Jiggy piece - Andern06

Fairytales

...but NO Disney came the request... luckily I have a first edition Grimms Fairytales book in my collection and I love some of the shorter ones, so it was a pleasure to pick three short tales and reprint them into a mini-book (any excuse to use my Bind-It-All!)

I used distress inks on bazzill to make the cover, scrunching and spritzing until I was happy with the effect, then ironed the paper flat. Forgot to put something between the paper and my iron - ever tried to clean distress ink off the base of your iron whilst its still hot?

The emblem on the cover was initially stamped and embossed using distress embossing powder but I didn't like the effect so over-stamped it with black Memories.

To keep things simple the book is attached to the jigsaw piece just by a piece of ribbon, for ease of removal. I thought about magnets but decided ribbon was a much easier way to go!

Jiggy piece - Mel81pop

The Sea

Philippa wanted a jigsaw inspired by a favourite poem of hers entitled 'The Sea' - and it caused me a few sleepness nights trying to work out how to portray this.

I knew I wanted to do something involving a boat and luckily found this little white-metal boat at a model shop in town. I built up a shaker box using double-sided foam tape around a base of hot-melt glue into which I nestled the boat, so that it would sit upright when the jigsaw is put onto the wall. Covered the glue with tiny accent beads and painted the frame in greens and blues, adding some seagulls and seashells.

Jiggy piece - Aristoscrap

Indian/Hindu inspired

This was the first piece I actually made, again a trip to the African shop in Southend because I noted that as well as African they had Indian goods as well. Picked up this lovely necklace and set it onto a rather fetching paper from RICO which had what looked like mehndi patterns on it, which I picked out using a Quickie glue pen and gold Perfect Pearls, finishing off with some embroidered shisha mirrors.

Jiggy piece - Terris Chocolat

African Masks/Abstract fur prints in black/white/orange and chocolate

This caused me a bit of a headache to begin with - I don't know a lot about African masks and when Terri posted that she didn't like the 'Bet Lynch' kind of fur print I had to put my patchwork fabric collection away...

However there's a rather nice shop in Southend called 'The Africa Centre' and after a good browse around there I came up with these miniature carved masks.

Some animal print paper and a bit of distress inking around the edges later and I'm rather pleased with this - hope Terri is too!

Arty Farty Jigsaw Swap

On one of the online forums a few months ago, there was a discussion about a swap that was done last year called The Arty Farty Jigsaw Swap and the completed jigsaws that I saw were stunning pieces of artwork. The deal was that groups of 9 ladies decided on a theme each and then using a blank 12x12" chipboard jigsaw made one piece in their own theme, and the other 8 pieces were the themes of the other 8 people. The pieces were sent to the swap organiser who juggled them all up so that everyone received a completed jigsaw back in their theme, with 1 piece made by them and the other 8 made by other people. "Sounds complicated" I thought - and promptly signed up for it... So thats where I've been for the last 2 months - tearing my hair out over making 9 jigsaw pieces each in a totally different theme - I'm surprised I'm not bald! This is how it all started - 9 chipboard pieces covered in gesso so that they'd take paint better...

And this is my completed jigsaw before posting it off to the organiser...

"Never again!!!" I screamed........ and promptly signed up for the 8x8" jigsaw swap starting when this one is fully completed...

Individual jigsaw piece pics will follow in due course...

Had my hair permed this week but I'm still not sure if I'm really happy with it - its dropping out really quickly and I have to mousse it to within an inch of its life to get the curls to stay in - not really what I wanted... but I'll see how it goes for a bit longer before I decide what to do about it. Isn't it funny how we girlies are often not happy about our hair - if it's straight we want it curly, if it's curly we want it straight... no wonder there are so many hairdressers in town...

Finished my "inchies" for the online swap - the first one is stamped with Memories black ink for the bird, then overstamped with white Stazon with the word 'beauty' (a bit hard to see in the pic!) and a jewel stuck onto the background (which was coloured using Distress Inks). 

The second one is also stamped with black Memories onto a Distress Ink background, the leaves were coloured with a green glitter pen and the whole thing covered with Crackle Glaze - and thats where my problems started... I'd not used this product before and might have been a bit heavy-handed with it, and all my inchies started to curl up at the edges as the glaze dried... I've had to stick them onto another piece of cardstock using permanent Herma and weight them down to try and get the curl out, hopefully I've succeeded...

The third one is a strip from a Hambly acetate overlay which I've layered over a Distress Inked background and then dipped the edges in liquid UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Powder) using my Melt Pot, sort of a faux metal-soldered effect. I'd not used my Melt Pot in years (and boy the smell sure told me that!) but I had great fun reminding myself just what I could do with it. 

Now I've got these finished and sent off to the host, I can really start planning my next project... I've joined in with a swap called the Arty Farty Jigsaw Swap - we're working in teams of 9 using a 12x12" chipboard (cardboard) jigsaw base. Each member of the team has their own theme and we make a piece for each of our team members, then send them off to the co-ordinator who puts everyones jigsaws together and sends them back, so you get a completed jigsaw on your theme made by you and 8 other very talented people. We've got until the 29th May to finish all 9 pieces which on the face of it sounds AGES but in reality is 9-10 weeks away - thats a bit over a piece a week.

My theme is music in purple - I've sent each of my teamies a piece of the same purple ribbon we all wore to Pete's funeral and I've asked that they incorporate it into their jigsaw piece somehow. My own piece is (at the moment) going to have some pictures of Pete sandwiched into slide mounts making a little book of pics of him, and the cover will have the ribbon wrapped around the slide mount... this might all change when I actually get the blank jigsaw in front of me and I actually make a start...

Wish me luck - I think I'm going to need it!

Warning - infrequent poster alert!!!

Just had to share this pic of the sunset taken from my balcony the other night... all those aeroplane trails in the sky make me want to save my pennies and go fly somewhere again myself!

OK, so I've not updated for a while - just goes to show that time really does fly when you're having fun!

The cybercrop went really well - got some nice layouts done and am pleased with the amount that I did. However, that was over a month ago now and I've still to finish clearing my craft desk off (oops...)

Went to a funeral of a friend who played in a local band during the week, and on Saturday our local pub had a tribute night to him, his band Hair of the Dog played with some guest singers and players, a very enjoyable evening. 

Crafting-wise I'm making "inchies" - inch-square pieces of artwork for another swap online. I'm doing 30 in 3 batches of 10 and so far the first set have come out just about ok, but the second set have gone a bit peculiar... not quite sure whether I can rectify the problem or whether I should just start again...