Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

  It's  so close to the end of the month, but honestly, I'm not  ready to give up yet. I've only had one day when I was too tired to give any creative attention to making a card. Some other days have been hard to fit in the time as I set myself the goal of  taking a photo of a finished little work by 5pm each day.  What  have I  found difficult?  - choosing a postage stamp. - coming up with 'different' ideas and bringing  the ideas to life quickly  -  including both stamp and stitch into the design ( occasionally) .  - compromising by using some previously stitching samples.  - no time for revision.  What have I enjoyed?  - knowing I will have 30 Christmas cards made , ready for posting by 1 December.  - sorting through my stash of beautiful Christmas stamps.  - combining media ( although that is also what I found difficult!) . - deciding who will be the recipient of each card.  - the focus of crea...

  I couldn't have hoped for a more suitable theme set for this fortnight's Tag Tuesday ..... "Add a Postage Stamp". I often use postage stamps in my collage work, and I admit I really enjoy working with these miniature artworks.  The two stamps I've chosen for this exercise are both Australian.   The first one depicting a white tailed kingfisher is from a 1980 issue and this series is amongst my favourite "bird" series. The second is from an Australian animal series issued in 2019  .... who doesn't love a wombat?  The tags are both paper collages - with some stitching and  in the second, I stitched a real dried eucalypt leaf. And just to add a but of interest, I also decorated the backs of the tags, complementing the theme on the front.  I hope you enjoy this glimpse of  the natural world in Australia... 

  The current challenge at  Tag Tuesday   is NUMBERS ...  Here is the brief ... I would like to see Numbers on your tags, as in the title, I mean more than one number, I don't mind how many numbers you use, but you must have more than 3. They can be all the same or all different... On my desk, I happened to have a box of old postage stamps ... and there were numbers of course, as each stamp displays its value.  Here are my tags for the Numbers challenge.  The first is  a collage of the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, standing on a podium with a random set of numbers  . The second features  a lovely set of stamps from New Zealand , again with the three numbers prominently displayed , complemented by a cut out from an old greeting card.  Thanks, Sandie from tag Tuesday - a different and challenging theme. 

Most days, I create a quick collage with torn paper and whatever is at hand...  Last week I steamed from a  gifted cardboard box,  a series of Japanese postage stamps  The stamps celebrate traditional arts.  PS. That extra one, in the bottom right corner,  was inspired by the kangaroo paw in my garden   togei - ceramic art  kami - paper  shuuji - calligraphy  chanoyu - tea ceremony  takeami - basketry  urushi - lacquer  ai -indigo  toro - lantern    These are all in the series #pulchra momenta ( beautiful moments ) ... see more in this series....  Instagram  @empress.wu.designs

  Postage stamps feature a lot in my textile artwork.... and I have a lovely collection of old stamps. However, I also belong to a small group of artist friends who every three months, challenge one another with gifts of first day covers or stamp series.  A few months ago, I interpreted a series of stamps from New Zealand ...  In this round of challenges, I received a beautiful series of Australian stamps, depicting wonderful locations in different states.  At first I was at a loss of what to do with them to show them off... and at the time, I was stitching some backgrounds on my sewing machine.... The background is a collage of scrap fabrics and then overstitched  and overlayed with rows of decorative stitch patterns . I really liked one of these backgrounds for these stamps as Australian colours were all there..   After stitching the stamps onto the background, I "couched " contour lines in a random way.... this map does not depict a certain place. I...

  I am all for recycling, so here is a card that next year the recipient can reuse ... just remove the decorated "tag" and use it as a gift tag  next Christmas!  This is a stitched fabric tag featuring a Christmas postage stamp issued in Australia in 2008.  The stamps from 2008 are amongst my favourites.  And very special Christmas wishes to  the  Tag Tuesday   team and  followers ..... 

 Another of the vintage Christmas stamps - 1966 - is featured on this collaged card . It was the first Christmas stamp issued with a decimal value . Do you remember when it was only 4 cents to post a card?  The non-representational angel is an image from a  rubber stamp, impressed onto fabric  and then hand coloured with marker pen. I chose this image to complement the Nativity scene depicted on the postage stamp. 

 Today's card celebrates a Summer Christmas, inspired by frangipani . The stamp is a vintage one and  one of the many I have of this issue. I like it because of its stained glass window look and the unusual Christmas colour of magenta. There were such brightly coloured stamps that year. 

 One of the more popular images on postage stamps is the Adoration of the Magi ( or more commonly known as The Three Wise Men) . On today's card, a 1998 Christmas stamp is featured on a stitched paper collage .  Here are some of the many  other stamps  telling the story of the Magi .... 

Card #16 is a paper and cloth collage. Most of the papers are gel plate printed.  The featured stamp is Australian issued in 2012 as part of the Christmas series.  Hope you have already done your Christmas posting - it is almost too late....   

 Card #6 celebrates one of the 1998 set of Christmas postage stamps by popular Australian artist , Ken Done  whose work is always colourful and brightly illustrative. All three stamps in the set were naive drawings of the nativity.  This card's collage is reworked from a previous one I did for a decorated envelope in the Christmas Countdown blog series last year . 

 Today's card is a stitched paper collage with an Australian  postage stamp from Christmas 1977 . This  this card was repurposed from an envelope collage I made in last year's  Advent  project.  Link to 2020 Christmas Countdown Happy Surfing, Santa! 

 For this year's Christmas Countdown , I will post a handmade Christmas card each day of Advent ...  The first Christmas card of 2021 is a fabric collaged card featuring a Christmas postage stamp from the 2007 collection. 

 These days, I am always late to the Tag Tuesday party, but here are my offerings for the  current theme. NUMBERS . I have interpreted this theme fairly loosely....  in the above collaged tag,  there are very small numbers on the green paper section, which is part of an old map, so the numbers are reference points.  I am also counting the numbers on the postage stamp.  And likewise for the other two ...and I am sure you also  spotted 8 on the one below.   While I was creating these, I was thinking of other ways to interpret this theme, and I just couldn't stop remembering one of my favourite TV shows....  how would you have interpreted NUMBERS?