Haunted Houses and chunky pages completed!!!

I have finally finished all that I need to do art-wise for the much anticipated event, Creative Soul Retreat 2009. It's only 4 short weeks away now and the excitement level is certainly building! The retreat is to be held in Melbourne which is on the other side of Australia from me and it's the state that is suffering those dreadful fires at the moment.



My thoughts drift often to the many thousands of people affected by the devastating fires that are still raging in Victoria. The death toll is expected to rise from the current 181 to possibly 300 and the wildlife numbers of deaths they surmise will be around 1 million. So hard to fathom those sorts of numbers in both human cost, infrastructure, livelihoods, homes and those poor animals. Australia's worst natural disaster has bought out the best in many people though with around $77 million raised through the red cross disaster appeal so far, an amazing amount in less than a week! Australians rock!!!


As a little arty extra for the retreat, most of us decided to take part in a swap. So I was sent some little chipboard houses, 1" x 3", and I'm happy to say they are now complete! What a wonderful feeling to put the last bits on the final one. I decided to do them all the same in a production line style as there were so many. I first used Glimmer Mist in Graphite, then Black Webbing spray, some Baroque German Scrap in black with some silver Rub'n'buff. I also did a shrink plastic piece for the front using a Zetti stamp on white shrink plastic then finally, on silver foil tape I used my metal letter stamping set and stamped BOO, then applied black acrylic paint and wiped it off so it settled just in the letters. Here's 5 of the houses....there were 50, yes...50 in total!!!

Some of us are also taking part in the book challenge for the Creative Soul Retreat, you can see other pages here. Debbi Baker was chosen to pick the theme for January and I was lucky enough to get to choose the theme for February. Debbi's choice was "Words". I'd recently read the new James Patterson book and there were some lines from a poem in there that struck a chord with me. I searched online for the full poem, it's entitled "Dirge Without Music" by Edna St Vincent Millay.

"Dirge Without Music"

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.

Crowned with lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled

Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave.
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

I used the last verse for my "Words" page, it resonated strongly with me as it describes how I felt about losing my Dad and my best friend in the space of 3 months late last year. We move on, but we still don't like it! The background is Rinse Aid Resist on canvas paper and the image is a transparency over paper that was painted with Lumiere paints - nice and shimmery.

"Words"...

Here is my "Birds" page again. I'd posted it before but decided after I made it that I wanted to make the pages bigger. My first thoughts were to do a chunky book 4" x 4" in size but eventually found that the book I wanted to use to make the book from is 6" x 6", so I had to fill it out a little more.

"Birds"...

My choice of theme for February was "Inspired By Song". I chose a song by another great Finnish band, The Rasmus (thanks Kathy for putting me on to them!). I did a gel medium/transparency transfer over the words to one of their songs "Not Like the Other Girls" and yes, I found it on youtube.

"Not Like the Other Girls"...

...and here's the song by The Rasmus, a beautifully haunting melody and wonderful lyrics.

Finally, here are the front and back covers. The front cover is texture paste with Golden Paints for colour and the back cover is a piece of scrapbook paper in colours that I loved so I tried to replicate it closely for the front cover with the paints. They match pretty closely in real life, not so much here. ;-(

Front cover...

Back cover...

I'd like to thank Mary Schweitzer for this award too! Mary does some amazing things with bits & bones and skulls....a woman after my own heart! (Probably quite literally!!!! just joking Mary....hahahahaha).

French book page, Family canvas & a sock monkey!!!

The theme for this month's Creative Soul Retreat book challenge is "All things French". Of course Eiffel towers are the first thing that pops into my mind when thinking of France, or rather, Paris, but I wanted to do something a little more .....well, just a little "more". So here is my page and I'm debating whether to add some word, or rather just one word....REVOLUTION! I like the softer colours of this page and doing a little collage for a change is refreshing. There is mica over the face of Louis XVI in the little metal frame and some embossing in a beautiful pale pearl blue, as well as some swarovski crystals and a metal embellishment under Marie Antoinette. It wouldn't be complete without the hordes in the streets and the guillotine!

I've also made a canvas for my mother-in-law for Christmas, using a picture of my husband's family when he was a small boy, including the dog Smithy! I made the frame by using foil tape adhered to chipboard and then running it through the Textile plate of the cuttlebug, rubbed it over with Burnt Umber paint and then wiped most of it off immediately. I do love how the distressed look contrasts nicely with the foil tape for this technique. The picture itself is my faux tin-type style. There's also some white German Scrap, some texture paste, glimmer mist (sand dune and dew-drop colours), a metal key and the words are the Olivia font (cuttlebug). Gwen doesn't "do" computers so there's no chance of her seeing this before Christmas so I'm safe posting it here.

