Miss UK - ATC Doll

The first ATC-Doll I ever saw was made by Margaret about a year ago. This week I had the opportunity to make one using some old maps of all things! This week's challenge on MAMMA which incidentially is also run by Margaret is to make an ATC on the theme of 'Maps'. Well, I never was any good at geography, but I love dolls - so no contest! This ATC-Doll has the limbs and head attached with brads, and her clothes and hair are made from an old UK Motorist's Atlas. The limbs and head fold up making her (roughly) the size of an ATC. She is made of plain card which I coloured with ink and chalk. Her facial features are drawn in with a Sharpie pen and detailed with Sakura pens, Ranger's Stickles and some Anita's 3D Clear Gloss finish.
As she looked so lovely (!!!!) I thought she could become a beauty queen representing the UK and her sash is made from a scrap of ribbon. I don't know about her 'vital statistics' though - lol!

'A Gift for You'

This is another altered alphabet card. As I haven't mastered the art of transferring images onto fabric (yet!), I've included a printed image and stitched it onto some fabric and lace. I've used a little fabric rose to mirror the one the little boy is holding out to the girl in the picture. I also tried to reflect the colours and fabrics in the image. It's finished off with some beads and ribbons.

Miss Mamma

This week's challenge on Maggies Monday Musings was to use the following 5 objects on an ATC - bubblewrap, staple, star, flower and wood. Having already seen some of the fabulous entries on the Flickr site my mind was a blank (although that's nothing unusual!) I had a spare clay moulded face in my stash and decided to use that with the bubblewrap as hair and some staples to 'tie' it into bunches. The face was painted with gouache paints and detailed with Sakura pens and Ranger's Stickles. I painted the background and body again with some gouache paints. I thought two star brads would make a great bikini top - albeit and very tiny one! I painted some flowers on the background (so this is not really using an object, but as Margaret the creator of the MAMMA challenge site says 'a flower is a flower' so I think I've got away with it!
I was stuck on the wood element as I didn't have much room left on the ATC. In the end I opted for a small wooden bead which became the central part of Miss Mamma's necklace - seems she likes her jewellery big!

Thanks for another great challenge Margaret, you certainly get us all thinking!

'The Beach'

Another journal page finished (for Astrid's Round Robin Challenge) This one is for Femmy whose theme was the 'Outdoors'. The great outdoors conjures up images of the countyside but I was a bit stuck on what to do. Femmy had said that it could be any kind of outdoor activities or travel, as long as it was outdoors. So, when I saw a picture of a seagull in a magazine I decided to go with a beach theme.

I used the magazine image after altering it a bit with some acrylic paint. I didn't stick his upwards wing down completely, giving it a 3D effect (but this doesn't show up in the photograph). For the beach scene, I used gouache paints. The coastal path sign is a couple of lolly sticks, bleached, then painted. To finish off the page I used some pebbles and tiny sea shells - and a little bit of dark green mossy stuff - from my hubby's model railway stash (sshh, don't tell him!)

As Femmy lives in the Netherlands, I hope the page arrives safely and in one piece - and that she will like it.

Hopscotch!

The next page I’ve done for Astrid’s Round Robin Challenge is for Astrid herself.

Her theme was ‘Children of a Bygone Age’ and she didn’t mind which colours were used so long as they were vintage.

I saw an illustration of two little girls in a library book on how to draw which I thought would make a great focal point for this page. Rather than draw them myself though I photocopied the images - I don’t think my drawings would have resembled anything like two girls! It looked to me as though they were playing together and the idea of hopscotch was formed. I know hopscotch is still played today - in fact I was having a game with my 7 year old niece the other week - although my hopping about on one foot is not what it used to be - lol! So although it is still played today, I regard the game of hopscotch to be of a bygone age much like skipping and playing with two tennis balls up a wall - anyone remember the rhyme “Matthew Mark, Luke and John, next door neighbour carry on ... next door neighbour’s got the flu, so I’ll leave it up to you….” My little niece hasn’t quite got the hang of this game yet - but I still enjoy it! (What must my neighbours think - lol)

Anyway back to journal page. I started off by dividing the page into two and lightly chalked in blue for the sky and grey for the pavement. I pencilled in the hopscotch squares - (the perspective is not brilliant, but I did say I couldn’t draw) then covered the whole thing with a single layer of tissue paper with bleached beeswax. The railings are an image transfer directly onto the wax - using a photocopied image and applying it with nail polish remover (with acetone). Although the transfer is a little sketchy in some places I like the overall effect and think it adds to the vintage feel of the page.

I coloured in the two little girls and adhered them to the page with more wax. (I should have coated them with some gel medium first as the railings have come through onto their faces unfortunately). I printed off the dictionary definition of hopscotch onto some tracing paper and applied that with more wax.

Finally, I coloured around the edges with some oil pastels to give it an old, vintage feel. I hope Astrid likes it.

School Days

My next page for Astrid's Round Robin Challenge has been completed.

This page is for Wendy whose theme was 'When You Were Young', and her only stipulation was that a photograph or image of your childhood should be included.

There aren't that many good photos of me when I was very young so I decided to use a copy of an old school photo. I've also included a copy of a school photo of my younger brother and sister who look very cute wearing their matching sweaters lovingly made by my Mum on her knitting machine. It was this photo that determined the year 1976 as Mum remembered that was approximately when she made the sweaters on one of her earlier machines. The extract of my school report was also from Spring 1976 but the photograph of me is probably a couple of years earlier since I'm not wearing any glasses - I didn't get my specs until about 1973 - I wondered why I could never see the blackboard in class!

The background of the page is a copy of the cover from my old School Reports book which I distressed by spritzing with some Glimmer Mist and making a couple of rings with my coffee cup. The report extract is spritzed in the same way. The date and flower are metal embellishments which have been coloured with alcohol inks (copper and stonewashed).

I enjoyed making this page and looking back at my old school reports, but have had the tune of 'remember the days of the old school yard' in my head for the last couple of days! I hope Wendy likes the page.