Art Calendar January 2011

There is a super article in December's Craft Stamper mag by Kate Crane on making an art journal calendar month by month for a whole year. So I have made my pages for January 2011 - roughly based on the article but using my own colours and stamps. I decided to use the Craft Stamper mag's free stamps as my main embellishment and theme each month. So I thought of making coffee coloured pages (browns, creams, and maybe some gold) to feature the coffee cup this month, but the only acrylic paints I had at home were baby pink (Anita's from a scrapbooking class ages ago) and pearlescent white (which I bought to cover chipboard shapes - it gives a lovely sheen and can then be coloured softly with Distress Inks) so I painted my pages yesterday in pink and white, stippled on some Distress Inks (Tea Dye and Victorian Velvet) stamped cups, dots, and words. There is a nice shine in places when viewed under electric light. Then I stamped the title onto spotted paper (had to use black ink as the Tea Dye didn't show up well enough) and cut out some cups and the squares. All this lovely paper is from a scrapbooking kit I bought in Create and Craft TV's sale a year or so ago - they are all in lovely pink, beige, red, orange and green colours, which fit beautifully together and suit the pink painted pages. Then I stuck it all together - spot the two (not quite deliberate) mistakes ! I wanted something green in the lower left hand corner and stuck the green dotty cup there, then when I numbered the squares I had not put one on for Monday 31st - so I had to put another green square on there (moving the green cup) - now there's too much green on the lower left hand page ! And I stuck the cups on the right hand page before I stuck on the squares - so one square covers the edge of the distressed stripy cup - pity ! I love this paper, it is already distressed and suits my style wonderfully. The distressed look is so forgiving - where I handled some of the bits with pink inky fingers, it doesn't really matter ! After I had stuck everything on, I had a blank gap on the right hand side , so I stamped some numbers on there. I had hoped to have space to display a matching ATC, but there isn't room on the page.

I'm really looking forward to making February - the timepiece stamp will be fabulous for a calender - not sure whether too make it in blue (loved Kate's January colourway) or all sophisticated in black, white and silver, or what ?

Anyway, I do hope I can keep this calendar up and I will use Craft Stamper free stamps every month - but I reserve to myself the right to use a stamp from 2009 or 2010 if I don't like this year's stamp any month. Most of them are fab and I usually make some ATCs each month using the stamp (they are a great size for ATCs), but occasionally they are just not my style. I did not use the December 2010 stamp with the elf on a postage stamp - too cutsie for me !

Made my "For the Birds" ATCs for the Artist Trading Club's December swap. I liked the way the guest designer had made hers all different, so this time I have made five very different ATCs, using nearly all the bird stamps I have and my favourite big shot die too ! Here they are.

Made my last few Christmas cards today, and waded through snow to the post box to send them. Then I made a blue inchy - so sad it the last Inchy by Inch challenge. Here is mine.

Here are the lovely tags I got in the Inchy by Inch Christmas tag swap. The main rule was that they had to have a least one inchie on them. I love them all, and especially like the girl with an umbrella image and the green tag. Glad I made mine so blue, as no-one else used much blue. Also love the kangaroo on the tag from Oz ! Inchies are great - I'm putting at least one on most of my Christmas cards this year !

Here are my "Snow" theme ATCs for this month's swap. Next month our theme is "Words".

Today I made a Birthday Card and a Christmas Card for a crafty friend (and a few more Christmas cards but I haven't taken photos of them all !). These cards include ATCs as toppers, that can be removed and kept. Still playing with Distress Inks - I love dabbing them on with cotton wool, but my finger tips end up quite inky for a few hours afterwards.

I also made some "Man to Man" ATCs for the Artist Trading Club's November swap. When I went looking for images of men online, I found a Christan Clip Art site with some free art, and I downloaded this image of Jesus Christ. I call these ATCs "Behold the Man". They use papermania papers, and the crosses are card charms I bought cheaply from the Works.

I made a Gothic Arch ATC for Craft Stamper a few days ago. Here it is.

Yes, it is a Craft stamper cover stamp - one of my favourite stamps - heat embossed on acetate, and laid over a purple paper flower to tone down the purple a bit. Background is Bundled Sage DI - a good excuse to buy a new ink pad so I could do a sage colour. Couldn't get the pale lavender coloured DI locally, sadly.

This months theme for my little ATC swap was yellow, orange and gold so here are my yellow ATCs. Next month is Snow.

Today I made 9 tags for the Inchy by Inchy Christmas Tag swap. I was going to use the lovely sparkly Kanban tree but decided it is too big for my die-cut tags, so I just used one of the Kanban sparkly things and a peace dove. Using broken china and faded jeans distress inks. Then I made a Christmas card - first one this year ! It does use the Kanban tree, and a leftover blue inchie from the tags (somehow I had made 10 peace dove inchies !) I like the pink and blue and silver - all my Christmas cards are going to use silver not gold this year, and probably pinks and blues.

