Well, not today, I am way too busy stuffing my suitcase with all sorts of things to take to my craftavan in France tonight. But I hope to have a cup of tea or two in our French garden tomorrow, yay! Weather is supposed to be very good, temps in the low 20s and sunny, which sounds just lovely.
TEA IN THE GARDEN is the theme for Kimberly's latest ATC swap though, and I just had to get my ATCs done before we toodled off to France. I reduced a sepia copy of an Alice in Wonderland tea party to black and white
and then hand coloured it in with Promarkers and Spectrum Noir pens. Felt about 6 years old, lol. Gotta love colouring in. And then I raided my stash of fabric flowers and applied them to the ATCs -
Spot the difference!?
Back to packing. Oh the decisions to be made, what craft stuff to take, what to leave behind......... I just know that I will realise after a week or so that I have forgotten something vital and will have to ask my darling son to post it to me. Its happened before. Once. Or twice.....
Toodlepip xxx
I love swapping! And I came across a fabulous ATC swap on Marion's bockel24 blog. The theme is BIRD PEOPLE, and that just screamed FUN at me. Just the thing I needed to get my creativity out of its hole. I had started on the ATCs even before I contacted Marion to let her know that I would like to take part. I spent a wonderful afternoon/evening knee deep in bird images and all kind of papers, and these are the results -
I had so much fun making these, I might make some more for myself.
Wishing you all a beautiful Sunday, toodlepip xxx
We are off to France tomorrow night, and I have so much to do still! I missed a couple of weeks of Tag Tuesday tags, AND, I am not taking any craft stuff with me, so I really would like to make the tags for the next couple of weeks as well. YIKES!!!! We'll see, lol.
AND....... Kimberly announced a new ATC swap yesterday ( see my sidebar ), and I love her swaps, so there was no way I was going to miss it. I spent yesterday evening and this morning getting them ready. It is also Our Beautiful World Sunday, which I thoroughly enjoy, didn't want to miss that one either. It just means that today I am doing a two-in-one post ;-) !
Firstly, this is my photo for today's theme over at Our Beautiful World, DERELICT. I took the photo a couple of years ago whilst out geocaching in France -
Pick up your camera, head out for a little while, and see what you can find in your neighbourhood!
So thats the Our Beautiful World bit of the title. Now to the Plans, what Plans? part. ATCs. When I first thought about the swap, I had planned to use Victorian scrap, music paper, pages of a tiny little pocket dictionary -
Singly, all the bits looked great, together, blah, it didn't do it for me. Somehow it just didn't work. So that plan went down the toilet, lol. I ended up with something totally different, not even remotely like the planned ATCs, but I am very happy with them.
It all started with this 1896 French ledger paper, which I picked for the background -
I didn't have any old photographs the right size to use on the ATCs and I couldn't bring myself to cut any, so I started looking for vintage ads instead. Thats where this came in, a French magazine from 1909 called Je Sais Tout, which means, I Know Everything. Great title, eh? -
Inside the magazine was a short play, called Les Nuits du Hampton-Club and I loved the drawings of the men. I just had to use them on the ATCs. All that remained then was to find a few other bits to put on, a couple of weird and wonderful ads from the same magazine, old stamps, little rosettes made with vintage music paper, that was about it-
Couldn't be more different from what I had planned originally.
I wish you all a really lovely Sunday, enjoy it wherever you are, and thank you so much for stopping by and reading this post.
Toodlepip xxx
Yay, the ATCs from Kimberly's Valentines swap arrived this morning, and I am thrilled to bits with them. Kimberly is a wonderful swap hostess, and I try and take part in her swaps whenever I can. This year's Valentines swap was a straight forward 3 for 3 swap, and here is what I received in the mail -
Three beautifully packaged swap ATCs and a gorgeous gift from our lovely hostess -
Please believe me, these are in no particular order, just as I picked them up, all three are really stunning ATCs and I couldn't pick a favourite if you paid me. The first one shown is from Jewels -
Absolutely delightful, I am sure you'll agree. You can find Jewels HERE.
This next ATC is from Kelly -
Stunning, and so romantic! Kelly's blog is HERE.
The third ATC is from Sylvia -
Gorgeous colour scheme! Sylvia's blog is HERE.
And this is the beautiful gift received from our swap hostess, Kimberly -
Huge thank you to all you wonderful swappers and to our hostess, I really am over the moon with my swap ATCs.
You can visit Kimberly's blog HERE and you can find some of her totally gorgeous creations HERE.
I couldn't resist the Pretty Little Witches ATC swap Kimberly was hosting on her ArtJoyStuff blog. I have already shown you the ATCs I made for the swap HERE, and today I can show you the fabulous ATCs I received back. Firstly though I have to show you what Kimberly sent along with the ATCs, gosh, she is such a lovely swap hostess. Just have a look at this Halloween hanging she gifted me with -
And here are the ATCs I received -
From Sylvia -
You can find her blog HERE.
Next, Carolyn's ATC -
From Trisha, I received this ATC -
I think THIS is her blog addy.
I am so pleased with them all.
Thanks again, Kimberly, for hosting this swap, I had so much fun.
Toodlepip xxx
It feels strange being back in the UK after three months at the cottage in France. No veggie garden to tend, although I have about a million of tomatoes, which we brought back with us, to make into chutney and sauces. Lots of noise from cars and people, and not from cows or tractors. But it is rather nice being back in my proper craft room :-). And, I got to open my little package from Kimberly at ArtJoyStuff with the PRETTY swap ATCs.
I am thrilled to bits with them, the girls did such a gorgeous job. But have a look for yourself -
The first one, one the left, is from Tracy Dean -
The middle one is from Saucy Chick Sherry ( sorry, I don't have her blog addy)-
The one on the right is from Becky Swartzlander -
As always, Kimberly was a great swap hostess, thank you so much, Kimberly.
I have sooooooooo much catching up to do, its crazy, I haven't made my weekly inchies or tags for a few weeks now, and I am feeling terribly guilty. It has taken me a couple of days to change all the French listings over to UK listings ( grrr, why can't all countries have the same price bands, rules, costs?) and of course there are all the usual things to do when you have been away for three months. I so want to visit all your beautiful blogs, but I think that might have to wait a few more days. I hope you understand.
Now I am off to the post office ( thankfully a lot closer than the one in France ;-) ), to post a couple of orders and then I'll tackle a few more pounds of tomatoes. Oh joy.
Toodlepip xxx
Kimberly from ArtJoyStuff is hosting another ATC swap. I do love her swaps, so I couldn't miss out on this one. The theme is PRETTY, and I thought that even with my limited supplies in the craftavan I should be able to make 3 pretty ATCs. Here they are -
I used metal embellishments and of course some sparklies, matching the pretty lady's dress, for the first one -
For the second one I used pretty French lace from my stash and a lovely velvety hydrangea flower with a very sparkly vintage Swarovski trim at the bottom -
And this is the third one, lots of pretty pink this time, pink velvet leaves, a morceau of pink trim, lots of ribbon flowers (cut outs ) and of course lots of pink sparklies -
Are they pretty enough? Which one is your favourite?
Busy weekend ahead, fete de voisins tomorrow, brocante on Sunday, visiting friends, aah, it is a hard life ;-).
Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope your weekend is going to be wonderful, wherever you are.
Toodlepip xxx
