Nice Day for a White Wedding?

Today has been a beautiful day here in the North of England - just perfect for a white wedding! (Or a wedding of any colour!)

This pic is another which you need to click on and enlarge to see. I really must sharpen my photography skills!

Margaret set us a challenge of making a 'White' ATC for MAMMA this week, - I had several ideas, White Christmas, White Diamonds and White Wedding.

I remembered this image of the 'bride with no dress' (!) from the Flickr group and thought I would try and base an ATC round it.

The 'My Trousseau' background is also courtesy of Flickr.

I added some lace, two 'silver'rings, a heart gem ,a shoe and some ribbon and tulle secured with a pearl brad.

If this was her actual wedding outfit I wonder what the groom wore??????

Key to the Heart?

I am a member of a monthly altered art group and the challenge this month was to alter a key.

This is my first attempt.

The back of the key can be seen on my Flickr photstream here

I painted the key with black acrylic paint, then dabbed some of it off using a paper towel - some parts of the pic make the key and charm look red but this is due to me wearing a red shirt when I took the photo!

I used two silver filigree circles front and back. On the front I used a silver rimmed black button and glued on a pink heart gem. The lace was stuck on for no other reason other than it was lying on my desk and destined for the bin - waste not want not!!!

I am not sure if the addition of the two plastic leaves were a good idea as they are not particularly strong, but I liked the irridescent effect so decided to take the risk. I stamped the 'woman of spirit' image onto shrink plastic and panicked as usual when it began to curl up before it flattened out again - I added it and the silver cherub charm using silver chain.

The back of the key has the same silver filigree and lace scrap and I have added some pink gems. I am feeling quite relieved that today I have finally managed to make something - but also feeling guilty that I should have been catching up with the dreaded chores!

Not to worry - the dust will still be there next week won't it????

Peace

You really do need to click on this picture to see it properly!

Gothic Arches had a theme of 'Peace' this week. It seems such an age since I entered an arch into a challenge so thought I would give this one a go - it will then become another page in my gothic arch book!

The quote 'Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of God' seemed apt and I tried to construct the arch around it.

I collaged the two Forces statues (obtained from Google!), the background was stamped with versamark ink and I cut up a paper flower for the 'petals'. The tiny beaded wire angel was one of several of varying sizes brought home for me by my Mum some time ago when she went on a visit to Prague - she says every time she sees these angels she remembers how her wheelchair bumped across the cobbled streets!

I am not completely happy with this effort - it has been so long since I have had any ideas and this has not turned out as well as I'd hoped. There appears to be something missing but don't know what!

Hope the inspiration returns soon.

Normal service has resumed.........

At least I hope it has!! Have been without a full broadband connection since last Wednesday and I wouldn't have believed how annoyingly irritating the last week has been. I have felt bereft without being able to speak to all the friends I have made here in blogland and cyberspace. I could read and send e mails with the aid of a mobile broadband dongle thingy but couldn't do anything else!
I've had the dear husband ranting and raving at the ISP every day for a week (not only on my behalf I might add... he's been unable to sink submarines or shoot anyone with all his 'clan' friends which has made him extremely tetchy!). The dear husband is a computer whizz and has been telling the ISP that the fault was at their end not here.... finally this morning they sent an engineer round to the house....OH told the ISP that the engineer was wasting his time.... miraculously once the engineer arrived our internet connected without him doing anything!!!!!!!!!!!! Spooky??? Or just the ISP deciding that dear husband was right?????
Right, enough of the internet problems...
In the absence of connection I've been at a bowling green somewhere in the country nearly every day and have had no inspiration for any crafting (probably cos I was too irritated!). My County Team recorded their first win in the first inter County game of the season which reminded them that they achieved the impossible last year and won this Inter County league ! Hopefully the Team Manager (Me) can keep all their spirits up - there's a long way to go and there's bound to be a few slip ups on the way!
I have posted a pic of an ATC I made under the term 'fiddling about' (which is what I do when I have no inclination or ideas to make anything meaningful!). It's a sponged ink backgound with an oriental style stamp and a pretty oriental facial image printed on vellum then mounted on card. A few fibres etc added to give some depth. Not one of my more adventurous efforts but wanted to post a pic!!!

Faces

I know it's a week since I posted - I have suffered from severe crafting withdrawal symptoms as I have had very little free time - and what free time I have had I've spent selecting teams for forthcoming games and when I'd finished that I was just too tired to do anything!

I did however manage to scrape a win last Saturday in our first event of the season! If you want to look at a pic follow this link!

As I've had no crafting time this is something that I made a few weeks ago and didn't get round to posting on here - it was made for a jigsaw charm swap. You could send a 'stand alone' jiggy charm to be put onto a bracelet or a charm mounted onto an ATC, and the swap host would send you soemthing similar in return.

I am not very good with small jiggy bits!!! Only large ones!

I wasn't particularly confident of being able to produce something that would be good enough for attaching to a bracelet, so I decided to put the jigsaw piece onto an ATC. The background is a paper collage of various cities, I stamped the face image onto the acrylic painted jigsaw piece and coloured it before applying a couple of coats of glaze and once dry then added the charm at the bottom.

As I haven't entered any challenges for ages, I have submitted this into the 'Lots to Do' challenge this week who's theme is 'Faces'.