Alice ATC Book

As part of a "Secret Swappers" group on UKScrappers we have a few projects going, one of which is an ATC book on the theme of Alice in Wonderland.There are 14 of us and each person picked a theme within the theme and made 14 ATCs. These will then be sent to our talented host Rebecca who will assemble one of each in a little book for us. Having seen some of the other ATCs Im really excited about getting this little book back.

For my theme I chose keys, locks and playing cards. I had some gorgeous paper from 7 Dots Studio designed by one of my favourite mixed media artists Anna Debrowska-Pecocka called "Wonderland" Alice themed grungy paper. Some of the papers have a playing card theme.

For each ATC I cut two pieces so I could glue 3 sides together leaving the top unglued. Before I glued them I inked 14 chipboard keyholes and 14 keys. I cut a hole in the front piece of the ATC so when i attached the keyhole to it you could see through the hole. I then attached the two ATC pieces together. I cut 14 small rectangles and wrote a quote from Alice on the front and signed the back, punched a hole in them and attached them to the keys with thread. I wrote pull me on all the keys. I printed another alice quote out ("There were door all round the hall but they were all locked") and attached it to the front of the ATCs around the keyholes then slipped the rectangular quote inside leaving the key hanging out.

So if that makes any sense, here they all are together...

I put some of the keyholes dead centre but others I placed depending on the pattern of the paper and the oddly placed keyholes are my favourites. Here are two of them...

The one on the left is my favourite :o) Once you pull the key this handwritten quote comes out....

And turn it over and you see my name and the number on the back...

So I hope my fellow swapees like them and as I said Im really excited to get the little book back...

Siân :o)

Time of my life...

As part of the Rock ressurected Circle Journal Im participating in I received a CJ and the theme was lyrics created in an art journaling style. I discovered art journaling late last year and I've really taken to it. I've always written diaries I find it cathartic and therapeutic and as all scrapbookers will relate to its a great source for remembering your life by looking back through old diaries. But diary writing can be tedious and hard to keep up every day and sometimes there just needs to be more to it than writing - writing doesn't always express exactly how you feel - often there are no words. That's where the art comes in. A splat of paint sometimes says more than any amount of words could. The way it drips down the page as if in sync with your feelings.

Art journaling is great for privacy too as depending on what you create only you has to know its true meaning. Only you know what you meant when you sprayed, painted and stamped your feelings all over the page.

Best of all its not something you need to have a special talent to do. Yes, some people are better than others at it but it is something anyone can learn the basics of.

But back to the reason for the post. I had to create a double layout (each page 8x8) in art journaling style about some lyrics that mean something to me. I collect lyrics - I love words and how powerful they can be especially in song form - so I had a lot to choose from but it didn't take me long to decide once I really thought about it.

I chose Green Day's "Good Riddance (time of your life)"

I added the first verse and the chorus to the page then I wrote something on why I chose it...

"This song reminds me that life is a journey. Good & bad experiences make us who we are. Life is precious and short and at the end I hope I can say I had the time of my life"

I used a gesso base and covered it with green and yellow paints, I used a lot of white in the middle to blend the two together and was pleased with the final result. I used some Tim Holtz stamps, a tattered angels spray and a bottle top to stamp the circles.

I added large pics of the band and logo then I added two "polaroids" of two of my tattoos as a line in the song is "tattoos of memories". This is the only place I wavered from the colour scheme. I just couldn't change the purple butterfly to any other colour. Its messy in places but I figured its art journaling - its paint - it can't be perfect :o)

So although I like it what really matters is that the CJ owner likes it and I hope she does. Its a gorgeous CJ.

What have I been up to lately?

It has been brought to my attention that I haven't blogged for a while, so if you're reading Rebecca, yes you are to thank for this post :o)

Craft wise I have a lot on at the moment, and ME wise I feel terrible. The two obviously don't mix so when it comes to blogging what I've done that really is bottom of the pile. But as I like to look at other blogs its nice for others to be able to see my stuff too.

Im currently doing:

• A tag swap - theme "hexagons"

This is the backgrounds (though I re-did the last one)

First tag is called, "Someone else's eyes"

 

 

Second tag is called, "The Bad Daughter"

 

 

The last tag is called, "A teenage philosophy"

Im also participating in:

• An ATC swap - theme "Alice in Wonderland" - to be blogged once they are finally finished
• A frame swap - each person uses a Tim Holtz configurations box or similar and decorates it in their partners theme.

 and a number of circle journals (CJs)

• A Rock themed CJ
• A general themed circle journal
• A pair journal (like a CJ but there's only two of you) the journals are called "Turn it up!" and "Attitude".
• 2 art journal CJs - the theme for my first one is "word play" I will list words in the front of the journal and its up to each person to choose one or more words and create an art journal page based on the word(s)

I've also finished my first ever piece of "mail art". This involves creating a postcard in any shape or style and sending through the post "naked" ie not covered up so the postman can see it, to a person on a list specifically created for this type of art.

Well I think that might be it... feels like I've forgotten something.... Im sure it will come back to me. In the meantime here are the tags i did for the April "whatever" tag swap...

 I've nearly finished a few other things so hopefully it won't be too long until I blog again...

Later potata's....

Siân