Beltane

The first of May, Walpurgis Night, Beltane, May Day, Labour Day... many names for the same celebration. It was also this weeks theme at TMTA. I was more inspired by the celtic traditions and witches with my atc.

Actually it's quite interesting how this ancient spring festival has modulated during decades. It used to be a celebration of fertility and beginning of summer, and later it became a fest of working people and students, especially tech students. Well that's the case in Finland anyway.

Have a great first of May everyone!

Pines and birds

I took an evening walk in the pine forrest the other night. It's lovely to have longer days now that the sun goes down later and later. The birds are all back here after a long winter, and they are singing like never before.


I had my mom's dog Sami with me. He got a bit frustrated because I was constantly stopping and taking photos. But it was quite an adventure for him too since he found so many animal tracks and bird feathers to sniff.


We walked along a beautiful sand ridge with lots of pines. Some of the trees were very old, which is quite rare these days because of the effective wood industry.


I wish I'd had a recorder with me so I could've captured the bird voices. Now I must do without them, but at least I can make some collaged bird cards.

Mysteries of the Sea

This week's theme at TMTA was Water sprites and/or mermaids. My mermaid is saving a shipwrecked prince from drowning. Or is she really? There is kind of a nasty look in her eyes. Does she love the sea more than the man?

Lumbago

I've had some issues with my back lately. On friday I had a sudden and painful cramp in my lower back and it totally stiffened my position. So I couldn't walk or sit properly until now. What a weekend! From now on, there's going to be some pilates or other stretching in my life! A lot!

These two atc's were lying on my table unfinished. Today I gave them some darkish finishing touches. But I named them after "White magic", that is often preferred to as a healing or good paranormal magic. I could use some of that.

Layering

I continued my atc-experiments with transparency prints. In the picture above, you can see a really weird looking collage beside the photo of three women. Abstract art? Well not really, it's just the bottom layer of course.

Nominated

I got this

from Sannika. Thank you so much, it really made my day! It feels good to know that people visit my blog and maybe get some inspiration from it. There are many great blogs bringing joy and new ideas to my life, and I'm very glad to be part of this blogging world.

I want to forward this badge to these lovely blogs:
-Anskun Kammari
-A pot of rose tea
-Itkupilli
-Pia K
-Russian Tea Time

Here are the rules:

1. You have to nominate 5 blogs, which havent had awards before.

2. Each of the blogs must have a purpose!

3. The nominated blogs must make a link back to this page!

4. The logo from the award must be put on their blog and it must link back to this blog.

Pictores Operis

This week's theme at TMTA was Middle Ages. In my ATC you can see Heinricus Fullmaurer and Albertus Meyer working on botanical illustrations behind a window.

Transatlantic..Transfers..Tralalaa

I never used to be a big fan of YouTube, until recently. I've found a whole new world of art tutorials and crafters How To Videos there! One of my favorites is suziblutube. Here's a link to her video about image transfers. She has a whole series of videos about different mixed media techniques and art journaling. And she does it all with her own fun personal touch.


And here's my work in progress. I found some lovely images of the six wives of Henry VIII, and of course I had to make transfers right away. They are in color this time, although the quick photo I took, doesn't show it properly. I'm planning on continuing with some collaged elements, not sure yet. Maybe this will be one of those looong projects.

Dining dilemma

I took part in Nappikappa's ATC-ring. Here's the card I made from the given materials, and sent it to the previous person in the ring. The guy is having hard time deciding where to take his date to dinner.

Osallistuin siis Nappikapan ATC-renkaaseen. Tälläisen kortin tein annetuista materiaaleista ja lähetin sen sitten renkaan edelliselle henkilölle. Miekkosella on erittäin vaikea päätös edessään: minne viedä daami syömään?

Dreamer 4/4

So I've come to the last card of this series. Thank you Jaana for the inspirational challenge! Even though I only made four cards instead of all ten. Maybe next time I'll be more diligent.

