Swaps

I had a busy day yesterday getting some of my swaps finished.  At my local stamp club we are doing a monthly swap.  This swap involves altering jumbo playing cards and anything goes as long as there is a quotation included in the piece.  Once the swap is finished the cards will be bound into a book. "Change" is the piece I did for the March Swap and "Cats" is for the April swap.

Raranga

At the beginning of the month I began a diploma course in Raranga (weaving) through the  Te Wananga o Aotearoa. My first assignment was due this week and our only brief was that it must be a mobile or wallhanging and that we must incorporate at least four different whiri (plaits) in the piece.  I called my piece Dichotomy and I wanted to use the piece to illustrate the duality of the human response to conserving our natural resources and the consumerism and subsequent waste that threatens that conservation. I used the mask to symbolise Mother Earth and the human race.  The right side of the mask is covered with picutres of the natural world taken from gardening magazines and the whiri are made from harakeke (flax) native grasses and cotton fabric and symbolises the natural resources. The left side of the mask symbolises consumerism and wastage and is covered with images from junk mail and the whiri are made from recyled materials.  The  mask is mounted on a section of flax flower. The flax lengths have been left long to indicate that nature will overcome in the end and the  flax korus encompassing the metal tape at the top of the piece and at the top of the mask  symbolise the same concept.  The flax whiris cradling the mask on each side symbolise that the natural world cradles and supports us and the use of the recycled materials reminds us that we each a responsibilty to walk lightly and using recycled materials in art is one way to help diminish the growing piles of waste.  The pieces are assessed by the other students doing the course as well as the tutors and the piece was very well received and I got very good feedback and marks from the other students.

This is my entry for the Artfull Crafts March Challenge.  It is a journal I will be giving to my friend for her birthday. I used the sketch provided and the theme was Birthdays and Blooms.  The flowers on the journal are made using Cuttlebug dies and they are the first handmade flowers of this type I have made.

Cards

I don't usually make cards but while I was at a friends I had stamped off a couple of images using her Sweetpea Stamps.  I found them while I was looking for something else and decided to make them up into cards. They really are the most gorgeous stamps.

Challenges

I finished two pages for challenges this weekend.  The Whoo Hoo page was for a challenge posted by Sonya and Carol at Birds of a Feather Craft Together and the other is for a sketch challenge at  Little Shop of Sketches

Goth Angel

This layout was made using metal plumbers tape over die cut shapes, The tape was then dry embossed to bring out the die cut shapes.  The flowers were made out of punched card stock and metal tape.  I think it creates an awesome effect on the page.

It has been a busy busy month keeping up with work and the children.  Nevertheless our swap group GGS Swaps has started the swaps for the year.  The first swap is to use one of the gorgeous Sweet Pea stamps and it has to have 3D elements.  Above is the mini album I made for Sonya.  The stamped mermaid image is behind a piece of plastic packaging and is actually a shaker box with sand and shells in the bottom of the "window".  Great way to re-use stuff we would normally throw away.