7 Random Things

Nat B has tagged me and I'm supposed to tell 7 random facts about myself. Being such a "wordy" person (read.....blabberbeak!), think it's going to be hard to do this, but I'll try and surprise a couple of you ;-) But first I'd better stick a picture in so I don't seem to just "talk" at you...to prove comment #6 this is one of my cloth dolls I made a few years back, she stands around 2 feet tall.

1. I spent some time in my youth hitchhiking around up the North-west of Western Australia and did a variety of jobs - including brickies labourer, car wash attendant and also spent some time living in the single men's quarters at a mine-site.....THAT was a secret....a big no-no! Did I care??? nope!

2. When I was 15 I owned a snake, I was heavily into Alice Cooper and I even have a tattoo of a snake "where the sun don't shine". My parent's didn't find out 'til I was about 18 because of it's location, another highly illegal thing to do - have a tattoo done when you are 15!

3. I met my husband through a local bike group (no, not a bikie gang!!!). Still love the sound of a Ducati roaring off....mmmm......Italian bikes do it for me! Ducati's & Laverda's!

4. Unusual fact.....hubby & I didn't live together until after we got married AND we waited 3 years to have our first baby...who is now 22. (Thought I'd better throw something in that reeks of conservatism & normalcy, considering my 3 previous enlightening comments....lol)

5. I started work at 15 as I did my Achievement Certificate & a secretarial course all in the same year. The Achievement Certificate was like a mini-high school certificate for 3rd year high school kids.

6. I'm a long-term sewer, started by making a complete baby girl's wardrobe when I found out I was pregnant...of course, I had a boy so I gave it all away. Falling pregnant 3 years later, sew the girls stuff again....another boy....give it all away. But it started me on the sewing buzz. My Mum who is a wonderful dressmaker/costume designer/maker still, always told me - "When you start out sewing, try to learn something new each time you use a new pattern, you'll build your skills quickly that way". It works.

7. I love watching gory stuff on Fox, like Autopsy and the Crime & Investigation channel. Grant reckons I should've been a detective. So we fight over the remote, he's a History Channel sort of guy and I'm into crime. Favourite author: Lee Child. If you like great action filled books with a REAL man as a hero and fantastic writing, Lee Child is your author du jour. Try him, you just might like him and you'll have heaps of books to catch up on. He only writes one book a year, I buy them as soon as they come out, read them in 2 days and then wait (impatiently) for another year!

Okay, one more pic....another of my doll pics, these are called "The Ancestors" and are about 3 feet tall. Funny that I'd put these pics in as I usually preferred making much smaller dolls, between 3" to 12"!

That's all folks! (I'm really a nice person, not a tattooed, bikie loving, immoral, uneducated person like I sound....hehehehe).

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!!!

Beeswax atc's

Last night's class was on the wonderful beeswax! Love the smell of this stuff melting in the meltpot, there's nothing like natural honey-aroma beeswax wafting about the room....mmmmm.....


The first one is the raffle atc won by Gayle (she DID say she was going to win when I was handing out the tickets and be darned if she didn't!!!).

The next two were just because you can't just make one beeswax atc when you are doing them, especially as I didn't even get my meltpot out to make any of these....just used my little quilting iron that was bought ages ago in my fabric & cloth doll days - though never did use it for that purpose. It's just fantastic for beeswax.

Quick Instructions......

All you do is put some little chunks of beeswax onto your atc-sized backing cardstock, melt the wax with the iron, then lay over your next thinner layer of either dressmaking tissue, wrapping tissue or even something that you've stamped yourself on normal copy paper, doesn't matter that the original wax has dried and hardened, drop some more wax on, re-melt it all together.

Then you can start adding images, embellishments, words etc just using little bits of wax on top and using the iron to melt it. This is difficult to get it to be precise as once you melt the wax, it all starts to swim around....don't stress.....just let it go where it wants - especially if you try to use micro-beads or something small like that! You can also add extra colour by either shaving a little bit of normal wax crayon and adding that to the piece, melting it will spread the colour around or you can hold the end of the crayon straight to the iron and make drops...like I have in the first one below. Hope this is enough instruction....love my little Clover quilting iron!!! (Remember to wipe off your iron though - the coloured crayon can tend to smoke a bit)

After these are finished, I use some double-stick tape and attach them to black mat-board. I always do this with my atc's as it makes them nice & sturdy and I like the little border around them....just the way I do it....not the "law"! lol

perfect pearls atc's & ABBA?????

Tomorrow's atc class that I'm teaching is on the wonderful little pots of dust known as Perfect Pearls. Quite a few ways to use this stuff, with the Perfect Medium (it's own sticky clear ink pad), or with embossing powder, or maybe use your water pen (Aquash - a paintbrush with a water reservoir in the handle), or you could dust it on transparency that has been stamped.... then xyroned... then xyroned again after you've brushed the PP onto it. I'm sure there are loads of other ways to use it, you just have to check out the Ranger site to see some more that I haven't got around to yet. I have a few atc's that I made up today below, including the first one which is the Scraptivate raffle atc.

