A grey and terracotta house

The colour combination for the Colour Groupies this month was Grey and Terracotta and this was such a wonderful example of synchronicity as these were just the colours I needed to celebrate the fact that Colour Groupie Lenna had moved into her new home in Florida.

I made my ATCs in the shape of a house in her honour and of course terracotta was the colour for the bricks. I knew I had a terracotta brick fabric somewhere and found it, ironed it onto Fast2Fuse together with a strip of grey fabric. I machine quilted both in suitable patterns and then cut the pieces out as individual houses. I also knew I had some door and window cardstock elements (from Maya Road), discovered them too, painted them with gesso, grey and terracotta acrylics. I glued on decorative paper with vintage flower images behind the windows and added them to the ATCs using the fabric adhesive cartridge on my Xyron Creatopia. As a skylight a button was sewn onto the roof.

All the ATCs have arrived in their new homes with Lenna herself, Debby and Caryl and here it is on the blog. All houses were more or less identical so here is the one I kept for myself.

ATC no. 100

At last!! I have finally finished my final ATC in the 100 ATC project. It took a lot longer than I have envisaged but it has been done. The plan originally was to make an ATC every week which would have meant it would have taken just under 2 years to finish the 100 but although I made a good start back on the 25th of May 2006 (long before my blogging days!) I did get busier and busier, the ATCs started getting behind, and it's now almost 3 years later. Above you can see my very first ATC, finished on that day and called Be Square. Unusually for me it has a horizontal or landscape orientation. It is also out of the ordinary as it uses a male image.

Most of my ATCs were vertical although I have tried to vary it a bit. I'm simply more comfortable working vertically. Most of my large quilts have the same orientation.

And here is the final ATC. No 100 and called Marie Studholme as the ATC features a picture of this Edwardian actress, which I have manipulated digitally to make it emerald in colour. The background is blue velvet and was machine quilted using silver thread and one of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine. At the top left I added a transparent ribbon with beaded leaf embellishment and at the bottom left, next to Marie's image a blue vintage velvet flower (from LostArtCreations) that was further embellished with beads. The edges were finished with blue satin stitch, which is how most of the 100 cards were finished. The 100th ATC was finished on the 20th February 2009.

I made the same card for most of the Colour Groupies Blue/Green theme this month with one exception about which more in the near future!

Yellow and Pink ATCs

Another month, another colour combination for the Colour Groupies. A very girly combination i.e. pink and yellow, for February which also made me think of romance in the Valentine month. Tristan, Caryl, Debby, Lenna and I exchange ATCs every month in this group, for over a year now, and they produce beautiful cards month after month.

Here are mine for this month:

They were made with a lovely yellow fabric with pink spots floating around on top of it, which I ironed onto Fast2Fuse. I then machine quilted it with one of the decorative stitches on my machine in yellow thread. I added romantic images (all from Alphastamps Modern Romance fabric sheet), which were stitched down. I added a pink heart images (cut from a heart fabric and applied using Bondaweb or WonderUnder). The heart was then beaded with size 15 pink seed beads. A pink heart button was sewn on as shown and I added vintage texts to all the cards.

The pink heart fabric was ironed onto the other side of the Fast2Fuse and I cut the ATC size out using my rotary cutters with a wavy effect. Yellow seed beads were then sewn on around the edges by hand.

I also made one for me to keep, made in the same way and this is ATC no. 99 for my 100 ATC project (almost there!!!) and is called Let Him kiss Me. Again the image is from Alphastamps Modern Romance sheet.

Olive and Mustard ATCs

A new year of Colour Groupies ATC exchanges is upon us, and this is one exchange that I don't think I could live without now. It's so enjoyable to receive these ATCs with a different colour combination each month from Tristan, Lenna, Caryl and Debby and also a real challenge to come up with something suitable for the colour theme.

We seem to have a lot of colours associated with foods this year and this was one. I always use some element of fiber and/or stitch but these are very fabricky indeed. I had a wonderful mustard coloured fabric (one of my impulse buys at a quilt show), which I ironed onto Fast2Fuse. The Olive coloured frame is from one of the Memories of a Lifetime books i.e. the Borders & Frames book. These books are copyright free and contain CDs of all the illustrations which you can import to your computer and manipulate to get the right size. I sized the frame to 2.5 x 3.5" and printed them out onto self-adhesive cotton sheet (from Crafty Computer Paper) and adhered to the mustard background after I had stitched on the vellum images (from Altered Pages).

