Clear embossing & Rub'n'buff

I have only 2 more sleeps to go before leaving for the Creative Soul Retreat in Melbourne!!! I am really, REALLY, looking forward to catching up with some old friends, meeting new ones for the first time and schmoozing with the wonderful tutors....fingers crossed some of their creative genius will rub off and I can learn some new stuff and have it not actually FEEL like I'm learning! It'll be really nice to be a "student" for a change. ;-)


I won't be missing any of the atc classes while I'm away, serendipitously it worked out that the retreat fell in an in-between week of my teaching so that's great! Though I have had to be super organised and do all the prep work for the next class....which is "Clear Embossing & Rub'n'buff"! Here are the samples for the class, they came up better than I thought they would.


"Life is an Island"...(stamp from Rough Draft plate by Green Pepper Press....~waving~ Hi Michelle!!!)

"Fortune, Fame, Love"... (I have had this huge circular stamp for ages and it's the first time I've used it, sorry... I don't know who it's by? The photo corners are from Julie's 'Collections' range - available at Scraptivate, and I've embossed them with the cuttlebug folder "Textile")

"Rouge"...(the wonderful Svetlana gave this stamp to me and the stamp company name escapes me...Svetlana, please leave me a comment and say which company it's from in case someone MUST have it.)

"Science"... (Leonardo's Vitruvian Man stamp by Cherry Pie)

"Melancholy Moments... (Paris Moments stamp by Hampton Arts. There's that black texture paste again!!! lol)

"Gastric"... (Beautiful fine script stamp from Delish in the background on this one and I used one of Julie's 'Collections' houses to highlight the image - from Scraptivate again. The house was run through the cuttlebug with the Textured Branches folder ....love that embossing folder!)

"Wild Life"... (Tim Holtz Nature's Moments plate from Stampers Anonymous)

I won't be blogging while I'm away as I'm leaving my laptop at home (on purpose) but I expect I'll have some great pics to show when I get back. The main thing to remember when stepping out of your comfort zone for some wonderful arty time is "must take pictures"!!!!! I'm only gone for a week so I'm sure the time will just zip by.

Brushless Watercolour Technique & a Card

Last Thursday night was my niece's 18th birthday so as a non-cardmaker, I decided to make her a card. My being a non-cardmaker is not like me being a non-scrapbooker...I've made 1 scrapbook page and will not do another one - too large a format for me! But as a non-cardmaker, I've made quite a few but still don't like to call myself a cardmaker - it's just a mental thing.....if you deny something often enough you can actually start to believe it! lol Not that there's anything wrong with cardmaking!!! Heaven forbid, atc's make great card fronts and if you make them so they can come off the front and attach to the fridge as a magnet - double bonus! So once again I've used a couple of the girls from the Stampotique range, the one on the front is called Prom Queen and the one inside is Girl with a Lunchbox. Just ignore the handwriting inside, s'pose I should've scanned it BEFORE I wrote in it. Duh!

On the front I used the Textured Branches embossing plate from the Cuttlebug range on some silver foil tape adhered to a chipboard frame, then rubbed with black acrylic paint and wiped it off leaving only a small amount in the crevices. Down the bottom I stamped with the metal letter punch stamps "Hayley is 18". Being an 18 year old girl I knew she'd get the "so what" attitude it exudes! lol

Inside...

I forgot to include this atc that I made for the alcohol Ink & Transparency (acetate) class that I taught last week. I love this stamp so much, it's another of Lina Cavalieri immortalised by Fornasetti. If anyone has a spare one of this stamp they'd be willing to sell, please contact me on my email addy above right - I have a friend who would probably sell her first-born for it...if she HAD a first-born that is!

My next atc class is called Brushless Watercolour and I've made these atc's using either Lyra watercolour crayons and Ranger Distress Inks. The Lyra's are like the Golden paints of the watercolour crayon world. Beautiful rich pigments, wonderful array of colours and so soft and easy to use. I know I've shown these atc's before as this was to be the class I was to teach before my Joan died on December 1st last year - consequently the class was cancelled and put on the back-burner.

