Happy Birthday Katie

It doesn't seem like 12 months since I made the last card for Katie, but it must be.  My son asked me to make something for his friend, and its a pleasure.  Katie has been a good friend to Simon for a long time, and calls herself  "an honorary boy" because she's the only girl in the group which regularly drops in for pizza..... so much for my Friday nights home alone, not that I'm complaining very loudly.

.All the elements on this card are courtesy of a kit from Taylored Expressions, the extra one that came at the end of my 6 month subscription to her Key Ingredients sets.  I started with my usual black CS (cant move too far out of the zone) but the other lovely papers and flowers and leaves are from the kit.  I love the retro colours and psychedelic pattern of the DP.  This is going to be a kit I'll be using a lot and soon it will all be gone!!

Opus Gluei #65 Fun with Ephemera

Can I just upload my house?  This ephemera challenge might just help me make space somwhere....

I've been doing a bit of my own de-cluttering lately, going through the many folders of paper images I cut for decoupage, so I was really in the mood for a bit more.  Then I took a good look at a few other places around the place, such as a corner of the kitchen bench beside the phone, and the pinboard behind my desk which is supposed to be inspirational but which instead is a jumble of heaven only knows what..........

So here's an ATC with a medical theme: a printout from the Medicare (Govt health care rebate system)office sometime in 2008, a band-aid that's seen better days (no NOT USED, but a bit dusty from being in the corner of a drawer), some droplets that might be body fluids, but aren't, and some likely text that came from a brochure I was throwing out.  That's one little space cleaned out......

....and then I tripped over a cat food dish which inspired the second.  The little white card came from a packet of something cute and was prised off the pinboard (the other sign there says "Dogs have masters, cats have staff" but was too long to fit on anything other than the pinboard so its staying put), then I hunted about for the rest.  The blue thing is Mr P's plastic registration tag for last year, the C is for cat.  What else?  And of course then there are four little pieces of cat food.....I had to seal them (must be the oddest use for Jo Sonja's sealer ever) so that the cats didn't eat them for a midnight snack.  The fish is, well, another thing to eat?

What's cookin'........

You can tell I'm home on leave.... two challenges in a week!!
 

This week's Opus Gluei challenge is to do something related to food..... and I was thinking, eat it, cook it, prepare it, shop for it, dine out etc etc etc but I've become obsessed with ATCs lately because they satisfy the creative bit of me that wants to make something using papers and bits and pieces.  Having said that, there are almost NO bits OR pieces on either of these.  So out with the cookbooks and in with the scissors.  Who needs to eat anyway?

Both these cut-outs are from decoupage paper that always has so many images on it that there are hundreds to go round.  I went off on a fruit theme for a year or two and every piece of paper made me hungry just to look at it.  Have to find the big platter I made once, covered with cherries and several dozen coats of varnish.  A story for another time.... 

I fixed both shapes to black paper and re-cut each image with a small border, then fixed them to their backgrounds with felt pads so they have a second shadow.  The grapes have had their bloom emphasised by SU Crystal Effects, and they're mounted on a roughly torn piece of handmade blue paper and a black ATC.  The apple and cherries have a triangle cut from a scrap of La Creme added to their black card.

Anyone for chocolate?

Now I have to say that brown is not a colour I use very much, but I do like its vintage look, and its softness.  And of course it reminds me of one of my favourite foods.... no I DO NOT mean burnt toast, or even vegemite.  I might be fifth generation Australian, but there are other things I'd rather have on my toast than vegemite.....like maybe crunchy peanut butter, or quince jelly.

 Back to the point....  I was reading Lisa's post yesterday about the lastest Pink Elephant Challenge which she'd entered as a member of their design team (where does she find the time??) and thought it was about time I branched out a little.  This is what I made for their TPE 76 Color Challenge "Brown". 

I finally found a use for this interesting piece of brown on brown faded DP but it needed a layer of cream underneath to separate it from the black CS base.  I gathered up a variety of flowers, including an embossed SU Eastern Bloom, and layered them on along with some plain and spotted ribbon and some black and white brads.  Its my sort of birthday card.

Make me smile

I think I'm becoming hooked on ATCs because they're small.  I freely admit that I don't use them as they're intended.... no real artist lives here, but I like the size and the lack of opportunity to add too many frills.  Don't come to me for cute.

Oooo I do sound pernickety today......  small break for soothing cup of tea......

Return!  

This week's OG challenge was to make them smile and I got so sidetracked in my picture folders that I kept on trying.  So here's what I did: two deceptively nice gun-toting children coming home for tea, a hopeful suitor, dinner with intent, and a catty ballerina.  I think some of the smiles might be ironic, assuming I succeed in making anyone smile at all.

All the images are from my decoupage folders in a vain attempt to minimise some small part of my busy room.  Likewise all the little pieces of coloured CS are from that big mountain of bits that always needs to be in a bigger box than the one its in.  I wrote the text because my printer is having one of those "I dont print on THAT" days, and here and there I sneaked in little bits of bling.

Far Out Brussel Sprout

I guess there are some times you just have to be Australian.  The other book in this series is Unreal Banana Peel, and they're collections of childrens rhymes and chants, best heard in the playground.  I know it doesn't make sense, but that's where my mind wandered......

...which has absolutely NOTHING to do with this weeks challenge at Opus Gluei, except in name, because the challenge is FAR OUT.  They were thinking aliens, Martians, stars, not vegetables.  It wasn't until I went to a fabulous Tim Burton exhibition this week that inspiration for an ATC finally struck.  There were just a few of his drawings in pastel on black paper, intricate multi-coloured planets and the odd shooting star, and I had a light-bulb moment.  Black and white = infinity with a few twinkling things thrown in = easy peasy.

So here's my rocket blasting off back to Earth (that's the big blue sparkling thingy in the corner) from some place very inhospitable and rocky looking.  Now I wish I'd made it a Tardis instead, but then it would have had to have had daleks and maybe a cyberman.  Tricky.  Too hard on such a tiny little piece of CS but I'll hold the thought...........

I'm very proud of the orange flame because its a piece of ribbon that I attacked with a pin to fray..... sometimes I scare myself.  Details?  Heavens, its not big enough to have any, except that the DP is still more from the La Creme stack which is always perfect no matter what the topic.  There are black dots and some twinkling stars as well as the Earth (which just proves that 5 years ago when I bought the blue bling I must have known it would be useful....eventually).