I found some suitable vintage text to accompany each ATC and finished the edges with gold satin stitching. Finally I could not help myself, I just had to add the beading around both the frame and the edges using gold and green size 11 seed beads respectively.

And here too is the ATC no. 97 of my 100 ATC project, which I withheld until now so that the Colour Groupies would not know in advance what their cards would look like. It's called She is Womanly and is made as described above.

Oh La La ATCs (contains vintage nudes, be warned!)

I finished my cards for the Oh La La ATC Swap I'm hosting on the ATCsforAll site last year (yesterday in actual fact!). This is a swap for anything which might bring those words to your lips so could be vintage nudes (as in my case) but also other things. Most cards I have received so far, do seem to favour the nudes, though!

These are the 3 I made for the swap. The background is gold lame fabric which was ironed onto Fast2Fuse and free machine quilted with gold thread. After this I cut out the ATC sized pieces and stamped them with the Corsets stamp from the Paris stamp sheet from Oxford Impressions. You can't see it all too clearly but the word corsets can be seen, depending how the light falls on the cards (a bit like a hologram). I used brown Versacraft ink for the stamping.

I then added fabric images from Alphastamps Nudes #2 collage sheet and covered the entire cards with red sparkly net, to give the ladies a bit of a covering. Another fabric (red in this case) was ironed onto the other side of the Fast2Fuse and the edges finished with gold satin stitching. Finally words were added and in the case of the Legs ATC images from Paris.

I also made one for my 100 ATC project, which is no. 98 and called Adieu. Again the fabric image is from Alphastamps Nudes #2 sheet. And yes, I have made no. 97 too but won't upload that one till later!

Happy New Year

Amazing to think this is the last posting for 2008 and a New Year will soon be upon us. Fortunately we did not know what 2008 would bring with the addition of credit crunch to the vocabulary and the disappearance of Woolworth from the British High Street. Who would ever have thought it!

Will 2009 be the year our planet will be hit by an asteroid, the occurance of a super volcano exploding, another tsunami, or will the year gently slide past to find us reminiscing about it a year from now??

I know only one thing for sure. I will continue to make art while I can!! And share it with all my wonderful online friends.

Above is my ATC no. 37 (from my 100 ATC project) to wish you all the very best and whatever else you wish for in 2009.

We will spend the last hours of 2008 indulging in gluttony, thanks to my niece Marieke, who visited us last Sunday and brought with her the ingredients to make "oliebollen", a very traditional Dutch delicacy with artery zapping capacity, as it's made by frying dough balls. The work "oliebol" literally translates as oilball but you could also call it grease ball, and you would not be far wrong!! I can still remember making this at home in Holland using really greasy oil. I did use sunflower oil now so that I can pretend it's not quite so fattening or unhealthy (ha, ha!!) and the ready made mix also made it a lot less messy. But I can report they taste just the same, a little taste of nostalgia, really so suitable for this evening. In fact, they are only consumed in The Netherlands at this time of the year! After frying they are bathed in icing suger. Sorry I can't give you the taste but the picture is above!

Blue and Gold ATCs

The last colour combination for our (Lenna, Debby, Caryl , Tristan and I) Colour Groupies monthly ATC exchange is blue and gold. It seems amazing that we've been doing this for a year now, but the good news is that we're doing it all over again next year, of course with new colour combinations. We've got the list already and a lot of food seems to have made it onto the list (such as lemon and lime, olive, mustard etc)! Must mean we're all greedy for more. I'm already looking forward to it.

But for this month it was more of a glittering affair in honour of Christmas, Hannukah, MidWinter Solstice or whatever it is that you want to celebrate.

The first two were made when I produced the ATCs for the Marie Antoinette Swap (see this blog post) and I was a bit over-enthousiastic! By great good fortune I had used gold lame fabric as the background and a blue fabric with the Marie Antoinette picture on top, so they fitted the colour scheme perfectly. The transparencies of flower and fleur-de-lys are from Paperwhimsy.

