Kilt Pin for Tina

I have a very lovely and very dear friend in Ireland, whom I find it difficult to buy gifts for.  This is because she and her husband run their own stall on a market where they live, and whenever I see something I think I could get them I worry that they will already have it - on their stall!

If I can I try to make a little something for them, and this year I decided to make a kilt pin brooch for Tina, having made a couple for swaps and enjoyed it.

 



Chunky ATC for Gill: Santa's Workshop

This was the last chunky ATC swap of the year, and of course is the one with a Christmas theme.  I had to make one for Gill, and her chosen theme was Santa's Workshop.  I thought this was a brilliant theme, and spent quite a bit of time planning how I would do it;  I decided I wanted to hide Santa behind doors so you had to peek in and see him, so I decided to turn the chunky into a tiny little workshop, covered in frost and snow, with a ladder up the side to the roof where the finished toys could be stored waiting for their collection by the sleigh.

I made doors and a doorframe for the front, which sit over the top of a picture of Santa hard at work, which I covered in glossy accents to make it stand out better.

The sides were covered in fine texture paste with a good dollop of both silver and iridescent glitters mixed into it so it looked like sparkly snow.  I had a minor disaster when I dropped the dish of paste onto my brand new purple jeans, but an emergency dash into the kitchen for a wet sponge sorted that out with no lasting damage!

I added a section of the same Santa image on the back of the chunky so it wasn't too plain, covered it in glossy accents and some crackle medium round the outside and then spread the past carefully around it, hoping to give the idea of a frosted window wiped clear of snow to look in. 

I got a selection of dolls house toys, including a little sledge, plus a ladder and added these; the sledge was going to be glued against the blank side of the chunky but I decided it would be too fragile for posting and removed it.  It went in the box loose together with two white 'bottle brush' type Christmas trees to set the scene - unfortunately I didn't take photos of the chunky with the trees!

I think Gill is happy with her chunky, which I am glad about as I really loved it myself and would have loved to keep it!

 









December Calendar Journal

I had this mostly finished at the beginning of the week, but didn't want to put pictures up until it had the title on.  Originally I wanted to do a really bright, richly coloured page for December, possibly with baubles or presents or crackers.  For some reason though once I started I fell in love with the icy look of the background that appeared (Dylusions again)  and just went with it by adding icicles for journaling;  I even found a stamp with Santa on his sleigh, which went well, plus one of snowflakes that I used on the outsides of the pages in white;  this doesn't show up on the photos though.