21 Secrets SALE

I'm still working my way thru the 21 Secrets classes, and hoping to win a free spot for next year's classes.

If you haven't signed up yet for this year's version, it's ON SALE now. Worth every penny.

two more

I made a couple more postal ATCs. One of my original 3 got called away to a private swap. I'd already made several dylusions inks backgrounds that were kinda bright but I took one of the tamer ones and made it go postal, then I found a partially finished one in my ATC box, so I finished it.

5 for the swap and one to P in SF! I'd forgotten how much I like doing ATCs. Funny how you get away from doing something you loved for a bit and forget all about it. Oh fickle heart! Or more likely, old mind lol.

going postal

THESE ARE RHONDA'S

An upcoming MMSA swap is postal themed ATCs. When Rhonda came to visit for the day, we pretty much had no idea what we were going to work on so she just brought a bunch of supplies.

We always spend a lot of time showing each other new blogs we've found, or new/cool/usefull sites (instapaper!!)  and running our mouths about whatever we've been up to since we last got together. (She's been to Alaska and Oregon. I've been exactly nowhere except to work and back.)

AND THESE ARE MINE

But we finally got around to doing some art and one of the things we did was make postal ATCs for the swap. I scored several packs of ATC watercolor blanks for a quarter a pack in some closeout bin or other so we used those.

Rhonda immediately put a lot of color on hers while I glued Italian book text to mine. I have a bunch of postal theme rubber stamps and lots of used postage stamps (remember that yard sale?), plus some postage info pages from an old Almanac so between all that we had a lot of stuff to use.

You can *so* see our art styles reflected in our respective ATCs. Anyone who knew us a bit could tell whose was whose at a glance.

still in love with my gelli

all scanned at 300dpi to download for your personal use

MMSA zine swap

A zine (/ˈziːn/ zeen; an abbreviation of fanzine, or magazine) is most commonly a small circulation self-published work of original and/or appropriated texts and images usually reproduced via photocopier.

The above is compliments of Wiki, the dictionary of the 21st century. 

Mandy's original painted paper

Karen at MMSA comes up with some really fun swaps. I vaguely knew what a zine was, and when the swap was announced, I thought meh. 

I had this idea that zines were mostly comic-style little books that kids - ie all you lucky people still under 25 - were into. But after I got all caught up on the swaps that were due before this one, I checked it out a little more and ended up doing one after all. Old dog, new trick! Yay. 

For the base paper I used a lovely hand painted (by Mandy) paper that I'd gotten in a previous MMSA swap. It had all sorts of great markings and needed no further embellishment from me. It's just busy and colorful enough to be a great background without detracting  from the images.

I have a stash of old magazines and since I like vintage stuff, I chose random images and words from two 1947 issues, an American Home and a Popular Science. After gluing everything in place, I did some doodling and added words here and there.


I was quite pleased with it when I was done but then about had a heart attack when I thought that my printer doesn't print full-bleed - edge to edge - but it does so I printed off one copy, folded and cut it, then very carefully glued it to make sure it turned out all right. It all worked, so I made the rest of them and will send them off to Karen tomorrow. 

PS can't believe I haven't posted since June 30. Where DOES the time go?