Oooooo oooohh it’s October

Was that spooky enough for you?? hehe
October 31st is Halloween, so this month’s theme is Spooky and/or black and orange, as they are traditionally colours used with Halloween.

September is Spring

Here is a very late September. Mum actually did this well in advance, but before leaving for her trip forgot to photograph it. lol. We only got to her house last weekend. Sorry about the wait.
Here is her theme. Spring!

Justine’s August

Here is Justine’s lovely August steam punk! I am loving it Justine, well done!!

Justine’s July

Justine has been catching up on her diary. Justine likes winter time because it’s a great to spend time inside sewing.
Well done Justine!

Here's a late August

The theme for this month is Steam punk! It's not a theme that I particularly liked or have done before, but I felt it was a challenge for me. And you know what? I quite liked doing it!
So let's see what you come up with!
The light isn't particularly good here today, so the photo is a little dark on the lower left, I will try to find time to redo it another day.

Justine plays catch up!

Firstly I must apologize to Justine, as I have had her June calendar for over 3 weeks and am only just getting around to it. If anyone knows who/what is stealing all the time, do please tell me :)
I love the trees that Justine has marching across the bottom and how cute are the birds!

Winter Cheer!

This month we are well into winter and have had some very bleak days. So I thought we could give some thought to what cheers us up on those days.
It could be warm drinks/winter warming foods, other drinks of the alcoholic variety LOL, roasty toasty fires, playing winter sports, or you might choose to make a "quilt" as I have done (using wintry colours) to keep you warm! Or think of something else in keeping with the theme of Winter Cheer.
The flowers are hand made.... a passion of mine atm!

Vintage Romance - May

Here is Justine's lovely Vintage Romance for the month of May which she has done in cramped and limited conditions. Justine used pictures from free collage sheets found on the Internet, and distress inks.
I am looking forward to her other catchups

Brrrr....it's June

I know I am late again...very late this month, but I think "I am the last man standing" so I guess it doesn't matter so much... not so nice when others are waiting on you to reveal the topic!
Winter begins officially this month and brrr its been chilly, with winds that seem to be blowing straight off the ice in Antarctica.
So my calendar this month reflects winter, and I have used blues and grays, and can you see the wind blowing up in the top corner?LOL.

Were you Invited??

To the wedding of the century? Or did you, like me, miss out? Well let's have our own royally romantic occasion!
This month our calendar will be themed on royalty, weddings and romance. As usual interpret as you will, use a wedding theme or crowns and hearts, jewels or whatever you like to convey the feeling of it all..... you can even do red white and blue if that's what appeals to you.
I'm sorry it's so late this month, but lots of things conspired to delay it!

Autumn from Justine

Here is Justine's lovely autumn pages for April.
Here is what she had to say about her work:"Autumn is my favourite season and I really enjoyed this challenge. The background was created using 'Starburst' sprays (similar to Glimmermists) and masks, then stamping in Distress Inks. The bird cage and butterfly are made with craft wood and Tim Holtz dies which have also been rubbed with Distress Ink."
I love that bird and cage, and have borrowed Elizabeth's atm. I'm using it as much as possible whilst I've got it LOL.

Elizabeth's March is Green :)

This is Elizabeth's March. She has started off by painting her background in shades of green, then layered over the top with an olive green paper patterned in white which she has scrunched up and then used the Tim Holtz baking paper technique.
Once the paper was in place, she has stamped random butterflies using Darkroom Door stamps and Black Stazon over it. Then she has drawn the scrolls using a watercolour crayon. The dates squares were made from green Cardstock also altered using the Tim Holtz technique. White pen was used to go around the scrolls, the green stamped arrows, gold gel pen to write the dates and green gel pen around the squares

It's Autumn now

Well it's now well into autumn officially, but someone forgot to tell the weatherman! West Australia for instance is still baking, and other places are not very autumnal as well.
My effort has Basic Grey papers for the background. The leaves were a pack of chipboard ones I bought, but as they were too thick, I soaked them in some warm water and gently split them, that way I got enough for the whole month out of 1 packet of 10. Very economical.
"Autumn Leaves" were from a Daisy D's cardstock sticker sheet I've had for ages, the butterflies are a Bohemia Rubon, that I've had for ages too. Likewise April is made from an old Basic Grey Alpha stickers, but 2011 is Prima and much more recent!
Would love to see what you all do!

Linda's Green March

This is Linda's take on the March theme. I love the mix of green squares for each day.
This is what Linda has to say about her pages:
The background is just dye ink, glimmermist and water. For the green theme I have not only used the colour green, but all my calendar squares, words and numbers were cut from old magzines. I found one particular magazine that was full of "green" words which I though would be perfect. There not a lot of decoration but the images for the date squares make it pretty busy.

Linda's lovely February

This is just so lovely Linda. The colours are great

Justine's Recycled March

Here is Justine's lovely March, I just love the soft and I also love old print (books etc)
This is Justine's description of her calendar.
I have used the March page from a calendar we got free from a
local bottle shop. The border is stamped swirls with Distress Ink over
the top. I've also used pages from an old book and stamped over the
top. The purple butterflies are made from hand-made paper that my
sister made years ago (I've stamped over the top to make the patterns).
I love the rough texture of hand-made paper. It's the ultimate recycled
product, using newspapers, letters and flower petals to create a
beautiful and useful paper
Well done Justine!

March is almost here!

