Cardmaking - March - embossing

Another great session of cardmaking last night!! It is always great to be spending time creating with like minded people!! Does me good!!
A card that features embossing!! The background is created with the Script embossing folder (CB) which is trimmed to the edge of the embossed design and layered onto coloured cardstock. The central image is dry embossed using a stylus, brass stencil and a light table!! I used chalk to highlight the image. The frame around this rectangle was created by embossing a nestability rectangle. First time doing it and it works wonderfully. You need a silicon mat to emboss with the nesties which pushes the paper into the blank areas. You can do the same with stencils (brass or otherwise) or texture plates!! Layered the image onto another rectangle of colour and added a tied ribbon with a glue dot.

Fun to revisit techniques that I haven't used in a while!! Certainly do like the embossed look and the embossing folders make that so easy!!

Therese

Masculine Cards

Started off creating a card for my card club exchange which needed to feature some of the paper I brought back from London so decided to combine that with the masculine card challenge on Crazy 4 Challenges. Here is what I managed to create!! I decided to make more than one because it is nice to have some on hand.
I used this really nice kraft paper which is printed with black glossy round images! My favorite of the papers I brought back. I embossed in black embossing powder the images I stamped so they would coordinate with the paper. I cut out the images with my circle cutter, added some doodling to the edges with black sharpie and cut black circles to layer them onto. Used eyelets, fiber and printed greetings on a few of them. The others I stamped with bleach on the black to get the warm brown lettering!! Very cool!!
One morning! Five cards using the same supplies but all different!! Success!!!

Therese

Card with colour and texture

A friend of mine asked if I would create a birthday card for her visually impaired aunt. She recommended bright colours and texture. This is the card I created. It features layered felt flowers with leaves on a textured scallop (CB) with an embossed butterfly and tied double layered ribbon over an embossed (CB) layer mounted to the card front. Lots going on here and I hope it has enough texture to be interesting to her aunt.
It was fun to see how much texture I could incorporate without having the card feel overdone. It was a fine line but I think I managed to keep the card from feeling overdone.
Thermally embossed the inside with Happy Birthday to another tactile dimension to the card.

Always up to for a challenge!!

Therese

Chunky Art Book - back cover

Same wax resist paper featured on the front cover which was also enhanced with watercolour once it was applied to the back cover to give it more definition and feature the flower more prominently. No other embellishments necessary!! Added the flower charm with pink and teal fiber!!

And that is my Chunky Art Book!!

I hope you are inspired to create art!! Just get creative and share it us!!

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 13 - snow scene

Stamped background paper, border punched and watercoloured strip, punchies, watercoloured image and word.

The charm on this page coordinates nicely but its words are quite faint due to using a failing Sharpie to write the words.

Added a little pin pricking to the decorative strip and some dots around the image in both black and white.

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 12 - quote

Watercolour washed background paper, quote, border punched layered cardstock strip, doodled border and swirls,die cut heart and teal rhinestones.

Lots of doodling on this page in both black and white!!

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 11 - flower garden

Colour washed background paper in black tones, coloured transparent die cut flower, doodled garden, red scrapbook paper border, red glittered die cut heart and word sticker. Added a doodled border as well. The punchies were added to the coloured die cut flower - one in the front and one in the back, attached with a brad. This gives it a place to put the 3D foam tape to mount it to the page.

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 10 - embossed heart

Colourwashed background paper, doodled border, border punched strip with stamped images, embossed metal heart and word sticker.
Created the word stickers using the laser printer, word processor, Dymo font and labels. Fun to play with fonts!! This heart was not painted - liked the texture of it just the way it was so it stayed silver. The heart charm is added with red eyelash fiber.

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 9 - Nature

Finger painted background paper, embossed resist tissue decorative paper, doodled strip, watercoloured stamped flower image (SU) mounted with 3D foam tape and a little coloured word.

The colours on this page worked out so well - I was very happy - not often I use bright orange in anything!! K added some stippled doodles to the flower.