Have also spent several days working on Triptych ATCs for the Artist Trading Club. Not enough daylight at this time of year - I can't do much crafting when I get home from work, so it takes me ages to finish a project. Had great fun colouring the arches, then stamping all over the background, assembling the triptychs and decorating them. Not very good pictures but I like the ATCs.

Made lots of animal ATCs recently. Dolphins/fish (which have some Greek beads sewed on them) and Giraffes for a swap with two ladies in Brighton (animal theme this month). Dogs and Bears for UKSN. Using Distress Inks for my backgrounds as much as possible.

Today I made a blue Twinchie for the Craft Stamper magazine swap. Uses two shades of Distress Ink - broken china and faded jeans.

When we got back, almost the first thing I did was go to the Artisan Show in Warwickshire on Saturday 2 October. First thing there was a super workshop about different ways to use Distress Inks, and bought some more DIs at the show special prices (of course I did - can't ahve too many colours !). Swapped a few ATCs, met Mickey at the UKSN stand, had a great time overall. I also did a workshop where we made wooden arches. This is the one I made - good fun.

Blogging again after a long break. We had a fabulous three week holiday in Greece, during which I made lots of ATCs ready to swap when I got back. They're mostly very simple, shabby chic style so I could make them in our hotel rooms with minimum equipment. Here's a photo I took just before we came home. I used some bits and pieces of packaging that I got on holiday, and some napkins. I bought a cheap necklace on Naxos and took it apart, sewing some of the beads and shells from it onto ATCs. On Syros I found a bead shop, with some lovely expensive big beads (one euro each and more) but they also had some for a few cents each, so I bought lots but haven't used them yet.

Some "Dress it up" ATCs for the Artist Trading Club's June swap. Where has all the time gone ? I don't seem to have done any crafting all month ! However, I did want to join in this swap -love the little pocket ATCs the Guest Designer made, but I wanted to put my little dresses into little wardrobes. I bought some wood effect scrapbook paper a few weeks ago, and some little dress hangers (didn't someone make dress hanger stamps or embellishments once ? I could only find these hangers in Hobbycraft with little dresses already on them, which I took off so I could make my own dresses. So I now have some ready made little dresses for another project !) Anyway I've jsut managed to make my ATCs by the end of the month, and took a quick picture before putting them in the post.

For Something Completely Different - a twinchie on the theme of crowns. This one is called "Crowned with Flowers and Pearls" using a lovely vintage image.

A quick flower twinchie for Something Completely Different - subtle colours using distress inks on pearlescent paper.

More lovely candy to be won see http://charmedcrafts.blogspot.com/

Two inchies for inchy by inch - N for numbers that I failed to post last week, and O for Oriental.

A butterfly twinchie for Something Completely Different - my first ever twinchie. Butterfly stamped and embossed on acetate, coloured using Sakura pens, attached to pearlescent paper that was coloured with Distress Inks. I love this butterfly stamp and use it a lot. http://adifferentchallengeaweek.blogspot.com/

A long boring week as I have not been well enough to go out since Monday. No work, but no crafting, or even reading or TV most days - I had no energy ! And no being busy volunteering at the Reading Beer Festival either.

However, a quick bit of crafting today to make my Something Completely Different letter challenge ATC. Another tough one - X - but X marks the spot on the map where the pirate treasure is, so I've made a quick pirate map ATC (not very good but at least I've done it ! My letter inchie was/is going to be N for numbers but I couldn't manage to stamp an inchie this morning !) http://adifferentchallengeaweek.blogspot.com/

This ATC is also for the Art Pieces challenge with the theme of Water, as there is quite a lot of sea around the pirate's treasure island. http://artpieceschallenges.blogspot.com/

Free as a Bird - a freedom collage ATC for Sunday Stamper's challenge to celebrate Sunday Stamper's 100th. http://pinkleart.blogspot.com/2010/04/sunday-stamper-week-100-free-as.html

I thought I would make some inchies based on ideas around "freedom" but then decided it would be more free if I just stamped and tore small images on left over bits of paper, and then I added a few left over jewels and a butterfly stamped on vellum that I made ages ago and never used.

For all the inchy fans out there - don't forget to check out inchy by inch http://inchybyinch.blogspot.com/ and they have some fabulous blog candy available now !

