(Round 2 of the 25 Motif Challenge) Motif No. 2 - Clips for Fathers' Day, and Tsai Chin in Concert

This is the hardest for me so far, it took me three attempts before I could get it right, and a lot of pondering on how to go on with the design in-between. Phew! Just barely made it for the online tatting class for this month. This pattern may not be as versatile as the others, but it is specially dedicated to all dads out there.

It has been a while since I last attended a concert. Last Saturday, my mother and I were there, at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, for Taiwanese evergreen diva - Tsai Chin 蔡琴 - in her “Tsai Chin 2009 The New Endless Love” tour. I may not know more than a few of her oldies, but I remembered listening to her classics such as “恰似你的温柔” (Just Like Your Tenderness) and “读你” (Reading You) during my school days.

Tsai Chin's own rendition of hits by Jacky Cheung, Angus Tong, Wang Jie has her own unique ways with the songs with her naturally magnetic rich vocals. And a surprise at the concert - saw our Senior Minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong, up front and close entering the hall and sitting at the first row. Must be a great fan of Tsai Chin to attend the concert right after his recent bout of chicken pox!

Joey's ATCs and Another Cover

Finally, the children finished their mid-year exams! And with no homework for the weekend, my 10-year old girl, Joey, spent her time drawing this whole lot of ATCs. My sister gave away (to me) a whole bag of art marker pens some years back, and luckily, they haven't dried up. Come just handy for my girl to use!

And she is getting bolder with the colours.

Not so fortunate for my boy though, he still had 2 assignments to rush. And here's the cover for one of assignments, I decorated it with some tatting!

And here are another 2 ATCs I did - tatted motifs mounted on fabric and 3D Chinese words cut with KUTZTM die-cuts. On the left is "le" meaning joy and on the right is "xin" meaning heart.

New Toys and ATCs

I had a surprise when I visited my favourite QuicKutz shop last weekend. In addition to the QuicKutz 2009 Spring Gift Sets, there is a whole new range of embossing plates. These are plastic plates, so they are cheaper than the metal ones. I couldn't resist playing with them over the weekend as I supervised/coached my children for their exams (talk about multi-tasking !). They work just great on metallic cardstocks.

This makes a grand nameplate.

More ATCs with embossed background (except the black one) and decorated with tatting.

From left: Purple Garden, Aphabet E

From left: Thank You/1 and back of Thank You/2

Happy Birthday, Helmi

And this was of course specially done and given to Helmi for her coming birthday.

ATCs and A Cover Page

Haven't had much time to do much tatting with my children's exams around the corner, only managed to complete a few ATCs.

The idea for these 2 "JackPot?" cards hit me as I was adding some postage stamps into the album. Put 2 old Singapore stamps and a tatted flower (Helma Siepman's way of creative tatted flower) under 3 flipable covers. No, you did not hit the jackpot!

Next are the first cards done with tatting mounted on fabric and card. The "Rose Garden" cards has a tatted pink and blue rose each, while the "Dragonflies" cards each has a tatted dragonfly with beaded wings (Debbie Arnold's design).

The same design of dragonfly is attached to the left one of the "In The Garden" cards below, and tatted butterflies on the right one.

I'm quite pleased with this - a cover page for my boy's Social Studies submission - all done with QuicKutz die cuts. If you are wondering, well, he did all the write-up by himself, I just helped with this cover, and the background is actually white (the photo wasn't so well taken against a setting sun). I'm not advertising for QuicKutz, but cookie cutters are just fantastic, make the cutting of alphabets much faster and save papers (the 4 new Spring 2009 sets are definitely worth considering, but the headache is which set ?) and isn't the Singapore island shape just cute!

(Round 2 of the 25 Motif Challenge) Motif No. 1 - Tatted Butterfly on Paper Clip

Paper clip for the month - Butterflies - click on the link for the pattern at Georgia's Online Tatting Class. This is a simple and quick one, and I had designed it such that you can slip a thin ribbon on it to make a bookmark, in addition to tatting it on a paper clip. You can also tie the ribbon in such a way to make a necklace or make the head ring a little bigger and add a metal ring to hang as a pendant on a necklace chain. Quick and sweet gifts for little girls!

Awards, and Finally, The Last of the 25 Motifs

A BIG thank you to Laura Rose, who gave me this award. Laura's the one who got me inspired to start ATCs. I see she is also doing a lot of laces on her pillows; I'm so tempted to take out mine too. Maybe in June, and I can do it together with my 3 children, they learnt some basics of bobbin lace and managed to complete some simple projects last year. Oh, I digressed; back to Laura, do visit Laura's site to see her beautiful bobbin laces!

Another award - this one is given by Tatskool. I'm very flattered, thank you, Pamela. Pamela dyes very cheerful Rainbow Bright HDTs and her hand-made Irish leprechauns are simply adorable. And this Renee Award is originally started by Bella Sinclair. She draws so well, check out her blog to see more of her fantastic illustrations.

I have been quiet longer than usual as I was trying hard to complete this motif for Camille for the Extreme Tatters Round Robin. It's finally done and on the way across the world. This will be my Motif No. 25 - Hisbiscus, tatted with Altin Basak size 50 threads:

Now that I'm done with the 25 Motif Challenge (after a full long year), you can bet I will still want to carry on with the challenge, Round 2, that is. My aim is still be to design and tat a second lot of 25 motifs. Well, the 1st will be coming up very soon - on 27 Apr - for Georgia's Online Tatting class. Watch the space!

ATCs - Celebrate Easter, Shamrocks Galore, Blossom and Attraction

Not much happenings. In between designing and tatting the motif for Camille for the Extreme Tatters Round Robin, I used some of the motifs I tatted previously and created more ATCs.

From top left-hand corner moving clockwise:

Celebrate Easter (with tatted egg),

Shamrocks Galore (with tatted shamrock),

Blossom (with tatted flowers),

Attraction (with tatted bee).

So far, I have used acid-free scrapbooking cardstocks or papers as the base for the ATCs. The exception is the background for "Attraction", which was cut out from an advertisement card found in my mailbox. Looked too pretty to just throw it into the recycling bin, isn't it ?