malinmaskros

I´ve completely finsihed all of my Tea Party chunkies, fronts, backs, chunk - all of it. Feels rather good, since those pages have been lying around forever. All I have to do now, is to await the arrival of the rest of the pages, enjoy the goodness, and then swap them out. I do love to host swaps!

Talking about arriving pages - I´ve recieved several of the Chunky PAT pages, and they are all lovely, and some of the participants have sent extra pages for me - so very thoughtful. But I noticed just now, adding a page to my Marie Antoinette chunky - it´s getting rather fat (yummy!), and the rings I´m using to bind it are getting a bit too small. And then consider this: I have at least 20 pages waiting to arrive for my book... I need bigger rings! Because I do want my book to be very fat and wonderful, I want all of those pages bound in one book.  

Yesterday I recieved my returns from the Favourite Artist PAT, and since I wanted Gorey cards, I got Gorey cards:

Sometimes you can´t help stumble upon great sites on the net, and then you forget where you saw them. At least, that´s the case with me (things will change though - I finally have a computer, and hopefully I´ll get it running by the time I get internet installed, and then I can bookmark stuff!). So sometimes I save links on my blog. Ok, it means I have to search a bit to find them, and sometimes I stumble upon them as forgotten treasures. Because I rarely put them in my link collection...

Ok. This one I really like, where you can make your very own library cards. Don´t forget to write a catalogue number, or it won´t work...



I also love dymo labels, and I wish I had a dymo maker. If you want the look on your computer, this is a great place - you can make labels with all sorts of fonts, both classic dymo, and lots of others. Got to love it!



You can make them in different colours, I´ve made several in plain b/w and printed them, and used them on the backs of chunkies. And very pretty do they look!

For the first time in weeks, I actually got inspired, and I painted a Marie Antoinette page for a trade this morning. I´m really happy with it though - I´d like to keep it for myself, so I think I´ll make one for me as well.



I also pulled a tea party marathon last night, painting the rest of the pages for my Tea Party swap, now I just need to work on the backs, and make the chunky part.



I wanthed pastels and a bit of whimsy - I think that worked out rather well!

I can´t seem to get the energy to get inspired to paint - I have seven Tea Party chunkies to finish, but in the evenings I´m to tired, and in the weekends, all I want to do is nothing. I´ve just started working after a while of unemployment (don´t cheer just yet, it´s not a real job...), and I´m not quite used to it yet.

But - I´ve recieved lots of pages, both from the Chunky PAT, the Tea Party swap, and personal trades. And I´ve recieved RAKs from some very generous and kind fellow AFA:ers.

I´ve made a page for a PIF and for a 1/1trade:

 Marie Antointette
 Earth goddess

And a close-up of the shrink charms:



Since I work full time since a week ago, I don´t have the time or energy to paint much, so I really look forward to Easter. I have all of the pages for my Tea Party swap drawn up, waiting to be coloured, so I know what I´ll be doing this weekend!

I finally finished the front page for my Alice in Wonderland chunky book, I got some lave and added around the edges:



I also got my returns from the Gothic Wizard of Oz swap:

I´ve been wanting to try shrink plastic for a while, and I got some in an art supplie PIF, so I made some for the chunkies I finished (my last post). But I didn´t know they would shrink that much!

 
These are my first ones, and they are tiny - only about 1 cm! They are for the Freja page.

 
These are for the brown monochromatic goddess page, they are about 2-3 cm.


And I made these for my niece and nephew, the scull I added to a key ring, and Hello Kitty became a necklace.

I made the cards for the Tim Burton ATC swap on AFA, I went b/w and Jack Skellington (I really need some black markers!):



I also finished two chunky pages (added chunk, that is!):

 

And I mailed a bunch of mail art this weekend - chunkies AND atc´s!

I ended up doing two pages for my trade with Merlinprincesse, the Freja page, and this Egyptian cat page:



It´s my first attempt at using coloured pencils (I bought some new the other day), and I think it works really well on this one - it kinda feels like the wall of an Egyptian tomb.

I´ve finally finished my page for EraserQueen, she wanted a raven king and queen, so this is how it ended up.

 
I can´t take full credit for the back, I "borrowed" the idea from Bernie Berlin´s ATC book. But I think it works really well!

I´m doing a chunky page trade with Merlinprincesse, I´ve done a couple of ATC trades with her, so I´m really looking forward to her page! She wants cats in history, so I painted a page with Norse goddess Freja, in her chariot drawn by cats. Of course it still needs some chunking!



I´ve also finally finished a Marie Antoinette page:

Even though I´d prefer to make nothing but chunkies at the moment, I couldn´t resist two ATC swaps, Cupcakes and Tim Burton. And this morning I made cupcakes. Many cupcakes... In fact, I don´t want to make any cupcakes for a while...

I´m trading a chunky page with icekat, she´s making Alice in Wonderland, and I made Egyptian goddess Bastet. I´m actually quite happy that I couldn´t find any books with pics of her at the library, because then I had to google, and I found lots of alternative enterpretations of Bastet. Otherwise, I would´ve done a plain old Egyptian Bastet, now she´s more in my style. But I do regret a bit throwing out all of my old Egyptology books (I studied Egyptology for 1½ years at the University) - there are some books I miss!

Yesterday I worked on chunkies for my next project, an Alice in Wonderland chunky book. I will recieve my first traded Alice page soon, so I didn´t want it to be all alone. So I did a front page, and a Queen of Hearts.


I´ll add some lace around the edges, and I don´t know what to do about the back.



I also came up with an idea for a chunky swap, "Tea Party", I think that can be a fun one. So I drew a bit on an idea for a page, and it might turn out rather ok. I don´t have any chunkies to work on, since I withdrew from the Found Poetry and the Wonderful Trees swaps - I simply couldn´t come up with any good pages on those themes. And I have done the private trades for this month. So a tea party swap is just what I need at the moment, I think!

I did the 7th monochrome page yesterday, an orange Frida Kahlo. Unfortunately, I never know when to stop, and accedently painted a black spot in her face. I think I finally solved it, with it still looking ok, but the rosiness of her cheeks are pretty much gone, and I don´t dare putting a paintbruch anywhere near here face again. Today, I´ve almost finished  the last monochrome page, a green angel. I was a bit hesitant about that one, but I´m really liking it now!

I´ve painted my fifth monochrome page, a grey one. Now I have to wait with the remaining three, because I´m all out of cardstock...

I have tried altered books, but I haven´t fallen for it (yet, anyway!), I don´t get inspired, and I can´t fill up an entire book - so far, anyway. But I do adore other people´s work, and I fell head over heel in love with this collaborative, it´s in the Winter-09 issue of Somerset in Love, and it´s gorgeaus! I really would love to have this magazine, to enjoy these altered books thouroghly - you only get a glimpse on the home page.