What's Black and White and...

Q: What is black and white, white and black, black and white?
A: A zebra caught in a revolving door!!!

OK, apologies for the really poor attempt at humour there, but it was the only black and white joke I could think of right now!

Swiftly moving on, Black and White is a theme for ATC Addicts R Us this month, so I took the bull by the horns and got creating! I already had some stamped acetate images ready with this swap in mind (Crafty Individuals and some other company I cannot remember right now!)

First ATC, Flower Girl, I cut along the shaped side of the image and attached a strip of lace paper (see the texture peeking out the right hand side?) I then used diamond glaze to glue the image onto a piece of DCWV backing paper (black and white stack - sunflowers) hoping that the petals of the sunflowers look like layers of her dress... does that work?

Kind of... anyways, I inked the edges and matted and layered onto white and then black card. To embellish, I used versamark and black and white embossing powders to colorise 2 die cut flowers, and layered them up on the bottom right hand corner, attaching a pearl flower in the centre and a mini micro brad. I added a teeny weeny pearl flower to the image in her hair, and a teeny weeny fabric flower to her dress - onto this one I popped a black gem, and then to finish I attached a few more gems in the centre of the flowers on the stamped image.

Flower Girl

This next ATC, Girls Night Out, was such fun to make! I placed the image over some handmade paper and some lace - I think it looks really cool, like the lace is the top of the girls' dresses! All this needed was matting and layering and a few finishing touches. I added wire and beads down the left hand side, and a tiny star button up the top. Melikes! (I don't say that often!!!)

Girls' Night Out

Actually, melikes this next ATC too (what happened to self doubt?! Maybe it decreases the nearer you get to 30?!) I love this Pierrot image, it seemed to fit perfectly within the black and white theme. I layered it onto handmade paper, then onto black card, adding 3 brads over buttons on the image to help hold the acetate in place. I attached the word "Pierrot" using diamond glaze, and embellished with a pinwheel sequin, pearl flower and mini micro brad. The harlequin style lace down the left hand side adds a bit of texture and interest!

Pierrot

Finshed!

Added "Paris" word charm and ribbon to the lid...

Added pearly buttons to the bottom half...

Attached my Eiffel Tower tag with ribbon...

Ta da!!!

Treasure Box Stage 2 (and My Booky Wook!)

Treasure Box... nearly there!

Feeling a lot better about my box, much better! I added some buttons (attached with wire) to cover up a little blip, and some pearl beaded chain too. The lid pretty well completed, I took a small metal tag and melted a few layers of pearl UTEE on top, and dropped in an Eiffel Tower charm. Not quite sure how this will be attached as yet...

I simple added some lace around the bottom of the box, although I think perhaps it needs something more... that will have to wait until another day because...

... I picked up a copy of My Booky Wook by Russell Brand from the library today - cannot wait to get my nose stuck into it!

Button Moon

Backtracking - 22nd June 2008

I've been to button moon, I've followed Mr Spoon, button moon! (Hope some of you out there reading this remember that TV programme?!) Yup, you got it, buttons!

The challenge on ATC Addicts is "Button It" - I already had the faux washi backgrounds at hand and an idea in my head to use buttons to create frames... so all I had left to do was to find suitable images and buttons and get crafting! I wanted a variety of buttons on each card, so I could show all kinds of buttons you can not only buy but create yourself! My ATCs include ones such as:

• miniature buttons
• cats' eye buttons
• shaped buttons
• decorative buttons (ones with blue stars courtesy of Mumsy)
• plain buttons I have colourised with alcohol inks
• homemade buttons created using punched out shapes of shrink plastic
• recycled buttons (from old clothes etc.)
• buttons rec'd in an RAK from Twiggy (cheers big ears!)

The images are from one of the Crafty Individuals image books (think the one I used is called People and Places) and I matted them onto angel hair to soften the look slightly. I attached the buttons with wire (that took forever!) but I had all night... I needed words to finish off the ATCs, so searched through my stash and found these vellum words... and on a couple of the ATCs I added a lickle flower to make the images stand out more, then I was done! :D

I kept this one for me :)