Last night was our staff Christmas party at Natalie's house. We did a secret santa gift swap and I received a wonderful Pandora jigsaw piece charm for my bracelet(s) from my partner Jenny. It went straight onto my bracelet and I love how wonderfully full my bracelet(s) - yes, I have 2 - are looking. My secret santa partner to buy/make for was the delightful Mel. She is such a joy to work with as she's always so happy and skips about and is a good pal to boot! I bought her a little angel rubber duck (she collects rubber ducks), one of the new speckle brushes that Tim Holtz has been using on his 12 tags of Christmas, some bird stencils from coffee break designs and I also made her a sock monkey!!! I know she loves quirky and boy did she become attached to the sock monkey! It was carried around all night with her, draped over her shoulder or sitting on her lap. I was really pleased that she loved it and it was secretly nice to do a little bit of sewing and stuffing again....don't tell anyone though!!!

Christmas greetings to everyone and for some of us, 2009 can only get better!

Multitude of Mixed Media & Skagway!

This post has, as the title suggests, a multitude of mixed media.....

First up is my book challenge page for the Creative Soul Retreat. The theme this month was "A few of my favourite things". Of course, I couldn't get out of my head the Gary Larson cartoon where (from memory) there is a couple of detectives in a guys house, he's dead on the floor, on shelving in the room there is "bright copper kettles, warm woollen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with string" and one detective is saying to the other... "These must be a few of his favourite things!"...... So what I did was to think about some of my favourite things (techniques) and I came up with this page.

Each square has a couple of my favourite things on it.

(top row, left to right)...

Old Germanic text and Micaceous Iron Oxide (a Golden paint - gorgeous!),

Gothic transparency image over foil tape,

Textured fabric with metallic thread wrapping,

(middle row, left to right)...

Canvas Paper with Rinse Aid Resist background & Metal wings,

Texture Paste and Silver Rub'n'buff,

Shrink Plastic with HIM stamp, Swarovski crystals and German Scrap,

(bottom row, left to right)...

Black Corrugated cardboard with black onyx mica glitter & embossed cuttlebug shape,

Foil tape and my tracing wheel to make the little track marks,

Webbing spray in both white and black and metal cogs.

Hmmmm.....the book page above looks suspiciously like the new inchie canvas class that I'm teaching in December at Scraptivate! Even though they may look similar, they are obviously different (to the trained art-eye!!!). lol The girls in this 4" x 4" inchie canvas class have a choice of doing either a Crimson/Black/Silver one, or a Blue/Cream/Burnt Umber canvas. Here's the blue one...

...and the crimson/black/silver...

While I was on an arty roll over the last couple of days, I also made a card for the Inkurable Stampers Challenge. This time the we had to use both a bottle cap as well as some beads in our project AND it was a Christmas theme. Well, you just KNOW that I have loads of Christmas themed stamps with reindeer, Christmas trees, Kris Kringle and the like.....NOT!

This was a bit of a challenge for me, but heck, that's what challenges are supposed to be dummy! (me dummy, not you dummy). Last month I was lucky enough to win a gift voucher from Barb at the Stamping Queen and I promptly chose one of the fabulous Stampotique stamps - Prom Queen. I already have Glimmering Hope and Girl with a Lunchbox so now I have a sister to join the other 2! Here she is in all her glory......warning....please don't take offence at the quote on the inside....it's something I have NO control over. I blame my Dad and my brother for my warped sense of humour. Definitely not my fault!

(see how keen I was to get this photographed? the glue under the crystal is not dry!!!)

I had intended to include some of my remaining mega-trip photo's but there just seems to be too much other stuff here...what the heck, it is my blog after all and if I choose to bore you with some pics, so be it! Skagway here we come.....

We had the 2nd big highlight of our trip in Skagway, a journey on the White Pass Scenic Railway, if you go to Skagway this is a wonderful train trip. It's also the only time I've ever actually been snowed on....and they DO look like individual little lacy things when the snowflakes land on you!!!! On the flats, not much snow....

a "bit" more snow....

Here we are at the end of the rail journey, ready to start the bus trip back. Beautiful scenery, yes, it was cold! From left to right, Mum, me, Ev, Pete and Joan, Grant was the photographer.

There was a fabulous building in Skagway that's being constantly repaired with driftwood, the way it was originally done. Wonderful! Do the 3 little pigs come to mind????

...and just in case you forgot how we got around on our mega-trip....

Thrones & Things book page & Voodoo Love Shrine

Surprise!!! I'm back....2 posts in 2 days. Just had to show you my little Voodoo Love Shrine and my book page for the Creative Soul Retreat Book Challenge.


