ATC Fun!

My friend Marg, and I, and three more friends meet once a month in Marg's wonderful studio and play. This month we played with a background that we found in Bernie Berlin's ATC book. Marg and I had done something similar a few weeks before (faux batik) but we liked this effect so much more!
The way we did this was: first we painted the ATC (this one I painted in green-just used cheap craft paint), then stamped on it with clear embossing ink, covered it with clear EP, and heated it until the EP melted. When that was cooled down, we dry brushed another colour (contrasting-I chose a browny-gold) over top of it all, then we ironed it, placing a paper on top to pull off the EP as it melted. The result was so wonderful that we repeated the process many times! It gives a very aged and antiqued look. We also found that there was a neat impression left on the top paper, and so we started using good cardstock to pull off the EP (second photo). This example was the piece that came off the "Damn that Woman" ATC below. We then swiped the cs with Marvy Marker Matchable ink pads (I'm sure you could use any kind, but the ink nicely didn't adhere to the image). I love the result!! The finished ATCs from that night are below:

These are the 4 ATC's I made while at Marg's house. When I got home I added some bits and pieces, the xox in beads on the "clever devil", 3 red brads to "Distinctive Intense Eyes", the key to "Passionate", and the ribbon to "Damn that Woman!"







All images are from altered pages. The clever devil image is a B&W image that I coloured

Something Fishy

I was rooting though one of my ephemera books and came across some paper someone had sent me long ago. It wasn't very much, just a little piece, butit was cool and bumpy, and reminded me of water. So I cut it to ATC size, added a fish from altered pages, stamped some bubbles, highlighted them with white gelpen, and added an anchor. I like how it turned out!

Journal Pages from August 06 to April 07

These are all my pages from August 2006-April 2007. My journal is a cheap Composition book.

My friend and I spent a chilly day at a nearby lake, and saw hundreds of Monarchs! Very cool! I also bought myself some new pens from Sakura, called "souffle", which I love because they show up so well! I just heat them a bit after writing with them and they pop right out! I used them on the butterflies and the leaves, and also on later pages for writing.

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

I know that in medieval times they did eat Peacocks, complete with the feathers for show! But we just had the traditional turkey, without the feathers! This page was made using one of Dawn's "recipes". It was an exceptionally warm thanksgiving this year, we even had our appetizers on the porch - we have never done that before!

January boots, plans and snow!

I inadvertantly left this page out when publishing my blog, and have no idea how to move it to another spot, so if you know how to do that, let me know please!! So this page is out of order. it should come after my New Year's page.

I found these Shakespeare cards in my ephemera book and I just wanted to use them! They flip up and little secrets are hidden behind! I also love my swirly stamp from Michaels. I was very sick this month (asthma attack) , but luckily managed to stay out of the hospital. It is now the end of April, and I'm finally feeling back to normal.

Married 22 years!

Wow! That's a long time! My first marriage lasted 7 years, 2 of which I was with my current guy! I also made my annual trek to Toronto to visit a Montessori School, attend a Montessori conference, and stay with my daughter-best part!! I love living like a student again, taking the subway, living in a student apartment, hanging with her friends....but it's exhausting!! Bought some new stamps at Bizzy Bee in Toronto, and hung out there all afternoon! I have wanted the spinner stampl for a long time!

Car Accident

The 13 was a very strange day. My daughter was in a car accident, where the car she was in crashed right through a billboard sign. She said it was like something out of a movie. Thankfully everyone (except the car) was safe.
I think this is the shortest page on Christmas I have ever done! I love the Budda!

Happy New Year!

My birthday! Yes, I am a New Year's Baby! Born 53 years ago in LaJolla, CA. Also included in this page is the very sad loss of my first Father-in-Law to cancer. He was a wonderful family man, and when his son and I divorced, he made it clear that I was still part of the family, and we were always invited to family functions. Towards the end, when he was suffering badly through the Christmas season, he kept his illness from his family so it wouldn't ruin their holidays. We will all miss him.

Oprah and LOA

I was sick for a whole week - in bed for a week! I started watching Oprah everyday, and this show about "the Secret" was on, it was facinating! It essentially is the idea that what you think is what you are, and we can attract things or situations to our lives by how we think. I do it all the time when I need a parking space, I just ask for the space and say exactly where I want it. Usually it's there for me! LOA means "Law of Attraction".
The page is made from magazine pages of a close-up of a sweater. I really hated it once I put it down and had no idea what I was going to do with it. Although I still hate the colour combination, I now like the page!

Thankful Page

This page was made after watching Oprah. I thought I would write out all the things I'm thankful for. It's quite a lot!! The girl's head is made of tea leaves! My husband and daughter went to Myrtle Beach for a week over March Break, and we had such a great time! I love waking up to the ocean!

