Two Bees!!

Or not Two bees!!! Thomas's weekly postcard project!! Not sure what to do for three? Three cats maybe , or maybe I should save that for Five as we have five fur balls here!

Postcard catch up!!!

Here is a major catch up on the postcard project after the laptop having a hissy fit and needing a new drive and the scanner not talking to the other laptop!!! Postcards not in date order!!!

Hoot!!

TPP Week 3- After watching Molly the Barn Owl for a while I thought an Owl Postcard was in order!! Not quite a Barn Owl though!! I'll have to make one for my Dad too this week and he is an Owl fanatic.

Also managed to finish a Felted bag as a surprise present and stitch a piece for one of my Moley exchanges on ATCs and Illustrated ATCs. Well, OK almost finished, I just have to do some handstitching. Managed to fit in some minimal gardening too amongst everything else and Fox and Co enjoyed their time outside!

TPP-Week 2

Ok well I know it is the same day as the last post but this is this weeks postcard!! It will be interesting to chart the delivery time for these throughout the year! I decided this one is called Roar!!!!
Mailed April 6 Arrived-

The Postcard Project

Week 1
In case you don't know I have THE most adorable nephew in the world! His name is Thomas but unfortunately he lives in England and I live in Canada. I was there in March for a week visiting and had a brilliant time. He is very smart and can already say Hippopotamus and experimental which is pretty darned good for a 2 year old! Last week when I was talking to my Sis on Facebook (as you do!!) I decided I would make him a postcard and mail it to him! Of course from my perspective, once it is mailed it should be there the next day! However the mail between Canada and the UK is not that fast, and we are still waiting for it to arrive. In the meantime I decided that it would be fun to make one every week and that way he wont forget his Aunty Sharon!!

Of course my postcards are in fabric, although at some point he may get a watercolour one! So watch this space and lets see how I do on the one a week pledge! Theoretically it will keep me blogging!!!
Mailed March 29th arrived April 7

Happy New Year!!

Well Ok it is January 10th already but Happy New Year anyway! I was in a Secret Santa Exchange at Illustrated ATCs .com, and now that the recipients have received their pressies I can actually post the pics. Today's is an Embroidered Box i made for Annie( EraserQueen), she loves bright pink and purple together so I grabbed some bright pink silk and then dyed some purple for the lining! I think it turned out well, and although I was cursing my decision to make it a 5 sided box as I was sewing on the base I will definitely make more of these.

Stay tuned for Dana's Tree later this week!!

Two Postcards and Vacation!!

Phew, at long last I have some time off work!!! A week and a half to potter about do some day trips and play in my studio!! I have decided at long last to call this space my studio LOL. It started off as my sewing room, then as art crept in it became my sewing and art room, so I think it deserves to be a studio now. who cares what is created in here!!

I am in a couple of postcard trades at IllustratedATCs and ATCs for all, The Butterfly one is from a postcard ingredient trade! we send the ingredients to our partner and then they come up with the design and post it back, it is fun as you can get soem fun stuff to play with that maybe you donthave in your stash! I spotted the Kaffe Fasset fabrics straight away and new they would be the base!! The Purple one is needle felted silk fibres on a recyled sweater that I dyed in blues and greens. I get them from the thrift shop p use as a base in my felted work!

Long time no blog and a Rooster

Well I would never win any prizes for blogging that is for sure. Work has been very busy and I am slowly catching up with my art commitments! Slowly but surely!!! Here is a Roosted I felted for Carol (Monarch) at ATCsforall. We are trading felted pages and her theme was funky birds! I had just finished anothe trade page and that was a Peacock so birds were the theme of the moment it seems!

Ghosts of Autumn

Well as usual my design intentions took a left hand turn during the creation process!! I think this is why I don't plan things out too rigidly! In the end this page turned out better than my original idea !!! I never have any trouble with Autumn as a theme as I love the colours and it is my favourite season!!

Summer Journal Page

This page is for a four season swap I am in at ATCS4all. It was due last month but I was not happy with what I had so far so I started again!! To me Poppies are summer and so that is what I did. Of course I could not find the right colour silk for the flowrs so I ended up dyeing some in grades of pink and yellow. I think it came out quite well and am pleased with it although it is a very simple design. Sometimes I have to stop myself from adding other stuff when it doesn't need it LOL Beads yarns and additional stitching would detract from the effect I think!

Whimsy Art

ATCs for all and Mail Art World have a new online class for April on Whimsy Art.May just give this a go!

I had fun doing whimsical mushrooms for a swap a couple of weeks ago!! I love the Mushrooms from Disney's Fantasia and I think that was what I had in mind when I drew this one!!