It's strange, it feels like years since Joan's death, not the short 2 months, 3-1/2 weeks it has been. The word "passing" is too soft a word for me yet, "death" is much more hard, blunt and factual and this is what it is. In time it will soften, mellow and fade to a gentle ochre colour, right now it's still hard, in-your-face RED! I wonder how many other people think of emotions/thoughts/words as colours? I do it a lot, it's a subconscious thing, before I know it I'm thinking "what you're saying is making me feel a cool blue"! Okay, I admit it, I'm feeling a little "wordy" today.....no apologies though, your eyes can skim and I can still type what I want. Back to the atc's....

A diptych..."Dragonfly 1 & 2"... ("Odonata" stamp from Stampers Anonymous")

"Reseda Odorata"... (stamps from the wonderful "Nature's Moment's" set by Tim Holtz!!!)

"Polite"... (stamp from A Stamp In The Hand called "Girl with a Purse" - discontinued though)

"Heal"... (Judikins stamp - not sure of the name, it's a stone angel statue)

and my personal favourite, "Beyond the City Gates"... (stamps from Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press plate called "Rough Draft")


Only 2 short weeks to go until Creative Soul Retreat in Melbourne!!! Woo-bloody-hoo!!! Bring on the learning/fun/frivolity/bonding/shopping/gawking!

Thrones & Things book page & Voodoo Love Shrine

Surprise!!! I'm back....2 posts in 2 days. Just had to show you my little Voodoo Love Shrine and my book page for the Creative Soul Retreat Book Challenge.


This month's theme is "Thrones & Things" and I decided to skip my first thoughts about toilets and all things associated with that particular little necessity in our daily lives. It took me a while to work out what to do, I searched for all sorts of cool looking thrones but there's only so much you can do with a chair so I decided to opt for a quote instead and go from there. I chose Napoleon Bonaparte's quote "A throne is only a bench covered with velvet".

The image is Napoleon (of course) and the throne is supposedly his as well. The images were both Sheer Heaven transfers onto watercolour paper, I then coloured the remaining white parts of the paper with Twinkling H2O's as I'd left my watercolour crayons at work! Napoleon has a crown added from Michelle Ward's Rock & Roll plate and a little Platinum Stickles and some Swarovski crystals for extra show-off-iness. A piece of velvet is under the photo frame down the bottom with a little wadding to make it nice & soft like a little cushion and another piece of upholstery velvet is machine stitched down the right hand side. I mounted it onto a piece of black card that was stamped with several of Michelle's stamps from her Graven & Printed Matter plates - both here. The quote completes the piece.....I DO love words!!! Every time I think about Napoleon though I can't help but remember the quote from my childhood days....."Don't get blown apart, Bonaparte!" lol

So the nicho challenge was a fabulous excuse to play with some cool little things to fit inside the nicho. As I said, it's a Voodoo Love Shrine and what self-respecting Voodoo Love Shrine would be complete without the sacrificial chicken - complete with bloodied neck! This little chook was from a farm set of animals I had eons ago as a child and it's just floated around in amongst my collection of "odds & sods" for years....perfect!!!

I also altered one of the little art dolls to turn it into a voodoo doll by cutting it's hands & feet off, of course I wrapped them first so it wouldn't bleed it's stuffing everywhere! It then got some more wrapping with metallic thread to make it a little smaller to fit into the nicho comfortably. So it has it's little chicken and it needed a small vial of blood to complete the spell. I figured hubby would freak out if I made just a little tiny cut while he was sleeping to drain some of his blood so had to settle for red food colouring. I guess the blood would've separated or congealed or whatever blood does when it's not moving around in a body (or at the blood bank!).

Treasure Gold in several colours were rubbed over the nicho on the outside after first dry-brushing it all over with white Gesso. Added some other little bits & pieces, swarovski crystals, a little shrink plastic gravestone, an extra cross for the gravestone to live on and some little metal hearts that were coloured with alcohol inks.

The words "Diabolical Love" were stamped into foil tape after it had been attached to chipboard, then painted and wiped off to leave the paint in the cracks. I also used a little spiky wheel to make the little running hole marks along the top and bottom of these. We now sell these at the shop for the cool little price of under $4!!!