Something Completely Different - letter H. Not such an easy letter, but there are a few good ideas for H. I've made another ATC (what a surprise !) - this one is H for Happiness and Hearts. I love this stamp - Happiness comes to us more each time we give it away - it seems to be the perfect wording for ATCs. Anyway, I've now made 4 letter themed ATCs this month for the challenge, and they ought to be swapped or given away, so if anybody reading this would like to receive an actual ATC from me, please let me know, and the first 4 people (who can supply a UK postal address) will get them.

An inchie on the letter M. After a while, M made me think of Martinis, and James Bond, whose boss is called M. So I embossed a martini onto colour-core card, inked it with silver, added some silver glitter, and put it onto a bit of glittery silver card. The first version I made had the embossing rubbed back to reveal the card core, but I didn't like the effect, so remade it like this. Sorry its another terrible photo - I thought the bright sunshine would help show up the glitter but its just given me a horrible shadow on the left hand side instead ! Its supposed to look very sophisticated, being all black and silver, but doesn't quite work. And the martini glass is a bit too big to fit on an inchie - still I had fun making this. http://inchybyinch.blogspot.com/

An ATC for Art Pieces on this week's theme "Numbers". I made three inchies, coloured with watercolours, distress inks, and sakura pens with a bot of glitter on top, and put them on an ATC coloured with blue and green distress inks. http://artpieceschallenges.blogspot.com/.

Here is an ATC on the theme of pearls, using a vintage image from Craft Stamper magazine, some pink and white pearlescent paper, and pink, white and blue pearls. I thought that pearls go with vintage really well. The picture doesn't really show the pearls very well - some of them are pink. This is my first ever ATC for Art Pieces - a weekly ATC challenge blog. See http://artpieceschallenges.blogspot.com/

Here is my Something Completely Different Challenge. D is for Dots, with a Domino, Dusty concord Distress ink and a "Diamond".

Here at last, very late, are the ATCs I made for Something Completely Different's ATC swap a few months ago, and (above) the four super ATCs I received. Love the keys one with the plastic on it, but it broke when I put in the scanner tonight - so sorry. Oh, wow, what a struggle to get these pictures to upload and post - don't know what I'm doing wrong but its finally going right !

Today I went to the Stamping and Scrapbooking show at Alexandra Palace. Bought a few bits and pieces, met two of my crafty penfriends in person, had a good time. Only swapped 6 ATCs, though - not a lot of people swapping this time. Came home and made an ATC for the Something Completely Different take a letter challenge. B is a Brown Bear with a Blue Balloon.

Today I have used my day off to make some Vintage ATCs for the Artist Trading Club's monthly swap. Lots of fun. Many thanks to Craft Stamper magazine for lots of super vintage downloads, and other sites too ! Not my usual thing, but I did a bit of distressing. I had some lovely lacy flowers in stock, and a card of old buttons that I bought in a charity shop ages ago - not sure how old they are. But they were too good to use as such, so I scanned the card of buttons, printed them off and cut out pictures of them not the real thing.

Photos of some Easter flowers.

A couple of "With a Flourish" ATCs for Craft Stamper magazine's swap - a flourish bird and flourish best wishes using Crafter's Companion papers and an Anita's stamp with some purple glitter. I'm still experimenting with scanning pictures in - these were scanned directly rather than taking a digital photo first. I think they better in real life than in the photo but they're not my best work !

Yesterday (Holy Saturday) I spent a very happy morning in church helping to arrange flowers (photos to come when I remember to take my camera to church) and then I came home and started painting some more watercolour backgrounds for ATCs. My next task is to make some flourish ATCs for Craft Stamper magazine, then I need to create two "April Showers" ATCs for this months swap with my crafty penfriends in Brighton, and vintage ATCs for the Artist Trading Club. I also succeeded in importing some of our digital photos onto the computer. Today (Easter Sunday) my challenge in the afternoon was to find and post a photo as part of my profile. Its not a very good photo but it was taken after a balloon ride - part of my 50th birthday treat given to me by my husband, although the weather did not permit us to fly on a balloon until several months after my birthday ! We had a great time, and the winds were such that we flew quite near our house and were able to take some pictures of our part of Reading in the evening sun before flying right over Henley Town Hall and landing in a field near Booker airfield.

Sorry its not a very good photo, but this is the first one I have ever posted !

Still trying to set up a blog and get access to it to keep posting.

Today I made an ATC for Something Completely Different, using the letter W. After painting a blue and black background on Watercolour paper, I added Words, a stamped Watch, and a White, Winged butterfly (which flies around the watch - thanks to Michelle Jackson-Mogford's Funky Greetings workshop at Olympia last month - see http://www.mjm-thearttart.com/).

This morning, Good Friday, we did craft activities in our local church hall for very young children. I helped them to decorate candles with hand moulding wax - not so easy if your hands are cold, even though I softened the wax on top of a microwave wheat pad first, but we made some interesting Paschal Candles and had great fun.