Transparency atc's

I was having a play around with some transparency, colouring it with alcohol inks and running it through my 250 zyron to attach it to some atc's, which incidentally is the BEST way to attach transparencies to atc's....no muss, no fuss, no glue showing - brilliant! Anyway, I happened to have on my table some of those windows from Julie v Oosten (which we have at the shop) and I did a little "sandwich" experiment with some pics and a couple of bits of transparency and a couple of the windows to hold it all together. Of course the windows come in a 9 hole piece A4 size and need to be cut down but it gives you 4 complete sandwiches and 1 spare to just go on top of an atc.

Anyway, long story short, I was really happy with how they turned out. Here's some samples of them.....you have to imagine that you can hold them up and they are completely transparent...except where you see a picture, though the skull one is totally transparent as it's a stamped image.

I also finished a few atc's that I had started a while ago..... a foil tape one....

...this is a Sheer Heaven transfer...
...and lastly, a watercolour tube paint "fresco" technique atc...think this one might need to go to a certain "man" who KNOWS how to say aaahhhhhsemmmmblaaaagggggge!!! lol

For something completely different this afternoon, I went to the movies to see "Wild Hogs" with my hubby. We don't go out very often so when we do we don't mind splurging....went Gold Class. There's nothing like a theatre with less than 30 people in it, big plush electric recliner rockers with a table for your food and drinks which are bought to you at a pre-specified time (we had chicken skewers, wedges with chilli sauce & sour cream & wine!) and no-one under 18 allowed!!!!! The movie was good, funny from beginning 'til end. You'd need to be over 40 to recognise a "certain someone" towards the end...not telling, it'll give it away and I'm not a spoil-sport ;-)

Chunky book page

Today was spent doing my 8 chunky pages for our Altered Book Club. The theme was "Wings" and I wanted to do something a little different. We received a whole heap of new Zetti stamps in at work and of course I HAD to have some more of their weird & wonderful stamps! We've also got a great new range of Stampers Anonymous stamps too - though I have most of the ones that I want of those....except of course a couple of Michael deMeng's fantastic stamps....next order maybe!

So this is my Wings chunky page, our particular chunky pages are 4" x 4" square though some chunky books are different measurements, this is a fairly common size for them.


The little charm hanging off is a zetti stamp that I did on shrink plastic....too cute!!! Okay, maybe not cute, but darn spooky cute... below is the back of the page - the prose on the front is continued on the back...


The splotchy bits on the back are the Starburst Stains - this particular colour that you really can't see really well is called Black Orchid and the front page was spritzed with a Moon Shadow Mist in Long John Silver .....great names!

I also was lucky enough to receive another wonderful ATC from Belinda Schneider, I absolutely love her sense of colour and composition....this one is just gorgeous!

That's it for now, I hope to have another play on Friday as I need to get 9 atc's done for our Art Tarts Club alphabet book - my next letter is "Q" and the first thing that pops into my head is Quicksand....sheesh! lol

Birthday canvas

One of my husband's workmates is having a party for his girlfriend who is turning 30. It's tonight and I thought I'd make her a canvas as a gift, I started it yesterday and finished it off this morning. She's into horses, which is why I've done this topic, not really something I would normally do. It's an 8" x 10" canvas board, nice and stable for working on and stamping into as well! I used the very lovely Golden paints in several washes to get the colours how I wanted them and also used some of the Golden Light Molding Paste which I stamped into with some foam stamps. I also used some of the gorgeous Treasure Gold in Green Amber rubbed onto some of the top-most points of the molding paste as well as around some of the edges of the canvas....LOVE this colour of Treasure Gold! Here's another couple of close-ups of it...
That wonderful "splotch" that you can see is one of the new Starburst Stains from the same company that makes the Moon Shadow Mists & embossing powders. I buy mine from an on-line shop from a very lovely girl, Joyce, here in Australia (Perth in fact!) at paperforest - she has the best service, really fast shipping and is really accommodating. Really like these Starburst stains and Moon Shadow Mists, they are wonderful for altered books too as well as adding a little "extra" to background papers for atc's.

