Book for my Sister

Each year I include a handmade item with my Christmas Gifts for my Sister. This year I made a book for her using a technique taught at a class by Cathie Allan of Western Educational Activities. She is a wonderful artist who has been published regularly and designs for one of the RS ink companies. She makes each class so much fun, and inspires us to go home, play with the ideas and make each item "our own".

The book includes family pictures as well as quotes, and a little calendar inserted in the back cover.

Some new items

I Have been busy getting ready for Christmas, while trying to fight off a cold. I made a few Christmas cards for friends and family who appreciate the handmade ones. These are a sample of a few that I made:

Brasso Challenge

Over on New Generation Stampers Trish B dreams up challenges for us. I tried the Brasso technique challenge with a couple of magazine ad pages. This is one that I found in a small advertisement booklet that I received. The image made me think that she was lurking in the shadows, perhaps she is a detective or she is hiding or waiting from someone (think maybe I read too many suspense novels!!).

You take the magazine page, and rub the Brasso over it to remove the inks, leaving whatever portions of the page you desire.

I just added a couple of stamped words to the page after doing the brasso over it. Not sure if I will add anything more, but will leave it and mull it over for a bit.

Playing with Slide Mounts

CC Swaps is running a swap for items made with slide mounts; no cards or ATC's allowed but something different. I have not joined yet, but thought I would play around with the slide mounts to see what I could create.

The first thing I did was a little booklet. I stamped images acetate then coloured the white plastic slide mounts with alcohol inks. I added some embellishments and then glued them to large cardstock slide mounts, then added some fibres to bind the pages together.

All the images are from http://www.heartsintouch.com/ with the exception of the one on the first page which is from http://www.folderoldesign.com/

Front and back covers

The second item I made was a slide mount pin using a stamped image under a slide mount glass and added some old jewellery pieces, a charm and a bail.

Recipe Tag Swap

I have not posted for a while as I have been busy with various social activities as well as a lot of other things.

I recently joined a recipe tag swap in the Chunky Book Artists Group and this is what I created.

Spoiler Alert - 12 Days of Christmas

I recently signed up for a swap that Sweetpea is hosting for 12 Days of Christmas. I signed up once then decided to join a second time, jumping in with both feet as usual!

The the first set of gifts that I made were done on chipboard squares with dye inks, mica watercolours  and edged with leafing. Then I coloured microscope slides with alcohol inks and inserted a picture underneath it. The image I used is from http://www.old-picture.com/

The second set are stamped Clay Necklaces with a colourwash over them; the back has a leaf stamped on it.

Catching Up

I had a few swaps to complete, so took the time to get them done while Hubby was not around to bug me. Each year I participate in a Calendar swap and this year I chose February. Rather than go with the traditional hearts and flowers, I decided to use a background stamp with a vintage couple and some Ivy. The centre panel was done with Adirondack sprays.

I also had a couple of Artist Trading Cards to complete. One is for an alphabet swap, so I decided to use some feathers that my hubby found in the garden, for the letter F. The background is from a sheet of cardstock with Adirondack sprays and stamped off Opalite and Dr PH Martin inks.

The second ATC background is a candy wrapper glued to the cardstock rubbed with Mica Magic inks and rub-ons. The image is coloured with chalks and edged with leafing.

Pictures of the projects are in later posts.