The next one is the acetate/transparency with the stamped image on it, then the acetate was run through the 250 xyron to make it sticky, perfect pearls were dusted on to this then it was run through the xyron again, then attached to a book page. Handmade gold paper was added down the bottom and a little at the top with some words and an arrow spinner.

Perfect Pearls also work great on German Scrap, the atc below has one of the wonderful black swan wings dusted with the PP on top of embossing ink as well as the bottom piece of mat board that also has the PP treatment, along with a little water and some hammering using the non-working end of the paintbrush to get the "hammered metal" look. We learnt this particular technique in Tim Holtz's great classes that he did last year in Perth. The background of this one is alcohol ink on gloss card with a couple of embossed flourishes.

Last one.....I must give the kudos to Nick, a particularly talented artist on a US-based yahoo group that I'm a member of. He made an atc and asked if we could guess how he did the ethereal looking lady descending the stairs...all sorts of guesses were made....I guessed correctly so "won" the atc. He'd used the interference green Perfect Pearls to brush over the woman....looks fabulous in real life! No Nick, I didn't alter yours, I made one myself after finding the same picture that you had used....hope this is okay ;-) I'm sure the girls are going to love it tomorrow!

Okay.....ABBA....yes, I'm old enough to remember them from their hey-day and wasn't particularly into the bubble-gum pop that was their music. Another yahoo group girl, Kathy, has put me onto another Finnish band called The Rasmus. Matter of fact, I have a cd of theirs waiting for me tomorrow....a birthday present from me to me....I digress....so here's an ABBA song that I can actually listen to....cool band.....(the intro takes a bit of time, worth waiting for though...well, I think it is anyway!) lol

The Rasmus - SOS

more goodies from camp

(woo-hoo!!! some pics are clickable again!!!)

Onto some more pics from camp...

We had a fantastic time painting our aprons with the "totally sick" Jane...who informed us we weren't real fabric paint artists until we got the paint on our undies!!! Okay, so I think none of us made the grade as far as that was concerned, but more than a couple of us got it on our clothes! Of course, I was wearing my new Michael de Menge apron so there was NO WAY I was going to get paint on it (and I didn't!!!).

The very lovely Sulea wowed us all with her beautiful creations, both made before camp and given as gifts, and what she made while she was there. I was the lucky recipient of these two gorgeous pieces....first is a Collections arch kit that is just so textural you have to feel it to believe it.

This is the front of it, closed up, yes..... that is a stick with some little nuts still attached at the left side acting as the hinge!

Next pic below is the little book open and then below that one is the back of it, it has so much texture and the colours are just wonderful! Sulea always has such wonderful words on her pieces...very thoughtful and reflective.

I was also lucky enough to have Sulea as my Mystery Muse partner. It was relatively easy to guess who it was as there's not that many of the girls who do soldering and Sulea had soldered the edges of 3 atc's that were enclosed in an alcohol ink decorated little metal suitcase. It also had a fantastic necklace with "k" on it...also soldered and with alcohol inks on it too. Too beautiful for words these pieces, just love them Sulea, thankyou.

Here's the suitcase which was painted with gesso, alcohol inked, then dimensional magic on top.

here it is open...

Inside it contained this necklace...and these three beautiful atc's....

Also......how about this absolutely stunning bracelet that has 3 little houses soldered around the edges and joined by jump rings that was also with my mystery gift. I asked Sulea if they were her drawings...yep, they were....amazing!!!

Another of the uber-talented girls, Dot, hand-stitched this little fabric atc for me while at camp, her attention to detail is remarkable and having come from a fabric and beading background myself, I know what sort of work goes into her fabric pieces! I also got to choose one her atc's as well (to the right of the fabric one)...love the man's face and the colours in this.

On Saturday night at camp we had a pyjama party....okay, so not all of us got into this...some of the girls said "we don't wear pyjamas and we don't want to frighten anyone, so we choose to stay in our clothes!". Some of us made a special effort to buy new pj's for the event....me included.....saw these ones and just LOVED the colours but it was the pattern that really grabbed me! Perfect for me!!!!! Here's a close-up of the print...

(Note for Michelle W.....bought these at Target!!!!)

Speaking of PJ....I also received another awesome atc from a girl called PJ at camp ;-) She saw the quote and thought of me....how kind.....I think???? lol

Have I worn your eyes out yet???? I only have one more pic to go.....I had some badges made up at Cafepress before camp as a little commemorative token for all the girls who attended. I used a picture of an atc of mine as a background and then carrying on the oft-quoted comment from last year's camp taken from the movie "American Pie",........"this one time....at stamp camp", (though it was band camp in the movie - we thought it was relevant!). I hope that when all the girls look at this on their fridge, they'll be reminded of what a great time we all had and what wonderful new friendships were formed, and also old ones were strengthened.

