Valentine's Day Goodies

I did quite a bit for Valentine's Day this year.  It started with a Valentine-button fairy ATC swap I hosted at artisttradingcards.  Received a number of fabulous ATCs from ...

Pamela H Crosby (USA),

MaryAnn Arnold (USA),

Teresa Hoffman (USA),

Savannah LeCornu (USA),

Andrea Vaughan (UK),

Terry Owenby (USA),

Lavinia Nowosielski (USA),

and myself.

Thank you to all for participating, and all the gifts that came! They are all so colourful and playful :) Apart from Katt's ATCs which I have not received, I have sent out the swap to the rest.  

Over at SurfaceDesign, someone suggested a "Bowl of Hearts" trade.  A lovely idea!  I designed some tatted hearts with buttons. I just can't decide which was better, so they ended up all slightly different! 

So far, I have received from Jan Ziebol/USA (the 2 red hearts on the top row plus the heart card) and from Lesley Hurrell/UK (the bottom pink heart).

I tatted and sewed more hearts, but this time with a loop of  ribbon to hang the hearts for my ex-colleagues (heart from left to right, top to bottom row - for Katherine, Lay Cheng, Jeanette, Sharon and Foong San). 

For Inchies-onexone Jan and Feb swaps, I finished more hearts on inchies - origami style and zentangle style!  This set as sent to Debbie House: 

and this set for myself.  Tried my hands at Chinese painting following a book.  I love the tiny Chinese red seal I made in China. The 3 Chinese painting are done on miniature art card (1.5" by 2.5") and mounted on black ATC blank. 

The 2 squares in the centre are twinchies (2" by 2") with an inchie (1" by 1") on a sewing theme, done with die-cuts.  Do they look simple?  But it did take quite a bit of time and effort to row them out and assemble them.

I sewed a tiniest pincushion earlier.  Very cute, right!  Just nice to go into the tin, together with my shuttle and some threads. 

One last heart ATCs photo, with a quote by Robert Fulghum.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Home Is Where The Heart Is, Everything Made With Love

Crafts are going slow for me now that we are coping without a domestic maid in the house.  Even much lesser time on the computer, hence the much lesser posts.  But still, there are bit of bit of swaps to show!

Here's my last piece of fabric birthday ATC for the Stitchin fingers' 2012 Birthday ATC swap.  It's for Maria Silva (Portugal), her birthday falls on the last few days of Dec.

For the Dec ATC-doll swap, I sent a pair of gingerbreads to Marinda Sundwall (USA). 

In return, Marinda did a pair of vintage-style girls in winter.  I like the colours and composition, and the very different style from the cards I have.  

For the Dec fabric flat Christmas angel swap, I received Judaline's snowman angel and Constance's white angel, ...

and Kim's X'mas tree angel.  This is really real big compared to my Christmas angel girl! I just finished sewing her for myself.

For the supposedly Christmas elf button fairy swap, I received a poinsettia button fairy from Kim and a snowflake button fairy from Sue. What creative people around;  amazing works!

For the inchies-onexone swaps, Debbie sent out all the Sep, Oct and Nov swaps together.  It is always a great joy to receive a big package.

Sep swaps: Pair of elephants (paper tote-style) from Polly (UK).  Zentangle, Zetti, Graffiti, Geometric by Polly again. Spiral glitter also by Polly, Edgar Alan Poe by Marjorie Grace (2 inchies), flower tile print with green rhinestone by KW. 

Oct swaps: "Chamber Pot" by Polly (UK).  Universal Love zentangle by KW, Paint splash by Polly, maple leaf sequin by Marjorie Grace (2 inchies).  Japanese lady by Linda Ellis, Chinese word "Xi" Happiness by Debbie House Girl with umbrella by Polly, Flower by Marjorie Grace.

Nov swaps: "Wintertime" by Brooke Guadagno.  Plum pudding from Polly (2 inchies), sweets & gingerbread tree from KW.  Hat & mittens by Polly (UK), hat & stockings (stickers) by Brooke Guadagno.  Believe, Happy "Holly" Days from Brooke Guadagno, Earth from KW, Reindeer from Polly.  Flower from Brooke G (2 inchies), Silver from Polly, Snowflake from KW.  4 very colourful collage with glitter from Polly.

Last Sat, I attended an upcycle workshop in the Queenstown Library.  (Met Richard & Rita there!)  Using whatever provided, I came up with this in the workshop.  I was quite aimless when I started, but it did take shape finally.

This was only a practice for the project we are going to undertake - to do a double page of an old book on the theme "Home is where the Heart is".  It didn't take me too long to decide what to do.  I had to deviate from my original plan to use the children's photos, and instead to use my girls' favourite soft toys.  The girls are so excited and more than just happy with the outcome!  

According to the library, all the altered books will be part of an exhibition in June.

Dec Snowpeople, Christmas Angels and Elves!

The Dec ATC session in Bishan Library was on the theme "Gifts". Lots of ideas for this!  A pity we decided to go China last-minute, and had to miss the ATC session.

Well, the first set I did was a gift box on each ATC, wrapped with metallic and cotton threads (employing what we did in Nov session!), and tied with printed ribbons.

The second set was a mini-book folded from a piece of rubber-stamped paper, and filled with cut-out gifts and quotes on gifts.

The third set was a Shugi-Bukuro ATC, scaled down from an actual one. Japanese would give cash gift (called Oshugi) for occasions like weddings, birthdays and anniversaries, in these special envelope cards, You can put the cash gift into a small paper pocket and insert it into the beautifully decorated envelope, embellished with mizuhiki cords twisted and tied into a decorative knot.