More Pez pics & quotes

Here are some more pics of my pez, just thought I'd save your poor nose Jen so you don't have to press it up against the computer screen to get a closer look ;-)))I can only say the Pez turned out the way it did because of Michael's great teaching....and to have both Michael & Bernie visiting my blog to leave a comment....well....what can I say, what a couple of wonderful artists they both are!!! I've been a long time admirer or Michael's stuff and to have taken a class with him was a real treat!

I contributed 3 doggie pages a while back for a "chunky" auction to raise funds for Bernie's rescue place, wish I had've been able to see the books all bound together and complete! LOVE your book too Bernie and I read on your blog that you have another one due later this year! Tell me it's true? Here's the pics of the pages I submitted.

Yes, the middle picture is our Basenji, an old girl now - nearly 13 but she's been such a great dog. We often wonder if we'd ever go back to a "normal" dog (barky, doggy-smell) after we've had such a quiet and non-smelly pet. Cali doesn't bark, Basenji's sometimes woof, think she's done it 3 times in her life - sounds weird - but they do yodel when they are having fun....also a weird sound.

I taught a class on watercolour crayons/watercolour tube paint last night and had the girls getting their quotes for their atc's from some trashy novels that we keep at work just for this purpose. Actually, the hardest bit is to get the girls to NOT read the novels......"just scan the page and look for a quote or a word" is my advice, which often goes unheeded.....when all goes quiet in the room I know they are reading! lol Another great place to get quotes for altered books/atc's etc is the myriad of quote sites that are around, I've made a list of some of my favourites, you'll find them right up the top on the right.

On a final note, thankyou to all the girls (& Michael) who have left comments on my blog, it doesn't seem like you're having a one-way conversation if someone talks back to you. ;-) Must remember to leave more comments myself on blogs that I visit too!

The Altered Pez & magazine atc's

Painting my altered Pez a couple of days ago from Michael deMeng's class was a great exercise in "let's try this....let's try that". Michael basically teaches you to paint washes on top of each other to try to arrive at a colour that suits you, the main thing is to let each wash dry before painting over the top otherwise you end up with mud! Below are several photo's of my completed (I think!) Pez.

Remember, I did say it looked like an old fashioned telephone! Can you see the ramekin? Or the plastic milk lids from the Devondale Point One Milk containers? Or the bullet casing? How about the chess pieces, the upholstery pins (okay, this one is easy!), or the cogs?

Inside the watch face on the front is an image and it takes just the right amount of light to actually see it. I tried to photograph it, you can sort of make it out....a little blurry....sorry...

On another note, the very fabulous book by Bernie Berlin, Artist Trading Card Workshop, has been a real bonus to those of us who just LOVE techniques! Last Friday we had one of our atc get-togethers that happen once a month with the Art Tarts Club and we all had a go at one of the techniques from the book....magazine images & gesso! I've warned the girls that I teach this will be a future lesson and I think I sufficiently freaked them out....they actually have to draw! I couldn't draw a thing to save myself so it's lucky that you have the basic image to work with in the first place. Here are my attempts at this different technique.

This last one is actually the very first time I did this, didn't use enough gesso to partially obscure the image and I used Twinkling H2O's (the watercolour pots) so it didn't do a great job of coverage. The two above were painted with Golden colours acrylic paints.......love them!!!

Student's art & workshop pics

I thought I'd start off with the beautiful bunch of flowers that a great pal sent to me after a recent upset.....the lovely Crozza (Jen C) from Victoria surprised me a few days ago with these. I came home from work to find them on my table and thought my hubby, who was away at the time, had sent me some flowers but no, they were from Crozz.
It was a nicely timed gesture and I thank you very much Jen ;-)



A few weeks ago some students of mine did the microscope slide shrine class and I told them I would put the pictures up for all to see....there are 3 sides to each one so they are all pictured here. Nice work from Karen, Netta & Jane.