One more comment.......some girls complained to me that I hadn't supplied the bloke from the atc as well!!!! Well girls.....we have to leave SOMETHING special for next year's camp!!!!! :-)

This one time.......at stamp camp......

And a fabulous time was had by all!!!! I've just returned from 3 days at the INKrediblyRT stamp camp down at Busselton (3 hrs drive south of Perth). Loads of fantastic arty stuff was created...we did a wonderful painted apron with the very talented - but VERY sick - Jane Pisan.....I mean "sick" as in ill with a cold....not "sick" in a modern sort of really "fantastic" way....though you could say Jane is totally SICK but she was also just sick....understand???? Here's a group pic of all the girls wearing their aprons.



Another project we did was to make an atc box with Kylie Mell giving us her guidance. This is one I don't have a picture of yet as it's not quite finished....will save that for a later update. I spent some time making atc's as trades, some of the girls were organised enough to do this BEFORE camp. I did at least remember to take pics of them though.

Last year's wild antics at camp were toned down this year for our resident karaoke-er (Carmel) was slightly off her game with the same bug that had afflicted poor Jane. Nic thought she had found the bargain of the century when she stumbled across bottles of Black Sambucca on special at a liquor store for only $8 (down from $10).....really, the price should've given it away....I told her the main ingredient was probably petrol as it gave her pretty bad headaches each morning....consequently, it wasn't all drunk! Sometimes cheap isn't best! lol Though Nic certainly took out the top award for "NEATEST DESK", probably because not much stuff was unpacked but at least she did produce some things ;-)

Michelle takes the award for most novel way of coffee-dyeing....take a mouthful of coffee....have a coughing fit....spray said coffee all over everything on your desk, the person's desk next to you, and the desk across from you! I wondered what the little brown spots were on my embossing tray, and I'm sure Nic LOVED the effect of the coffee spray on her stack of papers...hahahaha .....awwwww, come back Michelle.....all is forgiven....lol

I think Sulea takes the "ooooohhhhh.....aaaaahhhhh" award for her gorgeous work that she produced this weekend, as well as the beautiful gifts she gave out to several people (me included!!!). This will be another post though later as I have to photograph these wonderful pieces...wait 'til you see what I got!

Let's see, what else happened, Kylie learnt how to use a cigarette lighter for the first time...no, not smoking, lighting a candle for the soot technique (an oldie but a goodie!). I taught transparent atc's using the Collections big window frames, acetate, alcohol ink & a Xyron 250. Quick description....

Use alcohol ink to colour acetate the size of an atc. Cut out two window frames that are just like borders - atc sized - leaving about a 1cm border on all 4 edges. Colour these two window frames, paint, ink, emboss or whatever you want to do with them. Then stamp on a piece of plain atc sized acetate or attach a picture to it. Run the alchol inked piece of acetate through the 250 Xyron and attach to the other stamped (or picture added piece) atc sized bit of plain acetate. Then sandwich these between the 2 frames using double-stick tape. You can add words to the atc or embellish the frames further with brads etc. I generally use my clear word stickers as you can see the words but it doesn't detract from the clear aspect of this atc. Here's my samples that I made at camp...

Finally, a project with the super-talent - Dawn the Prawn. Using an idea from Sally Jean's book where you write down all these different things ~ draw, paint, stamp, scratch, colour, image, text...etc.etc, put them into a container and draw one out at a time, have a time limit set (ours was 10 minutes) where you had to do that particular technique on your chosen work surface. We worked on canvas boards 5" x 7" in size as they were small enough to get your ideas down but stable enough to take paints, stamping etc very easily. I had a theme in mind for mine before I started....I'm doing a dare on Aussie Dares and the theme is "It's all about the title", where you have to choose a book title, a movie title or a song title for your piece. I chose a song from my favourite band - HIM - the song is Gone with the Sin....like it Michelle????? (not "M" Michelle...the other Michelle ;-}....)

quick post before camp (& a question)

Now that I know the person who was chosen for my mystery muse will be "on the road" on her way to camp, I can post this picture of my little gift for her. We were allocated a partner who we had to make a small gift for (atc, name badge, etc.), this is what I made for mine. Hope she likes it! Who knows how tired I'm going to be when I come back from this 3-day blissfully art-filled weekend, so thought I'd better put something up as I'm sure getting sick of seeing the same pictures of Yallingup!

So here is the bookmark that I made using 2 of the large shipping tags. They both have a window cut out from the centre and I've put a transparency in the window. Obviously you have to imagine how this looks when you hold it up to the light....ethereal comes to mind, particularly with the image that I used! Stamping is mainly from Michelle's gpp plates and a small flourish from All Night Media.

I hope to have a selection of things to post about when I return from Busselton and who knows what I'll be able to capture on my trusty little camera's "movie mode"! We're having a pyjama party Saturday night so should be a fun time for all.

A quick question, does anyone know why some of my photo's, when clicked on, will show the larger version and others don't??? They are all saved in exactly the same way to the same place so don't know why this is happening...annoying!