So that's it....if you want to see the other nicho's, and I highly recommend having a look at them, they are here at Inkurable Stampers, leave a comment if you like to encourage the girls. Sarah (who owns the site) gets quite a few hits but most people are kinda shy and don't say much in the way of commenting. It's nice for the newer girls to get some positive feedback.

More mosaic embossing and a Sheer Heaven atc

Here are another couple of examples of mosaic embossing atc's, the first is a printed image and the second one is made from stamped images from Michelle Ward's wonderful stamps.

"Ascent"...." Captivating"....

I thought I might try to do a canvas with this same technique and I was really pleased with how it turned out. The size is 4" x 4" and the image is a printed image with words added using the Microsoft Publisher program, I then painted the image using only 2 Golden colours - Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold & Paynes Grey....think this might have to be a quick canvas class at Scraptivate!

In response to a few queries I've had about how to do this particular technique, I will post how to do it but not just yet as I have another class to teach using this technique and if I post it now, then maybe they won't come? It definitely will be up here though in the near future!

I am taking part in a special nicho challenge for 5 artists at Inkurable Stampers blog where they also have a monthly themed challenge. My nicho is not quite ready but is nearly complete, will post the pics of that when it's finished and is up on the Inkurable Stampers blog. For the monthly themed challenge you can do a card, layout, atc or any type of mixed media piece of artwork. This month's theme is "Seriously Spooky" as it's nearly Halloween and all things spooky are the go!

I thought I'd steer away from the usual bats and things and create an atc on something else that I'm interested in.....all things vampire!!! Yes, I read the Twilight series of 4 books by Stephenie Meyer in one week, as I'm sure that many others have done as well! So here is "Strange Reality", it's also the raffle atc that I gave away last night at my Sheer Heaven atc class, Svetlana won it.....think she won one only a short time ago??? I don't draw the tickets out, I get someone else to do it lest they think I cheat! lol

On another note, I still have not found out who made my beautiful mystery artwork and I don't think I'm going to. Obviously the person wants to remain anonymous but I know they must be a reader of my blog as they took the picture of my Dad and placed him in the centre door on the piece. Please know that I was incredibly touched and moved by this generous gift and I know it would've taken a serious amount of time to do and I appreciate it immensely. It lives at the shop for all to see (at the moment) and every time I walk past it it brings a smile to my face and a general warm fuzzy feeling inside. Thankyou whomever you are!

Christmas Canvases

Yesterday was a very full-on day for me. I taught my last atc class before Christmas, which was webbing spray, we also had a mini Christmas party during the class and the girls bought some very yummy treats to share! Who would've thought strawberries & marshmallows on a toothpick could taste so good!!!


Next up was the staff Christmas party at Natalie's house (the owner of the store) for Scraptivate, the most awesome shop where I work and teach here in Perth. We frequently get told by customers that we have the best and most unusual goodies in our store, a different range to all the other scrapbooking/papercraft stores in Perth AND we have the most helpful and friendly staff and teachers! Well, yep, I'd have to agree, we ROCK!!! So it was a delightful gathering of the staff/teachers and we had a Kris Kringle gift exchange. I received a fantastic mask from my pal Viv as well as some wonderful book pages with some "different" images and text that I'll definitely use on my canvases!

EDIT: This is the link here to the mask that Viv made for me...she did a great job photographing it and putting it on her blog so you can see how cool it is!!!


This is the canvas I made for Megan, who was my swap partner. From memory it's around 10" x 7" so it's a bit larger than the other 5 x 7's that I've done before. Still has the texture paste done first, then the Gothic book page added, then painted - Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and a wash of Dioxazine Purple plus some Quinacridone Crimson for some added colour. Add an image, some German scrap, some stamping (Gothic large script from Michelle Ward's Printed Matter rubber plate), then finally some gold embossing on the small Gothic script from the same rubber plate as well as on the word "sanctuary".