For the other two I used the same gold lame quilted background but on top I added transparencies (from Altered Pages). Quite simple really but I really liked these ATCs so I also made one for me to keep for my 100 ATC project (now almost done!). This one is no. 96, called Ahoy, and again this transparency is from Altered Pages.

Red and Orange ATCs

Sometimes the months really seem to go by so fast that I want to reach out and hold on to the days! Unbelievably it's already time to show you the next lot of ATCs for the Colourgroupies challenge where Lenna, Debby, Caryl and Tristan and I exchange ATCs with a different colour combination each month. It was a hot combo for November, to keep us warmed up while outside the leaves are off the trees and the wind is raging; red and orange.

I found just the fabric for this swap some months ago at the Ingliston Quilt Show and this forms the background. It's mainly red with a bit of orange and features flowers and butterflies in gold. I used a very old ATC which I made in 2004 as a photo ATC. I had scanned this into my computer and now printed it out onto self-adhesive cotton sheet (Crafty Computer Paper), adhered it to the fabric background and zigzag stitched around it and hand beaded around the edge too. I added self adhesive transparent texts and a heart bead to each ATC.

The edges were finished with orange satin stitching.

I also made one for me to keep for my 100 ATC project (now hopefully nearing completion, I really want to have them done before the end of this year!). This one is no. 94 and entitled: Smile, my love.

Marie Antoinette ATC Swap

On the ATCsforAll site I could not help myself and signed up for a Marie Antoinette ATC Mixed media swap, hosted by Mandy, here in the U.K. I really should not be doing this as I have so much to do that it feels quite overwhelming at the moment but I did it and so I have to make the ATCs! Once I got started I really enjoyed myself as Marie Antoinette is such a fascinating person and so beautiful when she was in her heyday (and still had her head!). I used pictures of her taken from paintings and worked on a gold background. Apparently Stampington is planning to publish a magazine about Marie next year (pre-ordered it already, another could not resist moment!)

In fact I needed gold backgrounds for quite a few swaps (still working on those so they will be seen in future posts) and today I took a piece of golden lame fabric, ironed it onto Fast2Fuse and free-machine quilted it with gold thread. I then cut up this background for ATC backgrounds.

For the Marie Antoinette ATCs I layered a piece of blue batik fabric onto this background which I had torn, rather than cut, for additional texture. This was sewn down with gold thread. The images of Marie Antoinette were printed onto the self-adhesive cotton sheet (Crafty Computer Paper) and adhered onto the cards. I then also added a transparency of a strawberry (PaperWhimsy), the nearest thing I could find in my supply to cake!!

Her (in) famous exclamation: Let them eat cake, was also printed onto the same fabric sheet as Marie herself and adhered to the card. To finish I ironed blue batik onto the back of the card onto the other side of the Fast2Fuse and gold satin stitching forms the border.

I could not resist making one for me to keep, as I really want to finish my 100ATC project this year!! This is no. 95 and the transparency of the crown is also from PaperWhimsy.

Black and Beige ATCs

Our colour combination at the select Colour Groupies Yahoo Group for September is Black and Beige and although I did think at first this was a bit sombre, once I got going (quite some time ago now!) I discovered this combination was great for adding that touch of vintage. I used a black velvet, machine stitched background for these ATCs to which I added a torn square of fabric in various tints and shades of beige. I choose a variety of images to add to the ATCs, according to the tastes of Tristan, Lenna, Debby and Caryl. All these are from Bmuse and are in the shape of their wonderful fabrik-paper. Suitable text was found for each card and covered in sepia Accent. I added a vintage trim on the bottom, which was painted with gold Glimmer spray. Beige size 11 seed beads were added and the front was layered up with the same beige fabric as backing. The edges were finished with buttonhole hand stitching.

Of course I had to make one for my 100 ATC project too. It's no. 83, entitled: The thoughtful Face

Red and Brown ATCs

It seems like yesterday when I posted my previous blog about our Colour Groupies monthly swap but another month has gone by (and my quilt is still not back from the States, about which more in future blogs!) and the colour combination this month isPink and Brown.

For this swap we are a very select group of 5 only (Tristan, Lenna, Debby, Caryl and I) who swap ATCs every month with a different colour combination which we have selected between the 5 of us. The ATCs received in this swap are simply the best!!

