Metal Etching

wow, I loved this new play. Last Monday I went over to Bevlea's and joined Barb, Lucy and Eliza along with Bevlea and we had a play with metal etching, what cool fun, apart from the very smelly Liver of Sulphur, phew, havent smelt anything that bad since I was in Rotorua last February. I was bought up among that same smell, but you sure forget it in a hurry. Don't think I will use that stuff again, might make me homesick for NZ lol. It wasn't good stuff for Lucy either.

It took awhile to get the solution off our hands and fingernails, poor Bevlea's was the worst as she's a doll and did most of the clean-up for us.
Heres my efforts.

I'm not sure what I will do with them yet, but we did a large piece as well and you will have to wait to see that one, its got a specific purpose.

Now I really need to get on and finish my zetti city scape. The other ladies from the 3FL+1 (you need to visit Bevlea's blog to see what that means) are well and truly ahead of me on that one, the cityscape I mean hehehehe.
I have done one side, but need to concentrate on the night side and then bind it and put up a slide show of it. This week hopefully. Gosh work does get in the way doesn't it.

Then I need to get onto our second project, that one needs family photos and is taking some time to clean up in Photoshop the old photos of Geoff's grandparents etc. I am making it a tribute to my Mother-in-law who I adored. She was the best. I hope I can be as good a mother-in-law as her.

Marions Zetti Swap has flown in

Todays mail bought a yummy envelope from Germany. In it was my swaps from Marions annual blog swap.
It was great fun and truly pushed me into using bright colors.
Thank you to all participants and to those whose
ATC's I am now the proud owner of.


Arent they yummy From L to R top is from Marion, Chris Bockel, Ilka, and bottom L to R is Johanna, Angelika and Birgit.
Again thank you ladies. I will look forward to the next swap.

FAIRY DRESS and City Scape

I saw a lovely Fairy Dress when I was over in New Zealand in May in a shop.
It's taken me this long to make one of my own, but here is a pic, if not a very good pic of what I made. But I hope you can get the idea. I enjoyed doing something that was not paper and paint for a change.

On Friday I met with Eliza and we headed over to Lucy's where Bevlea had already arrived and we had our next play day. We had show and tell with our last play which is the City scape. Everyone's looks great. Go over to their blogs and have a look at what they have been doing.

Here is a couple of mine. Still not totally completed, but this is the day side except the one with the car, that is the first night side.



I am really enjoying this style and thank Teesha Moore for sharing her passion with others. Most of the background's started out as bright scrapbook paper's and then I added some paint and swiped a bit of distress ink over them, added a few quirky but simple stamps, then added images from some image sheets I have as well as made up ones, ie cut a bit from here, a bit more from there and put them together with some quirky arms and legs.

So this week, I will be attempting to finish these both sides, do a recipe card swap for NZ and do some of the Book we started on Friday. This one I will probably do as a tribute to my husbands mum, as I loved her very much. It has pages that have transperancies in the windows, then we will add some images to the sides etc. We made our covers and the box for the trinkets to go in. OK......... are you intrigued, well you will have keep coming back for a browse and see what I did. See you next time..

More Zetti

I just did another Zetti for a group swap, Eliza has coveted what I did previously for a swap LOL and it's now hers either way, if she makes one or not. I am sure enjoying this Zetti style at the moment, I must be coming out :-)LOL Now, I give credit to Jade Adams of Michigan USA and Teesha Moore for the parts of the image used.
For copyright reasons I have removed the image...........

I still have to finish my cityscape to take to our play day with Bevlea, Lucy and Eliza on Monday as we have to show and tell.....Oh dear another late night tomorrow to get it finished or near enough to finished.

Barb's Challenge to Marion

I just went to visit Marions blog and noticed that Barb had challenged her to show what was in her fourth album and the fourth picture, so I am following on and here is mine.



It was a page for Marg in the Bookmarms tipin page swap I did last year. Her title was 1970's.
Thanks for the challenge Marion. I quite liked that page back then.
So for any that follow on in the challenge, post a comment here and I will come and look at your creativity.