After the staff Christmas party we headed off at 8pm to Elice's 21st party at a restaurant, Elice is my son Jarred's girlfriend. He and Elice are over here in Perth for a month as Jarred is in the air-force and lives on the other side of the country, he's based at Williamtown near Newcastle, New South Wales. Actually, on Wednesday nights on SBS at 8pm there is a new series called Top Gun Pilots (I think?) and there is a lot of filming done at Williamtown so don't know if I'll actually get to see Jarred in it but he did tell me they filmed them doing the stuff that aircraft technicians do - yep, he's what they call a "black-hander"....wonder why??? lol It's a 6 part series and last Wednesday (12th Dec) was the first episode. Check it out if you're interested...we obviously are!

This brings us to today....Sunday....I have another Christmas engagement in the form of a lunch at a restaurant with the girls from the atc/abc clubs (art tarts club and altered book club). We are also doing a Kris Kringle exchange and I'm going to risk putting this next canvas up here as I'm hoping my recipient won't read my blog before she goes to the lunch today! It's a smaller canvas, 4" x 4" and I used the wonderful Tim's Shimmer - well this is what I call it anyway. It's the potion that he posted recently on his blog during his 12 tags of Christmas instructions. The recipe is: one dropper full of distress re-inker (I used brushed corduroy), 1 portion of Perfect Pearls - the end of a pop-stick is used for measuring this (I used Gold P/P), 3/4's fill one of the Ranger Mini Mister bottles with water after first adding the re-inker & P/P...then shake and spray.....delightful......Tim's Shimmer.....definitely will be doing this in a class! This canvas also makes use of the inchies and has texture paste that the inchies sit into.

Long-winded post today, if you've got this far and actually read what I've written, gold star for perseverence! If you've skimmed and just checked out the pics, well that's fine too! ;-)

chunky pages - Gothic & Forensics

Woo-hoo!!! I finally have something to add to Michelle Ward's Crusade....it WOULD be Crusade Number 13 too.....how....appropriate!!! lol
Here's the link to the awesome Michelle's Crusade blog (and you just KNOW how much I love her stamps by how often I use them!) HCIT!!! (Michelle-speak - how cool is that!)

It's Saturday afternoon and I've completed my set of Gothic chunky pages for our Altered Book Club.....finally! Now just need to get started on Art Deco, then next up we have Gods/Goddesses and then Chairs. Yep, chairs! Definitely going to have to keep my eye out for something strange to do with chairs....how boring to just have a picture of a dining chair or a lounge chair. So here is Gothic (front),

I've been listening to HIM's new cd, Venus Doom, there's a track on it called "Something Diabolical", hence the name of this chunky page...thought it kinda suited the image. Excellent cd by the way! I stamped the word onto shrink plastic and added it with jump rings for a more 3-d effect. I also used my new white webbing spray that we just got in at the shop, I already had black and gold and love it! It's a little hard to see the webbing spray in the scan as I'd sprayed the black cardstock first with Starburst Stain in Long John Silver (I LOVE those names!) and then the white webbing spray, certainly better irl (as usual).

Here's the back, quite plain but it just ties it in with the theme so it's not too boring when you flip the page to check out the next person's awesome piece of art!

I hadn't posted the images of the Forensics chunky swap from last month either so here's the front of that one...don't you just love the "dead man" stencil!!!

The back. The "Evidence" word is one of the 7 gypsies fabric gaffer tape that has all sorts of cool words on them, this roll particularly suited this theme. The image of Lucky Luciano is from here, a cool mobster generator.

Back to the studio...

Microscope slide atc's & Newcastle

...and a wonderful time was had by all during our visit to Newcastle to catch up with "the boy" (okay...at 22 he's a man but he's still a boy to me. Mothers....can you relate? lol)

I had a glorious time at my mini workshop day with some fabulous girls that I've only spoken to on-line through one of the yahoo groups I belong to.....waves & smiles to you Julian, Louisa, Martina, Niki, Elise and the wonderful hostess - Christine. Sorry we missed you Ruth ;-(
I hope the techniques that you learnt will add to the extraordinary repertoire of fabulous things you can do with atc's. Oh and the view from Christine's house over Lake Macquarie was just spectacular!!!


