An apple for the teacher

I have spent the day at the pool with the Princess and Dear Heart and they are both asleep exhausted yet I'm the one who swam laps! At least it gives me some alone time which has been sorely lacking over these school holidays.

Last week was spent at my mum's place catching up with family and having a wonderful time ... swimming, ice-skating, doing jigsaws, hanging out, eating ...

This evening I have been working on ATC's with the theme "Back to school" for the ATCOZ yahoo group. I decided to use the photo of my first day of school and originally had a different colour scheme and embellishments in mind which is why I printed the photo in sepia the other day. Yesterday I purchased these ace blue & white floral serviettes and bingo the whole design changed in my mind as the dress I am wearing is blue and white. I think if I had used a black & white picture the image would have popped more. Unsure if this ATC is finished as yet.

ATC Frenzy

After a little time feeling creatively uninspired and coming to accept that I am no great artist ... phew ... I have been on an ATC frenzy this last week and been really enjoying just playing again.

I had a little rant on ATCOZ about the use of stickers on ATC's as I personally don't feel that a sticker plonked in the middle of a card is art ... unless of course you are in primary school. This led to one member organising a sticker collage swap and I figured I'd better participate ... boy do I have a lot of stickers in my stash ... I hadn't realised how many until I was preparing for this swap. So all the ATC's in this group are made completely with stickers ....

This ATC was created for a pink themed swap. How could I go past using this beautiful photo of the singer Pink which I altered slightly and then printed on tissue paper. The lace was also painted using Twinking H2O's and the brads embossed with Opals.

Fianally I had fun making a paper ATC quilt for a patchwork themed swap ... so much easier than making a double bed sized quilt from fabric - can't imagine I will ever do that again!

Well that's it for now. I have to sort out my financial woes after watching Oprah today!

The Murder of Misty and other gruesome tales

Until I sat down to write this update I had been thinking that I have been incredibly slack these last few weeks as I felt I had not done much more than read and sleep. How wrong I have been! Firstly I quit my job ... yay for me! I am sooooo much happier although paying the bills will be a little harder we survive these challenges. Dear Heart and the Princess have been happier too.

To say I'm a bit messy would be an understatement ... I just seem to have better things to do than cleaning a house. Now that I don't have to haul myself into work each day I have vowed to get this place clean ... I started on the kitchen last week and it is now beautiful and sparkling clean ... sent heaps of stuff to the op shop ... cleaned out every cupboard ... wiped down shelves etc ... now I just have to spread that out to the rest of the house ... hahahahaha ... the laundry is next as the most amazing amount of crap gets shoved in there.

And in amongst being the domestic goddess I am I have actually been making ATC's and trying my hand at inchies and a pendant ... the pendant was a dismal failure so that can be relegated to the rubbish bin with no hard feelings. Inchies are stupidly small ... 1" x 1" squares ... and I haven't finished so no pictures yet. However I will show you some of my ATC's.

The yahoo group arttechniquesatcs runs an Artist of the Month (AOM) swap. This month the artist is Misty Mawn whom I admire very much and must apologise to her profusely for "murdering" her style. Here are my attempts for this swap:







The yahoo group ATCOZ is running a bear swap. This will be my first swap with this group and I am a little nervous ... I hope they like these bears. I have been carrying around this bear magazine for about 15+ years because it is just so odd ... like a VOGUE but for bears .. with fashion tips, horoscopes, Dear Abby, etc ... very cute. I transfered the images using Opals and I'm really happy with how they turned out.








I broke my needle felting needles last week so haven't been able to play with those ... boo hoo ... and looking for something else to try I was inspired by Ruby & Lay Hoon to try Zentangles. Here are some of my efforts.









So that is it for now ... I have to go be Mum and wife now ... ciao