Just for Fun

For the backing I made my own design using alcohol inks and metallics

The chicken I copied from part of a Victorian painting, and then painted it with watercolours, then cut it out and stuck it on.

I think I have made him look rather evil - inadvertantly - with that eye of his.

Lady in Red ATC

Lady in Red - once again - not photographed very straight is it?

The stamped backing paper I coloured with chalks. I then enhanced a Victorian print, using water colours for her and chalks for her background, and I stamped an outline in red of a heart and painted that.

A simple design but it took me two hours to make - just for fun

A Greek Style Artifact

This took me a very very long time to do - but I loved experimenting with it.

Oops I photographed this a bit wonky! It is the right size and shape really.



Firstly I aged some backing paper with chalks and kept coloring it until I got the shade I liked.

I stamped the face onto another sheet of paper, and using inks, coloured it in different shades of green.

Next I did the edging - using Tim Holtz distress embossing powders in different colours, and finally I did several layers of embossing on the face leaving some spaces to highlight. On the backing sheet and on the face I did a light gold rub to give the overall effect of a slab of an aged gold artifact. I finished it off with a gold eyelet and embroidery cotton in different soft shades.

I love textures and this one feels really nice to the touch - and looks better in daylight.

Latest Experiments - Stamping

I haven't had much time to do any craft work this week, but did manage a few hours today when it was raining.

I am still experimenting with stamping.

One of my first efforts went in the bin - here is another one - on pale green paper with lettering. I wasn't too happy with this one so tried again.



The same paper as before - the whole thing is much darker in reality - it is the flashlight that makes it look pale.

Stamped ATCs

White card with 'splodged' green, onto which I have stamped a poem. The lady has been stamped on card then cut out and mounted on top - I think this is my favourite.



In real life this is a paler looking lavender coloured card, with silver latin prose stamped onto it, then overstamped with the lady in grey ink.

It looks textured when you look at it with the naked eye.



Latin verse printed on card, then a photo printed stamped echinacea cut out and collaged on - all of which was then enamelled with a tad bit of golden glitter in it. Again with the naked eye it looks much better - and is one of my textured touchy feely ATCs that I love making.


The back of this ATC is thick woven material - a piece of a sample kindly sent to me by Momiji - it is identical to the card front in colour and feels lovely.



Stamped lady on cream tissue paper. The card is pale green onto which I have stamped hyroglyphics at the side, then glued the lady onto it. Sadly the scan almost xrays the tissue

With the naked eye you can't see any background stamping through the tissue. You can't see any wrinkles in the tissue, and the background is paler green and the paper looks thicker.

Aussie Swap

I so wish you could see this lizard in real life - he looks so much better and his colouring is far softer and more muted and paler actually. I saw lots of lizards on my trips to Oz - all sorts and all sizes and not all outdoors either. They fascinate me and I think they look like little dinosaurs and such fun when they walk or run away swinging their body this way and that as they go. This is a pen and ink and pencil drawing - then I got a flash of inspiration and added a foreground of dried alchemilla mollis which look the same colour as the water colour background. He really looks like he is hidden behind it.




The inspiration for this tiny fish painting came from some Aboriginal pieces of art I saw - again it is larger than life here.



This is a fluffy little fledgling Kookaburra - another freehand drawing with watercolour pencils - and when wondering what background to do - I just decided to do it in the style of the Aboriginal painters. It took me a couple of hours at least, as I had to keep going over and over and over it to get the right colour on the backing paper.

I used burnt orange card as I wanted to convey the colour of the soil and the heat of Australia.

These pictures are bigger than the ATCs so magnify every detail - some you can't see with the naked eye.


This one did not scan well at all. In reality it is a luminous funky fish - which I drew with souffle pens which give it an embossed effect.

The fish itself is yellow and purple - both bright and shiny. The sea weed is raised too and shiny green, and the blue water colour pencil background is pale not as dark as in the scan.

Because of the luminosity of the paint - it effects the scanner so yellow looks invisible and the green and purple look pale - but I thought I would post it on here anyway to remind me of what I did.

This is for a 'Touchy Feely Textures' Swap

This is another ATC for the Touchy Feely Textures Swap

Yet again the scan does not do it justice one little bit.

The backing card is painted black and has tiny weeny bits of black a silver glitter, almost like dust, so too on the sheep's fleece - but in the picture sadly it looks like a black blob - it looks subtle, pretty and dainty in the daylight!

There is a machine embroidered daisy from Anne which I cut out and used, and some wide hessian type sacking from Momiji which I used too.

The difference in textures feel lovely when you close your eyes and run your fingers over it, - and that was what this swap was all about.

The back has a pretty patterned smooth material on it - which adds another element.

I just have to label them all up, and send them off to the USA.