Bumper set of cards have arrived over the past few days.

I thought I'd not bore you with more photos of holidays but show you what has been sent to me by hardworking swappers.  I've not done a very good job of sorting them into group themes and apologise for that but all the work has been done by members of Surface Design and the BQLPC Group.

These two cards have been made by Pauline Mackenzie the top one 'Painted Card' and the bottom "Textured Landscape"  Both cards have painted background and Pauline's 'Painted Card' also has painted puff paint for texture.

These two cards are from different groups, I really should not have scanned them together but I was getting tired and wanted my supper.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.  

The top card is really something, click on it to enlarge it and have a look how creative Miki Rodriquez is.   She lives in Arizon and decided to create her set of cards based on the landscape near her home over a 24 hour period.  Each of the swappers got a different time frame.  Mine was 12:00am and represents "drizzle" with cacti, insects and tumbleweed.  I hope the other swappers post photos of their cards I'd love to see the set together.

The second card is from Alice Gray and is also very creative.  It represents the "Simmer Dim" , the standing stones in Orkney when the stars come out but it never gets really dark.

Another Summer Solstice card but this one represent the orbit round earth at the time of the solstice.

This cards by Avril.

 Two 'foodie' cards now by Plum and Janet Boorman.  These represent their favourite food, Plum obviously likes sweeties and Janet Strawberries and cream.  Our strawberries have taken a bit of a battering from the wind and rain we've been having recently.

Two more "Coast" cards this time from Cindy Mott and Carol Jamieson.  Cindy shows the sunset over the sea and Carol has been very inventive with bits and pieces.  This is another card worthy of a closer look.

Now for my "Painted Card" set.   I'm really not an artist but I did enjoy creating the tangled landscapes.

I found out that it's better to paint the background then do the tangling - ask me how I know!!!   I ended up having to redraw all the tangles......   I used Copic pens to paint the fabric and Micron pens to draw the tangling.  I discovered that a .005 was best for the outlines then either a .01 or .05 for filling in.  I did try to use the Faber & Castell Pitt pens, the finest one S worked fine but anything larger bled a bit.  It could be due to the fabric I used,some old sheeting that had been givne to me by a friend.  I must say that I find it usually takes paint, inks, pens anything in fact that I like to throw at it very well as its been very well washed over the years.   Just hope she has some more to left to play with.