Challenges:
- Crazy Amigo - crown
- Make My Monday - anything but a card
- Anything but a card - ATC
- Dream Valley - things with wings
- Pink Gem - going "green" (catalog pages)
Silly Bird
the altereddesigns yahoogroup has a monthly lottery, theme selected by the previous winner. For April, we were to make a work featuring a silly bird, whatever that is. I originally planned to go zetti, but I couldn't find my black or my white pens.
Except for the background, which is a scrap of Watered Crayon technique paper, everything else was cut from two pages of the JCrew catalog. I then doodled away with my glitter gel pens. Is it art? I don't know, but it is a silly ATC.
Challenges:
Challenges:
I woof you
Can you guess what this card is for?
It's a Mother's Day card from a furbaby.
Dog stamp is by Michael strong, and I used the Banner Card and Watered Crayons techniques from the TJ newsletter. The sentiment is from my computer; I love the handwriting fonts at Fonts for Peas, especially the ones I can color!
Challenges:
Dog stamp is by Michael strong, and I used the Banner Card and Watered Crayons techniques from the TJ newsletter. The sentiment is from my computer; I love the handwriting fonts at Fonts for Peas, especially the ones I can color!
Challenges:
- ABC Challenges - Mother's Day
- Craftin Desert Divas - pun
- Craft your passion - text as focal point
- Paper Playtime - embossing
- The Squirrel and the Fox - furry friends
Rabbit with umbrella
When I bought the umbrella stamp set (all for love from a•muse studio), I knew I wanted to combine it with the the rabbit from a springtime day. There is something about the rabbit's paws that makes me want to have him hold stuff.
I started with a bit of painted paper - I thought the brush strokes looked like rain. The size is 3x5, which apparently is a normal swapping size. It was a little large for my rabbit and umbrella, so I used so slivers of white to frame it in a bit. Finally, my rabbit looked like he was floating in space, so I used my copics to color a background and shadow for him. Normal markers won't work on an acrylic painted surface, but alcohol markers will.
Challenges:
Challenges:
- Crafty Calendar - sunshine/showers
- My Creative Moments - weather
- Brown Sugar - bunnies
- Just Add Ink - fun background
- Cute Card Thursday - rain
Watered Crayons
It's a new technique at Technique Junkies - Watered Crayons. I thought I would try it with shades of green. The problem with making my own backgrounds is that I don't like covering them up with layers of images and matting; I want them to show. I decided I would try stamping directly on the background, but since it was such a rich deep color, I went ahead and embossed like crazy.
Challenges:
The grass is stamped with Tim Holtz distress ink and embossed with clear embossing powder; everything else is embossed with white.
TIP: when you have a lot of heat embossing, especially around a border, do one piece or side at a time to reduce the risk of smudging your embossing media. Work from the inside to the edges, and let cool between applications.All the stamps are from the snail&co set by a•muse studio.
Challenges:
- 2 Sisters - blue/green
- Addicted to CAS - flower
- My time to Craft - stitching
- Totally Gorjuss - embossing
- Top Tip Tuesday - tip
Bee Cup
The theme for the ATC mingle is "Eek, there's a bug in my house!" which really stumped me - I don't want to think about bugs in my house. However, I did remember that I had this old TAC stamp:
Not exactly an "eek" moment, but I like it. The "wallpaper" is some old Provocraft, the woodgrain paper is from a Tim Holtz stack, and the letters are diecut from Sizzix's Wingo Zingo alpha - possibly the best alpha die ever made. I used the Technique Junkies Layer Up and Penciled Markers techniques - it's not as simple as it looks. Is that a good thing?
Challenges:
Challenges:
- Art Impressions Stamps - layer up
- Dutch Dare - anything but a card
- Fab n Funky - 1 image, 2 patterned papers, 3 diecut letters
- Inky Impressions - punches/diecuts
- Celebrate the Occasion - Teacup
USA Banner
I know it's a little early for the patriotic stuff, but I am preparing to teach a workshop next month, and I hope to do some sort of patriotic banner. I thought I would do a brief test run on some of the elements, to get an idea of the time and skill involved and to test how annoying it would be to cut out letters by hand.