Now onto some pics....my next atc class that I'm teaching at Scraptivate in a week's time is about incorporating microscope slides in atc's. They really look best if they are edged (the slides I'm talking about) in some way...either with the metal tape that is available in brass, silver or copper, or even with humble double-sided tape which is then embossed with embossing powder. A great look either way!

First one below is edged with the silver tape...take note of the extra bits of embossed tape that I've placed across a couple of places on the slide. Word to the wise - if you burnish the foil tape too hard, you'll crack the glass...but in the vein of "no such thing as a mistake", just cover the crack with skinny double-stick tape (available here), pour on some embossing powder and heat...voila! All fixed!
Drat....now I've just proven that yes, the teacher DOES make mistakes (more than you realise!!! lol).

Next up I have used the double-stick tape around the edge of the microscope slide and then coated it with verdigris embossing powder...lovely colour!

Lastly, this one is also edged with the silver tape but to make it blend a little better with the gorgeous "smoosh" technique background (Ranger distress pads in weathered wood & peeled paint) as well as Michelle Ward's ever-beautiful clear "Bird Sanctuary" stamps, I've coloured the silver tape with pitch black alcohol ink and coloured the square glass slide with some alcohol ink in oregano and a little pitch black. (I think I've broken some grammatical law with the length of that last sentence.....so shoot me!) The chicken wire fence image is stamped onto the glass slide while the other images are underneath, of course any stamping onto the glass slides must be done with Stazon.

Now what I need to work on are some chunky pages for our ABC (Altered Book Club) group, I'm a little behind in that....gothic and art deco must be completed before the next meeting in November!!! Promise girls!

Domino atc's

I taught Domino atc's yesterday at Scraptivate, basically the various ways of colouring them and incorporating them as an element on atc's. Of course, I only touched the surface of what you can do and I'm sure as the girls in the class will continue to play with these at home they will come up with their own ideas. Personally, I think that's the best thing about coming to a class, it's a jump-off point for you to create your own little "aha!!!" moments.

I showed the girls how to use that much under-rated pen, the humble sharpie, for colouring the domino, then use some of the Ranger blending solution (that's normally used with the alcohol inks) on the little felt pad and also a touch of colour from one of the Krylon Metal Leafing pens. You are virtually doing the same thing as you do with the alcohol inks except instead of adding the drops of colour to the felt pad along with the blending solution, you merely scribble on the surface of the domino with the sharpie, then use the blending solution (& Krylon if you wish - optional), to blend the colour. Like the alcohol inks, the more blending you do, the lighter the colour becomes.....perfect for stamping on then!

Alcohol inks are also perfect to use on dominoes for adding colour and images can be stuck down with a little DM (dimensional magic) then coated with the DM for protection and gloss. Wire or metallic threads can be wrapped around them. As I said, I just touched the surface of what can be done with dominoes.


Here is the raffle atc......





As you can see from the close-up above, I coloured the domino in an aqua colour sharpie, stamped with Stazon black (another of Michelle Ward's gpp stamps), then wrapped silver metallic thread around the domino, attached it to the atc with double sided tape, then a coat of Dimensional Magic was applied to give it a shiny finish. I don't always use DM, sometimes I use a coat of Pledge One Go (yes....floor polish), this is the Australian equivalent of what is used in the States called Future Floor Finish. Great little product, it adds a shiny finish to your work without the really high layer of the dimensional magic....sort of like the "magic" without the "dimensional" bit....hehehe....okay, so it's early Sunday morning.....what did you expect....Robin Williams????? By the way, the image was added to the book page using a transparency transfer and matte Golden gel medium....love that stuff!

Remember I said we had issues with Netta and the raffle atc? By issues I mean the person sitting NEXT to Netta has won each week for several weeks. Well yesterday made the 4th week in a row where it happened again.....absolutely unbelievable!!!! I was prepared this time though, I made an atc to give to Netta just in case it happened again....not expecting it would though! Here's Netta's atc ....

Going into the studio now to do some work on the 2 canvases I should've already finished by now.....promise Barb.....you'll have it soon!