I took part in 3 workshops recently, the first one was a class called "Crusty Vessels" with the very talented Dale Rollerson from The Thread Studio - if you like all things fabric, threads, paint, textures, mixed-media, then The Thread Studio is the place to go! Wonderful on-line store and she stocks the fantastic Sheer Heaven which would have to be my favourite transfer medium. Here's Dale getting her head around the Crop-a-Dile.



I also did a class with Lesley Riley whom I consider the "Inkjet Transfer Queen". I've been a member of her yahoo group Inkjet Transfers for a few years now and always learn new tips and techniques on it. I have yet to scan in some pics of my sample pieces as there are so many of them but it was really good to try all the different mediums and receiving surfaces to gauge which ones you like the best. I was most surprised by how fantastic the transparency transfer looked onto white gesso painted onto a dark fabric!!! This one I MUST scan as it's just fantastic! Thank you Lesley for a very informative and fun class ;-)

Finally I took Michael deMeng's Altered Pez Shrine class. Due to a hiccup the day before I didn't enjoy this class as much as I should have, through no fault of Michael's or his techniques or anything he did/didn't do. He is a very down-to-earth and lovely man. Very "organic" in his teaching method, he doesn't want you to churn out "Michael" pieces, he wants you to invest yourself in your own work and what you produce is purely you. He is teaching you how to put things together in the literal sense then teaches you his tried & tested methods for painting combinations. It's up to you how you combine them yourself and I found him to be very patient and positive. I was a little hesitant when I found out that in the latter part of the day, after "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly", we have to have a little confo with all the students to discuss our thoughts on our pieces and he then gives his thoughts and positive input to each piece.....but I needn't have worried as it was all very informative and finished the class on an "up". I can't praise Michael's class enough! Sorry you couldn't be there Crozz ;-(


Here's 3 unfinished Pez's....the two on the left are
Jen S's and the funny looking old fashioned
telephone style is mine on the right. I intend on painting it up today so will post a pic when it's got it's colours on.

These next two are Michelle S's and my friend who's visiting from Wagga, Barb T. Two totally different styles, Michelle's needs another coat of paint as she used string to wrap her body (no Michelle, no funny comment...hahaha), which takes a while to dry so she has to finish this off later. Barb's was hardly painted at all, only the Liquid Nails was touched up a bit to blend the colour with the rest of the metals she used to put her "creature" together. These pieces must be seen in real life to appreciate how cleverly the girls put things together. . . . AND they still work as a Pez, dispensing the little slabs of solid coloured sugar that are Pez lollies.

On another note, I taught a class on embossing techniques yesterday at work and I have a regular bunch of girls that come every fortnight. One of them is leaving to go back to Melbourne in a few weeks time and she was really sick yesterday but didn't want to miss her final class and seeing her mates...what a trooper! lol We'll miss you Nicky and hope you'll come back to visit us and time your visit so you can come along for another class "fix"! ;-) The girls were surprised to find the various things that you can emboss with to get different effects.....for example "embossing web tape" which gives a very lacy distressed look as in this atc to the left. This atc also uses the wonderful Sheer Heaven Transfer technique.

Another great product for getting very fine embossed lines is the EraserMax pen by Papermate. You simply draw your line or write a word or do squiggles or whatever....then dump the embossing powder all over it and tip off the excess, then emboss as normal.....beautiful fine embossing. This is great for adding a little dimension and highlighting certain parts of images or even writing words on birthday cards! Much finer result than the normal embossing pens which have a much thicker point like a sharpie! Here's a sample. The very fine lines around the image and on the scarf/hair is the Erasermax pen. If you have trouble tracking these pens down, they are not easily available, we do have them where I work at Scraptivate.

I guess by now you've figured out that if I have an absence from my blog for over a week, it's a mammoth post when I do get back....hope I haven't worn out your eyes ;-)