Nyt ollaan päästy tämän sarjan viimeiseen korttiin. Kiitos vain Jaanalle inspiroivasta haasteesta! Vaikkakin tällä kertaa tein vain neljä korttia täyden kymmenen sijaan. Ehkä ensi kerralla olen taas ahkerammin mukana.

Dreamer 3/4

Here's my third dreamer for the challenge. A few words about the technique... I really like playing with image transfers, even though the outcome is very unpredictable. That is of course part of the appeal, but it also leads to disappointments sometimes. With this series of dreamers, I used only gesso as a transfer medium. The images were printed on inkjet transparencies. I wasn't very pleased with all of them, so I added some black crayon for contrast. Anyway, experimenting is fun and you may even learn something.

Tässä kolmas haastekorttini. Muutamia teknisiä juttuja... Leikittelen mielelläni tuolla image transfer -tekniikalla, tosin lopputulosta ei voi koskaan tarkkaan tietää. Arvaamattomuus tuo tietysti oman viehätyksensä koko hommaan, mutta välillä joutuu myös pettymään pahasti. Näissä dreamer -korteissa käytin siirtämismediumina pelkkää gessoa. Kuvat olin printannut inkjetilläni kalvolle. En ollut ihan tyytyväinen jälkeen, joten lisäilin kontrastiksi hieman mustaa vahaliitua. No, kokeileminen on kivaa ja siinähän sitä oppii, jos oppii.

Dreamer 2/4

Here's my second ATC for the challenge. There's a funny little detail about the word dream... in english it has a double meaning: daydreaming when you're awake and seeing dreams when you're asleep. In finnish there are two different words for those things. The ladies in my cards are dreaming with their eyes open, but still they're lying in bed. So, what sort of dreming is going on here? I'm not sure. You can decide.

Tässä on toinen korttini haasteeseen. Mietinpä tässä juuri tuon dream -sanan merkityksiä... englanniksihan se tarkoittaa oikeastaan kahta eri asiaa: unelmoimista/haaveilemista ihan valveilla ollessa, sekä myöskin unien näkemistä kun nukutaan. Suomeksi nämä ovat kuitenkin ihan eri sanat. Korteissani nämä naiset siis unelmoivat silmät auki, mutta makailevat kuitenkin sängyssä. Onko kyseessä siis unelmointi vai unien näkeminen? Ööö, saatte päättää itse.

Soup of the day

There's a new inspiring weekly challenge! It's not just for ATC's, but all kind of art, which is nice! Still, I'm starting kind of peacefully with an ATC. The first theme was fish, and here is my domestic approach. The picture of a maid is from magazine and the fishes are from an old geography book. Oh, and the piece of wallpaper on the background is from yellow house alice.

Primavera

Along with April came also the real spring! Today has been beautifully sunny, snow is melting and birds are singing joyfully. And I've been truly in the mood for making a spring themed ATC for TMTA.

Late but trying anyway.. card 1/4

I'm a little late with this, but better late than never... So, the idea in this Jaana's second challenge is to make a series of ATC's and show them one by one during ten days. I made a set of four cards, and there are many same elements in them: the background papers, stamp, and the image transfer technique, that I used with the dreaming lady. Actually, these cards are quite similar to each other, only the dreamers change.

Olen hieman myöhässä tämän projektin kanssa, mutta parempi myöhään kuin ei milloinkaan... Eli tässä Jaanan toisessa haasteessa ideana oli tehdä sarja ATC-kortteja ja esitellä ne yksi kerrallaan kymmenen päivän aikana. Minä tein neljän kortin sarjan, joissa käytin paljon samoja elementtejä: taustapaperit, leima ja image transfer -tekniikka, jota käytin tuohon unelmoivaan naiseen. Oikeastaan korttini ovat hyvinkin samanlaisia keskenään, vain nuo unennäkijät muuttuvat.