Appreciating Little Pieces of Works

Swaps are moving slow and recently taking a long time to arrive - 1 returned to sender (me) after 5 weeks and another took more than 2 months to come!  Still waiting for another 2, hope they will eventually arrive.

First the Chinese New Year ATC swap organised by MaryAnn. I can't thank the artists properly as I couldn't quite made out the hand-written names... MaryAnn, Janis Graham and ?

Then there was the Bowl of Hearts swap by the Surface Design group. The hearts as done by (top left going clockwise) Aynsley McKay, Carole Hanson, Cathy Vigor and Jan Lewis. Aynsley's heart was needle-felted by hand; Carole's heart coloured by transperse dyes; Cathy's heart was nuno felting and Jan's heart was coloured with numerous methods including Pebro Setacolors and acid reduction dyes.

Here's the jointed ATC doll from (left) Eileen Kiban (USA) and (right) Linda Edkins Wyatt (USA).  Linda's doll took 2 plus months to reach me, but definitely worth the wait. Isn't it amazing how big the doll can get and it still rotate back to the size of a ATC!

Still waiting for the replacement ATC doll from Linda after we thought the original one went astray. 

I did some spring tags and binded 4 in accordion fold to form a tag book. A set each went to Mel Dunkley (UK) and Nikki Smith (USA), who is also the host of this swap. I made good use of the CNY red packets! And I added butterflies cut from aluminum drink cans. They were sharp and kept curling up and I did get some small cuts on my hands.

Received this from Beckie. So different from my style, soothing earth tones with a good mix of sharper colours and a tight flow in and between the tags. 

Pam C's tag book is still somewhere out there, hope it  turn up soon. 

A little while ago, Holly asked about my tatted alphabets/words. Actually I started many years ago with wires. And I recently did a name in wire, so here it is, a gift for my ex-colleague.

Some Works for Swaps

2 favourite swaps I have joined since the last 2 years at the start of the year - Chinese New Year ATC swap host by MaryAnn (USA).  I did more swing cards with recycled CNY cards

And the other swap - Bowl of Hearts, hosted by Jan Lewis (USA).  Again, I added tatting.

I have not done any doll ATCs for a while.  Here are the pairs for a swap hosted by Debra Claxton over at Paper Traders.  You won't have problem recognising them from Alice In Wonderland, right?  My Spade Gardeners are holding origami roses, while the Heart Royals are carrying origami hearts.

Stitchmap had the first Fun Friday Tutorial for the year doing miniature weaving. I like small project and had a go at it.  Weaved an one-inch square with size 20 cotton threads and backed with leather.  Can't find my heart beads, and flowers are too common, it ended up as an amulet/fob with an evil eye!  I love evil eye beads!

Swap, Swap and More Swaps

I'm really behind showing all the gorgeous swaps I have received, I hope I didn't miss out anyone.

1 of the reasons why I like doing ATCs - besides learning new art and craft techniques when creating all ATCs and whatnot, I also learn new things as I research on techniques and themes. I found out about Found Poetry from this particular swap hosted by Kate Robinson (USA) in the artisttradingcards group.  

Found poetry is the literary version of a collage - take existing words of text from a book or article and reform the words and ideas in interesting ways.  The following are what I managed from specific pages of “The Empty Chair” by Jeffery Deaver, as specified by Kate.  I cut out words from the text and re-arranged everything to come up with these. 

Starting from top-left going clock-wise: (1) The Dance, (2) Her Garden, (3) I Can, (4) The Lover. I did 3 similar sets of 4 cards, all with painted water-colour background and die-cuts, except (3) was drawn with markers. I felt quite pleased with myself and almost think I could be a poet!  

See what others did. From left to right: (1) “She would never know” by Kathy Haynes (USA), "Three men shrugged" by Valerie Orner (USA), (3) "She was utterly exhausted" by Stephanie B Aliberti (USA).  Possibilities are just endless!  Try it!  You may discover the literacy side of yourself in the process! 

I also tried using the erasure method on 1 of the pages to compose a similar poem to "Her Garden" mentioned earlier.  The selected words and phrases when read in order, compose the poem.  However, I didn't "erase" the majority unused text, but circled the selected words.

