My Beer Matt

Do you like my Beer Matt?

I got this idea through my Yahoo altered book/arts clubs. I noticed someone used coasters to alter and got them from restaurants. It occurred to me that I could do it with beer mats so I have asked my drunken mates to collect beer mats for me! (Sorry....they aren't really drunken!) I collected one myself recently (yes...just the one...) and have been playing with it today. As it happens I have a son called Matt so I could not resist altering the first mat in his honour. Matt himself is quite artistic but I he'll probably still think his mother is a teensy bit mad....see below!





I use my printer quite a bit to print things on paper for backgrounds and in this case I gathered a clip art image of a beer glass and made it tiny. Then I copied it all over the page enough to cover the beer mat with. I stick it on. I also printed an image of Matt and pasted it onto cardstock.
Feeling that there was too much black I found used some old music and tore it into small pieces, smearing it then with gold acrylic paint just a little. I used a finger! Stuck the pieces of music down and then put Matt on top. I am very pleased with the result and plan to give it to him for his music/computer/den room! I thought I might punch a hole in it and put some wire through to hang it from.

Back from another holiday!

Yes...I have been gallivanting again, this time to Yorkshire for a week with my husband. We sort of do walking! We visited York and investigated the beautiful North York Moors. Luckily the weather was quite kind. Took loads of photos some of which I hope to use in art work or quilts.

I can now post some pics of my Altered Book (in future known as AB) Number 2. Made for my friend from the USA who visited for a few days in April. It was made as a gift for her birthday so I did not want to post it before she received it in case she peeked at the blog! So this is a little bit of Amy's AB.
I made about 8 page spreads but won't put them all as it takes ages to load! Suffice it to say Amy liked her gift but it was probably very amateurish considering it was my first serious effort!

My first ATC

I have just created my first ATC. An Artist's Trading Card is a little piece of art created to swap with other people. It is only 2.5 ins by 3.5 ins and at first I could not believe how tiny this was! I have responded to the challenge on a Yahoo club site I belong to for altered art. Having been asked to create something with the theme Women Warriors I decided on Emmeline Pankhurst who fought for Votes for Women.

I created "Votes for Women" using heavy quality watercolour paper and a background of purple water colour paint. Added the photo of Emmeline Pankhurst and edged the card with white lace. I added words in green ink on card. You can see the purple paint through the lace. I remember learning some years ago that the colours of the suffragette movement were white, purple and green. (I made a quilt back in 1993 in those colours!) It did not take long to create the ATC but needed a bit of thinking time!