Gothic Arch & chunky page

....WARNING....WARNING... NUDE PICTURE BELOW!!!!!

The chunky swap theme for this month for our Altered Book Club (ABC) is Nudes. This in itself causes no drama as there's plenty of vintage nude images around and you have plenty of scope for what type of "imagery" you want to create to go with the nude....or nudes. While spending some time perusing different sites I happened across a little known "National Day". You know, those holidays that are obscure, weird, maybe a little funky but still great for the altered arts field....like "National Talk Like A Pirate Day" (September 19th). Well I discovered "National Garden Naked Day"....September 10th so it'll be a little chilly down here in Australia but think the States should have lovely weather!

My chunky page also contains a neat little library card that you can make up for yourself from this site. You put in the info that you want, including scribbled notes but just make sure you put a catalogue number otherwise it won't work (ask me how I know!). The words on the front of the chunky are "Carpe Rutila", which means...."seize the rake"! hahahaha Thought I'd throw a little Latin humour into it. The background on the front is embossed but I'm thinking now that I'm looking at it on screen, it might need some more "stuff"? Might have to do a.......shudder......groan.......shrink plastic FLOWER!!!!!!! I'm soooooo not into flowers but think this might actually call for one....though it'll have to be one of Michelle Ward's from the In Vogue plate....that'll make me feel a little better ;-) So here it is, front & back.

the back...

The other item....okay, 15 items, I finished today was my gothic arch pages for a swap with the lovely Natalie Briney. This was a bit of a long drawn out project, had the background pages ready well over 6 weeks ago but then hit a brick wall as to what to put on it! HIM to the rescue, same image as I used on the canvas that I made at stamp camp and I also used the big gothic script stamp (Michelle Ward again....Printed Matter plate) stamped with Brilliance Platinum Planet....LOVE that colour! Also used my new cuttlebug machine and a borrowed die (cutting thingo), this is the wonderful scrolly looking thing down the centre. There's also some webbing embossing in silver as well. Title? GOTHSTRASIZED....try and say THAT one 3 times fast!!!

quick post before camp (& a question)

Now that I know the person who was chosen for my mystery muse will be "on the road" on her way to camp, I can post this picture of my little gift for her. We were allocated a partner who we had to make a small gift for (atc, name badge, etc.), this is what I made for mine. Hope she likes it! Who knows how tired I'm going to be when I come back from this 3-day blissfully art-filled weekend, so thought I'd better put something up as I'm sure getting sick of seeing the same pictures of Yallingup!

So here is the bookmark that I made using 2 of the large shipping tags. They both have a window cut out from the centre and I've put a transparency in the window. Obviously you have to imagine how this looks when you hold it up to the light....ethereal comes to mind, particularly with the image that I used! Stamping is mainly from Michelle's gpp plates and a small flourish from All Night Media.

I hope to have a selection of things to post about when I return from Busselton and who knows what I'll be able to capture on my trusty little camera's "movie mode"! We're having a pyjama party Saturday night so should be a fun time for all.

A quick question, does anyone know why some of my photo's, when clicked on, will show the larger version and others don't??? They are all saved in exactly the same way to the same place so don't know why this is happening...annoying!

Mother's day play-time

So what else do you do on Mother's Day than take time for yourself for an arty play-time....after the obligatory (& enjoyable!) visit with the M-I-L & my Mum. What did I get??? A box of chocolates, a huge bunch of flowers and the cd by My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade...haven't had a chance to listen to it yet though, looking forward to that! That was all this morning.....this afternoon????.....studio-time!!!

