Branching Out

........there are trees so dearly loved by Electra, and there are other branches in ones life too.  Some of the paths they take are not expected.  However, zendoodles fill all sorts of interesting spaces, and this one of mine fits the latest Opus Gluei challenge.  

Thanks to a new friend who inspired me to fill some time doodling, this came to mind.  Amazing what you can accomplish in quiet evenings, armed only with paper, pen and a glass of wine (not compulsory, but good all the same....).  I do love ATCs, if for no other reason than they're little.


See what other people have created too......................

Opus Gluei #122 Take a picture, it lasts longer.

Can you imagine how many things in my life I should have taken a picture of?  A pair of patent leather shoes I wore to death and had re-heeled over and over again; a black silk jersey jumpsuit (I was very thin); my Aunt's black and white tiled floor under her grand piano; my first boyfriend; the house my grandmother used to live in.....

Being a quiet retiring sort of person (in my dreams) it seems I have few photographs of me, and none I'm willing to share any time soon, though I could have photoshopped out the green horns I dare say (this will make sense to some people and just bemuse the rest).  So I hunted out some images that could have been photographed but weren't until they were painted.  Don't go trying to play the music above the image of Beethoven because its definitely NOT one of his best works, which is why he looks so grumpy.  The other is a piece of a larger image of a dancer complete with maracas.  I gave her flowers instead because she needs to be exotic and a bit more mysterious.

More ATCs, just love them cos they're little and collectable.  Can we have another swap sometime soon?

Opus Gluei 121 "Out with the old and in with the new"

There's something about staying home that gets me in the mood to spring-clean, even when its summer and so hot the roads melt.  So far there are 6 boxes waiting to be collected by the charity people, but I'm not ringing them yet because I know there's more to find...........I've started the "out with the old" bit.

I even winkled out a few things from the busy room, then I remembered my New Year resolution for 2012 (well, one of them) which is to spend less time on the computer and more time getting gluey, so the first port of call HAD to be OG.  After a day with friends, making cards and eating and laughing and giving eachother advice on every topic under the sun, I had to keep going and raid the boxes for this challenge.  Its all very well saving things to use, but eventually, you actually have to use them (Rosemary, this applies to you too).  My 3 ATCs are my way of getting rid of some old, and recycling them into something new.

The cat is a mosaic from a postcard along with some cord from a parcel. Orange cord is so good you HAVE to save it, but maybe not forever.  The oriental one has a piece of a wrapper from my chinese tea, another snippet of a postcard with tea-mugs, and a brad which just might have a tea leaf or two on it.  The third uses my last piece of handmade gold paper from when I started making cards, oh-so-long-ago, along with an image that reminds me of my Mum's button jar, right down to the rusty lid.

And of COURSE the backgrounds are black; some things never change!!

What? Christmas already?

I cant believe I'm making Christmas cards.  Well, making one probably doesn't count and its likely to be the only one I make unless I get sucked in.....  I'd like to think I'll make them every year, but I run out of time and its December before I know it.  

 

This is a combination of card and tag, and just to show its possible, I made lots of tags because I was on a roll.  The Christmas paper was lurking on a shelf, getting dusty, and the images are just the right size for a small circle punch.  

Fancy straying from monotone colours?  Still traditional though.... can't go past red, green and gold.  This little collection is specially made for the GPs at the fabulous Opus Gluei and their friends at Jingle Belles too. 

Girlie? Opus Gluei #105

Its just as well they're a forgiving team at OG because I just can't bring myself to do pink today......and that's SO girlie (the colour, not me)(well.......)

Anyway, after a bit of flinging things from one box to another I found my hoard of images and offer this for my take on girlie.  The main image is a painting by Rupert Bunny (1864-1947) called "A summer morning" and reminds me of warm lazy mornings away with friends......slow to get up, putting off everything too hard, and just basking in the sun.  Must be the feline in me.

In a bit of serendipity, the DP is called Summer Breeze, but I only know that because the little piece left was the bit with the printed margin.  The glittery bits have finally found a home and all the other fiddly things come from the boxes on the shelf.  I can't believe I still have some this lace paper left from a buying spree a l-o-n-g time ago.

Opus Gluei - #97 Zen

Now I dont know about my Zen..... but I do like to doodle so I think I'm on the right track.  Doubtless those ladies at Opus Gluei will set me straight if I've got it wrong, but then, they're so forgiving it will be okay. 

I was going to start with the black cat and draw out from him, but I got sidetracked and then the pen got away from me.  The cat image is from a notepad from the Metropolitan Museum of Art which features the fabulous work of Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen. I really love the more famous one with the fierce looking feline gazing out of the advertismenet for the Chat Noir cabaret, but this more gentle one is good too.

The rest is all my own scribbling..........

Bubble bubble.....

 Now you have to remember that we don't really do Halloween in Australia, despite the chocolate-driven intentions of the children in my street, so this week's challenge at Opus Gluei appeals to the witch in me, as opposed to pumpkins.  I hope the Poobahs take their usual relaxed view of things and don't get too cross!  Anyway, its taken so long for me to find my work table, not to mention my scissors, paper and double-sided tape that I hope I'm forgiven

So in homage to my favourite Romantic artist, John William Waterhouse, and in deference to the witches of my imagination... here are my three triangles, one circle and one half-circle as per recipe.  And I even managed an embellishment or two, if you count the sketchy additions as well as some tiny bits of bling.  You might need a magnifying glass to find the half circle, but its there.... follow the line of sight.

I REALLY like the witches in "Hocus Pocus", especially Bette Midler's buck teeth and flaming red hair....and the wonderful Thachery Binx of course (in cat form).  I've never been able to look at my vacuum cleaner with quite the same equanimity since..........

Thanks to imdb for the photograph from the movie.

Opus Gluei #66 The shirt off your back

Those Poobahs try to push me out of my comfort zone every week, into the cat food of all places, but not this time!!

As if its going to make the slightest bit of difference whether I look up, down, behind me or anywhere else?  What else is there to see but black?  Its my uniform and I love it. Just to prove a point I pushed back the chair, grabbed the camera and aimed it straight at my feet..... black trousers, black shoes, okay, and spotted laces, but they're mostly black and they came from such a great shop on Southbank......  I bought check ones too, but that's for another day.

So that's when I settled back into such a comfortable space and reached for lots of little bits and pieces of black scraps that litter my desk.  A piece of corrugated card with a hint of glitter, some parchment, a circle of velvety suede, some faceted brads and of course a matching piece of spotted ribbon.  I have to admit this is not the most bright and beautiful ATC, but it is me.  And if I'd used my shirt for inspiration (or in this wintery weather, my polar-fleece), it wouldn't have been any different!! 

Sorry ladies, not this time.

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?

Opus Gluei # 15 Nice day for a .....

...white wedding. Well this wasn't tricky to make, but it WAS tricky to photograph. My son (the expert) went out to deliver pizzas and left me to my own devices. Oh well...

Following instructions from the Poobahs, I used white, white and more white. The CS is textured and from my busy room, ditto the last piece of grosgrain ribbon. I used the beautiful SU Baroque Motif for the background image, embossed in white pearl, and a little SU Figures of Speech sentiment. Had to add the diamond of course, and it echoes the hologram embossing powder I used. Its quite legible in real life, but hard to see here. The sentiment reads "to have and to hold".