Fab Friday and Delightful Decoupage!

Leonie's challenge this week was to use decoupage on your ATC. I have chosen this decoupage image by Margaret Sherry. I chose this one as I'm going back to work tomorrow after having been off for a year. So after a day with 6 children with behaviour problems I will be needing to crack open a bottle! Phil has been making a home brew down in the shed so I'll have to try it!

More recycling!

I've been saving things from the bin again! The green base for these cards is the packaging from my new wok! The card has a printed white pattern on which I stamped over in black using a foam oriental stamp I bought from a car boot sale for 20p! I coloured in some peel offs using a red pen and used the negative and positive images from one peel off. I added a coin, ribbon and pearl gems. The text is also cut from the packaging. The wok cooks a nice stir fry by the way!

P.S Thank you to my friend Mary who sent me a gorgeous ATC holder that she has made. I know you have had trouble leaving comments Mary so I thought I'd give you a special mention!

Pretty Piece of Paper

I really enjoyed this challenge as I have so many pretty papers but tend to use them flat as I don't like to cut them! I also have lots of sheets that I keep for best! I've seen Leonie and Dawn demonstrate this technique before but never had a go. So thanks Leonie for getting me to look at my papers in a different way!

I used Dovecraft butterfly and paisley paper and decided to decoupage the paisley parts not the obvious butterflies. I inked around the edges of the base card and the pieces before I decoupaged. The text is cut from a K&Co paper and I finished by punching some pink hearts out of plain paper as there are small hearts in the main paper.
I then got carried away with my scraps (while footie was on) and went on to make another 4 ATC's (sitting in bed watching Big Brother!) using the same papers, some coloured match sticks and sparkly gems. I am really pleased with these and am going to experiment with some other pretty papers!

More dolls!

I've made some more Russian doll ATC's this week so I thought I'd pop on some more piccies of my collection. This is one of my favourite dolls - I found her at a car boot sale for £1. The pattern has been burnt onto the wood and they have used gold and siler leaf too. The smallest doll is the size of my thumb nail!

I made the next 2 ATC's using my new Gustav Klimt stamps from Cherry Pie Stamps in America - you can buy their stamps through Ebay. They have loads of lovely sets of unmounted stamps. I used Joanna Sheen EZ Mount to enable me to use them with my acrylic block.

Here I've used the tradional image of a Russian Doll.

These are the more traditional looking dolls and most of them are hollow as they are bottle holders, salt and pepper pots and trinket holders. The 2nd largest one is made of plastic to keep your bottle cool inside. My friend found her at a French market for 1 Euro!

Hope you like them!

Ebony & Ivory - Sunday Stampers

Hels challenge this week at http://pinkleart.blogspot.com is monotone themed. I've used one of my new Gustav Klimt (my fav artist) stamps from Cherry Pie. Klimt's work is very colourful so I thought I'd use one of his images in a toned down way for this challenge. I added buttons, ribbon and inked a jigsaw piece. I got the jigsaw in a charity shop for 50p. They were going to throw it away as there are pieces missing so i'm recycling again!

Leonie's challenge - Recollection and Reciepts

This week Leonie's challenge was to make an ATC using tickets/leaflets etc from a day out.


Yesterday we had a great day out at the Easton Festival at Easton Farm Park in Suffolk. Phil has a 1970's beetle (see piccie!) which we took for the classic car display. There were also food and craft stalls, dancing displays, bands and of course you could see the farm animals too. Here's a piccie of one of the cute little goats!


For the background of my ATC, I've used part of the map inside the programme for the day. I stamped a VW Camper image in the top right hand corner, and inked around the edges of the card with a green ink pad. I added a VW themed sticker, and bling for the headlights! The tag is made from the price label of a piggie pen I bought in the gift shop, so a bit of recycling too!

Russian Dolls!

This week chriss has a Russian Doll ATC challenge.

As a collector of Russian Dolls I got very excited about this challenge! Here's my ATC and some piccies of my vast collection! I thought I had about 60 but actually have over 100 dolls, plus magnets, handbags, key rings, salt and pepper pots, pens, etc!! Most of my dolls have been found at car boot sales, antiques fairs and charity shops. They smile at me and I have to take them home! I do think that they breed in my cabinets - after all they are a symbol of fertility! I'd love to hear what you collect.

Chop and Change

Leonie's easier challenge(!) this week was to chop your ATC and change it.

Trust me this ATC looks better in real life than in this photo!

I covered a base card in Dovecraft paisley paper and chopped the corners off. I used the remaining pieces to create a collage on a new base card. I then stamped a paisley stamp onto the collage and embossed it. However - I hadn't thought that the heat gun would melt the micro dots and the pieces moved around the ATC in places I hadn't planned! But I decided to keep going and see what happened. I then stuck the corners from the first ATC onto 3-D foam and attached them to the corners of the new base card. I chose 3 co-ordinating butterfly stickers from a QVC kit and finished with some ribbon and papermania gems. So in the end my little mishap didn't look too bad (the stickers covered it!) This was a hard one to take a photo of, probably because it's so dark with the constant rain here!!

Leonie's tone on tone challenge

This weeks fab Friday challenge from Leonie was 'tone on tone'. You could only use tones of one colour and then black or white for your lettering. This challenge has been bugging me for a few days as it's not as easy as you first think!

I covered a base card with torn purple tissue paper and pva glue to give a glossy finish. I then coloured in a butterfly peel off using a purple peel off pen and stuck this on. I used purple papermania gems to highlight parts of the peel off. In the bottom right hand corner I used purple buttons and flower stickers in a collage effect and to finish I used white peel offs for my wording. This has to be your hardest challenge yet Leonie!