Finished the page and more

Well I finally finished the felted page and have posted a pic to ATCs for All.I am happy with the page as it does have depth I think! then I got to playing some more with the embellishing/felting machine.I did some abstract ATCs last week that reminded me of a summer night and so I decided to try for Spring. I added organza to represent the last frosts. The card didn't photograph well with a flash though and needs daylight so I will take a pic and post tomorrow!

Almost finished felted page!!!

Here is the page after the stitching and the trimming to 8x8. I had to lose my favourite cloud though!!! I think it looks much betterwith the snow highlights. I will finish this tomorrow,I need to be paying attention when edging felt, it can be really aggravating and streeeeeetch!!

Oh Joy!

Well having finally recovered my passwords etc here I am!! I spent a great part of the Christmas holiday ( christmas when was that now??) tidying this sewing/art room. We are getting there!! Slowly!

The felting machine and I are having great fun barr the broken needles. (There is a limit to thickness fo felting!!) I was doing a journal page yesterday for a swap I am in on ATCS4ALL, and yesterday I left it alone as half of me said it was done and the other half said nono no, stitch on it as well. Today I came home and now I cannot see how on earth I though it might be finished!
Here is is so far, I am about to do some free motion stitching on the top, wish me luck!!! Getting mistaken stitches out of felt is NOT fun, and near impossible!

Oh yes, with physiotherapy (Thanks Heather and David) my wrist is fully functional!!

Fourth Cast

Adults should not break bones!!! I do not recommend this sorry experience at all. I am now on my fourth cast, but, fingers crossed this one might last the next three weeks. For some reason, other than the fact that I am weird as my DH so eloquently puts it, my hands swell up when they get hot especially at night. Imagine what happens when it tries to swell up when it is in a cast. not fun. hence the forth cast which is loose and would not win any prizes for esthetic value, but it does allow my poor hand to swell up.!! I usually have the philosophy that everything happens for a reason and something good always comes out of such misfortune..... well i am still looking for the good on this broken wrist escapade!!! There was a young guy in the fracture clinic yesterday, he was 20, and has broken both heel bones. He faces 8 weeks off his feet, surgery, and is guaranteed arthritis at an early age due to the damage. Sort of put my wrist into perspective, as all things considered this`is expected to heal fully, but might take a few months and i am sure a few doses of naproxen!

Life

Over the last two years I have been involved in ATCs, our web home is ATCsforall.com Although I have only met one of my arty friends in person ANg, I feel I have made a lot of friends around the world through this medium. One if these friends is LisaB, or Queen Lisa to some of us! Not only is she an amazing artist, but she is an amazing person, very caring and funny. Earlier this year her darling husband AC was diagnosed with leukemia, and despite the efforts of the docs he lost his battle this last weekend. From Lisa's posts we felt we knew him just a little bit, they were soul mates and loved each other very much. My heart breaks for her.

http://www.active.com/donate/llshoustonmarathon/4unclebuck

August already!

My but the years go fast these days!!! I managed to do some playing this week with the watercolours, and an hoping to refine at least one into a postcard! At least having bought some 140 lb paper it is not buckling as much, but i really do need more practice. I am thinking of looking for a watercolour beginners class in the fall, that would help immensely!!! tried drawing too but the paper wont stay still!!!!

Same cast!!

Well, I still have the plaster cast, that has now been wrapped to make it tighter! The bones have not moved and so they do not want to risk moving anything! I have to say that the staff in the fracture clinic are excellent!

I tried some drawing on the weekend LOL Fabric is definitely my preferred medium! I shall persevere!

Oops

Well I must have been busy to miss a whole month without blogging!! I guess I will have ample time in the next five weeks considering the fact that I managed to fall and break my wrist last weekend!! I was sorting the cardboard for recycling and did my usual trick of stepping on it to flatten it! Bad idea, slipped and went flying, put out left wrist and crack! DH came running to see if I was OK, and my response was no I broke my wrist! Five hours, 7 x-rays, one cast and a closed reduction later I was home! The swelling has gone down and now the temp cast feels really loose! More x-rays on Monday and a permanent cast if all is well.

Time to practise drawing skills I guess as that is about the only art one can do with a left wrist in plaster!

New ATCs

These are two cards I made when I was playing about! I love the effect of zapping organza with the heat gun, partly because the effects are somewhat unpredictable! Once I had zapped it I decided to try a different approach to each one. The first I used golds to enhance it and then the second I went for the contrast with three colours according to my handy dandy colour wheel. You would think for all the threads I have I would have had the exact colour of thread, but no, anyway I figured this pink/purple was close enough!!! Still can't decide which one I prefer!