I decided to go with a very fabricy ATC this month, rather than a paper/fabric collage one. The ATC was started with a brown velvet background, ironed onto Fast2Fuse, and machine quilted. To this I added very vintage pink ribbon (bought on Ebay and hoarded for quite some time now). I find it very hard to part with such treasures but my fellow Colour Groupies are so worth it! To this I added images suitable for the various participants. All the images are from Divasdeste fabric collage sheets. I try and fit the images to the recipients.

Debby loves vintage children so The Child is Well was sent to her (the pink scrap just had to be added as it seemed to suit the child image,

while Lenna has recently married (recently compared to me that is, it will be 26 years in November for us!) and like me adores romance so the Pray to your husband text seemed made for her (but of course is not to be taken literally!!). The fabric heart was a must to go with this text and image. He had wanted her is for Tristan which whom I share a taste for vintage nudes (although this lady is quite decent!) and Caryl received A dancing Woman as it's her birthday this month!


All the images were sewn on. Then I oversewed each ATC with a transparent pink fabric to achieve a dreamy athmosphere. Pink hand sewing (running stitch), beads and sequins, as well as machine sewed on vintage text were also added to the mix.

Finally I ironed on a backing fabric onto the other side of the Fast2Fuse and the edges of each ATC were finished with pink buttonhole stitch by hand.

I also made an extra ATC for my 100 ATC project which is slowly edging its way to the completed 100 ATCs. This one is no. 91 and is called I cannot disobey. .Not exactly appropriate for me as I'm very good at disobeying all kinds of instructions but maybe the vintage lovely is better in that respect! This image is also from Divasdeste.

Purple and Green ATCs

The colour combination for the Colour Groupies exchange of ATCs this month is purple and green. We are a very select group of 5 artists (Tristan, Lenna, Debby, Caryl and I) who do swap every month and have the colour schemes set for this year. I'm very much hoping we are all enjoying it enough to do it again next year as the ATCs received in this swap are really top quality and it's a joy every month to wait and see what comes through the letterbox.

I bought the fabric for the colour combo this month ages ago when I was at a little quilt show with suppliers. It suddenly caught my attention and I actually carry the list of our colour combination with me in my bag so that I'm always prepared!! The fabric has a lovely pattern of quite large butterflies.

The fabric was ironed on to Fast2Fuse following the manufacturers' instruction and I then hand quilted it using gold thread and following the gold lines in the fabric. I added images which were suited to everyone's individual tastes (all from Divasdeste apart from the top image which is from Paperwhimsy) and also beaded where the fabric more or less dictated it. Then I started my search for text and in the end decided to add it using my Dymo writer.

To finish I ironed on a purple backing fabric on the other side of the Fast2Fuse and used satin stitch with gold thread to finish the edges of the ATCs.

Of course I also made one for my 100 ATC project, made in exactly the same way but with a transparency (also Divasdeste) and text from a vintage book reading: The beautiful Face.

Bronze and Maroon ATCs

The colour combination for this month's Colour Groupies ATC Swap was bronze and maroon and I have to admit this was not the easiest combination for me. I did however remember I had some bronzy metallic fabric and managed to locate it somewhere in my stash.

I layered this up with wadding (batting) and machine quilt it with a decorative stitch (and yes, it was really temperamental fabric, but I subdued it eventually!). I added some deep red (maroon) fabric strips on top, also by machining. I then located some suitable images (all from Bmuse) and stitched these on where the maroon strips crossed each other. Maroon size 11 seed beads were added around the images as well as vintage buttons and suitable text from my vintage books. These first two are fairly alike, one with a transparency and the other one paper, and went to Caryl (Fruitful Promise) and Debbie (Abundant Harvest) .

On the other two cards I used images from Bmuse's so-called fabrik/paper, which is still paper but you can hand and machine stitch through it very easily! The With the book open one went to Lenna as I know she and Steven like to read together so it seems rather appropriate and the Automobile one went to Tristan (boys and their toys!). I was so pleased when I found the text Modern Automobile.

Of course I also made one for my 100 ATC project. This is no. 89 of 100 and is called: Return Tonight? I think the ? made this ATC!

