MILLYPENNY

These two fish related ATC's were the first ATC's I ever made (back in November '08) These 3 ATC's were made in a series. It is made out of stitched pastel coloured fabric strips with extra embellishments (wool, felt and organza) added using an embellisher machine. This ATC was the first one that I received in a swap. It was made by Anita Mahon who is also in the Mid-West Patchwork Branch. Anita used real bog cotton trapped under a piece of organza in her piece.

At the Frieda Oxenham workshop which I went to in November, we were told how to make fabric paper which she uses in some of her ATC's. Fabric paper is made by liberally coating cotton fabric (cheap calico is fine) with PVA glue (diluted 1:1 with water), then add tissue paper or napkins (only use the 1st layer), more PVA glue and paint if required. It's a bit of a messy process, and it needs to be done on plastic sheeting. After making the paper it is then left to dry overnight. When it's dried out, put the fabric paper in between two sheets of parchment or greaseproof paper and iron it. This flattens out the paper and gets rid of the creases. The fabric paper below was made from 3 different types of Christmas napkins - 1 with poinsettas, another with the Christmas tree and the script one was used for the background. Some of this paper and other "fabric paper" ones were used to make Christmas Tree ATC's. The advantage of using this "paper" is that it

Back in November, I attended an "Artist Trading Cards" Workshop with Frieda Oxenham. I really enjoyed the workshop and every since then have been making a few ATC's in between other projects. The photo below shows the ATC's that I made during the workshop.

I got the DVD of Quilting Arts Season 3 in the post last week so spent most of the weekend watching this. Just as well the weather was too bad to do much else or I might have felt a bit guilty! They had a section on using Shaving Foam to marble fabric which caught my interest. Looked very easy to do - all you need is a can of shaving foam, a A4-sized plastic protector, fabric paint and fabric. I had a look in a cupboard and found a really old can of shaving foam that belongs to my Dad so decided to give it a go last night. I only tried 2 A4-sized pieces of fabric but it was a really quick way of adding colour to fabric. Next time though , I'll buy some cheap unperfumed shaving foam as the smell of the other stuff was a bit sickening. I still have to get the shaving foam off the fabric as the instructions said to leave it to dry for a few hours. So I'll do that when I get home from work this eveing, and heat set the fabric.

After reading countless blogs I finally decided to take the plunge and start my own. Now just have to find time to get organised, take photo's and write up a few posts.