Inchie display, and some ATCs

My friend Kim posted a lovely dolly a couple of days ago and inspired me to attempt an ATC dolly. So, may I present Queen Beatrix. .....She is modeled very much after our friend Queen E, but unlike Kimmie's sweet and playful dolly, our friend Beatrix is sedate and regal in her bearing, and has what appears to be giant ankles. In her defense, I should have shaded her legs so you can see that she has very slim and fetching ankles. I watercoloured the background and fingerpainted over with gesso in a poor attempt at emulating Kim's gorgeous background. The ATC was also sponged with Distress Ink Vintage Photo. Her dress is outlined with gold Zig painty and her lovely sparkly shoes are made of burnt red glimmer mist scraps (Tattered Angels) and highlighted with half pearls. Her wings are from SU Natural Beauty set.

I was also rooting though my box of inchies yesterday- for those of you who don't know. I've been carrying around all the inchies I got from my various swaps in this lunch tin picked up from the dollar store. I love running my fingers through the various inchies but I thought it was time to actually do something with them. I've had this frame for ages and it has 3 5.5X5.5 windows and I picked out some of my favourite inchies and stuck them in the windows with non-permanent glue so iIcan go back and change them from time to time. I love how they look and plan to get more of these frames for the rest of my inchies. I didn't even bother removing the background pictures in the frame.This is what it looks like:
I have also been making other ATCs. Susie (Boxermama on SCS) has been running Weekend ATC challenges and I've been taking part in them when I can. Last year, I had no interest in making ATCs at all. None whatsoever. The adage that your friends really do have a great influence on you is so true- even as adults because I can't get enough of ATCs and I am trying out things I would never have done even a year ago. It truly is the influence of those I hang around with, even virtually....

2 of Cupcakes and 2 hearts in Paris was for Susie's Altered Playing Cards theme last week.

I am on a pink and brown kick, obviously. 2 of Cupcakes has a SU stitched bkg stamped in SU close to cocoa onto a SU Rose Red watercoloured bkg. The Cupcakes are a Mike's stamp and has Liquid Applique frosting and yummy looking seed beads. 2 of hearts is gessoed and stamped with Distress Tea dye. The stamps are from Cavalini & Sons (Eiffel Tower, postoid), SU (hearts-Love matters) and Teesha Moore (birds).

The ATC below was created for Kim's Who's Who Swap on SCS. This was completed a month ago but since we're on th topic of ATCs.... Bkg is salt resist technique. I took the liberty of adding acetate wings to the little kid (me- and if you knew me growing up, you'd be ROTFL). The acetate wings were enhanced with a white Souffle pen.Yes, there is a little bead necklace on the kid. And the flowers on the dress were highlighted with Stardust clear as well.

Teeth of Lions

Dandelions. Dent-de- lion.... supposedly a plant that came over from Europe. The leaves resembles the jagged teeth of lions. Supposedly very rich in vitamins and can be eaten as salad greens. The plant in itself, is useful. You can make wine with the nodding yellow heads that when dried up, turn into puffballs to spread their seed. Images of faeries hitching a ride from garden to garden on the dandelion seeds. The roots, if you dry them up and roast them, makes a good coffee substitute- very much like chicory. They are also taking over my garden. For three years, I have fought the urge to decimate them. I will dig them up- I have an organic garden. I am not crazy about poisoning them. After all, they (the dandelions) have been here long before I have. I discovered this when two years ago, I decided I was going to plant pumpkins. I dug up a patch in the back of one of the sheds, and found dandelion roots so torturous and twisted and fat as the size of my thumbs-. There they were, broken white fingers bleeding white sap amidst the dark dirt. I dug out what I could but in the back of my mind, I knew that this was futile.

I have been digging the little buggers out of my yard the last few days. I have broken two metal dandelion picks and I have giant blister in the middle of my palm from where I press the pick into the ground.I have garden bag full of dandelion plants, dug up. I am heading to the store for the dandelion bar. I cannot do this on my own. There just is simply too many dandelions for me to cope on my own.


This is the garden after the mowing:
(the dandelions are still there, the leaves and flowers are gone but the tenacious tap roots are there, waiting to sprout out new leaves to feed the beast)