Spanky does Jonathan Dodgson Carr in 1895. ATC Bad Hair Day.

We are each responsible for our own happiness aren't we?
Well, I nearly peed myself laughing making this one.
(I don't think I should be admitting this but hey.)

I saw on The Artist Trading Club blog that September's theme is Bad Hair Day.
Spanky's eyes lit up and she wanted to have a go.

We (?) were eating lunch of crackers and cheese.
She held the knife and I held the fork. (Run Away Now)
We got to looking at the box of crackers again with a crafter's eye this time.

This is what we were eating.
Click on the pictures to make them bigger.





If you can't read it from the picture, it's my photography skills not your eyes, (your age is just fine, honestly)

It says:-

"Biscuits of Distinction
Carr's Table Water in their original form first appeared in the late 19th Century as a refinement of the ships biscuit. Water instead of fat was used to blend the dry ingredients in order to keep the biscuits fresh on long voyages. Carr's cabin biscuits with their delicate, crisp texture proved extremely popular with seafarers....."

Seeing as we had polished off the packet I cut up the box and Spanky made this.
Click it to make it bigger.



It says:-

Spanky does Jonathan Dodgson Carr in 1895

Mr Carr Esq was not a happy chappy, he asked for a light trim and got... well he didn't know quite what it was, but it was not good.

On his way home the seagulls had dive bombed his monstrous hair but after glumly staring at his reflection in the mirror he had the most marvellous idea!

"I know" he thought "I'll use water instead of fat in ships biscuits and rename them Carr's Table Water, biscuits of Distinction."

Disclaimer. Please note: This story is based on absolutely no facts whatsoever apart from J.D.Carr establishing the Carr's Table Water. The rest is just the product of an over active imagination.

It's one of those conundrum things, if Carr hadn't invented the biscuit then Spanky being a time traveller couldn't have taken them back in time to him, but if Spanky hadn't gone back in time and put biscuits on his head, would Carr have invented the biscuit???
It's all complete tosh of course but it entertained me no end!


But I don't think I can bear to part with it. I think I need to make a set of these.
Actually I might be getting a bit ahead of myself, I haven't even asked if I can join in yet. Oya!

How I made it.

Brayered Andirondack inks in pool and sunset orange on white card. Stamped circles in watermelon and a rubbish white ink from ink it up that hardly had any ink in it and went straight in the bin, what a waste of money.

I use 230 g/m Watercolour paper for any shapes that I stick onto projects. In this case his body and his hair. I find that watercolour paper can handle any applied medium and at this thickness I get rigidity but I'm still able to cut it into intricate shapes quite easily. The 300 g/m (thicker) watercolour paper is better as a background for much larger projects.

Buying watercolour paper. For this sort of thing you don't need expensive brands of paper.
I get 18 sheets of A3 in a pad from "The Works" for £4. It's made by Boldmere.

I painted his water biscuit hair in acrylics. His body in blue metallic acrylic and heat embossed a stamped image in glitter gold on his coat. I edged the piece in eggplant in Versamagic chalk ink.
I glued everything with white PVA.

Happy crafting everyone!

ABAA A story in a box. Challenge September 2009. Incey Wincey Spider.

It was foolish of me to say to Linda that if she did a Spider challenge I couldn't wouldn't play.
Now I should know better than to say things like that, because I'm contrary enough to prove myself wrong.
Thankfully common sense can prevail with me, like when I gracefully declined to take up the dare to grow a willy.

I have arachnophobia that varies in intensity depending on how many big uns I've seen lately and also how much therapy (I use the term loosely) I have had recently.

When this challenge was posted I thought "oh good just my cup of tea"
as I see a story in every piece of art whether it wants one or not.

Then, when I started thinking about it, I thought I would do one of my favourite books "The Little Prince" by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. A marvellous heart warming, heart wrenching then heart warming again book . He also did the loveliest illustrations for it.
I saw a secret or featured e mail, can't remember which now, on post secret where someone said they had had a very expensive school and university education but everything worth knowing they learnt from reading "The Little Prince".

But Mary, Mary quite contrary was saying do a spider in a box.

So I ignored her and carried on with planning The Little Prince and thinking that alternatively I could do another favourite "Welcome to Temptation" by Jennifer Crusie, although I have already done this one as a postcard so it wouldn't really be a challenge.