White and Sepia ATCs for ColourGroupies (warning Vintage Nude images)

First of all, for those of you worrying if I ever sleep, and following the article in the newspaper yesterday describing how bloggers are succumbing to heart attacks due to the stress of daily postings, I did not make these ATCs today! And this does definitely not stress me either for that matter, on the contrary I really enoy it!

In fact I made them over a month ago in a sudden moment of inspiration. These ATCs are for the participants in the ColourGroupies Yahoo group, which is a very select one of only 5 members and we aim to keep it that way. Every month we make an ATC for all the other members (and I also make one for myself) and once they are received by everyone we can put them on public show. The colour scheme for April is White and Sepia. All mine have safely landed so here they are:

The first one is for Debby but all the cards are made in much the same way which I arrived at after working on another piece of art (which I will show in a later post but that too is a surprise for someone!). I started with a lovely pre-quilted piece of white material and I just loaded this up with lots and lots of vintage lace, stitching one on top of another, until I arrived at a composition I was happy with. For Debby's card I added a fabric image of a severe looking boy (from Paperwhimsy), as she loves vintage children. I also added 3 vintage buttons, more lace and the text: Keep Control (he looks like he wants to do just that!). All the cards were straight stitched onto watercolour card, for once with unfinished edges as I was after that vintage look with loose threads!

Lenna's one has an image from Alphastamps Emotions sheet in transparency form which was stitched on. A large vintage button was added as well as a flower trim (I bought these in bulk on Ebay, and I simply adore them). I added the text: Fancy meeting you here, as she looks rather surprised.

Caryls' card is much the same, with an image from Alphastamps Tinted Beauties sheet this time, another of my Ebay flower trim finds and 3 vintage buttons, with the text She sighed again. I try to find text which suits the images and very often this is the part of the entire process which takes the most time (I tend to get lost once I open a book!).

Tristan shares my taste for vintage nudes so I try and give him one almost every month. This one is from Alphastamps Nudes#2 sheet and is a transparency. She was decorated with a large vintage flower to save her some blushes and was given the title: Lover (she looks like she is wearing, if that is the right word, a wedding dress).

Finally I also made one for me (ATC no. 88 of 100) and indulged myself too with a vintage nude image, also from AS Nudes#2sheet. She too received a large flower but this one covers up nothing. And as she looked like one , she received the text She was a Fool.

Vintage Bathing Beauties

Another lots of swap ATCs bites the dust so I can mail them off together with my vintage nudes to our swap hostess who lives in Australia. This is another swap hosted on the ATCsforAll site and I'm really looking forward to the returns for both this swap and the Vintage Nude one. However I have also put a stickie on my computer screen, which is staring at me as I type this, which reads: NO MORE SWAPS. It has been getting out of control lately and I really need to take a bit of a break and concentrate on my work for Alphastamps, finishing some articles as well as making some quilts!!

The vintage bathing beauties are resting on a background which was very much inspired by the background I made for my By the Sea Gothic Arch yesterday. I used the same blue/white fabric, ironed it on to Fast2Fuse and stitched it all over in a wavey pattern (one of the decorative stitches on my machine) using a variety of blue and white threads. I also couched on some textural knitting yarns in the same colours.

All the images are in paper and from the Alphastamps Bathing Beauties collage sheet. For once I actually glued this on rather than sewing as the backgrounds were too dark for these cards so I cut all that away and was left with no room for a sewing line. I found some sea related texts and also glued these on.

I added shells cut out from another fabric for which I used Bondaweb (Wonderunder) to apply them. I ironed on a blue striped backing fabric onto the other side of the Fast2Fuse and finished the edges by couching down a textural knitting yarn in blue and white.

I made the now usual extra one for my 100 ATC project, made in exactly the same way. It's no. 87 and has the title: Alone on a wide sea!

Midsummer ATC

I made an ATC specially for my 100 ATC project today for no other reason than that I long for Midsummer. Today had all the seasons in one day with the exception of summer (snow in the morning, springlike sunshine midday and rain in the afternoon) and I can't wait for the summer sun and heat. So I created a little ray of sunshine using my new Midsummer stamp from Alphastamps.

