Inchie Swap

I signed up for an Inchie Swap on CCSwaps. I first thought of making a little notebook but Carol is doing that for her swap so thought I would do something different.

I have a stash of beautiful embossed papers and decided to use them instead of hoarding them. I started by punching circles from the various papers and punched small holes for them to be used as tags.

Two of the white ones I coloured with Twinkling H2O's then sprayed with Glimmer Mists. Another one, I coloured with Fluid Chalks and sprayed with the Glimmer Mists. The other two white ones were coloured with Fluid Chalk inks.

One black piece was coloured with Fresco chalk inks the second with Versamagic inks then sprayed with silver Glimmer Mists.

The final piece is a Pinata~ ink background stamped with a snowflake stamp in gold. Thought this one was appropriate for the little girl that I used on the inchie who looks rather angelic.

The inchies were made from scraps of my homemade background papers and various freebie images. The Dragonfly was a scrap of plumbers tape that I had embossed in the Cuttlebug that I punched then coloured with Adirondack pens.

I may add something to the binder ring that I attached to make it a bit more attractive.

Mini Memories

I belong to a small group DCI comprised mostly of Australians, but there are few of us from North America. The current swap is to make Mini items that can all be placed into a larger frame. Each participant has chosen a theme and a colour scheme. Some have stipulated a certain size and others have just left it up to the artist.

For the month of August Trizzy is the chosen recipient to receive a creation from 10 other people. Her theme is "Wings" and the colours blue and/or green with silver, with no specific size.

I recently bought a couple of stretched canvases at the dollar store and decided to use one for this project, but using the back instead of the front.

I covered the whole piece in gesso, then painted the inside with 3 different tones of blue acrylic paint. Still thought it needed "something" so went over it with blue H2O's - still not happy. So I took some silver fabric glue paint and slapped over the top portion and ran an old comb through it and rather like the effect as it looks like rain or a waterfall.

With my Cuttlebug I embossed some plumbers tape using the bird embossing folder (keeping the wings theme) and cut it to fit around the outside of the frame. I coloured the embossed parts with Adirondack pens then sprayed it with a setting agent.

I painted the inside edge in green but it did not seem finished so I tried several different things...stamping, lace, beads and even some green cording, however, none of them appealed to me. Into my stash!! I found some sea glass but it was too bulky; then I discovered some little plastic mosaic pieces and there were enough blue and green ones to fit around the edge. I adhered these with some of the wonderful Sookwang tape (Picture and giveaway on this blog) then used silver seed beads as the grout.

I stamped and coloured a cattails stamp by Hero Arts with Prismacolor pencils and and H2O's, and cut it out. I did not like it with the brown cattail head so cut them off and attached the rest of the image to the inside background. I had some little icicle embellishments in my stash and added them as more fauna. I added a jewell to a round paper clip and attached it to simulate the sun.

I have had the dragonfly ornament thing for years and this was the perfect opportunity to use it. I added some bead chain to the body and some beads on the tail, then attached a butterfly charm. I glued this to the frame with some super glue. However it would not stick. So I revised the piece. This was the original.

I took off the bird and replaced it with the butterfly. I cut off a piece of the dragonfly's tail and screwed it to the frame, then added a green jewell to hide the screw head. Much happier with it now and will mailing to Trizzy this week!!

Game Pieces

CC Swaps is running a swap using game pieces; any type can be used. The only game pieces I have are dominoes, so that is what I decided to use.

I covered a domino with 3 different colors of pearl embossing powder and heated it. I then added an image from http://paperflowers1.blogspot.com/ , covered the whole piece with clear embossing powder and embossed it. I had some old jewllery so took one and painted it silver with a bic marker and added it along with a cuttlebug embossed piece.

To be honest I had no idea what to do with the domino at that point and almost considered removing myself from the swap. Then the lightbulb went on-I remembered that I had made an ATC background with plumbers tape, embossed in the Cuttlebug and alcohol inks applied, which coordinated well with the colours in the domino.

I decided to make a notebook for the swap. I took some volcanic ash cardstock and cut it to size for the front and back covers. I embossed Magenta swirl stamps with silver embossing powder, then attached the ATC background and domino. I cut down some lined pages to fit inside and put the whole thing together using my Bind-it-All. It's too bad that shiny or glittery objects don't show well in pictures, as the AI's on the plumbers tape are really pretty.

March It-Girl

The ArtVenture It-Girl for March is Karen and her theme is Shrines. This is something that I have never done before and I really struggled with the theme. I made several attempts but was not happy with them, so back to the drawing board.

I was looking for something in my spare room and came across some small picture frames and thought they might work for the shrine. I settled on one that had a deeper "box" for the picture and a nice leafy motif.

The frame was a dull gold tone and I decided to jazz it up a bit. I started by painting it with gold Lumiere paint, then dry brushed silver, turquoise, blue an pink around it. The bottom was done with bronze.

The centre (background) is a matchbox into which I placed a piece of cardboard covered with plumbers a tape which I embossed with my Cuttlebug and dabbed with Alcohol inks.

The image is a postage stamp honouring Star Trek figures, but it looked a bit like an old Monk to me so thought it fit the theme. I adhered it to a Style Stone and edged with Krylon pen. I attached it with some E6000.

The charm at the top was silver, but seemed to stick out like a sore thumb, so I coloured it with some Adirondack Markers before attaching it. I added the gems and the flower embellishment to complete it.  I also glued the stand onto the back again so that it can sit on her desk or another piece of furniture, if she chooses. I hope Karen will be as pleased with the piece as I am.

Cuttlebug play

I have a Cuttlebug swap in CC swaps and made a notebook/post-it note holder.
I started by putting some of the plumbers silver tape over a piece of cardstock, then ran it through the Cuttlebug. I then attached it to 130Lb paper (doubled), and cut it down to size.


Then I coloured it with metallic paint and ran some Goldfinger antique gold (similar to rub-n-buff) over it, which resulted in kind of a verdigris look.



I wanted to make a little pocket to store items, so I cut down a page protector to fit. I found that if I put some scrap paper over each side I was able to make the holes with the cuttlebug, otherwise it was a problem and they did not cut properly.


I printed off an image I found in an advert onto a transparency and punched the holes and placed this at the end to cover the post-it notes and remain transparent. The final touch was to stamp the back with a saying.