Mary Mary by this time was getting louder, do a spider in a very small box, because small is hard for you, a spider, a spider in a matchbox, do it, do it!

So the next three weeks past.
The Little Prince VS Spider in a Matchbox, and I had not even picked up the glitter glue to make a start.

Then one morning I woke up and thought OK the only spider I can do has to be very small and shiny. So Incey Wincey Spider came into being.

Click on the pictures to make then bigger.

This is the fit in your pocket matchbox which makes ATC's look enormous.
This is the front and inside the drawer.




In the Land of Shiny even drainpipes sparkle!

On the back I wrote the verse.



I put a brad through the end of the draw and turned the pronged bits over making sure I left a space between the head of the brad and the edge of the drawer so fingernails can grip and pull the drawer open. To keep the brad in that standing proud position I used my favourite welding glue Anita's 3D clear gloss finish to hold the bent brad prongs in place on the inside of the drawer. Then I stuck a panel of card over the top of the glued prongs with double sided tape.




Making spiders cute and sparkly has taught me that even ones worst nightmares can be made shiny. So I wrote on the bottom of the drawer "All fears can be made shiny".



How I made it.
I used the matchbox itself as a template to draw out each flat side. I didn't fold around any sides with card, each side had it's own rectangle of card.
(I do have other papers but can't get enough of this DCWV Pocket full of Posies card.)
For sticking inside the drawer I used double sided tape. Decorate the inside card before assembling.
The outside pieces I glued with white PVA, because it dries slowly it gives plenty of time to slide each card panel into just the right place. Golden gel medium would have dried quicker but once it's positioned it won't budge, so there is no room for fine adjustments.
The two long outside edges and the outside bottom of the draw I painted with metallic acrylics.

Happy crafting everyone!

Edited to add:-

Linda's post told the sad story of Pia de Tolomei.

Linda said "Pia de' Tolomei who had been imprisoned in a fortress in Maremma (Tuscany).
Ghino has fallen in love with Pia, wife of his cousin Nello. When she refuses his love, in revenge Ghino informs Nello that he has discovered a secret message proving that Pia is having an adulterous relationship. This is untrue but Nello imprisons his wife and leaves her to die. "


I don't like sad endings so I'm changing it.

Send Nello my way and I'll glitter glue him into submission and sense. If he proves recalcitrant I will bring out the big guns in the form of embossing powders and "The Heat Tool".
The shiny way will prevail.
(Oh the irony - I'll torture you into a shiny happy person!)
Once he has seen the shiny light he can go rescue Pia and spend the rest of his life making it up to her in many romantic and ever increasingly inventive and novel ways.
Ghino can stand in the corner facing the wall for a very long time, we'll let Pia decide when he can come out of the corner.
Ghino having had plenty of time to reflect on the error of his ways made reparation for his cruelty by becoming a highly successful and adept matchmaker. The world is now full of happy couples who all have a little shrine on their mantelpiece dedicated to Ghino the Marvelous Matchmaker.
And they all lived happily ever after.
## Ta Da ##
Shiny happy ending :-)

Epilogue
The fortress in Maremma has been transformed and is now a remarkably popular crafting retreat. The tower in which Pia was held is now used as a wailing arena where everyone can vent their crafting and glueing woes.

Gimme 5, Order of the Opus Gluei Challenge 22

This is my first time entering this challenge.
I met Rosemary through the Awfully Big Adventure Challenges and I have been admiring her and Jana's horns....the Viking Helmet Horns.

When I started this type of crafting last November I was obsessed with glue. For the first 6 months I was convinced that with the right glue I could make ANYTHING.
I don't think I was as delusional as to think I could cure cancer with the right glue but it was close run thing for a while. Maybe world peace...

I have had a long and arduous battle with the need to glue a project so that it can safely bare the weight of an elephant for 30 minutes otherwise it might fall apart within a week and be NO GOOD.
I am now at the point where I will be happy if my glueing can bare the weight of a baboon for 5 minutes. (Just baby steps, slow but sure baby steps.)
Speaking of steps, I would imagine that there is a 12 step plan for glueing addictions, there seems to be one for just about everything else.

