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.

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.

What Swaps Land in My Mail Box

ATC-ArtDolls Swaps - Dec 2013 Christmas dress, Jan 2014 New Year's Eve Party dress and Feb 2014 Valentine dress.

There seem to be lots of mishap in the mails for the swaps in this group (mails from Jessica Obryen and Laureta Linett are not arriving), Cindy Whiddon made up everything, she sent me all the 3 dresses and the Dec Santa/Reindeer doll too.

Laureta Linett attempted to sent yet another envelope, this 3rd envelope finally arrived!!! Oh, thank you, Laureta, for the so pretty Christmas and Valentine dresses, a most pain-takingly constructed mermaid for Feb doll swap and the just-too-cute handmade birthday card!

Most of the time, international mails take about 2 weeks to or fro any countries.  However, 1 mail I sent on 4 Feb to South Carolina, USA, was returned in my letterbox after 1 straight month, while another swap to Minnesota, USA sent on 6 Feb, also took 1 long month to reach.  Wonder if they were affected by the icy weather in USA in Feb!

Let's see my Valentine dress and mermaid that I sent to Cindy!

And another set for myself.

[artisttradingcards] "Chinese New Year swap - Year of the Horse", hosted by MaryAnn Arnold (USA).  I did 3 CNY Year of Horse red-packet style ATCs with 2 number of 50-cent colour-pencil rubbing paper coins enclosed in each. Almost the same idea as for my last year CNY swap.

Swap received, going clockwise from left: 1) From MaryAnn Arnold, (2) From Sam Jordan, (3) From Janes Graham, USA.

[Paper_Traders] My Secret Valentine greeting card swap.

I did my Valentine card with some tatted flowers and heart/words die-cuts.  I also enclosed a small tatted heart bookmark for Connie Holso (USA). 

 In return, I received this fine handmade card from Amanda Evans.  Amanda included some ephemera, ribbon and heart buttons too.

Beckie of Paper_Traders organised a Lucky You Altered Tag Swap in March, this is the first time I did a tag. The requirement was the use of stencil(s) to create an altered tag with a "Lucky" theme in size #5 manila tags (4-3/4" x 2-3/8").  I did mine with distress inks over hot glue gun stencils, top with some coloured glues and mica flakes. Mine went to Pam Prosser (Australia).

I received this Irish lucky tag from Pam Colosimo (Canada). She sent some ephemera (old book pages, stamped images, etc.) too.

Lisa Alff sent more Guatemalan worry dolls and more treasures!  I'm so excited to see the painted laces in person!!

In the mood for haiku, I composed this one of the evenings as I opened my letter (mail) box...