A Gelatine Plate Is Not Meant To Be Eaten

I tried to make my own gelatine plate, after all I have a big bottle of powder gelatine at home.   Well, this is not making jelly to eat. I then used some acrylic paints (gold, silver, pewter and red) and a brayer on the gelatine plate. Don't know what was not quite right, the paints couldn't spread well. And Singapore is so hot that the gelatine actually melted after a while! But, I just used what came out from the prints. Added on some fabric motifs and metallic thread.

These are for Paper_Traders' Pull A Print swap for 3"x5" index cards.  They went to Mel Dunkley (UK) and Linda Edkins (USA), together with the Daily Junk Mails postcard.  Weaved the background for the 2 postcards that went to Mel and Linda, and I cut out the shape of our Singapore island and sponged over with distress inks in the middle of the postcards (that's my additional technique we were supposed to add).    Well, Singapore is a food paradise!

Karla Jackson (USA) and Carol Fosdick (USA) sent their Pull A Print card to me.  I like the colours on Carol's works but it looked unfinished though.

The back of Karla's card is just as sweet as the front! 

The Daily Junk Mails postcards came in from Pam Imhoff's (USA) Every day is Earth Day, and Beckie Holso's (USA) Wanderlust. Both are awesome in their own rights. 

Linda Wyatt (USA) resent me her abstract art postcard for last Sep swap, and this time it arrived fast. 

Acrylic paints on deli paper. Love Linda's abstract art, composition and colours and all! 

In a Creative Mood

My boy was busy with his prelim exams during Sep Teachers' Day celebrations, so he did these and gave his teachers only during graduation day (from Junior College). Baked the macarons with the help of his sister. How time flies, my boy is taking his A-level exams already, and going NS in another 3 months!

Kristine has been reluctant to tat because of sweaty palms, but here's her attempt almost totally on her own.

Here's my new tatted lucky clover design - simple and sweet. There is of course a bookmark version simply by extending the stem and adoing a tassel. 

I haven't been participating in many swaps, so only these few works to show. This abstract postcard came from Lee Kirk (USA).  Look felted but it's actually a fabric wipe.

Next is Paper Traders' "Over/Under" ATC swap, whereby we create a design by painting over a layer under it.  Mine were easily done once I get the idea going, by sponging distress ink on a cut-out word 福 over prints of 如意 stamped with a Chinese seal which I craved during one of the library workshops I attended.  I love the effect and the very oriental look! 

Received a poppies card from Debra Claxton (USA) and a pumpkin card from Beckie Holso (USA).

June and July ATC Session... Postcard and Tags

To prepare for June ATC session in Bishan Library, I did some research into the background of iris folding and shared with participants, all first time trying their hands on this paper craft technique.  The chosen pattern was a bit tough to work in ATC size in the limited time, but several completed them. 

I did my "Holidays" ATCs in iris folding - Holiday Cruise and Holiday at the Beach.

Swapped 1 for Hiang's marker pen drawn Holiday ATC.

Chin Yean introduced pop art to our participants in the July ATC session, we sure had a colourful time!





I made more of my Gemican people (dolls composing of gems from brochures).  Swapped 2 ATCs for Selina's iris folding tree with an inchie bird and Jessica's under the sea with a fish inchie. 



I haven't show this delightful piece of work - Marion Bockelmann's (Germany) lovely postcard which I won in her Our World Our Art blog giveaway (Apr 2014).  Marion did it with collage and sanding technique. My postcard collection is slowly growing! 

Over at Paper Traders group, I participated in another interesting swap - Mother Nature Tag Flag Book. We swapped 8 tags and stored them in our own book. Here's the tags I did and the book I made containing all the tags returned.

From left to right:
top row: (1) Tag by Pam Colosimo, (2) Study Nature, Love Nature by joarty1, (3) Bird House by Shelly Recicar, (4) butterfly by Connie Holso.  
bottom row: (5) Dragonfly by Pam Prosser, (6) Bloom Where You Are Planted by Beckie Holso, (7) GHIJKL by Cathee Stegall, (8) Nature garden by Nancy.

ATC @ Bishan Library Sep 2013

The theme for Sep ATC session was "Colour Wheel".  I did it literally, making colour wheels, but with little ghosts for the spooky colour wheel, extraterrestrial beings for the alien colour wheel, and flowers for the garden one. Now, I have a simple colour wheel in my pocket!

During the session, we created ATCs with pressed leaves, flowers and seeds, courtesy of Sor Huan.  Thank you, Sor Huan!

Here are our creations in the hour!  The first 2 on the left in the top row are mine, while the right-most on the 2nd row is done by Kristine.

I traded my colour wheel ATCs with Richard's butterfly, Melissa's yellow bird and Geok Lan's pop-up fence.

The Oct session will be on 10 Oct (Thu), 6.30 pm.  Theme: Word Collage.  Here are some samples from the swap I have done and new ATCs I did.   Postcard on the bottom right came from Bev Langill (Canada).  Her first piece never made it here, thanks, Bev, for making the replacement!

I spent 1 weekend cycling.  Cycling has never been more fun now, with all the parks and park connectors developed throughout Singapore. 1 of the longest routes is the Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network (PCN), with a total of 38 km.  Joey and I attempted the route on a cloudy and windy afternoon.  We cycled for 4 hours, with a break for an ice-cream and another one at the end, some occasional photo shots, and wrapped up the last half hour cycling in Pasir Ris Park itself along the coast.  I didn't measure the distance we covered, but it should be more than 25 km. 

Although I have had cycled enough, I had to go for another round the next day, this time with Kristine!  She just learnt not long ago, but fell and hurt her elbow. This time, she managed much better with more confidence.  We are sure looking forward to more cycling trips!  

 

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!