Inspired By the AASG Napkin index card swap.

I participated in a napkin swap recently through the AASG Facebook page and received a lovely haul of paper napkins that then led to another swap where we had to use some of those napkins to create 2 Index cards to swap. This posed a challenge for me, as when I see these pretty napkins, I just see these pretty napkins with cool art already on them..not how I can transform them into my own works. But after a lot of You-tubing and Pinteresting and Googling this is what I  managed to come up with .

 I've always liked the quote by Aibileen Clark in The Help (book and movie) so I decided to add it to this napkin card. I really liked how it turned out so I decided to do a page in my art journal using the same quote and technique so I had a "tweaked copy" I liked as well. I made my own stencils for these projects, using thinlit dies and overhead projector plastic sheets, and created my own texture paste by adding beach sand with impasto medium. seemed to work well. I will be making a lot of my own stencils now using some of the dies I already have.

Using a combination of spray inks and dripping and paints for background colour before I used gel medium to glue on my napkin ..

I then finished of with Tim Holtz Marquee Alphabet thinlit die cuts and liquid pearl accents for the light globe parts to make the quote and gave everything a wash of gold metallic paint.

Thanks for looking, hope you have a great day!

After years and years of resisting, a friend recently persuaded me to try her Copic Ciao Alcahol markers. I dug my heels in and said "Nah..its all good, I have my water colour pencils/ Crayons/gelatos/acrylic paints and water colour paints (and every other type of colour media in between) what do I need markers for?'  I said.. RIIIGGGHHHHHTTTT... I just knew I shouldn't have because now I want them all. All the colours..all three hundred and something shades of them...Arghhh..Meanwhile, my own voice echos inside my mind with what I say to my kids all the time: "What we want and what we get are two very different things."

So, I have started collecting. Traipsing through the Facebook world of buy,sell, swap craft sites and have manged to pick up a few second hand markers along with the assistance of my friend Di (who i am sure is just as much a hoarder/collector of crafty stuff as I am) Anyway..I digress. I have also recently fallen in love with the Santoro brand Gorjuss Girl stamps and just acquired some mini versions! Just in time for a ATC swap with the theme LOVE. I absolutely love and adore these little girls. they are creepy to some people but when I colour them I imagine them as lovely little shy creatures. So cute! I did a beginners class on the basics of Copics at my local Scrapbooking Shop called Scrapbook Secrets (which is For Sale, if anyone wants to keep this dying breed of shops alive!) and I haven't looked back.

So here are the three that I coloured and sent off with a little piece of my heart in each. Thanks for popping by!

(I had actually re-sized and saved them the right way up but they refuse to upload like that..must be part of their personalities. )