I finished my layer on the 4th collage in the collage round robin, and like what I see. Again I found this layer difficult, I feel like I moan about each collage that comes through the door. I think that’s part of the challenge in collaborative art, to work with whatever someone else has created. It’s different in altered books and such because you don’t actually work with whatever someone else has done, you just add your work to the book. I had the collage open on my desk for the last month, daring me to change it, add to it, transform it in some way. These last few days the collage has been clipped to the table, like a prisoner, unable to escape. Maybe it was me that felt unable to escape ‘though.

art by Barbara, Stacie and Annette

The words ‘Number One’ had been stamped over and over all around the collage, but I couldn’t understand where the acetate reading ‘E=MC2′ (squared) came into play. I thought about it, trying to work out how the two were connected. Finally I decided they weren’t so took the acetate sticker off the page .

The ‘Number One’ kept rolling around in my head and suddenly I had a vision of Queen Elizabeth pop into it too, so I looked her up, read a bit about her, found a load of images and printed them out. However, laying them on the collage, they seemed to be lacking a focal point. So then I took one image, where she didn’t look too bad (she wasn’t an attractive woman, was she?), enlarged it, and that worked for me. I then stamped the letter ER on either side of her. Although the image was resting on top of one of the rubber stamped images, it looked a bit like it was floating so I needed to ground her on something suitably opulent. I got out my gold leaf and gave her a base, sealed it with Shelac and then used rub-on transfers for the final ER and added a ‘jewel’ to her necklace. There you have her, Elizabeth Regina, the first Queen Elizabeth.

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OK, so I have this heat tool that comes with several bits for burning wood, doing transfers, and the like. I also have this mini quilting iron, but since the title refers to the use of fabric, I use it for working with beeswax, naturally. In addition to these I recently acquired a ‘wand’ for attaching ‘hot-fix’ rhinestones, crystals, pearls and such-like to art work. Given that each of these tools gets up to high temperatures, they have each been supplied with a stand. However I have trouble understanding how any of these manufacturers arrived at the conclusion that a small piece of plastic with a bit of wire on it, would be suitable for securely holding a red-hot tool! Until now I have been dilligently taping the ’stand’ (and I use the term loosely, here) onto a ceramic tile before using these tools. This should have been considered as the power cable on each of these tools, is heavier than the tool itself, never mind the flimsey ’stand’. If I were ambulant, I could no-doubt move out of the way before the tool fell to the ground, but from my wheelchair, the tool would simply roll onto my lap. Terrific!

OK so whinging aside, I have decided to invest in a soldering iron stand, which has a metal base and is therefore weighted and less-likely to topple over. They also have a coil in which to stand the soldering iron in when not in use, thus avoiding any untimely visits to the local A&E department.

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Managed to fall over yesterday - yes, again - and I’ve been feeling bruised and achey all day, really fragile but thankfully no serious damage and nothing broken.

Finally finished these 3 fabric ATCs this weekend and I like them, to varying degrees. The first has a self-adhesive fabric background, with the second I used Bondaweb to adhere all the pieces, and the third is pure fabric and doesn’t have a card base.

Doing these and using different techniques for putting them together has really given me the taste for working with fabrics. I’ve got a feeling these won’t be the last fabric pieces we’ll be making on the group

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For someone who said she wanted to reduce the amount of collaborative work she undertakes, in order to concentrate on her own art, I’ve just managed to sign up for a whole heap of stuff!
I’ve just announced a new ABrr, with the first posting date in September, and a ‘bit on the side’ ATC swap, due at the end of July. Glynis is running the Monthly Challenge altering finger puppets, due in mid-August, and I’ve signed up to make a page in a calendar, on APA, due at the end of October. Oh yes, let’s not forget the Collage rr!
I’ve heard/thought of two really good suggestions for swaps this week, and although my hands are full, maybe they are something we can do later. I thought I’d better write the ideas down before I forget them
The first idea was maybe something we’ll do for a monthly swap, or a ‘bit on the side’. People alter something and send it to me, I take photos and upload them without saying who made what and then we vote or say who we think made each item. I think it will be interesting to see how well we know each others’ styles. There are some people we think we know the sort of work they do, others who are maybe newer to the group, that are ‘dark horses’ as far as thir own individual style goes.
The second idea sounds brilliant, and I’m sure will be great fun to do. It is a round robin, maybe a tag book or a board boook or something like that. Each person’s spread shouls reflect the weather when they recieve the book. Simple but intriguing I think - LOL!

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Altered some papier mache boxes for a monthly challenge on my Yahoo group. I quite liked the way they turned out, although it wasn’t my intention at all, to make ‘pretty’ boxes, I found it quite became them.

I used fabric on one box, on the lid and along the outside, together with trimming braid. Inside I decoupaged a napkin onto a tiny bottle and finshed it off with some ribbon.

On another box I decoupages the lid with napkin and added some braid around it. I painted the box with Lumiere paints. Again I decoupaged a napkin onto a tiny bottle. I think this one looks quite dignified.

The last box, I painted and over-painted and distressed by rubbing and sanding. Inside is a tiny brass perfume bottle on some ribbon.

I have uploaded close ups of these into my Altered Art gallery.

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Anyone else notice that I’ve posting a lot of pics of art I’ve completed recently? Maybe it’s a good way of keeping track of my committments, maybe I just like looking at the screen and seeing my work look back at me. LOL!
Saying that, I haven’t completed much art recently because the 2nd series of Our new life in Everwood has just begun, and between that and Ed there’s not a whole lotta time for anything else! Sad or what? I just really like both programmes, one feels really tender and the other makes me smile - I’ll leave you to work out which is which I wonder if the way I feel about Everwood is the way some friends felt about Dawson’s Creek, which I thought was a bit Pants! Strangely, most of the TV I watch (there’s not a lot, honest!) seems to draw some emotion from me but as Miles keeps reminding me, IT’S ONLY TV!

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I’ve just realised it has been a while since I’ve scribbled anything, it is truly shocking how quickly time escapes us.
I was recently thinking about my mother, who died when I was 14, and it occurred to me that I have lived longer without her than I did with her. It has been worrying me that the memories are fading and I sometimes wonder if some of what I think I am remembering might not be memories at all but just false-memories that my brain fits into the spaces where memories used to be. There is one photo taken of us together shortly before she died, I know it is then because there is a Christmas tree in the background, and my mother died immediately after Christmas that year. Whenever I look at the photo, I don’t see how bad my hair-style was, or that it is possible to see some elastic in the waist of the dress I am wearing. Instead I see a tall chubby child, in the onset of puberty, feeling awkward about her body changing in curious way, soon to lose the person closest to her that could advise and explain what is going on. It is when I look at the photo that I feel angry that I was robbed of my mother at a time when she would mean the most to me. When I look at that photo I see a child who would not feel her mother’s arms around her when she got diagnosed with a life-changing illness, or see her pride when she graduated or when she got married.
I realise that the intervals between the times I think about my mother are longer now than they were 20 years ago, and although part of me knows this is natural, another part feels guilty for it.

It’s is my twin sisters’ birthdays today. It was strange, calling one of them at work to wish her and sing the ‘happy birthday’ song which has become my trade-mark, and trying to call the other in the hospital where she has been sectioned for the last 6 months. As it was I couldn’t get her at the hospital so waited until the early evening and reached her at her twins’ home where she had gone for a few hours, to dress up in the pretty new dress she received as a present, and to cut cake while friends and family sang while she blew out candles.
It is sad to hear her casually refer to the grim hospital ward as ‘home’. I guess after 6 months of mind-numbing drugs and boredom, it’s the nearest she has got.

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