My First Inchies

What is an Inchie?

An Inchie is a miniature art piece. Inchies are 1 inch square pieces. A Plus-Size Inchie (PSI) is a larger size Inchie which is 1.5 inch square. 1 inch circle is called a Rinchie, and 2 inch square is called a Twinchie. It was mentioned somewhere that they evolved from the popular Artist Trading Card revolution, I'm not sure, but like ATCs, they can be created in any media or technique including paper, metal and fabric done with drawing, painting, quilting, collage, clay, altered materials, etc, the only criteria is the size. And because of their small sizes, they can be incorporated as embellishments on larger projects, to create mosaic artworks, and to create jewelry.

Depending on how you see it - whether it is more challenging or time-saving to do your art on this small size, I jumped on the bandwagon to create my first inchies. Nothing really fanciful, but they still took me a good 10 nights to finish the 2 sets of 16 inchies based on the theme "Well Wishes" - mostly collage-style on painted watercolour papers and some scrapbooking cardstock, putting my QuicKutz dies to good use, and utilizing whatever sequins and stuff I could find in my stash. I also designed an ambigram for my name or is that what it is called? In any case, it's a mirror-image, or almost one, and embellished with a small tatted butterfly.

I was surfing the internet and ordering some supplies when I came across ways to display ATCs - not about storing the bulk of them, but displaying just a few. They are some pretty neat kits and products selling in the stores, but some are kind of steep in the price too. So, I whipped out my die-cuts and machine to assemble this little album. The inserts are just great to display 1 ATC on each page. And since I'm just working on inchies, I incorporated them on the cover, tying everything together with yarns and fancy trims.

Remember the backgrounds for my ladybug boys and girls in my last post? They were paper napkins. Art4Mail group has a playshop last weekend, coincidentally, on Napkin Art. So I used the 2 napkin designs to do up some small cards. I didn't try much style, just simply using the napkin wholesale with mod podge. Either I was clumsy or I was too much of a perfectionalist, I made at least 5 failed attempts before I could get something decent-looking. Will either try stamping some words on or using some word stickers on the cards as a finishing touch.

Another piece of the metallic ATC came - this Steel Magnolia from Carol Jamieson (Scotland).

Moses graciously extended the invitation for the National Library's Learning Communities Appreciation Dinner to a few of us, regulars to the ATC sessions. The dinner was held at The Pod, the roof top gallery on the 16th storey of the National Library building.

The view there was fantastic, and here's one seeing the Singapore Flyer and Marina Bay Sands.

The other thing I must mention was the delicious halal buffet dinner catered from Old Chang Kee Take 5, a brand extension of Old Chang Kee, which serves 5 distinctive Asian dishes. Simple fare, but simply fantastic on the taste buds! It was a great evening!!