This month's theme is "Thrones & Things" and I decided to skip my first thoughts about toilets and all things associated with that particular little necessity in our daily lives. It took me a while to work out what to do, I searched for all sorts of cool looking thrones but there's only so much you can do with a chair so I decided to opt for a quote instead and go from there. I chose Napoleon Bonaparte's quote "A throne is only a bench covered with velvet".

The image is Napoleon (of course) and the throne is supposedly his as well. The images were both Sheer Heaven transfers onto watercolour paper, I then coloured the remaining white parts of the paper with Twinkling H2O's as I'd left my watercolour crayons at work! Napoleon has a crown added from Michelle Ward's Rock & Roll plate and a little Platinum Stickles and some Swarovski crystals for extra show-off-iness. A piece of velvet is under the photo frame down the bottom with a little wadding to make it nice & soft like a little cushion and another piece of upholstery velvet is machine stitched down the right hand side. I mounted it onto a piece of black card that was stamped with several of Michelle's stamps from her Graven & Printed Matter plates - both here. The quote completes the piece.....I DO love words!!! Every time I think about Napoleon though I can't help but remember the quote from my childhood days....."Don't get blown apart, Bonaparte!" lol

So the nicho challenge was a fabulous excuse to play with some cool little things to fit inside the nicho. As I said, it's a Voodoo Love Shrine and what self-respecting Voodoo Love Shrine would be complete without the sacrificial chicken - complete with bloodied neck! This little chook was from a farm set of animals I had eons ago as a child and it's just floated around in amongst my collection of "odds & sods" for years....perfect!!!

I also altered one of the little art dolls to turn it into a voodoo doll by cutting it's hands & feet off, of course I wrapped them first so it wouldn't bleed it's stuffing everywhere! It then got some more wrapping with metallic thread to make it a little smaller to fit into the nicho comfortably. So it has it's little chicken and it needed a small vial of blood to complete the spell. I figured hubby would freak out if I made just a little tiny cut while he was sleeping to drain some of his blood so had to settle for red food colouring. I guess the blood would've separated or congealed or whatever blood does when it's not moving around in a body (or at the blood bank!).

Treasure Gold in several colours were rubbed over the nicho on the outside after first dry-brushing it all over with white Gesso. Added some other little bits & pieces, swarovski crystals, a little shrink plastic gravestone, an extra cross for the gravestone to live on and some little metal hearts that were coloured with alcohol inks.

The words "Diabolical Love" were stamped into foil tape after it had been attached to chipboard, then painted and wiped off to leave the paint in the cracks. I also used a little spiky wheel to make the little running hole marks along the top and bottom of these. We now sell these at the shop for the cool little price of under $4!!!

So that's it....if you want to see the other nicho's, and I highly recommend having a look at them, they are here at Inkurable Stampers, leave a comment if you like to encourage the girls. Sarah (who owns the site) gets quite a few hits but most people are kinda shy and don't say much in the way of commenting. It's nice for the newer girls to get some positive feedback.

Transparency Transfers, atc's & chunky page

Happy 2008 everyone!!! Here in Perth we sweltered over Christmas, the actual day was 41 degrees Celsius (105.8F) and the next day, Boxing Day was 44 (111.2F)....apparently, Perth was the hottest city on the planet on Christmas Day, thank goodness for air-con & swimming pools! New Years Eve was a fizzog for me.....in bed early thanks to a dreadful summer cold. I HAD been giving my hubby heaps about his "man-cold" but ended up catching it off him and needing antibiotics for my ears which were going all abuzz! Doesn't make creating easy with various parts of your face streaming onto your artwork!

I've had a one month hiatus from my atc classes so I'm doing some swaps with a couple of girls, these few are the first of them.....no, I'm not saying who's getting what....it's a surprise! First couple are using images under the small square microscope slides and alcohol ink on the metallic edging tape of the slides.

Next one is tissue paper background (same background as previous green one above), around the image I've used Black Texture Paste in a tube! Yep, the black and white texture paste (Jo Sonja brand) also comes in a tube which is fantastic for piping onto edges or making knobbly dots or whatever. Treasure Gold in green amber is then rubbed over the top to pick up the highlights.

My next atc class is on Inkjet Transparency Transfers using rubbing alcohol. I won't go into detail yet about how to do it, though it IS very easy, after the class I'll write up a little blurb to explain how I do it. Here's the first sample using this technique.

