More zentangle inchies

I whipped up a few of these for an inchie swap. It seems that there are two schools of thought on how to do zentangles. One group works the zentangle all the way to the border, and the other likes a white border around the zentangle. As you can see, I belong to the latter group. Yes, there is less on the "canvas", but to me it looks complete, rather than looking like it was cut off a larger piece.

I think inchies are really too small for good zentangles. I'm pretty disappointed with these. I like the ATC size better.

Petit eight ATCs

You may recall the petit four cards I made a few days ago - four cards from a single sheet of 12x12 cardstock. I was packing up some swaps this afternoon, and it occured to me that it would be nice to have a little notecard that I could stick in and ATC pocket along with the swaps, and suddenly my mathematical mind started calculating - I can get eight folded ATC-sized cards out of a single sheet of 12x12 cardstock. Thus, the Petit Eight!



I had this cardstock that was printed on one side and white on the other - perfect for a quick little note. I cut little bordering strips from scraps on my desk, and the focal images are inchies from my collection. I had eight little cards in no time, and they might technically qualify as technique ATCS to boot! Two birds with one stone!

Mini house card

One of my favorite digital stamps in my collection is this little house from Paper Popsicles. Oh, I know, it comes with a fence and I tree, but part of the fun of digital stamps is that you can change them up before you print them. For this card, I printed it and folded it on the roof line, then cut it to shape - you can see a hint of the back around the edges. This is the height and a little short of the width of an ATC - my thought is that I can use it to slip a little note in an empty pocket of an ATC page protector along with swaps.

The theme this week at What's the Scoop is All about Home; the challenge at Get Sketchy is to make a springy shaped card.

Art journal weekend

I didn't do much creatively, except work more in my art journal. Here's a little update (click to see full size):




I'm having problemes with the lettering, but I'm working on it. I should have realized that this would be a problem, trying to get the words to appear clearly over busy backgrounds like these.

Petit four cards

I often have to mail a single ATC or a small handful of inchies, and I like to nestle my art in a small, flat card, nothing too special. Today I made a bunch of them, using the Petit Four technique from the Technique Junkies newsletter. Basically, you cut four cards out of a 12x12 piece of cardstock, and score it in such a way that it makes a sort of gate fold.

I was looking through my designer paper, looking at the Easter prints, when I came across a sheet that had 4 potted plants across the bottom, and a soft print over the rest of the sheet. Papers like this are great for scrapbooking, but usually not so good for cards. It was double sided cardstock, so it wouldn't need much decoration, but how was I going to get the images on the outside right side up? I wasn't, and then it hit me that they would look great on the inside.

Here's my card, closed (3x6 inches). The only embellishment is an embossed butterfly, glued to the top fold.



This is how it looks with the bottom fold flipped open, so you can see the plant.


Cool, huh? I knocked out four of these in just a couple of minutes - perfect for holding my little artsy cards.

Patches minus the patch (and a few other things)

It's the beginning of the month, and the beginning of another wave of digital freebies from Designed2Delight. This week's gift is an image of a bunny in a sweater with easter eggs. I don't do easter cards, so I wasn't particularly enthused, but the rabbit is cute. I pulled the image into my Paint Shop Pro to see about removing the basket and eggs, and ended up removing a lot more than that. After I stripped the image down to a plain bunny in a plain shirt, I decided that the image looked a little... static. How to liven a static image? Moving parts!



I made him into an art doll, with moving limbs and ears, and I even added some googly eyes! This was a lot of fun to do, and not difficult at all. Oh, and the colors he is wearing are for the Sunflowers and Dragonflies challenge. He is also nice and Springy for Get Sketchy.

In case you are wondering about the size, here is my bunny folded up and put in an ATC sleeve.



If you want to learn how to make an art doll, there is a great tutorial at 2cre8art.

Gingersnap Anniversary

Gingersnap Creations is one of my favorite challenge blogs, for several reasons. one, You always get a month to complete each challenge. Two, they have different kinds of challenges, not just sketches all the time, and several challenges run concurrently. Third, they have great prizes that are winnable - I know because I've won once, back in December.

Now the GC blog is a year old, and they are giving away awesome candy, too good to ignore, and you don't even have to make a card to win it! Check it out!

EDIT

When I first posted this yesterday, I asked myself, "Why aren't you making a birthday card for this?" Then I asked myself, "Why aren't you making a card that fits a Gingersnap Creations Challenge?"

So, I did!



I'm submitting this for the GC favorite color challenge - There are more than three of my favorite colors here, because I'm using the Fruity Fusion paper, and it has one of the most fun color palettes there is! While I was in Challenge mode, I decided to use the layout sketch from CPS while I was at it. Now I feel much better!