April 2007 Grid page

This is my April grid page. Hadn't done a grid page in awhile. My next page is also a grid page to complete April. I think I like the other pages better!

Some Colour...

It was a miserable, rainy (for many days) day, and I was starving for some colour. I went out onto my porch to see what I could find, and this was it. the only bit of colour anywhere! I can't wait for the flowers and leaves to start bursting out.

A Lotus Grows in the Mud

Just finished reading "Goldie -a lotus grows in the mud", an auto-biography of Goldie Hawn. I loved this book, and it's insights into growing up, motherhood, being a daughter, having your children grow up and leave, lots of great quotes and things to think about. I was crying at the end when she was talking about mother-daughter relationships, and how we cope with letting go of our children. Not so much a biography of her movies and husbands etc, but more from her heart, and her perspective as to what is important to her as a person. A great read! The link is to a hardcover book, but mine is soft-cover, so I know it is available that way!

Bad Girl's Altered Book Tip-Ins

Last year I started an Altered Book with the theme "Bad Girls", with my Altered Pages Yahoo group. It is a tip-in swap, and the players can interpret the theme as they wish. The book I chose was called "It's a Woman's World", which I renamed "It's a Bad Girl's World". I haven't done anything to the cover yet. The book is shown here splayed out, and I have included all the tip-ins I have received so far, in my blog. These pages are done by other artists (except for mine), and if you are one of those artists and want your page deleted from the group, please let me know.
The book is unfinished, I will add the rest of the pages when it is finally finished. I thank all the artists for their wonderful contributions! It is an awesome book so far.

This is my title page. The book I am using is slightly larger that the tip-ins, which are 5"X7". I need to colour the edges of the pages to match the tip-ins before I put them in my book. I wanted the tip-ins to be glued flat to the pages of the book, so I asked for 2 pages (1 layout) from each person.
Another way to do a tip-in is to cut two pages out of the book, leaving 1/4" to 1/2" edge, that you would "sandwich" the page into.
As I started adding my tip-ins to my book, I became more creative in the way I was adding them, by adding borders and edges to them. I also added a window page to one layout. I have room for several more tip-ins, and so far I have recieved most of them from my Altered Pages group - now on my second swap (I used the same theme to get more pages) and I'm also asking from my Canadian Altered Books group for tip-ins.

The first tip-in I received was from Dayle Persons. She chose great pictures, little snippets of quotes, and the charms and earring were perfect additions. I painted the background of my pages black and added the gold diamonds edges with stamps., it worked very well!

I love the sheer simplicity of Jackie Garbarino's page. The holes are "exploding" out of the pages, with the images underneath. Since she owns Alteredpages.com. I'm assuming the images are hers! And I love the sentiment!

This page was unsigned, and I have forgotten who made it. Hopefully they will tell me if they see it! I love the fish-net stocking feeling of this page, it reminds me of a Bawdy House with gambling, I can practically hear the glasses of whiskey clinking, and the laughing of the girls! I added the beads across the top of the page.

This is Sue Shute's first addition to my book. I love the colours she chose and the energy on this page. I added the buttons around the edge with a button border stamp.

This page is by Judy Lawton. I like the simplicity of this page, the femininityof this page, and the song! The colours also went very well with the ribbons I chose to do the edges with.

My good friend Therese Malak made this page for me. I love all the business of this layout - lots to see everytime I open it up! The colours of this page inspred the colours of the ribbons along the side, and they also look great with the previous page as well. I had a broken hole, and had run out of ribbon, so I added the key charm after fixing the hole.

This is Sue Shute's second contribution to my book. I decide I would do something fun with this page, and use my new filigree stamp, so I followed Beth Cote's instructions on how to make a window with beads and it turned out very nice! I made sure the circle fit over two nice spots, so I had to move the tip-in on the second page down a bit to fit nicely in the window.

The page on the left is by Jacey C. She used some beautiful golden stickers for the filigree parts, dotted in the girl's necklace in gold, and "dusted" some gold beside her.

I decided I would like to do a page in the book too, so I did this purple page. The wine bottles are from a punch that a friend owns, and are connected by wire and seed beads. The images are from Altered Pages. The letters are rub-ons. I painted the left side with black gesso and the right side with purple acrylic paint. I folded the center page to form a triangle, and attached it to the purple side with a brad.

Fanta-Sea Tip-In

Here is another tip-in that I finished today. It was supposed to be mythical characters, gods or godesses of the sea. I love Celtic lore, so I chose Mannanan Mac Lir, Irish God of the Sea. I used torn paper to make the waves, accented with DTP chalk ink. The Celtic image came from a book of Celtic images, the mermaid from Old Island stamps. The row of shells came from the dollar store, as did the battle axe charm hanging from the boat. Exciting things in the dollar store these days! The star-fish are real, bought at a craft show a few months ago. This is one I wish I didn't have to send away!