My House

A number of my online friends have been entering the weekly challenge set on
dansmamaison

So this week i decided to go for the challenge and this week the theme is Femme (woman).

Here is my attempt.

click to enlarge

I have a thing for Marie Antoinette at the moment, and pink, and shabby chic, so decided to go the whole hog.

I'm also attempting another challenge, which has to be in by Tuesday, over on Mind Wide Open.
There are some truly illustrious ladies on there, Viola and Sanja amongst them (see their links on the right). So i know i don't stand a chance, but have welcomed the challenge.

I'll post it before Tuesday, and after that i hope people will vote for me PLEEEEEEEASE. Says she down on her hands and knees roflol.
Those with the most votes win a shopping voucher, oooooooooooh yummy.

Back in a couple of days to show you what i've done.

LOVING IT

For this week's challenge/swap, i chose 5 objects for the theme.

The 5 objects that are to be included in the ATC are:-
Bubblewrap,
staple
flower
wood
star.

Well it's caused quite a stir, hahaha, people are packing their suitcases and leaving the country.

I'm loving it, giving people such a challenge. I know i won't be able to do it every week, for one thing, it's thinking the challenges up, but I don't think their nerves would stand it. HAHAHA

So here's my effort, hope you like. Definitely got a 'thang' for pink and shabby. lol

The background was stained first with a teabag, and left to dry. I then inked up some bubble wrap with distressing ink, and stamped the card.

A torn piece of bubble wrap was staped to the left with bronze staples, and a silk flower was attached with a star brad.

The focal photo was adhered to a small square piece of wood, therefore using all 5 objects.

The large piece of lace was from my dear friend Belinda in Tasmania, which she hand dyed.

The small pieces of lace, i stained with pink ink, and distressing ink.

VOILA

HERE IS A LINK TO A GREAT DRAW, WHICH A LADY IN FRANCE IS DOING.
WELL WORTH A LOOK, AS SHE HAS SOME AMAZING WORK. Only trouble is i struggle to download her blog because of the slideshows etc.
Go HERE to go to her blog

Zetti & Shabby Chic

Well what a mixture, LOL.

Here are the final two pieces of work that hopefully will be exhibited this coming weekend.

I have already said how worried I am about the gallery owner not liking my work, so have emailed the photos of them all, and stated that i won't be offended if he doesn't like them.

So here is the altered photo frame, which took me over 2 weeks to make. Longer than a bloomin painting i might add LOL

The second piece of work, is my acrylic painting on canvas, of a Derby Ram.

The Derby Ram (known as the Derby Tup in Derbyshire), is the emblem of Derbyshire. The buildings are of the Market Hall, Crooked Spire, and one of a pub LOL. Had to get that one in.

DERBY RAM GONE ZETTI

Acrylic on Canvas
24" x 20"

I'll let you know the gallery/shop owner's reaction.

So the exhibition hopefully will consist of the 3 altered angels, altered jigsaw and bottle, Mona goes Zetti painting and Chesterfield goes Zetti paintings and the 3 Zetti Fairys

ALTERED JIGSAW

Another finished piece for the exhibition. Still panicking as it's only 11 days away.
STILL HAVN'T DONE ANY MORE PAINTING. Will have to pull my socks up next week.

This piece is an altered jigsaw, which has turned out very pretty, which is something i can't seem to get away from at the moment. Zetti has definitely been put on the back burner for the moment.

Click on the picture to enlarge

This jigsaw piece was one of 3 kindly donated to me by my friend Maureen
It is a large piece and is displayed on a canvas 7" x 9.5", so this shows how large the actual jigsaw piece is.

Coming tomorrow, hopefully, another altered angel. Not sure if it needs anything else added to it first, so will leave it alone for another 24 hours, to make up my mind whether to add on, or just leave as it is.

I am also altering a vinegar bottle. With this, i have embossed the entire bottle with verdigre embossing powder, ( my absolutely favourite piece of equipment)and then inked over with turquoise ink (my second favouriteLOL). Looking good even though i say so myself. It has a look of enamelling, but i know this will not show up in any photo that i will take of it.
This i hope to finish quite soon.

Still waiting on my supplies from HongKong. That is the trouble ordering from so far overseas. It takes AAAAAGES to arrive. REALLY shouldbe here this week. If not, i will have to change my plans on some of my pieces of work.

TUTORIAL

Well nobody managed to guess what the tutorial is for. I just hope that nobody is disappointed.

it is for a FAN, of which i was inspired by altered antiquity

WAS IT WORTH THE WAIT LOL

This finished fan, is done in the shabby chic style, but you can let your imagination run riot with this. Can you imagine a Zetti Fan, oh boy, i can. lol

So the first stage is to cut out this template 6 times. I used a cereal box, as they are quite sturdy. They are approximaely 6" in height, but you can easily adapt this to your chosen size.

Next i covered each piece of card, both back and front, using a variety of materials.
For the front i used vintage music sheets, and text, which i ripped and collaged on to the card. I then stamped various swirls, in a haphazard way, with pink acrylic paint. Again you can do exactly what you wish. I then gave a light coating of walnut ink crystals, but this is not really necessary.

For the back I used different papers, and used pink tissue paper torn and collaged along with text paper.

Again i gave it a light coating with walnut ink crystals. I then added a dusky pink paper heart in the centre (which you cannot see here)

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for the next stage i added lace to the top edge, which I had dyed with tea, along with a spotty edging done with a sakura gel pen

With the next stage i added more embellishments, and distressed the edges. Plus using a brown pencil, I outlined the pink acrylic stampings. This gives more depth i feel.

In the above photo, you can just about see where i've marked the position to make a hole for the brad. I did in fact use a paper fastener, as this is better coping with the thickness of the fan.

I tea dyed a piece of a crochet doily to form a flower, and added luscious fibres and a ribbon, all tied on to the fastener.I then glued a flower and a gem on top of the fastener.

You could leave the fan as it is, but it won't be very stable.

There are two ways to overcome this.
The first way, is to fan the pieces out to the desired shape, and glue together where they touch,

Or in my case, i have made it so that it can open and fold up.

To do this. Open the fan trying not to leave any gaps in between each piece.

Take a length of ribbon, and glue only to the centre of each piece, ,preferably with a hot gun, for fast results.

The tea stained doiley is far too dark for my taste, so i will eventually tone this down with dusky pink acrylic paint.

VOILA - ONE SHABBY CHIC FOLDING FAN.

If you make one yourself, tell us here, so that we can link to your photo.

Zettiology and Fabric ATC

Today i have finished all my goodies that are being sent off to Dot in Australia. Its a mixture of Zetti's and fabric.
I made 4 Zetti ATC's, with brusho for the backgrounds



I have also made a Fabric ATC, which is a first for me, and another first is the printed fabric photo. This was using a free sample i got, but wasn't overly keen. Just as soon as i get some Freezer paper, i will have a go at making my own.

I went with the theme Shabby English Chic, as it seems to be a favourite with me, alongside the Zetti. Talk about opposite sides of the coin lol.
I've also put a couple of other things in the parcel. Let's hope Dot likes all her goodies.