A Few ATC and Christmas Swaps

There was a set of missing ATCs in the earlier Round Robin swap over at Paper Traders. On the replacement set that came, I added origami morning glory,  paper cutting umbrella, saxophone and leaf. And off they went to the 4th person for more embellishment. 

Love owls?  I'm so happy to receive these owl ATCs from Debra Claxton (USA) - top piece, and Eileen K (USA) - bottom pieces, from the Paper Traders Oct ATC speed round swap. 

I did mine with a tatted owl.

Eileen also generously enclosed extra ATCs she did for a few previous swaps. Oh, wow! 

For the Christmas ATC swap hosted by Nikki Smith (USA), I sent these.. the wrapped up one, with the ATC booklet on quotes on gifting, is meant as a secret Santa exchange.  I also sent along a tatted flower which I hope Nikki will like.

Received my Christmas swap from [going clockwise from top-left corner] Jo Murray (Australia), Barb Adams (USA), Susan Peeler (USA) and Nikki.  The bottom ATC is my secret Santa piece from Barb.

I didn't have much time to do more Christmas crafts, only tatted holly and berries for 2 large wooden pegs and folded a troop of Santa Claus.  Christmas came and past in a wink!

Kristine does have a flair for drawing, don't you think?  These, she drew on A3 or bigger papers.  After these, she is now working on paper clay.  Last few days to play before school starts!

December ATC Session @Bishan Library

We have come to our last session for the year.  I found a few interesting Christmas origami models and a very cute Santa Claus. So, we were folding away during our last ATC session.

Christmas ATCs I did this year with iris folding and origami.

The smallest Santa is done with 1.5cm squares.

Keethi, who just learnt tatting from me, found out about our ATC session, did this Christmas ATC.

Theme for 8 Jan 2015 ATC session is "New Year".

November ATC Session @ Bishan Library - Tunnel Cards and House ATCs

After the Tunnel Book Swap, I used the same concept to do ATCs. Sure add more texture to the usual flat cards.

We did more of these cards during the Nov ATC session in Bishan Library.  Even first-timer, Pearly, did a super good job on her "Beauty" card! 

Beside the regular rectangular-sized ATC, I hope to bring participants' attention to other interesting shapes that others are creating.  We did the tombstone-shape last month, this month we tried the house-shape.

Lovely house ATCs done by Cheo Hiang and Doris. 

We'll be folding Christmas origami in the December ATC session on 11 Dec. Bring along red and green papers to fold Santa Claus and Christmas trees!

A Few Great Swaps

When was the last time I sewed a fabric postcard?  I think this should be it - only 2 designs and a total of 3 pieces so far.  This time, I did 6 with our Singapore merlion. The theme - "Colours of My Country", nothing more suitable for the theme than our national icon!  Quite pleased with the results. I used felt for the merlion and they were sewed together with sequins. And I just love to crochet these small hearts. They went to Lisa Alff (USA), Constance Peterson (USA), Hollie Poley (USA), Joanna McCreadie (UK) and Jeanette Sillonis (USA).

Postcards received from (top left going clockwise) Constance, Lisa, Hollie, Joanna, Vicky Christodoulou-Baker (Canada) and Jeanette. 

Remember the painted paper collage swap? Mine came in from Debra Claxton (USA)  with a lovely postage stamp people ATC too!

Paper Traders always has something new.  This time we swapped tunnel books.  They are fun!

"Something Wicked" received from Pam Colosimo (Canada). 

And mine for Pam C.

Did a second book to keep.

More tag swaps.  Soon there will be enough tags for a second book (my first tag book here)!  I did my tags with the tatted rose lino prints.  As this swap is for tag-on-tag, I tatted rose for the small tag to match the print. (I just couldn't stop tatting these sweet roses!)  They went to Pam Colosimo (Canada), Cathy Calamas (USA) and Barb Adams (USA).

Received these tags from Debra Claxton (USA), Barb A and Beckie Holso (USA).

Masterboard Tag, Round Robin ATCs, Dominoes

What is a masterboard? Not the ceiling board, I don't talk about work here.  Here are some links on the masterboard that I'm referring to: 
ten thirty-six art
Shellie Lewis

Gingersnap Creations - Master Board with Sharon

Gingersnap Creations - Masterboard with Alison
Masterboards on Pinterest

I also tried creating masterboards.  It's easier if you have a theme in mind. Both bases are done with marbling and stamping basically, plus a bit of gesso, pearl powder and mist ink.

From the big piece, we cut it down to a postcard and tag.  I did my master board as big as my initial watercolour paper is, without cutting,  and managed to get 2 postcards, 2 tags and 2 ATCs. The top set was sent to Pam Prosser (Australia) and the bottom set to Mel Dunkley (UK).
Another set of my own tags.

The swaps came in from Barb and Debra.

Paper Traders had a round Robin swap which started in July. First time I joined an international round robin swap, and oh my, so many mails and photos everyone were posting. It was a bit of confusion and some lost sets in the mail.  I received my completed set relatively fast though.

These are the other ATCs that were in the round-robin which I added my bit (the sets with pink border).

Remember the domino book swap? I was hunting high and low for the domino tiles then. Since I got a box of them, I'm ready to do more altered dominoes. I used marbling inks for the background this time and embellished with a tatted rose in size 80 threads. DH hand-carried a new hand drill and clamp back from China for me to play with, and I managed to drill some holes on my own.  I remembered the last time I drilled anything was in my secondary school days during Technical class when we used big drilling machine to drill holes in metal pieces.  How I missed those days!  

Hollie sent me 2 tiles - one for summer and one for winter.  Hollie says lighthouse is for summer, with long walks on the beach playing in the sand and looking for shells.  Thank you, Hollie!

More Halloween swaps!  More tombstone ATCs! 

These were sent to the host, Nikki Smith, in USA.

Swap returned with cards from Cathy Calamas, Jo Murray, Ann Cameron and Nikki herself.

Stuffs the Girls Made and A New Celestial

Just want to show some stuff the girls made - some for their classmates' birthdays ...

Kristine drew the card ...

... made all the bracelets and hair clips, some for fund-raising ...

messed the whole place with Hama beads!

And I just picked up my new 1.11 carat Celestial ring from Goldheart, which DH upgraded for me from the previous 1.02 diamond!!!

Oct ATC Session @Bishan Library

Time flew and another month has past. Oct is a month of year-end examinations here in Singapore. When it comes to exams, the pressure is not just on the children but the parents too. Only those who went through will understand. But whether this is unique to Singapore, I'm not too sure.  Anyway all the best to our students and parents!

It was a cosy monthly gathering for us for the Oct ATC session. We explored some ways to cut and transform photos and pictures, namely weaving and slice-and-stretch method.  These simple techniques can be used not only on your ATCs, but also in your journals and scrapbooks. Although simple techniques, yet lots of room for creativity.

I shared another ATC envelope template which I created, good for holding 2 ATCs. Decorate it and add ribbon make it a great holder to gift someone a pair of ATCs.

We finished the round robin swap. I got this set back.

The Halloween theme produced some of the most interesting cards, with some in tombstone-shaped rather than the usual ATC rectangle.

Swapped for the following ATCs and I managed to weave the b/w ghost card during the session, a pattern I adopted from a quilting pattern.

We will try another shape for Nov session - the house-shaped ATC!  So the theme will be "House"!