It turns out, that cutting out big letters is not that big a deal, even though I had to cut 2 for each pennant. The rosettes were easy - I found red and white striped paper at Michaels. I can get 3 repetitions of USA and 4 rosette pennants out of 5 sheets of cardstock, for a length of about 55 inches in under 2 hours. How cute would this be at a Memorial Day or Fourth of July barbecue?
Of course, this is the super simple version. With the right stamps and embellishments, this could be very artsy. I almost never use primary red and blue; who knows how long I've had this paper in my stash?
Challenges:
Of course, this is the super simple version. With the right stamps and embellishments, this could be very artsy. I almost never use primary red and blue; who knows how long I've had this paper in my stash?
Challenges:
- Die Cutting Divas - star (a•muse studio has an awesome set of stars)
- Creative Craft Challenges - red, white, and blue
- Use It Tuesday - Sticky (lots of glue in a rosette!)
- Unstampabelles - anything but a card
April Showers bring May Flowers
Trite, isn't it? But if you have a stamp of an umbrella and you don't know anyone having a baby or getting married, it's about the only theme you can do with it. This is an ATC.
I began by stamping the umbrella, then coloring it with glaze gellies which not only give a glossy embossed look, but resist ink. I used the clear glaze gelly pen to draw in the rain. I then burnished the image with distress inks. the flowers were all punched. I thought it needed a little black doodling to bring in the black from the umbrella.
April Showers Challenges:
April Showers Challenges:
Twinkling ATC
On the ATC_World yahoo group, we were discussing the virtues of Twinkling H2Os versus other paintable mica powders. Finally, one lady pointedly hinted to me that she would love a sample to see in real life. I generally avoid people who request cards outright without even an offer of a swap, but I am feeling benevolent in my old age - I have thousands of ATCs, and make them because I enjoy making them, and certainly not because I want to have more of them to store.
The thing that I love about twinks is that they are more like watercolor paints with a little sparkle to them than they are mica powder. You can't see the sparkle at all in this scan, just the pigment. You get the transparency and shading of a watercolor.
The tiny tag is resin, I think. I complimented another ATC maker a few years back on how cute a similar tag looked on one of her ATCs, and she sent me a packet. I love how cute they are, and how well they take ink. Unfortunately, I hate to use them, because I have no idea how to replace them. I shouldn't hoard my goodies, I know.
The bird image is from SweetStamps, and the kanji is from TAC.
Challenges:
The tiny tag is resin, I think. I complimented another ATC maker a few years back on how cute a similar tag looked on one of her ATCs, and she sent me a packet. I love how cute they are, and how well they take ink. Unfortunately, I hate to use them, because I have no idea how to replace them. I shouldn't hoard my goodies, I know.
The bird image is from SweetStamps, and the kanji is from TAC.
Challenges:
- SweetStamps - use 2 stamped images
- ATCs with Attitude - sparkle
- Dilly Beans - pastel colors
- Simply Create Too - Shop your Stash (tag)
- Twisted Tuesday - animal plus flowers
Bees Twinchie
This is my first twinchie. I haven't made them before because I really don't know what to do with them, but at this point, I'm feeling that way about everything I make. the theme for this mingle is bees.
It probably is bigger here than in real life, but basically, I stamped the image on a piece of patterned paper that has an embossed glitter trim on it. I colored the image using the blended glitter technique in some places and markers in others. It looks quite sparkly in real life.
Challenges:
Challenges:
- Happy Campers - flower power
- Shopping our Stash - not normal paper
- Opus Gluei - pastels
Plane ATC
Planes, trains, and automobiles was the theme for an ATC mingle the altereddesigns group was having. I hadn't made any ATCs in a long while, so I thought I would give it a go.
Embossing, burnishing, tissue tape, punches, and doodling - iI felt pretty good about it, until I check the due date for the mingle - it was last Friday. Ouch!
