All About Christmas

Alrighty, this brings me to the last in my series of ATCs. Last, as I do not have one single Mexican or American Indian stamp to do the remaining ATC.

This one is destined for November. The main image is by Lucy's, the sentiment by Hero Arts and the gold embossed background stamp is by Stamp It Australia. I have used DCWV card which I have sanded to get that stressed look. The Lucy's bells have been coloured with Prisma pencils and smoothed and blended with odourless mineral solvent.

Ok...I will be heading on back to regular sized artwork no...you all sigh with relief!

A Watery Theme

For September we have the theme of "Water", which enabled me to rifle through my pretty Stampscapes stamps...Yummo!

I had a brayered piece of card laying around in my backgrounds box which had a bit of blue in it so decided to stamp the creek scene on top. Once done, I thought it looked really anaemic! BUT....I pulled out the Micro Glaze and rubbed and polished it. What an enormous difference. The piece really is very vibrant now and very pretty.

The wording was stamped on a scrap piece and dealt in the same manner. It is from Darkroom Door.

I do have to apologise for the quality of the photo...but it is gloss card, which is always a right royal pain to photograph, but the weather is not helping here either! The only way to avoid getting a light splotch is to take the photo at an angle. But, I am sure you still get the drift!

What do you think?

All Things Egyptian!

Coming through to July, the theme is "All Things Egyptian". Now, this is a very hard one for me to do, as I own all of TWO Egyptian stamps.

Here is one of them. A tasteful nude stamped onto an alcohol ink background. The hieroglyphics was stamped again on to the yellow/green alcohol ink background and positioned to the side.

I realise this won't be to everyone's taste, but I just went with the flow on this one!

The Feel of Winter

And we come to July's theme which is "The Feel of Winter". Well, July is the middle of winter for Australians and I would so much love to experience a full winter with snowwwww! We didn't even get cold days last year!

I put a piece of blue card thought the Cuttlebug using the snowflakes embossing folder and then swiped white ink over the top to highlight the embossed bits. I then stamped and embossed SU snowmen, coloured with Prisma pencils and smoothed out with odourless mineral solvent. The very old PSX stamp I had was really too big for the ATC, so I stamped it on white Shrink Plastic, cut it carefully in half, shrank it and it was then small enough, in two pieces, for me to use.

I brightened the whole thing up with Kindy Glitz and a little bit of grosgrain. What do you think?

Brayered and Sponged Moonlight Sky

And for June we have the theme "Sky".

Here is my interpretation. I have brayered and sponged a la Michelle Zindorf style to get the background. Then, overstamped using a SU leaf, gel penned parts of the leaf to imitate the moonlight and stamped part of an Amazing Creation sentiment in the corner and added a dragonfly just coz.

I remember my friend Cheryll and I sitting down one day to have a go at this style of stamping.....It takes some practice but worth it in the end I think....I think the background came from one of pieces back then and from memory we were trying to follow a tutorial closely!

I like this one the best of all the ATCs done so far!

ATC Theme Australiana

Here is the next in my series of ATCs. The theme for May will be Australiana...so I have chosen the old outside dunny as my feature stamp, surrounded with gum nuts and gum leaves.

The main image and gum leaves are Stamp World stamps and the little gum nuts are part of a Krafty Lady stamp. I covered the leaves in Versamark and clear embossed them before cutting them out. The main image is coloured with Prisma pencils and softened out with odourless mineral solvent. The roof of the dunny is stamped and paper pieced cork.

There are a few layers to this one, but I enjoyed creating the dimension.

I know the Aussies will get this....but I will be curious to see the comments of my o/s mates!

ATC for April

Good morning everyone,

The theme for April is "Urban". I had this Eclectic Image stamp of some city buildings which I thought would be ideal for this theme. I didn't want to laboriously colour, so I made a H2O water wash background on watercolour paper. Then I stamped the image in India Ink, edged the border with gold Krylon pen and layered onto black and then the base colour.

This one, I have been tossing up. I am in two minds about whether it needs more and if so, what? So, my fellow bloggers, please feel free to give me a suggestion or two...I have tried a few teeny tiny words...but they cover the image too much, as does ribbon.

ATC for March

Good morning everyone,

A simple one for this one. The March theme is Rainforests. Now I live in the tropics, so I am well aware that one must be very careful of tipping one's toes into the water. It may be hot. It may be muggy. It may look like a lovely little waterhole in the middle of the rainforest.

Yeah.....not this little black duck. No sirreeeee! We do have many warning signs around...which tourists love to nick. We are all still trying to figure out why the signs all have "warning" in English and then in German???? Is Achtung a universally acknowledged word for "watch out"?

The stamp is made by Amazing Creations and has been quickly coloured using Prisma Pencils. The whole thing didn't need much colouring. All edges except the base have been distressed.....which is what you would be if you met one of these chompers!

ATC for February

Here is my ATC for the month of February. The theme for February is Asian. I stamped the image in ....guess??????...Yep! India ink, once on the pale grey card and once on the Yuzen paper. Same with the little Non Sequitor symbol.

I then paper pieced parts of both images. I added some gold Krylon pen to the top and bottom of the grey card and layered on to the Yuzen paper. Finally, I added some pale peach coloured pearls here and there.

