Inchies Galore

Some of you may be wondering what the heck are inchies..... it 's a miniature piece of art- a smaller form of an ATC (artist trading card, for those of you green to the world of papercrafting). Inchies are exactly what they sound like- it's whatever you can get onto a one inch by one inch piece of paper. Apparently its the newest craze in the UK. I stumbled upon the inchie earlier this year. I was intrigued by the thought of trying to get works of art onto such a small area. I mean, any idiot can slap on stamps and layers of paper together- but try doing it on a limited space! Also, what appealed to me was the fact I could use up all my smaller scraps on the inchie- a scrap scavengers dream! And I've always been fascinated by things that are small and cute.... so I got into this inchie swap hosted by Caroline (Aunt Sally on SCS). My submissions were: a japanese washi paper punched butterfly (with metal feelers) on a black and gold printed bkg and a punched pear that was chalked and coated in diamond glaze on a coral background. I waited and waited for my inchies to get back to me but they got lost in the mail. Talk about heartbroken! I did manage to see some of the inchies the others had made because they posted them but I didn't get to see all of them.

So, subconciously, I 'forgot' that I had signed up for round two of inchie madness. I finally checked what I had agreed to do and to my horror- I had signed up for four different kinds of inchies- stamped, black and white, asian and vintage! Arrgghh!! And they are due June 9th in the UK too! For those of you who are going "huh?". I joined a swap. I agree to make 10 inchies for each swap I join and typically, they are she same item. I send them to the swap hostess, along with lots of other people. the swap hostess collects all the swaps and trades them out. I get back 9 different inchies plus one of my own. So, I'd committed to making 40 inchies and they should have been in the mail last week!

So I got busy last night. For the stamped inchie, I stamped the edges on a fern to look like seaweeds. I also stamped a crab and coloured it using gamsol and punched it out. I diamond glazed the body of the crab, and edged the punch circle in lime green pastel chalk. On the inche, I stamped "surprise!" over the seaweed and popped the crab on a dimensional to make it pop up, I was laughing the whole time I made the inchies as this gave me a brilliant idea for a wicked cheeky card when I get my Crab and Co stamps from Stampin' Up! next week.I'll post it when I do make it.

For the vintage inchie, I am not sure I understand vintage correctly so I hope they will forgive me for it if it is wrong. I stamped the word "sacred" on it and underneath it, I stamped an image of an artichoke. I coloured the artichoke in with shimmer green radiant pearls (green fandango) and then added Tim Holtz crackle effects over that so the artichoke is aged and crackled.

For the black and white inchie, I chose to stamp in black, on white, an image of a northwest coast indian image of the sun. I am going to overlay a transparency with the word "grand father" on the image. The white image is matted in black.

I am still drawing a black for the asian inchie. I will work on it tonight. Caroline, if you are reading this, the inchies are coming!!!