Oh, and off I go to visit Lucys blog to see her next finished pages in our City Scape and see she has challenged me to do the same and I have to choose four other bloggers, so I choose

Margaret W : http://margaretweiss.blogspot.com
Martina H http://artymarty62.blogspot.com
Kelsey O: http://ko-ok.blogspot.com
Marilyn: http://wwwmarilyninmyroom.blogspot.com/

So girls I will look forward to seeing what you have as your fourth picture in your fourth album.

Zetti Tryptich

I just completed this Tryptich for a group I am in. It was this months swap. I quite enjoyed it, so different from my normal style, as you will notice it's crept in to my art a bit lately. Must be the craze huh!!!

The first side is the Zetti by day

and the second side Zetti by night.

I sure hope the recipient likes it as it will be quite hard to give away.

I am looking forward to the ATC's from Marion's swap coming back too, that is a Zetti ATC swap that she has on her blog.
Anyway Ciao for now.

And Two days later...........

Geoff and I, decided to go for a drive today in the bush. It was such a nice day. We headed for Mt Donna Buang and didnt quite get there. We went to another area instead. We stopped on the way and there was all these beautiful birds. I managed to get one on my hand by offering it some cake we had with us. Well it was fruit cake home made off course so very healthy for a Female Ecclectus.
Here it is. Its so beautiful I am happy for you to take this picture and use it. Its not copyright :-)..............

I am just finishing my Number ATC's too so will load it shortly.

HALF MASKS

A New Zealand group I belong to has had a half mask swap going. Every two weeks we do a half mask to a specific theme.
The first two were Shades of Peacock or Cirque de Reinvente and Golden Girl or Tacky.
Here is mine, that I chose to do, that are on their way to new owners. They do look so much better in the flesh. So Doreen and Kelly if you want to be surprised don't peek.
They were fun to do and a change from ATC's etc.....

The next theme is Asian or Spring, havent decided yet which way I will go.

I am about to make my ATC's for Paperarts group entitled "Numbers". All going well I might be able to add the pic tonight as well. So look back later.

Creative Mondays and more

Once a month three friends get together and have a play time, this last Monday Bevlea, Lucy and Eliza came to visit my place and we started a 7Gypsies CityScape Board Book. Lucy chose Vintage, Bevlea Gothic and Eliza and I are doing Zetti, We must have needed some practise LOL.
Here is a sneak peek at a couple of pages started last Monday.
I had not done much Zetti at all and finally understand the way it should be. Bevlea explained to me that Zetti can be done two ways. Zetti by day, bright colors and Zetti by night, old Circus colors. So my plan is to do one side daytime and the reverse will be Night time.

I also have joined a Zetti ATC swap run by Marion Bocklemann The challenge was to make three Zetti style ATC's to send to Germany and swap with other International artists. I have done two lots of three.
I had fun doing these as they are much brighter etc than what I normally do.

Marion they are postal tomorrow.

I also need to learn how to put the pics in a good spot. HELP!!!! LOL

AND THE WINNER IS

ME, ME, ME, I entered into the discussion on Barbs blog where she had put a challenge on for people to comment about why some people don't comment on some blogs that they visit. Barb had been on a blog JESSICA WESOLEK and she had an article about GIVING BACK, it made very interesting reading, and we all had to comment on it to go in the lottery to win this
ATC from Barb. I had coveted it anyway, so am very pleased that it was MY turn to win something. Thank you Eliza
for the heads up to go look and see who comment number three was.


FINDINGS
Today during our walk with the dog (Zaccy) I came across this tree that had gorgeous bark on it and I couldnt resist bringing some home to scan and use as backgrounds.

So, for my Kiwi friends you might see it on a background (paper) as it would be confiscated at customs, the Aussies probably think I'm loopy, but hey I liked it. I think its paperbark???

The ATCMixed Media Yahoo group run by Eliza and Lucy had a Tryptich Arch swap for last month and I offered to fill the gap and do two. Here is one of them that has been posted and Sandra can peek or not :-)
The second one I will load when it is finished and posted, probably tomorrow.