I know it isn't the "traditional" colour scheme, but I think this one works pretty well. What do you think?

ATC For January

Good morning all,

Here is the first of a series of ATCs which I am making for my Yahoo/Stamping Group ACTSA.

The theme for January was "The Beach", which could encompass anything which reminds you of the beach. Well, in my case, since I cannot swim in the waters around here (too many munchy things to get me...read....crocs, sharks and stingers!), I immediately think of fishing.

The little fish stamp is made by Stamp It Australia. I have stamped in India Ink....yeah ...yeah....I am gunna hide it soon.....coloured with H2Os and then applied ultra fine micro beads over the lot to give the appearance of water.

The background piece was the same technique as yesterday but with a totally different mood. The Pearlex here is just gorgeous!.

I added some cord, a little word from Stamps By Judith, raised the main focal image with DSFT and called it quits.

What do you think?

ATC Opals

Hello again,

I am still away, but when this should post, I will be winging it back to the tropics!

Here is the last of the ATCs I have to make for my monthly swaps this year. I used Opals to do the body of the art doll which I then stamped with Encore gold using a Stamp It swirl stamp. I have used all sorts of bibs and bobs then to decorate her, including some Kindy Glitz on her wings. The background papers are by Kaiser.

ATC Xmas

Hello Everyone,

I am trying to prepost this one, so hopefully everything turns out OK.

This is the third in my group of ATCs I have to do for a swap. It is one a month, but I have completed the rest of the year, so I can tick that job off my list!

The background is made using alcohol inks overstamped with Darkroom Door stamps in StazOn black. I distressed the edges and whacked a few bits of bling and voila, tis done.

ATC

Good morning everyone,

Here is another ATC I have completed in the last couple of days. Yesterday we did not ink up a solitary thing because the Canberra Stitches and Craft Show was on. We knew The Stamp Trap would have a booth there, so we had to go and watch Jeanette demo Stampscapes yet another time and bought heaps!!!! I so love scenes and we are determined to get HER way of creating the colour down pat today. Tis our mission. (We did spend the majority of last night mounting it all up on Ezy Mount so we would be prepared for today.)

This little ATC was made with the theme of brayers in mind, so I did the brayer spritz technique. All the stamps are by Hero Arts with the addition of pretty clear ribbon, bling and brads. (The piccie is at an angle because it was really hard to photograph...it really is 3" x 2" ...and I am NOT going outside where there is no central heating!)

Nostalgia Camp ATC

Hi everyone,

Whilst you read this, I will be off playing in the snow for the first time. I am sooo excited to finally go to the snowfields...Grace says I am not allowed to whinge about the cold or she is going to slap me...Now, This MAY be sound advice, but I can see a snowball or two as revenge if she comes anywhere near me!!!!!!!!!!!!! ROFL. We have toboggans to lay with too...Have a full couple of thousand on the camera to use up, so I am all set. We are hiring all the cold gear, which we are just about to go and collect.

This is my ATC for camp. I have made 40 of them and need to scrounge another few primitive heart brads to completely have them done and dusted. Love the photoart stamp from Stampsmith. Yummy!

Fingers crossed the auto post works.

Enjoy!

ATCs For the Week

Evening everyone!

I have here a few ATCs I have done over the last week.

**The first I had to use a paintbrush..so made a H2O background to stamp on.

**The second I had to use lace...so used paper lace inked up to go with the rest of the purple theme!

**The third I had to use a punch....so used a little primitive heart punch with wire and bead attached.

**The last had to use some sort of embossing,...so I did dry embossing as well as heat embossing just to cover all bases!

I so enjoy whipping up ATCs as the small palette enables much diversity...(and is a wonderful way to get rid of yet a few more scraps!)

Just click on the piccie if you want to see up close!

Ok then, I have been away to the Gold Coast to tutor at a stamp camp, so have been inactive here as a result. Camp was really great. Much mayhem and good laughs to be had whilst a lot of learning was going on. It was a good experience to have to teach in front of more than twenty ladies....much different from the days of teaching 10 year olds, and I must say, much more enjoyable. Many thanks to Jackie McGee for inviting me to teach and for thinking that I was good enough to do so.

I then went to Brisbane Paper Arts which really was such a bomb. Only 18 exhibitors (not at all the exhibitors fault, mind you!) Where are stamping classes?? One would think there is only scrapping on this planet at this moment in time. Nothing wrong with scrapping, but it is not the only paper art out there!!!!

Anyway, back home....Whilst hubby went slashing yesterday, I took the opportunity to rustle up a few ATCs...5, in fact for ACTSA...a Canberran group I belong to. They have a monthly ATC swap which I agreed to do at the beginning of the year. I will not be stamping for 6-8 weeks after I get my wrist operated on, so am trying to get myself ahead.

As soon as hubby buzzes off tomorrow to play with his tractors I am going to get stuck into making covers for the construction technique book I am currently hosting. I also have to rustle up a couple of classes of cards...have a few ideas rolling...so hopefully that will not be too bad a task! All these things must be completed within the next couple of weeks...coz I sure do not see me doing anything left handed~!~

Anyway, here are the ATCs I made yesterday...Enjoy,Michelle...Oh and feel free to comment!

All but the puppy, open to an inner space.