For the Paper_Traders group, I participated in another 2 ATC swaps in the last 2 months.  For "Wings and Things", I folded flat origami roses for the Little Butterfly Fairy's Rose Affair, and added a pair of tatted ring butterflies at the back of the ATCs.  Ok, let us see what other participants did.  Going clock-wise from top-left:

(1) Pattie McClimans - "Nature", (2) Valerie Thrift, Greece - "Let the FAIRY in you fly!", (3) Nydia Dominguez - "Baby Fairy", (4) Bevlea Ross, Australia' - "We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents", (5) Pam Prosser, Australia - Butterfly Fairy, (6) Carolyn Albro, USA - "Transform".

The other Paper_Traders’s swao was the Postage Stamp People ATC Swap. This is another new thing for me, using postage stamp with a face or head and combining with collage, drawing, etc. to create postage stamp people.  A challenge for me was finding the postage stamps.  Singapore hardly issues such stamps, perhaps there aren't enough famous people in Singapore!  I only managed to find a few miserable number of suitable stamps among the extras in my small stamp collection. 

My works aren't as creative as what I received.  Everyone else did extremely well!

(1) "The Older I Get, The Better I Was" by Bevlea Ross, Australia; (2) "She is not just an ordinary garden faerie" by Lilian Mederak, Canada; (3) "Ray Charles" by Eileen Kirban, USA; (4) "Have a purpose in life" by Beckie Holso; (5) "Embace Imperfection" by Lucy Leatham; (6) "Catch a Wave" by Amanda E.

Katja Joulak from Sweden contacted me for a private swap. As she was intending to use my ATCs for an article she would be writing and the deadline was tight, I didn't have time to make new pieces. I sent her a fabric ATC "K is for Koala", Ellen's Office Days (a self-portrait) and the "Bling Bling" Race - The Gemican (No.6).

Katja took time to make and sent me her fabulous works - (1) Stamped Wings, (2) Paper Doll - Queen of Art, (3)  Fabric ATC - "Blinged Green" 2/2.

And her article that was published (page 1 of 3).

My First Paper Postcard Swap. Lots of Origami.

I joined a postcard swap - collage word.  First time I did postcards (6" x 4") with paper medium. I cut the word "BLOSSOMING" from a Korean magezine and mounted the alphabets into a bloom.  The watercoloured background had the words "flower . bud . bloom . blossom" translated into 29 languages. 

All the participants came up with the unique concepts and interesting pieces - some with great quotes, some with pretty wordscapes.  I received from Cathy Calamas (USA) - "Finding My Wow".  The 2nd piece from Bev Baird hasn't arrive and may have gone astray :(

Joined another 2 ATC swaps at Paper Traders.  1 is "Map Mania".  Of the 4 I sent, the taxi in "Discover S'pore" can move up and down by pulling the string, The blocks of flats and and people can "pop up" in the bottom right card, while the girl will wobble in the other 2 cards.  

As usual, I'm keeping a set of cards for myself.

The other swap is "Wings and Things".  I wanted to use my new die-cuts (the little boy and little girl), so I ended up with butterflies fairy boys and girls!  I spent a whole day rolling them out, assembling and gluing them - real tedious.  Then I found these flat origami roses which I adore and folded 18 of them straight. 

Tatted another 18 tiny butterflies for a little surprise at the back of the ATCs.

Incidentally, Joey also spent a whole night folding these origami animals as a response to a article for a school project. 

Guess I'll just post the photos of my humble collection of thimbles. When someone from a group was talking about collecting thimbles recently, I found mine sitting nicely in a glass container in a forgotten corner.  I do have more thimbles than these - plastic ones, leather ones, metal ones - meant for working purpose, whereas these 6 are purely just for collection.  Don't ask me where I bought them as they are more than 10 years old, probably closer to 20 years. Oh yes, the windmill does move!

June holidays, despite the haze

Singapore has been occasionally hit by smoke haze from forest fires in nearby Sumatra, Indonesia, brought over by wind.  The haze this year was the worst so far, with the PSI hitting 401 at 12 noon on 21 Jun and persistent PSI readings in the Unhealthy to Hazardous range since 17 Jun. Luckily the haze eased after a week, but everyone is still cautious and stocking up the N95 masks. 

Photo taken from my office window 1 hour after the worst PSI reading on 21 Jun.

I couldn't resist adding this photo for comparison.
This was taken from the same place on a fine day on 10 Jul, 12.20 pm.
The sea and the port could be seen on the horizon.

We couldn't do much during this school holidays as a result. We baked more scones and tried baking some cupcakes.  