Firstly apologies for leaving this upload till the last day of February, I had intended posting about 4 days before, but February is my month for the "Summer Blerghs", not that we've had an awful summer really.
Now, March is the month most people associate with St. Patrick and Green. St Patrick's Day is 17th March. Green is also associated with recycling! It is also a colour in it's own right.
So this month our topic is green and you can interpret it using any of those ideas, or come up with your own spin!
My page combines recycling and the colour green. The calendar itself, plus the month name and the small pictures are recycled from a calendar I bought for 20c at an op shop, because it featured the colours I like.
A selection of flowers from my stash, some bling in some of the centres and Kindyglitz (stickles) on some of the petals, punched butterflies with Kindyglitz highlights to cover holidays and moon phases on the original calendar. And that was it.... can't wait to see what you all come up with!

Elizabeth's Lovebirds :)

Here is Elizabeth's February, featuring a couple. There are all sorts of interesting things on these pages. There's interesting print in the top left hand corner, lovely little red hearts, and swirls. I have to apologise too.... I've had this for several days, and kept forgetting to post it.

Back to February

Here is Justine's mass of summer roses for February.
This is what Justine had to say about her pages:"I too thought "roses!" when I read the theme of love and romance. I love receiving them, smelling them and growing them. So, roses it is.
I wanted to capture a bit of old romance using a vintage style with pages from an old book and old sheet music. The roses come from serviettes. Distress inks have been used to give the overall vintage feel."
Lovely Justine

Tracey's January

Here is Tracey's January.... remind you of hot summer days and cool water at the beach.... then maybe wander along the sands and collect shells?
The photo doesn't really show the lovely sparkly blue and yellow papers Tracey used, nor the Kindyglitz (Stickles) used on the month and year.
Enjoy the swim everybody! Well done Tracey.

Marg's Lovely

Come on girls, you'll have to put your running shoes on to beat Marg! Here is her lovely February. This is what Marg had to say about her work:" I wasn't too artistic with this page - just some scrapbook pages as the background with a beetle stamp and some gel stencil lettering. I cut up my tags again and decorated them a bit with hearts and butterflys."
Well done Marg! I think it's lovely

We're Off and Running for February!!

The topic for the new month is Love/Romance. As everyone knows Valentines Day falls this month, however you don't have to use Valentines for your February Calendar. There are many types of love..... from love of things/food, through the love of a parent for a child to the more Romantic Love, so the interpretation is your choice.
Here is mine (sorry it's not a good photo, I'll try and replace it tomorrow)
My theme was hearts and flowers. I drew a template for the shapes then hand cut them all from scrapbook paper then I edged each shape with a pink Glaze pen. The month was stamped. The background was bazzill and scrapbook paper. The roses round the border were some Anna Griffin die-cuts from ages ago.

Pink and pretty

Here is Linda's very pretty January... with the sun's rays across the pages.This is Linda's description of what she did: " The background is paint and gesso. The squares are just cut from PP. The day name banners are stamped and painted. The sunrays are just gesso. The corner flourishes were first stamped with gesso and then stamped over with green and brown inks. There are some very faint white numbers on the day blocks. Now to catch up with the Journalling."
All the pages have been so different, it's looking really great!

Another Lovely One!

Here is Elizabeth's January. She has stamped the figures and coloured them, then painted a sea scape background. Her diary spots are little fish shapes and the days are the eyes (cute), to all that she has added a pretty stamped January, and a stamped 2011.
I have just edited this post as Elizabeth pointed out some of the things I had written were inaccurate!
Well done Elizabeth!

Margaret's January

Everybody is off and running! Here is Margaret's great effort. This is what she had to say about her work: My background is done with Impress inks. My days are tags (cut down a little) painted with watercolour paints in sun setting colours. I chose a green b'ground as summer is full of lovely greens, stamped some circles, flowers and a butterfly. I have mentioned star signs but they don't show up very well.
Well done Marg!

Great Blog Candy

I am going to share 2 links with you....both are blogs offering great Blog candy!
The first one is :
http://bizzybecsstore.blogspot.com/2010/12/its-blog-candy-time.html
Bizzy Becs in an online store here in Aus. You have till late January for this one.

The second giveaway is at:
http://taylordconcepts.blogspot.com/2010/12/most-wonderful-time-of-year.html
This is a super huge giveaway, but closes in 24 hours
Good luck!

Justine's January

Woohoo! Here is Justine's January pages inspired by the sea which is how Justine likes to spend her summer. This is what she had to say about how she did her pages " I have used acrylic paint as a background and squirted with ‘Starburst’ spray (like glimmermist). Bottle tops and seaside stamps were stamped into the surface. My letters were stamped onto an old book then cut out and outlined in black felt pen."
Well done Justine

January - Summer

I started off with a roughly A4 sized book, which I bought at a "cheapie" shop. I then glued 2 pages together to give a bit more strength to each side.
Next I took pieces of white cardstock the size of the pages, and coloured them using the shaving cream technique (as I couldn't find any of my reinkers, I used a little acrylic paint in orange and yellow - worked ok).
I punched out the flowers and put just a little Kindyglitz (Stickles) on the inner flower of each to give it a bit more zing. I also punched and made the ladybirds. The days were made using a square punch, and I ran a little ribbon down the left hand side.
Word of warning... choose your glue with care. The blue stick glue I thought would be good for this job, is not holding together so well between the cardstock and the paper of the book. I can rectify that easily, however I will use something different for my gluing next month!

Welcome Everybody!

Welcome to 2011 and this is the challenge for the girls of ATCs4U this year, but everyone everywhere is welcome to join in.
If you would like to share what you achieve you can mail me at de dot mamacrystal74 at gmail.com with your artwork and comment about it and I will put it on the blog for you. Keep in mind we are based in the Southern Hemisphere, so those of you north of the Equator will have your seasons opposite
Now for our first month! It's summer here, so I have made January's topic "Summer"
There may be days when you have no diary type comment to make.... use that opportunity to do a mini artwork to fill the gap!