Only time for atc's today, first a couple of Sheer Heaven transfers (yes, again!) as I showed the girls in our Art Tarts Club how to do these on Friday. No girls, I'm not going to spill my guts about the unsavoury things we discussed, and laughed uproariously about, though be nice to me, or I might!!! hahaha

I had a visitor in my last couple of atc classes, a girl who used to be a Perth-ite but is now an Eastern States resident, Linda Baldock. She gave me a set of wings and asked me to make an atc for her which I did today...it's ready to post over to you Linda, when you get back & send me your snail mail addy it'll be on it's way ;-)

While making the above atc I used one of Michelle Ward's tree branch stamps (those sticky looking things down the bottom....is that "sticky" or stickey"???), anyway....as I was cleaning the stamp off on a scrap piece of paper, I liked how overstamping created a little forest of tree branches. I happened to have on my table a background atc that I had done a while ago using multiple layers of embossing powder & acrylic paints, overheating so they bubbled to create a very textured look & feel. I THINK this is how I did it anyway....must check up on that!

I thought that the little branch stamp would look really good on this background so I used my black stazon, stamped the forest, then the bird stamp (also Michelle's) on the atc. I also did a stamp of the 3 eggs (whose???? Michelle's of course!) on shrink plastic, coloured the back of it lightly with some gold coloured chalks, cut it out, shrunk it down, attached it to a piece of chipboard that had been painted with Paynes Grey acrylic and wiped over with Treasure Gold in Green Amber colour. Added wire to this & a couple of brads, as well as a little metal tag down the bottom with "pursuit" on it. It means "The pursuit of a bird in the hand...." Oooooooo....deeeeeeep ;-) So here it is, crappy scan, should've taken a picture, flat battery ;-(

Hope you all had a great Mother's Day....I did ;-)

The big reveal & 7 vegetables

Weird title, I know! A certain someone called into the shop today and told me that delivery of her new product will be tomorrow so I can now post the pictures of what I was teasing you all with a few days ago. The "certain someone" is the lovely Julie van Oosten, and the product is a fantastic new house chipboard product. Below are some photo's of what I made using Julie's new Collections product...
Here are the 3 panels showing a little more detail...

It was all painted with Golden Payne's Gray, with some Golden Micaceous Iron Oxide painted in various areas to add some mica shimmer. Texture paste was added to the two large frames on the end panels as well as the smaller frame in the middle panel. After this was painted with the above paints, I also added some silver Treasure Gold to pick up the highlights. The middle panel has an angel transparency mounted on 3 of those small frames with the crackle background way down the bottom so when you look at it, there's a real depth to it. This middle panel is stamped with Brilliance Platinum Planet using the wonderful "Printed Matter" plate from Green Pepper Press (LOVE Michelle's stamps!).

On the 3rd panel above you can see one of the fantastic white wings that we now have in the shop for sale! (We also have matte red ones too!). Contact Natalie if you're interested in them. Click here for the link to the ebay store where they are.

I also did another single panel using this kit, more in the vintage style, though once again using a transparency...

Now to the 7 vegetables.....I didn't actually get to my studio on Sunday, instead I made some soup, a chocolate cake and vegged out for the rest of the day. As I was making the soup, my son who lives over East called me up, he & his girlfriend were out food shopping and he asked me, "Mum, what's in that 13 vegetable soup you used to make, we want to make it for dinner and we're ready to buy the 13 vegies, can you text me what they are and I'll ring you for instructions when I get home". Goodness knows where he got 13 vegetables from??? It is, and always was, only 7 vegetables, don't suppose I should complain, it's the best way I know of to get 7 different kinds of vegies into your kids in one hit....no matter WHAT their age! So in case you want to know, here it is:

7 VEGETABLE SOUP

1 onion

1 potato

1 zucchini

1 sweet potato

1 carrot

1 parsnip

1/2 butternut pumpkin

750 ml water

2 chicken stock cubes

1 x 400ml can lite coconut milk

dash nutmeg (optional)

Peel all the vegies except the zucchini (just wash that well), chop into chunks about 1-1/2" square, place all vegies & the water & chicken stock cubes in a large saucepan. The liquid won't cover the vegies, don't worry. Put the lid on and bring to boil, turn down and simmer for approximately 15-20 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the pumpkin goes in easily. Take off the heat, process either in a blender a cup at a time or, as I do, use a stab blender straight into the pan. Make sure it's all nicely pureed. Pour in the can of lite coconut milk and add a little nutmeg if you like.

That's it! So simple, only takes around 1/2 hour all up from start to finish. Let me know if your kids like it!