This next one is for my next Tuesday night class on Shrink Plastic, though it also doubles as a Microscope Slide atc as well! It's ambidextrous! lol

Our Altered Book Club (ABC) is still doing our monthly chunkies, I'm a little behind but have managed to do my Art Deco page....kinda simple but I think that was the beauty of Art Deco. The picture is Louise Brooks, she epitomises the "look" of Art Deco as far as I'm concerned and the quote is another from Dorothy Parker...what wit that woman had! (she was actually talking about Katherine Hepburn when she said this)

The background of this next atc was my scrap paper that I had used when colouring something else with Ranger Peeled Paint distress ink, then I painted the black frames used on my Art Deco page on the same piece of scrap paper. Too cool to throw away as it looked great with the contrast of the pale green and the strong black. The funny looking picture underneath this atc is the actual background, it's A4 size and the white bit is where I cut the atc from.

Gothic Arch & chunky page

....WARNING....WARNING... NUDE PICTURE BELOW!!!!!

The chunky swap theme for this month for our Altered Book Club (ABC) is Nudes. This in itself causes no drama as there's plenty of vintage nude images around and you have plenty of scope for what type of "imagery" you want to create to go with the nude....or nudes. While spending some time perusing different sites I happened across a little known "National Day". You know, those holidays that are obscure, weird, maybe a little funky but still great for the altered arts field....like "National Talk Like A Pirate Day" (September 19th). Well I discovered "National Garden Naked Day"....September 10th so it'll be a little chilly down here in Australia but think the States should have lovely weather!

My chunky page also contains a neat little library card that you can make up for yourself from this site. You put in the info that you want, including scribbled notes but just make sure you put a catalogue number otherwise it won't work (ask me how I know!). The words on the front of the chunky are "Carpe Rutila", which means...."seize the rake"! hahahaha Thought I'd throw a little Latin humour into it. The background on the front is embossed but I'm thinking now that I'm looking at it on screen, it might need some more "stuff"? Might have to do a.......shudder......groan.......shrink plastic FLOWER!!!!!!! I'm soooooo not into flowers but think this might actually call for one....though it'll have to be one of Michelle Ward's from the In Vogue plate....that'll make me feel a little better ;-) So here it is, front & back.

the back...

The other item....okay, 15 items, I finished today was my gothic arch pages for a swap with the lovely Natalie Briney. This was a bit of a long drawn out project, had the background pages ready well over 6 weeks ago but then hit a brick wall as to what to put on it! HIM to the rescue, same image as I used on the canvas that I made at stamp camp and I also used the big gothic script stamp (Michelle Ward again....Printed Matter plate) stamped with Brilliance Platinum Planet....LOVE that colour! Also used my new cuttlebug machine and a borrowed die (cutting thingo), this is the wonderful scrolly looking thing down the centre. There's also some webbing embossing in silver as well. Title? GOTHSTRASIZED....try and say THAT one 3 times fast!!!

Circus chunky page & gesso/mag atc's

When I was younger I was totally into reading all of Stephen King's wonderfully spooky books. One that particularly stayed with me was "It". Evil clown from the sewers....stuff that kids nightmares are made of. I know that some people are scared of clowns, I'm not, but as our chunky theme this month for the Altered Book Club is Circus, I thought I'd re-visit the nasty world of evil clowns. I can't wait to see all the varied pages that the girls in this group come up with....I've seen Nat's and it's wonderful! So here's mine....front...



and back....

Yeah, I know.....bad, nasty, evil clowns....sorry, I just don't see them that way, especially as my pet nick-name for my husband for over 25 years is "Clown"! He particularly laughed at the "Evil clowns need love too"....thinks it may become his catch-cry. hahaha

Yesterday at the atc class I taught we did the gesso & magazine image technique from Bernie's book. The girls were not particularly looking forward to this class as it meant more than just cutting out an image and sticking it down....they actually had to draw and call upon their own ideas & inventiveness which had them reaching down in the depths of their creative souls (sounds like a "moving" experience...no?). After being shown the basics, off they all went to fabricate their own little piece of art.

All was going well until one of them (who shall remain nameless....."L"!!!), decided that the nose she had drawn looked suspiciously like a particular male appendage. Of course, she was ready to bin it but I told her she had to try to resurrect it...it was rather funny...had the other girls in stitches. But resurrect it we did, see if you can pick which one it is! Below are the atc's that the girls did in class. Some are not quite finished, need some embellishments, and maybe a couple of words but you'll get the gist of it...as promised girls, no names on them ;-)

Something that I try to point out in my classes is you won't produce fantastically perfect atc's in a class where you're learning a technique for the first time. This is a jump-off point, you go home and if you like the technique, you do it a few more times, hopefully put a couple of examples into your own "technique book" that you keep. Not all techniques/styles are liked by all people but the more you expose yourself to different things, the easier it is to work out what is your own "style" and what sits comfortably with you. End of lecture! lol