for you all - you are absolutely free to use these images any way you like, but you might also want to use them on your cards for the April Fools swap.

In the meantime, Mia decided to play a real "April Fool" on us this morning!  I'd just let her out the window whilst I made a cup of tea and she was chewing at a mint plant growing in a pot outside (she seems to like the flavour of it) when all of a sudden she appeared to get something stuck in her mouth.  Well, the fun we had after that ..... she wriggled out of my arms when I tried to pick her up, flew into the house and upstairs, all fluffed up, with us in hot pursuit behind.  She was making a horrible crunching sound with her teeth and I was really worried she was doing some damage to them.  Tried wrapping a towel round her to calm her down (got scratched for my troubles) and opening her mouth (no, she kept her jaw clamped tight shut)!  We just had to let her go and then she seemed to calm down, settled in her basket and Graham reckoned whatever it was, she'd got rid of it and was going to be fine.  He then popped out to the post office up the road.

As soon as he'd left, Mia got up and went to her bowl to try and eat some food, but it was obvious she wasn't able to - she was still making the crunching sound and doing a "wretching" action.  The vets (luckily, right at the top of our road) were about to close in 10 minuts so I rang them up, said please would they still be open if I dashed round now and then I scooped Mia up into her basket, hopped into the car and drove round fast as I could.

When the vet examined Mia he said, oh yes, she has definitely got something caught in her mouth!  He let me look and it was part of a thin twiggy stem from the mint plant, but it was caught at the back of her throat, running horizontally from side to side - there was no way she would've been able to get that out by herself or be able to eat and it could've turned out quite nasty; he pulled the twig out with tweezers and Mia was very brave, not a whimper or a wiggle; had a little bit of inflammation where it had rubbed so she was given an injection and some liquid drops to help ease it over the weekend.

Phew!  What a start to the day!  And now, here she is - none the worse for her adventure!

I just love the way she sticks her little pink tongue out (butter wouldn't melt - she's about to launch an attack on my arm)!