Folksy ATC Swap

Dottery Pottery over at fabulous handmade site Folksy, organised an ATC swap recently. ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards. These are the same as ACEOs but you swap rather than sell them.

My swap partner was Janice from Wellydog Gallery, which I was delighted about. Her paintings are just beautiful. Here's the ATC Janice painted for me:



This is exactly the sort of scene I would choose if someone asked me what I would like them to paint. There's something about trees and water that I just love. In fact, many of my photos are of trees and water! This is a gorgeous miniature work of art. I particularly love the sand; I'm not sure why exactly!

ATCs and ACEOs can me made in any medium and I've made a few ACEOs now in polymer clay, as was this ATC too.

Apart from knowing what to make it out of, I really wasn't sure what to do at first, but I had a read of Janice's blog and discovered that she mentioned two things I could work on - Eau de Nile - a lovely green/turquoise colour and Art Deco. So I started making an abstract Art Deco design using the green/turquoise as a background.

However, when it was nearly finished, I turned it upside-down and thought it looked quite like an ice-cream... and it turns out this is something Janice enjoys making! So, there we have it - an 'Eau de Nile Art Deco Ice-Cream' ATC!




I'm not sure if there's going to be a gallery of all the swaps. If there is, I'll come back and post the link.

Fun swap, thanks Janice and thanks Dottery Pottery for organising it.

Buried Treasure!

It was Mr W's birthday the other day and we celebrated by spending the day at the seaside.

We were somewhat lucky with the weather; left in a heavy downpour and came home to one, but we had sun at the beach! It was a typically British trip to the seaside mind you. In other words, we took rain jackets, suncream, swimming trunks, blankets... you get the idea.

I decided to make a treasure map for Little W, which I buried in the sand:



He was so excited to find it! He had to face the sea, take 5 steps forward, turn right, take 3 steps... The treasure was buried under a small pile of rocks. Luckily, I only buried coppers and not pound coins as one was never found - maybe it will be some other kid's treasure one day.

It was Baby W's second trip to the seaside and I think she was pretty much oblivious to it all. Little W enjoyed taking my mum for a half hour walk up and down the water's edge! The rest of us played with a huge balloon ball thingy, which kept going in the water, of course. Finally, we all had a lovely picnic. Little W sat down and opened his new Buzz Lightyear lunchbox as soon as we got there!


On another note, I'm just finishing off my redesigned website. It should've been finished earlier today, but there's one bit I can't get right and it's really frustrating me!

Also, hello and thanks to my new followers. I will try to follow you back but find it really hard to get to others' blogs sometimes! If you can leave a link below, I'll happily follow you!