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!