ACF 78th Challenge

I have been watching this Challenge group for some time now and love the pictures that are posted to work with and the wonderfully different ideas that people have using them. The picture in the middle at the top shows the inspiration piece for this week. In the lower right side of the materials is part of an old Union Flag. This was my inspiration for my ATC "Gettysburg". I aged my copy of the inspiration piece on the edges and stamped and embossed the saying. I printed the Union and Confederate flags at 1865 on burlap and frayed the edges. The rifle and sword are appliqued prints of weapons of that era and clear heat embossed to make more sturdy. Extra fibres rubbed with aging inks are also applied. I used onion skin paper to print an old field map of Gettysburg, aged with inks and burnt at the edges and in the middle. I mounted the ATC and folded the edges of the map over it. A band of raffia ribbon with an old metal button was wrapped around to secure the map in place(this slips off and is not meant to be untied). The Coat of Arms of the United States was UTEE'd and stuck in place on one side of the map. I then rubbed aging inks along the creases of the map.

Ribbon Holder Ophelia

Ribbon holder number 2 for my group is a double thickness of white card 3.5" square covered with lilac striped paper. I put contracting coloured eyelets in each corner and one large on in the top middle. Whispy flowers weremnstamped on the background and Ophelia in the middle. Yellow flowers were tinted with purple and lilac inks and a small brad put in the center. Wine glass charms with beads and silver dove charms were put into the two bottom brad holes. I punched out two one inch circles for the assortment of ribbon pieces.

Ribbon Hanger for Art 'n' Soul Group

This month's challenge is to make a Ribbon Hanger/Ribbon Tag. This is 3.5" square and the hole in the middle at the top fits a wire coat hanger. Heavy card in the middle covered with white cardstock on both sides then I glued a single ply napkin with roses on it onto the front and back. Such a pretty napkin (thanks TJ Maxx). Corners reinforced with small eyelets and larger one placed in the middle for wire hanger to pass through. Front stamped and gold embossed, "Rose" letters cut with cricut and gold leafed with pen. I tried very hard to cut through all those layers neatly but it was impossible so it has a very handmade look LOL, hope whoever gets it doesn't mind. Finally I gave a couple of coats of decoupage finish to the back and front to help protect the delicate napkin paper. I don't have much in the way of ribbon so I will have to find some more unique pieces to add before the end of the month.

I went to the local thrift store yesterday and found these amazing wooden cutouts. They are make by Zebra Freieitmobel und Leitern GmbH in Halbe Germany. They are meant to be ornaments and I got a whole packet of trees, flowers and butterflies for 99 cents (that's about 67 pence in the UK). I decided to make an ATC for my Artful Ideas group and a topper for a card which is shown above. The background cardstock is covered with a mix of colours of acrylic paint, glimmer mist, and then flower stamped. I heat embossed it with holographic powder. The wooden tree I coloured with stamp pads of red green and brown and embossed lightly with gold powder. I mounted the ATC sized card on another piece of cardstock of a contrasting colour. I am so pleased with my thrift store find, usually I am not so lucky. I will be making more cards with these.

Cookie and Crunch and Seven weeks

Just thought I would add an updated photo of the baby African Greys. They are growing so fast and eating so much. I have started the weaning process and they are eating small amounts of softened weaning pellets and melon and licking small pieces of pepper, apple and grapes. Not sure how much they are getting from these nibbles. The are starting to climb onto small low down perches in the cage now and are very interested in anything new I put in the cage. They have started to love cuddles though are still unsure of getting on my hand.

Mother's Day Card

This is the card I made for my partner's mother for this Sunday. I used the smoke technique from La compagnie des Elfes where I put photo glossy paper in the flame of a candle and let the smoke settle on the paper. Had to be careful not to let the flame set it on fire. When I tried to stamp the flower stamp on it with versamark not much of the soot came off so decided to emboss with white powder. The contrast with the soot is good/ I made three paper flowers out of doilies and tinged the edges with a pink ink pad. I used metallic purple and copper wire to form the stems and leaves respectively and stuck the completed flowers onto the sooted photo paper. This I mounted on dark magenta card stock and edged it with a thin line of copper leafing. The whole topper was then mounted on the dark magenta card.

Cookie and Crunch

Thought you might like to see the 2 week old African Grey chicks that I am hand feeding. This is the first time I have ever done this and I did loads of research learning online and took instruction from our friend John who has been handrearing birds for years. It is not a simple task and you can easily aspirate them if you do not know what you are doing, and then there is nothing you can do and you lose the chick. I was so scared at the first feeding shown in the second video. We believe that one is male (Crunch) and one female (Cookie). It is now day 5 and looking back at these videos I can't believe how much they have grown, especially Crunch. I am sure that if they had been left in the nest with the parents he would have taken all the food and Cookie would have struggled to survive. Cookie hatched 4 days after Crunch so she will always be the smaller of the two. I have become quite attached to them already, not sure that I will want to sell them when the time comes for them to go.

The Flowers of my Heart

Still playing with mushy stuff. The background is gesso on card lightly rubbed with pink stamp pad to highlight the raised areas. French words stamped in dark pink and embossed with clear powder. Muslin inked and stretched and held in place by brad through metal heart, then pink and white 3 dimensional fabric paint placed in top left corner. Flowers created with bead petals and sequin centre embedded in the fabric paint.

Stamped ATC

These two ATCs are made with texture magic, which is a dimensional paint. I chose a contrasting deeper blue card for the base and randomly applied the paste. While it was still wet I coated my stamp with versamark and stamped a single flower on one and three flower heads on the other and pushed hard so that the textured paint oozed out at the sides.

Washed the stamp immediately. The versamark helped the paint to release from the stamp onto the card. I dusted the cards with perfect pearls when still wet and stuck beads and charms to decorate. I love the raised effect that the thick paint left. May get some different colours or try to tint what I have to do some more of these.

Altered Bottle Caps

Someone introduced us to Geocaching the other week and we have had loads of fun with it so far. Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment. It should take you to places you wouldn't normally go and see.

I made these small tokens to leave in some of the larger geocaches. I set a picture in the back of each one using liquid embossing gel and the blue cover on the outside is texture magic, a dimensional paint, and fixed some small beads in it before it dried. The strings of beads are on a metal thread embedded at one end in the gell. I do hope that the finders like them.
You can read more about geocaching online at www.geocaching.com