Stamps are from Close To My Heart. There is a story about the airplane punch - I bought it on clearance at Michael's a few years back. I used it exactly once, for a small set of airplane inchies. I had even forgotten that I had it, until someone, googling around for an airplane punch (this one is discontinued), found my blog post about my inchies. She asked if I would be willing to sell it, so I decided that it needed some love more than it needed to stay at my house. However, my gut was telling me that if I got rid of the punch, I would surely need some little airplanes, so I punched out about a dozen before I boxed it up and mailed it to her. This is one of those dozen.
Challenges:
Stamps are from Close To My Heart. There is a story about the airplane punch - I bought it on clearance at Michael's a few years back. I used it exactly once, for a small set of airplane inchies. I had even forgotten that I had it, until someone, googling around for an airplane punch (this one is discontinued), found my blog post about my inchies. She asked if I would be willing to sell it, so I decided that it needed some love more than it needed to stay at my house. However, my gut was telling me that if I got rid of the punch, I would surely need some little airplanes, so I punched out about a dozen before I boxed it up and mailed it to her. This is one of those dozen.
Challenges:
- Papercraft Star - use a stamp
- Whimsical Designs - Embossing
- Oldie but a goodie - transport (airplane punchout)
- Party Time Tuesdays - anything but a card
- Cardmania - punches
not Renoir
At the altereddesigns yahoogroup, there is a challenge to make an arch with "Flowers Galore" the first thing that came to my mind (and probably everyone else's) was to make paper flowers and but them all around a focal point (probably a woman). I started experimenting with this idea, and everything I came up with just seemed uninspired. I looked at the few cards that had already been posted, and yes, they were exactly as I supposed they would be. I felt even less inspired, feeling like I was just making what everyone else was making.
I was looking through my Dover samples hoping for a different direction for this challenge, when I came across a coloring page based on a painting by Renoir (Dover has a lot of coloring books for grownups). I digitally altered them to fit the project parameters, then printed out several copies with the thought of doing some kind of decoupage, but after I looked at the prints, I realized it would be too fidgety for me to cut out. I ended up coloring it with the Penciled Twinks technique. The shimmer doesn't show in the scan.
So, basically, it is just a colored image, which is not what people in the altereddesigns group do. I suppose I could embellish it, but I'm not convinced it would make it better, just busier. it's a fairly complicated design to color, and my gut is telling me that it looks fine just the way it is. I just don't know if other people will like it as much as I do.
Colorwash sprays
One of my favorite things to do with bold image stamps is to use a resist technique. Here, I heat embossed the images with clear embossing powder, then sprayed with a colorwash spray. I used three images from the marvelous marigolds stamp set (a•muse studio) with three colors of spray to make 3 different papers.
after that, I went crazy with dies - dies for the curly white strips (more fun than ribbon!) and for the layers of the sentiment. there is a ton of texture here, considering what a very flat card this is.
Challenges:
Challenges:
- Bloggers Challenge - backgrounds
- Card Makin' Mamas - no DP
- Creative Moments - Things with Wings
- Flutterby Wednesdays - flowers
- The Perfect Sentiment - thinking of you
Techniques for roses
I have recently come into two different rose silhouette stamps - the wild rose from a•muse studio, and this rose from Sweetstamps. To be honest, I probably have dozens of roses in my stamp collection. They are my favorite flower to stamp. However, these are my first rose silhouettes, and I am excited to be able to use some different techniques with my roses.
This technique is called Copic Colored Embossing. Some places refer to it as Black Magic, but since Black Magic is now a type of paper (black paper with a colored core, part of the Coredinations line), I'm not calling it that.
It's a very simple card layout. I tried various embellishments, but ultimately I thought the image was too pretty to cover up. I can probably sneak a sentiment into the lower left corner if I need one. The framing element is a Nellie Snellen die. it is actually a square die, but I cut 2 and pieced them together.
Challenges:
This technique is called Copic Colored Embossing. Some places refer to it as Black Magic, but since Black Magic is now a type of paper (black paper with a colored core, part of the Coredinations line), I'm not calling it that.
Challenges:
- Addicted to Stamps and More - CAS
- Crafting for all Seasons - Floral Delight
- Rhedd and Rosies - Vintage
- Deep Ocean - photo inspiration
- Lexi's Creations - dies
- SweetStamps - pastels