At least, we did manage to go for a family outing at Sentosa when DH was back from China, just before the haze got real bad.  We cycled for an hour and had 2 rounds of the Luge & Skyride, followed by a movie "Man of Steel" and a late dinner at Vivocity.  

Utilised a pair of free tickets to the S.E.A. Aquarium and the Typhoon Theatre at the Maritime Experiential Museum on the expiry date itself, almost forgotten due to the haze!

And I tagged along Joey with her school table-tennis team for a cycling outing to the East Coast, followed by a Korean BBQ buffet dinner at Ssikkek in Oriental Plaza.

Back to crafts and swaps.  I received the May "Forest Fantasy" ATCs from Jan Gray (USA). These are the first doll-ATCs Jan's did - "We're all mad here" and "Forest Elf".  Aren't the cards lovely?  I love the colours especially - rich and mystique.  

The NEEDLESnCRAFTS "Summer" Moo exchange has just arrived.  Going clockwise from top-left:  Moo done by Mel, Janet Chan, Rose Jonid, Radha, "Sunshine" from Vivian Ong and the last one by Usha.  Another great swap, thanks to Janet for hosting it! 

The 3rd swap I joined in the Paper_Traders group was the Crackle ATC swap - crackle effect on the background to be precise.  I didn't want to spend on crackle paints, so I used glue with acrylic paints. It wasn't easy or was it that I used the wrong glue?  I only managed to get some crackle effect after trying on the 6th piece.  I even resorted to brushing my silver crackle nail polish to some of the ATCs!  So these are my attempts.

As the theme is free, I made paper-punched bride and groom and tatted a pair of small dimpled hearts for these "Two Loving Hearts" ATCs. 

Some New Swaps and Techniques to Me!!

The ATC-ArtDolls group hasn't been too active the past few months.  We managed to get the May swap going with the "Forest Fantasty" theme, the requirement was human heads with animal bodies!  Not a normal theme I would go for, but it was a mini-challenge.  I did my doll-ATCs with elephants and monkeys.  A rather fun theme to do actually.  One set went to Vanessa Soto in USA, and another set was traded at the ATC session in Bishan Library last Thu.

We met a week earlier this month as Moses will be busy with his preparation for his new job in Indonesia.  We'll miss him and all his coordination effort for these ATC sessions.  We decided that we will carry on with help from all the regulars.  Cheers to everyone!  Back to what we did on 6 Jun.  Based on Barbara Reid's illustration using plasticine, we came up with all these colourful, creative and picturesque ATCs within the hour.  Amazing, isn't it?

These are what Kristine and I did.  I wasn't in the mood to really create something, so I spent just a few minutes to shape a new merlion, at least everyone could tell with just a glance :)        

Sor Huan was so sweet to do this card for me after I commented in the last session on how pretty her set was.  Using the some girl, she used natural plant materials and fabric to create different look on each and every ATCs.   The origami bee was done by who else, but Rita, our origami guru.     

Remember the upcycle altered book project which I participated earlier this year? I took 6 photos with 6 soft toys to complete a double page of "Home is where the heart is". The collaborative books which we created are now exhibiting in Bishan Library for the month of June!        

I joined a new group, Paper_Traders, and learned a few new things in my first few swaps.  Have you heard of intuitive watercolour technique?  There are a number of  posts on various blogs: Zorana's, Beckie's, Carol's.  This is the first time I tried, and it was so rewarding and satisifying an experience.  I felt playful splashing watercolours around and at the same time, I was filled with anxiety. Curiosity crept in once the colours dried.  What do I visualise?  Can you see?  Can you not see?      

The first few pieces of ATCs I drew with this technique made me realised I'm not too bad an artist, LOL!   I sent in [from top left going clockwise] (1) My Toys, (2) Dinosaur, (3) Sewing by the Lamp, (4) Dance is the Hidden Language of the Soul, (5) Take a Moment to Admire.  

More done: (6) I Spotted a Fairy, (7) In The Pond, (8) Dancing, the child of Music and of Love. (9) A Walk in the Wood.  I'm doing more for our next ATC session in July :)    

Next was the Gypsy Deco Book swap.  I used a combination of stamping, die-cut and the same watercolour technique to create these "Gypsy Fortune Telling" pages on 3.5" square scrapbooking papers.  Fortunately, they are at least presentable as I was quite clueless on the gypsy theme.  I'm now trying another new technique (to me) for a third swap, still working on them, so more about it in my next post.

Before that, here's the tatted bookmark for Moses!  All the best to his new job!