For the movable doll-ATC swap I hosted, Maryann Arnold's (USA) package came with lots of goodies! 4 beautiful gals, ribbons, sparking stars, lots of labels, and a face!

Riitta Rautio (Finland)'s ATCs arrived fast. Riitta did a pair of Finnish girls for me previously (Jul 2011). Glad to meet her in this swap again!

Kimmie Leeco (USA) did very different movable dolls.  Aren't they awesome!?!  

I have swapped with Kayenderes Green (Canada) previously (Jun 2011 and Jun 2012). Again, we did another swap. Kayenderes' works made me see things in a new light, a different way of making up the dolls. 4 flower doll ATCs, a fabric house ATC, ... 

and a beaded wooden needle case which she did herself, in exchange for tatting shuttles I'm sending her.

Flower Doll, Miss Racheline L. (The Petal L Missy Series - 18 of 26) ATCs, 1 die-cut flowers with wrapped string, pair of tatted butterflies ATC "Garden Made of Threads", a pair of tatting shuttles, some tatted flowers and butterflies. 

For the Nov doll-ATC swap, I did snowmen and snowwomen. Made good use of my die-cuts again!

This pair of snowman and snowwoman went to Kayenderes for the Nov swap.

And from Kayenderes, a pair of real cute snow people.

I don't do a lot of button fairies, but this button fairy Christmas elf swap is certainly an interesting one. One is going to Kim Miles (USA) and another to Sue Cox (USA). Sue has swapped a springtime button fairy with me in May 2011.

I managed to finish these Christmas angel fabric flat dolls before I went on the 2-week trip to Taiwan and China in mid-Dec. The dolls were cut from printed cotton.  I added some cut hollies & berries, and sewed on some sequins and tiny tatted poinsettia; the wings were done with ribbons. Quite pleased with my first ever fabric flat dolls! They flied to Kim Miles (USA), Constance Peterson (USA) and Judaline Zozaya (USA).

Will show what my swap partners did for the 2 Christmas swaps soon!

Happy New Year to all!!

Oct and Nov Swaps

Problem with my maid again - stealing SIM cards and incurring a few hundreds dollars of phone bills!  Now into the 8th week without a maid and trying to train the children to be a bit more independent, but tough going.  I have to cut back on crafting and computer time too to do more household chores :(  Nevertheless, I still try to do something. 

During the ATC sessions we had in Bishan Library the past 2 months, we did simple activities yet they could developed into pretty complex works. For Oct session, we did rubbing or frottage. I tried my pencilbrush for the first time, it worked real great, producing smooth pencil rubbing in record time. 

The theme for Oct was "Windows and Doors". I used windows and shaker boxes to create the snowmen and heart cards. 

Vicki used stained glass effect to create the butterfly, while Valerie used images from Alice in Wonderland to illustrate this Turkish proverb "A small key opens big doors." .  And this was my pencilbrush rubbing.

For Nov ATC session, we used strings to wrap around all sort of paper shapes. Using my nesting star die-cuts to cut the shapes made them look neat and cool, and a bit different from the usual geometric circles and squares. I did a very simple one with flowers too! 

The theme for Nov was "Masks". Loved this theme, and I did some homework on Chinese opera masks to make these informative ATCs. The mask on the front was that of Bao Zheng, done by building up paper cutting layers. Bao Zheng (or Bao Gong) was the semi-legendary fearless and impartial judge of the Song Dynasty. His mask is mainly black, symbolizing honesty and firmness, an impartial and selfless personality. 

The other set of ATCs I did was inspired by a tutorial I came across recently. It was a basic face with different coloured parts, for one to mix and match freely to compose the face. The same parts were used (or some parts not used) to create these 3 totally different looks! I feel like I'm back in my childhood days!

I managed to swap a few more cards this time: From top left clockwise, Lion (torn paper) from Jessica Chua, Yearning #2/6 (Mulit-media) from Valerie Ho, Vase paper-cutting from Moses, Kimono Lady from Jennifer Lum, Monkey from Vicki Quek and Faces of Flowers from Selina.

My Oct and Nov swaps were sent out to Debbie earlier in the month. Going from top to bottom and left to right -

Oct swaps: (1) What's under the Bed? ATC, (2) Oriental inchies with stamped Chinese words, choice inchies with tatted flowers and 2-word encouragement phases. 

Nov swaps: (1) Winter time ATC with snowman outside the window (shaker box with mica flakes & glitter), extra ATCs for Debbie (Prayer flag ATC and School Days), (2) Winter outwear inchies, (3) College choice inchies (batik), (4) Glitter inchies (snowflakes), (5) Holiday Baking inchies (ginerbread men), (6) Choice inchies (holly with tatted berries). 　 

For the Oct doll swaps, I did a pirate girl for Lynette McNamara (New Zealand). 

My Jack Sparrow paper doll from Phyllis Boggs (USA) arrived too - very nicely coloured and those colourful beads on the yarn hair really stood out!

The ATC-doll for Oct were on flowers, I enjoyed creating these and almost couldn't stop!  A pair of these went to Phyllis Boggs (USA),  one is going to Kayenderes Green, a couple was swapped out in the Nov ATC session in Bishan Library, while 3 will be swapped in the Movable Doll ATC swap I'm currently hosting. 

For the movable doll ATC swap, the first cards from Sarah Pharr (USA) came in.  I have kept the theme open, just that it has be jointed with movable parts. What would the rest be doing?

I spent some time tatting these too. What are they? Can you guess? Eyes! To go on crochet dolls my pal, Betsy, is doing. She must be crocheting up a storm!