Midsummer Madness Frame swap

This swap took its inspiration from an altered frame project in Craft Stamper magazine.  My swappee is Caroline, and her theme was " A season", (not all girly and yucky though) It took me a long time to get started as I couldn't find a suitable frame to alter, so I had to decide between using the reverse of a small canvas or a box.

I eventually found my stock of canvases and boxes, amazingly they were right under my nose all the time!  and after weighing up the pros and cons decided to go for the box, which is very thick and sturdy, with a canvas effect finish.  Plus it was white which made it easier to paint and alter.

I cut out the tree trunk shapes on the lid and inner section, then used acrylics to colour the whole box.  I painted and sprayed the inside of the box to give it a misty/frosty look and did the same with a spider web I had printed on acetate.  lots of leaves were die cut in autumn colours and sprayed in glimmer mists, and a quotation was stamped and heat embossed.  The bulrushes were also heat embossed using distress powders.  The title was painted to get it the right colour and stamped with one of the leaf stamps which I also used on the outside of the box.  I tried to place everything in the box to give it a layered effect, as if you are looking out betwee trees nto a misty landscape.

I stamped a Stampotique Wolfie king and coloured him with pencils.

Domino Book swap

This took its inspiration from an article in Craft Stamper, and would have probably been a whole lot easier if I had managed to get hold of dominoes of a normal size, i.e. 1" x 2" instead of the 1.5 cm x 2.5 cm that was all I could find.  my swappee for this was Lexi again, and this time her theme was "There's no place like home"

I had some lovely house stamps which I thought would be perfect for this, but they had so be stamped on paper, scanned in and reduced in size to fit the book.  I set up a row of resized houses and trees, and printed them off twice (The second time in reverse) , before colouring them in, cutting them out and glueing them back to back. 

Two of the stamps were used on shrink plastic and shrunk before being coloured in and covered in clear embossing powder.  these were added to the dominoes used for the book covers, which had previously been painted and heat embossed before the edges were glued and dipped in micro beads.

Four tiny alphabet beads spelling home were glued to the base of the dominoes as feet.

The open book

 

The front cover

 

The back cover

 

The feet - as you can see, I had trouble tying the book tightly shut as it turned out that what I thought was a ribbon when I fished it out of my ribbon bag that evening was a piece of some kind of faux leather trim. 

 

 

Butterfly Chunky

Here is the third chunky I made for a swap over on UK Scrappers, for a lady called Lexi whose theme was butterflies.  I happened to be on holiday in Ireland when the the swap details were sent out, but I was able to log on briefly to get the details.  This proved to be lucky because on our last day in Dublin I found a lovely little bead and crystal shop, where I bought the mesh butterfly shape I used on the front of the chunky, and the shared bead caps that I used for the feet.

The butterfly shape was coated in several shades of metallic embossing powder, I added wire antenna and used stickles on the body.  The paper I used had butterflies on, but I stamped and heat embossed some silver butterlies over the top too.  on the sides I added wooden butterflies that had been inked and painted with acrylics, with stickles used as trails.

The ATC front:

 

 

The right hand side:

 

 

The back (The quote is printed on Safmat):

 

 

The left hand side:

Grimms Fairy Tale ATC Book

The lovely Rebecca is running an ATC Book swap on UK Scrappers, where instead of simply sending each member of the swap a selection of loose ATCs back, she will bind them into a little concertina book.  I have one of her creations on a different theme, which I need to take photos of and post here because it is amazing, so I am looking forward to seeing how she presents the Grimms ATCs.

My chosen story was 'The Golden Bird', and I started by stamping am image coloured with distress markers. I was going to use a stamped bird, but I decided the image was too big so I used charms instead. With hindsight I think I made the wrong decision, but never mind.  Here are a selection of the ATCs that are winging their way over to France, plus the prototype with the stamped bird - what do you think?



A new Chunky has arrived!

The third Chunky ATC swap on UK Scrappers is now in full swing, titled Chunky 3: The Full Chunky.  My own production is a little behind as I has to get some ATC's ready and sent to France, so they needed to go first. 

Mt theme was 'Under the sea', suggested by my daughter as I couldn'r decide what I wanted.  As soon as I sent in my request for this theme though, a certain song started playing in my head and must have been playing in my swappee's head too while she was making it for me!  Even before the wrapping was fully off, I could see tentacles, and when fully revealed it was an Octopus' garden, complete with seahorses and a handmade mermaid, although the crowning glory is the quivering octopus on the top!

This came from Lynn, who didn't take photos of it so I have put three on to show as much as I can.  This is her first chunky, but she has done a wonderful job and it brightened my day!



Swap Goodies

I have taken part in several swaps this year, and have received some gorgous works of art in exchange for my own pieces.  Unfortunately I have been a bit slow popping pictures on my blog!  Anyway, here are a few:

Chunkies:

I received my first chunky from Rebecca:  My theme was Freedom, and she included all my favourite things, as well as a great quote on the back.

My second Chunky was a Gothic one from Audrey, and after going AWOL on its way to me it eventually turned up safe and sound.

I also received a fabulous altered tin:

Collage Swap

AS part of the Secret Swappers I am taking part in a collage swap.  The idea being that we each end up with 4 different sized/shaped pieces from each person taking part, using their chosen colour/theme.  Mine was vanilla and keys, I had to make 12 of each piece but as they are identical I took a photo showing 2 of each.  Once we get all our pieces back, they can be pieced together into a collage.