As soon as it arrived I thought back to my June collage which I made for last years' Journal Quilts. It has been completely used up but fortunately I had scanned the collage into my computer before I started cutting into it so I can re-use it by printing it out on various media. For this ATC I printed out the image onto watercolour paper which is specially made for inkjet printers (from Crafty Computer Paper) and I cut the ATC shape out of the bit which has text about Midsummer celebrations as well as a Toile de Jouy image and a landscape with trees.

I then stamped the Midsummer stamp onto a transparency using blue Staz-On ink and layered it over the background, making sure the face landed somewhere where it would be clearly visible. I then cut out half the sun (from an Alphastamps Sun ribbon). This is a bit of a hazardous undertaking as the ribbon is woven. You HAVE to iron on interfacing to the back of the ribbon first to stop it falling to bits when you start cutting the image out with your scissors.

Once cut out I used the iron-on interfacing to add it to the card. Again you have to take care as your iron should not come into contact with the transparency (it would melt clear away and damage your iron into the bargain!) I beaded around the sun face with yellow seed beads.

Finally I zig-zag stitched around the edges with gold metallic thread and a zig-zag stitch.

It's ATC no. 86: Midsummer.

Altered by Design ATC Swap and Vintage Nudes Swap (don't look at these if you find the female nude offensive!)

I had an away day from my quilts today and concentrated on catching up with some of my outstanding swaps. I've been playing with my Embellisher (a Pfaff 350) a lot lately (although not as much as I would like) and made a background on purple felt, needling down loads and loads of knitting yarns. It turned out that this background was enough to make ATCs for 2 different swaps. The first one is organized by the wonderful and creative Lenna Andrews who runs her swaps from this site. The requirement for this particular swap named Angels, Fairies and Divas ATC Swap was to used images from collage sheets produced by Altered by Design. They can be obtained from Joggles.

I concentrated on the Divas bit of the swap and used images from the Altered by Design Gypsy sheet. The paper images were cut out with a very small margin around them, that I used for sewing them on the felted background. I then spend some time finding suitable quotations for them all (from Forest Lovers, one of my vintage books). On most of them I also added some pink German scrap. I ironed on a fabric backing to the felt using Bondaweb (Wonderunder in US) and finished the edges by buttonhole stitching by hand, using a beautiful variegated silk thread (an impulse Etsy buy which turned out to be fabulous). I also added pink beads to the scrap and purply ones around the other edges. The final touch was a self-adhesive purple heart for each card (from Paperchase). I'm seriously addicted to these hearts!

As has now become a tradition I made an extra one for my 100 ATC project. This one is no. 85 (nearing the end!) and called The Girl was a Beauty. Made just as described above but with black German Scrap at the top.

The other ATCs I made were for the Vintage Nudes Swap on the ATCsforAll site. As regular readers know I simply love vintage nude and embrace every opportunity that comes along to use my collection of images. Unfortunately it does not happen often but I enjoyed making these ATCs hugely.

All the images are from Alphastamps Nude # 2 fabric collage sheet. They were cut out, again with a narrow margin, and sewed on to the felted background. On most of the cards I added a large pink ricrac ribbon which I rubbed with purple and gold Rub-On metallics as it was just that bit too bright. On the remaining ATC I used a vintage lace at the top. I added French text (which seems to really suit the vintage nudes!) from a vintage book called Aphrodite, by Pierre Louys, a book which sparked one of the first court cases for indecency.

This is rather amazing in this day and age as the text and images are quite tame, although I have to say nude still seems to stir a lot of controversy. Just today I read on the QuiltArt mailing list a message where a High School student in the US had missed out on her art price, because her piece contained some nudity. Yahoo also take a dim view of vintage nudity on their groups.

The only thing I find annoying is that there are absolutely no male nudity images anywhere, not even vintage!! Apart from the Visa advert here in the U.K. which starts with a nude man running after a stag night stunt. He of course ends up fully clothed at his wedding thanks to his Visa card. What I can't quite figure out is where he kept that card??

The ATCs were again finished with buttonhole stitching and beading as described above. I did make an extra one for this swap too, to keep, but haven't made it part of my 100 ATC project as the background looks too much like No. 85 above. Instead it will go in my Alphastamps art folder. It's called Plus belle. The text as a whole translates as: I'm more beautiful than ever.