I am happy to make the Opus Gluei Oath.
After finishing these ATC's I inexplicably had orange on the sleeve of my cardigan, now I am sure I didn't actually use anything orange in making them, in fact I can assure you that no orange was harmed in the making of these ATC's.
But the orange was there none the less.

However, I don't think I can eat glue.
I did get a bit lustful for the golden gel mediums that everybody in crafting blogland raves about.
(Strangely, no one cares about them in book reading blogland. I mean one day it could make the difference between the life and death of a well loved and over read book.
Favourite shiny book in your hand OR pages blowing hither and thither with the last page MISSING - gasp.)

I now have the golden gel mediums, they ARE very good, but hand on heart I've never been tempted to taste them. I probably could be persuaded if the glue were teemed with Nutella and I hadn't had chocolate in a while (two days).
Fortunately chocolate is at every turn in the land of Shiny along with just the right glue for the job.
What a difference a year can make.

I was planning on making 5 ATC's (honestly!) so I did 8 backgrounds on the basis that I would probably want to bin 3 of them. I didn't reject any of them and was on a roll, got in a muddle with the counting of them, (well I HAD nearly run out of fingers) and ended up with a series of 7, with 8 ATC's in it.
Then ATC number 6 of 7 started out as 3 of 7, but there was already a 3 of 7 so I crossed that out and made it a 4 of 7, then realised that there was already a 4 of 7, by this time my brain cell had caught up with my hand and I checked to see if there was already 5 of 7 which there was so it became 6 of 7. Are you confused yet? Because I certainly was.

So I am mistakenly giving you 8 Angel ATC's instead of 5, but it's not for the want of trying I can assure you. (I think it was the hidden orange that tipped the balance between a normal challenge entry and this rambling madness.)

Trying valiantly to regain control of this post.

"In the arms of an angel fly away from here.
You're in the arms of an angel.
May you find some comfort there."

Excerpt of some of the lyrics from Angel by Sarah McLachlan.

I heard my new favourite Angel quote recently.

"Angels have no philosophy but love."

The lovely Linda used it in her gorgeous fabric book collaboration.
If you haven't visited Linda's blog before, grab a coffee because you'll get lost in her passionate and joyful celebration of colours and textures. She mixes her media like nobody else and makes all those different art mediums sing Hallelujah together - just dazzling!

Click on the images to make them bigger.




Left side 7 of 7. Right side 8 of 7 Traded. This background was painted with that most under rated artists tool, my finger (No you can't borrow mine, use your own).
I was in fact Gold Finger for a while, James Bond had his eye on me. If the film was being remade in the land of Shiny, the dead lady would not be painted all over in gold (what everywhere??) but would be heat embossed in gold (ouch). What a difference a few decades can make.






Left side 6 (yes) of 7. Right side 2 of 7.





Left side 4 of 7. Right side 3 of 7. She's not that bubbly in real life, what is it with cameras?






Left side 5 of 7. Right side 1 0f 7 Traded. I brain farted with this one and forgot not to make this dimensional, so the little cherubs are mounted on foam and look great standing proud but they might not fit very well in those ATC clear wallet holders. I did back them onto card first so they are not floppy cherubs (phew). I'm nearly sure I prefer them without the stars on them. But I thought they might be thought a bit plain. I was not particularly happy with the stars until I edged them in Sakura stardust pens.


Some weird physics laws must have come into play with the backgrounds because I used metallic acrylic paints. Well I haven't got a cuttlebug or similar so can't emboss paper, so used a textured wrapping paper that whilst not a foil is a plastic coated super shiny paper.
Look.






The acrylics blended completely differently from normal on this paper. The purple one one the left is how the acrylics blended on that paper and the purple, red and gold below it is applied in exactly the same way on plain paper.
Weird.
The greens on the upper right is on the shiny paper and the bottom right shows just how each colour doesn't show up distinctly on top of each other on plain paper, whereas they do on the shiny paper. I even tried putting gesso on top of the shiny paper to see how the paint blended then. It blended just the same as on the shiny paper. I don't understand.
If one has the urge; unfortunately by using a fingernail the acrylics will scratch off the shiny paper; fortunately one just has to control those urges.
(Ha, now I've done it. That's like saying "No, please don't look"...)






All of these ATC's are up for trade.
(Which is why I've made the song and dance about labelling each one.)

Either leave me a comment or e mail me :-)


Happy Crafting everyone!