After thoroughly enjoying Nichola’s last postcard swap I jumped at the chance to join in again. What I hadn’t bargained for was the busiest working month since Eloise was born. Working from home of course has pros and cons as it’s nice to have the extra cash, but horrible horrible HORRIBLE to have no time for myself! With a toddler ruling the roost, working from home really translates to working nights and weekends and I am exhausted! (hopefully this also explains the low level of activity around here). In ten days time I’ll get a breather and a chance to get stuck into some of my own projects and a couple of swaps. I cannot wait! (yes yes yes Sabine I would love to swap!)

Thirteen of these cards are now ‘winging’ their way around the globe! If the last swap was a struggle with glue…this one was a debacle with scissors! Apologies if my ‘cutting out’ is a bit tragic. I blame the fact that I’ve misplaced my ‘good’ scissors and that I was sitting in really bad light, really really late at night (ie. early morning). Maybe they have a more homemade handcrafted look because of it? Hopefully not just bad execution! I used this photo {click here} of a six year old girl taken on June 22nd 1898…108years ago almost to the day. Other ingredients: a mix of vintage and reproduction papers, buttons, eyelets and some 3D foam tape.

Embarrassingly I still haven’t done a ‘public thank you’ for the swap in May. Thanks again to all the lovely and talented girls whose work I was lucky enough to receive, they’ve been on display since the day they were delivered. I love looking at them all together! So inspiring and all so different. Click to view: nikki-shell {postcard:blog}, pyglet whispers {postcard:blog}, Cheeky Beaks {postcard:blog}, Buzzing Bee {postcard:blog}, Kitty Baroque {postcard:blog}, 6.5st {postcard:blog}, Red Instead {postcard:blog}. You can also see more —->here!

I finally sent off my postcards for a swap initiated by Nikki-Shell. I procrastinated about this for weeks and I was hit with some pretty ferocious stage fright. This is my first official group blog swap! There were no themes or rules except that it had to be handmade.

Ingredients: 2 vintage postcards, a handful of vintage buttons, an old spool of rick rack, inkjet T-shirt transfer sheets, calico, thin copper wire, scrabble tiles, a tag punch, various card stock and some acid free glue.

I used the image from an old postcard, purchased from a lovely lady in the UK. It only arrived last week and I was itching to use it immediately. I confess, I am in love with vintage paper moon photographs. I only own two, so not quite a collection just yet! I scanned it in and did a few tiny adjustments including adding a subtle background using a selection of my own background textures and some brilliant brushes created by Jason Gaylor (initially discovered via Dooce, but reminded about them by a recent Craftapalooza entry).

I then printed the image onto T-shirt transfer paper and ironed it onto some calico. I like the HP transfer sheets as they give a soft matte painterly effect.

I had a few near disasters along the way. Glue everywhere, curling postcards, buckling, puckering transfers (I have a love hate relationship with glue. I am not a particularly neat crafter and I’m also impatient!). I also personalised each card by using a scrabble tile that corresponded with the swap participants initial. I then of course panicked that I’d posted the card with the wrong scrabble tile to the wrong person so please let me know if this is indeed the case!

Aside from all of the above, I really did enjoy getting my creative teeth stuck into something! It’s inspired me and I am really happy with the results. Fingers crossed they all arrive at their destinations in one piece!

{click here to see the FRONT of the postcard}
{click here to see the BACK of the postcard}

Very exciting! I finally picked up this old sewing box. I bought it on Ebay last year but hadn’t had the chance to trek up the mountains to fetch it. I can’t believe I took so long to collect it, but with Christmas holidays, a sick poppet and deadlines to meet the months added up quickly!

I was purchasing it for the lovely wooden box. The box is indeed wonderful, and I am delighted by its construction, patina and size, but when I got it home I discovered it was still full of old sewing bits and pieces. A wonderful array of textures and colours. Among the things I discovered inside: two gorgeous old hand embroidered needle books, an old tape measure, various fasteners, wooden cotton reels, two old patterns, embroidery transfers and old sewing scissors.

Look at my little girl! I’m having a proud Mummy moment. Rohan and I finally bought a digital SLR camera to play with, A Nikon D50. I am so excited! We took it for a whirl over at Montsalvat in Eltham. I am thrilled with the results (especially considering we didn’t really know what we were doing or indeed what the camera can REALLY do!). More photos can be seen over at Eloise’s blog. She had a wonderful afternoon. The fairy dress even seemed to make her walk differently! You could tell she felt very special.

I feel exhilarated! For the first time in years I set up my paints and other paraphernalia on the table and started making some painted textured canvas backgrounds. Of course eventually they’ll find their way into the digital realm as part of my background stock. But I am proud of myself! It’s been too long and I have missed it more than I realised. The smells, the mess, the randomness…and no ‘undo’!

I am working on three small canvas’s and am using three different techniques. I’ve been reading Claudine Hellmuth’s ‘Collage Discovery Workshop’ to get me inspired. Her techniques are similar to those I have used before, but it’s so nice and inspiring to see them all laid out with beautiful images and handy hints to boot. It’s also a wonderfully designed book which makes it a pleasure to flick through. Her work is full of vintage imagery, rich texture and colour. I thoroughly recommend it and can’t wait to get my hands on book number two.