Blu and White china ATC swap

The theme for this swap was 'composed completely from a magazine using cut outs. It was an excuse to buy some gorgeous lifestyle magazines and dream for a while! I have collected blue and white delft since I was a young girl. Like all my fine bone china and other trinkets, they are all packed away now. I wonder if I will ever put them all out on display again?

Some of my recent swaps with Flickr ATC friends in USA, Denmark, Holland, UK, Australia - kind and talented friends across the globe.

My first fabric ATCs

Some ATCs traded with swap groups in July, August. The fabric ATCs were scraps from a Sunbonnet Sue quilt that I was making maybe 10 years ago! I kept the piece of patched 'fabric' wondering if I would ever use it! I can't think of a nicer way to use up bits and pieces. Once you start thinking in miniature, you see possibilities everywhere and start dreaming of creations. I will never look at a lifestyle magazine the same way again! All those lovely photos of flowers, home decor... mmm...

I have been having a lot of creative fun with ATCs since being introduced to them March 2010. Collage with pretty papers, magazine images, now experimenting with zentangles and watercolour and fabric. After all, I have been a fabric a holic for nigh on 25 years now! So I hope to slowly use up some of my fabric stash and ephemera. As these miniatures are just that, 2½" x 3½", I can't see the stash disappearing in a hurry, goodness only knows our lovely rumpus room table has become a casualty to collage and ephemera, with nowhere to put all this lovely stash.

Jach and Celia. This is the only photo of my maternal grandparents on their wedding day, so I thought it was worthy of embellishment. I included an Australian postage stamp with bridal roses. It is a mystery as to the flowers Gran may have carried on her day, or perhaps, none at all in lean times and being one of 16 children. I will have to find what year this was! Maybe early '20's?

This photo used to hang suspended from a very high picture rail in their tiny poorly lit loungeroom mostly devoid of ornamentation, encased in a very big oval wooden frame. I often used to stare at this photo as they stared back at me, frozen in time. The couple in the picture seemed to bear no resemblance to the hard working grandparents that I knew in the '50's, '60's and '70's. Gran always in her 'pinnie' and beanie, milking cows on the freezing cold mornings just a smidgeon past dawn, in Bullarto Sth Victoria; scrubbing and rubbing clothes on the wooden washboard until she got a new Pope washer with a hand wringer.

I have fond memories of hanging the washing on the line on a wire propped up on a pole working with Gran. Not the most sophisticated clothes line, but serviceable. Like everything my grandmother had. Their married life was all about hard work on a dairy and produce farm, thrift and recycling as much as possible.

ATC's - Roses

Graphics and photos from IClipart and Rubys Blossom.

ATC's - corrugated/Metallic

A sample of the swap. Tim Holtz lock andkey, Webster scrap paper, Itkupilli letters, Kaiser scrap paper, stamping etc.

Heat emboss ATC's using stamps from Clearly Vintage (Etsy), V&A new stamp collection.

Tea and coffee ATC swap

ATC - Tulip and Vintage art swap

Having fun, making friends, dragging out beloved art materials, downloading public domain vintage photos, drawings... whiling away the hours...more time off work... creating ATC's seems like good therapy?