IF YOU WANT SOME FUN

pop over to Heather's blog and join in this months ATC challenge - Victorian men and pink.
One of the comments on my woyww post this week suggested that this really was a challenge. I must agree. I was so out of my comfort zone with this one as I have never really been a fan of Victorian stuff and definitely not men's cards etc.. However, not one to be beaten I've given it a go.

This one arose from my 'naughty' side. As you can see I stuck a man's head on a 'cheeky' Victorian lady and made it into a simple burlesque show.

I used a couple of nestabilities to cut the frame and acetate for this card. I alcohol inked the acetate to give it a pink hue. The rest speaks for itself.

A bit of grunge for this one. I used Tim's paper from his shabby vintage stash, his swirl stamp and distress inks. The dictionary paper is from the page Tim gave me at his workshop in February. Nothing complicated again except I used wax over the image and added a sprinkle of beadazzles whilst it was melted - not an easy task believe me.

It was a fun challenge despite the subject, so why not have a go yourself. You may just be surprised at what you can create.

CRIMBO CARDS

I made a couple  more cards, last night actually, after I wrote my woyww post for today, that's why they weren't on it..

This image has been on my image folder since last year but I've never used it 'til now. It's a simple card because of that but nothing is simple about the gorgeous Snow Flurries on the edge die from the master himself. It cuts really well for something so complicated.
The little girl has a blue skirt so I have used a piece of matching card on the edge of the inside to show off the snowflakes which in turn are covered in ice stickles. I added a bit of distress stickles to the image after matting and layering it to the main card. The large snowflake is from a Xmas card from last year!

This card has turned out better than I could have wished. It's 6"x6". The matt is 5.5"sq. Again I have used a vintage image from my stock but I distressed the matt using colours that matched the image and in the same situation. After that I stamped Tim's fir stamp in forest moss to one side and his scroll in aged mahogony to the other. The sentiment is one I use often, simply gold embossed. I used wax to stick the image to the card and give some interest. It's a technique I now absolutely love. Once cool, I added some distress stickles to Santa's coat, roughed the edges, darkened them with walnut stain, added a metal star and........... well no, it's actually not been stuck down yet.
To be perfectly honest, 'peg leg' and I (mainly him) are so 'down' that his knee operation was cancelled at the last minute, that neither of us have even got dressed today. I know that's awful, but we have both spent the day on our computers instead of doing anything else. Never, ever done that before.
This hospital lark is just that -a lark.

YESTERDAY

No not the song, the day. I waited so long for yesterday to arrive and 'poof', in a flash, it went.  However, not before I'd had a brilliant time.

I actually managed some sleep the  night before and as 'peg leg' wanted to come to see the girls, we went in the motorhome so he could be comfortable for the day and watch a DVD or 2 and have a little sleep!! We arrived just after 9am and almost at the same time as Lindsay and David. Amy came out to welcome them and invited us in aswell. How sweet of her. Anyway, we had a brew and David and Lindsay got really busy with the set up of the workshop allowing me to help a little. That first hour flew and before we knew it, the others had arrived and we were ready for the off.

A great big welcome was given to Sioux (ArtyJen) who had driven up from Brixham, Devon. For those of you who don't know her, have a look at her blog and the SCD blog of whom she is a DT member. Some fabulous stuff there.

The 1st workshop was to alter a picture frame using melt pot techniques together with my favourite, Tim Holtz techniques. Where the time went was no bodies guess so none of us actually finished. Work in progress for me here. A few photos then of what I did manage to do.

Basically, we made little frames using UTEE and pictures, embellishments using moulds and cookie cutters, shapes by pouring UTEE onto the craft sheet, alcohol inked foil, alcohol inked tile with negative stamping - I like this one the best, sticky backed canvas transfer, gesso relief and more.

We seemed to keep our area tidy looking at the photos, but I know mine wasn't and I ended up with both inks and gesso all over the place. Good fun.

We finally stopped for lunch and some of us took off into the motorhome for ours as the shop had become really busy and there wasn't much room left. We also had been given our chunky grunge books by Heather, and just couldn 't wait to open them. You can see mine at the end of this post.

So back to the 2nd workshop - mystical shrines. This time we used patterned paper to cover a base card and a large matchbox. We used, paint dabbers - even some may have used mushroom dabbers eh Gez??!! A little joke between us. Also, alcohol inks, beads, wire, multi-medium, guilding sheets, but  most of all, beeswax. This was new for me, not anymore though. I liked this a lot. I had been collecting 'little' treasures for weeks and even made some faux porcelain flowers and a beaded dragonfly I was lucky enough to use them too.

Sorry, didn't get the chance to turn this photo round. Again, it's not finished. I still need to add an embellishment to the top part of the drawer plus a few little tweeks here and there AND my faux porcelain flowers have just dropped off!!!

The second challenge was to make a smaller version this time with opening doors. Time ran out completely so we all just took the parts away with us to complete at home. However, I managed to take a photo of Lindsay's which is just gorgeous.

The session ended with lots of hugs and smiles and Lindsay did the honour of taking group photos with everyone's cameras. Get ready for the line up then.

Left to right:  Me, Sioux, She, Gez and Heather.

Roll on the next time girls and a great big thank you for the lovely ATCs.

The first one is from She, cava queen is from Sioux, the torso is from Heather and the last one is from Gez.

Well, I know this is a marathon post but so was the day. I was so tired last night I fell asleep on the settee and didn't wake up 'til gone 1am. 'Peg leg' had gone to bed hours before!! Goodness knows how Lindsay felt being on her feet all day. But I got my book and here it is. Hope you enjoy it as much as I am.
For some reason Blogger won't upload my chunky book, so I'll try later on a separate post. Sozz..