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 8 - butterfly

Wax resist and watercolour paper for background, embossed strip, punchie flower garden, coloured clear butterfly accent and a colour printed word!! Added a doodled border on this one too!! The transparent coloured butterfly was created in the same art session as the embossed metal ones and coloured with the same paint. A cute butterfly charm for this page. Added details to the flowers with black Sharpie marker. Butterfly mounted with 3D foam tape below its body which was coloured with a large Sharpie marker.

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 7 - Life

A music sheet stained with walnut ink as background, colour printed images of a window (stash) and door (mine) layered onto black, deckled edged strip, handwritten quote with highlighted letters and 3D punchie embellishment with a tag. I added a doodled border to this page as well.
I have a large collection of door images!!

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 6 - pouffy flower

Colour washed decorative paper for the background, a pouffy flower with leaves and strips, doodled border, a quote and flower confetti embellishment. The flower charm goes really well with this page. We created these pouffy flowers in one of our art sessions. Eight scallop punchies of colourful tissue paper layered and stapled onto a green cardstock scallop. Starting with the first one - each scallop is tightly scrunched to the middle. Add the leaves (cut from a SU five petal punchie) and fluff the petals - a cute little flower accent. The quote is another of my favorites - one of my own creations!!

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 5 - leaf

An alcohol ink background paper with doodled trees and birds, layered cardstock strip borders with doodled edges, watercoloured colour printed tag with quote and leaf charm layered on gold and black cardstock mounted with 3Dfoam tape!
The colour printing bled a little with the watercolour but in the end I really liked the effect. I added a bit of blue watercolour to the background paper to help it blend with the quote.
You can see the heart charm better on this page.

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 4 - glittered heart

A colour washed decorative paper in red tones, a Mary Engelbreit small calendar image with a doodled frame, a black decorative strip border embellished with white gel marker, a doodled accent strip and a red glittered heart mounted to a black square mounted to the page with 3D foam tape. This page features a red heart charm as well.

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 3 - angels

A colour washed background paper in black tones, a laser printed angel image layered onto red paste paper, embellished strips and a cute little tag with the angel quote and paper ribbon!! I added a doodled border all the way around with a black fine tipped Sharpie. The charm features a quote about art which is one of my favorites and is attached with some loopy fiber!

Therese

Chunky Art Book - # 2 - cultivate compassion

The background paper was one where white paint was added to a colour washed paper. The page features a metal embossed flower with a little red heart lady bug, a strip of layered cardstocks with a heart punchie and an embellished gold embossed quote. The embossed metal sunflower is mounted with 3D foam tape to keep it dimensional. I added dotted swirls with a Sharpie to just finish off the page once all the elements had been adhered.
One of our art sessions was spent creating embossed metal accents. I provided pieces of foil (the weight of pie plates) and they used pencils to emboss a design in the surface using folded newspaper for padding. Once finished, they were painted with "acrylic paint" using q-tips and left to dry over the weekend. I created the "paint" using acrylic finish and stamp pad reinkers - worked very much like those sold for painting suncatchers. I like using quotes and words in my layouts. Some of the students featured quotes on their pages - others used a combination of papers and elements to create their layouts.

Therese

Chunky Art Book - cover

My cover features a flowery decorative paper I created with the wax resist technique using an embossed plastic placemat and watercolour. I enhanced the paper with more watercolour after I glued it to my front cover. It defined the flower and added colour to the center and leaves. I added a simple cardstock ribbon to the front choosing to feature the decorative paper!! The charm I added to the front includes the date for future reference and is tied on with multi colour fiber.

Therese

My Chunky Art Book

I will now share with you my Chunky Art Book!!
I created it as an example for the students. Mine has 7 double sided pages - I reduced theirs to 5 pages. Once I started creating pages I realized they would not have the time to get all the pages done.
I used the same supplies for my book as I had provided the students to keep my creation within the realm of the possibilities that they had available to them. I found the challenge of limited supplies generally required more creativity to produce the sort of layouts I am used to. A very good exercise for me.

Therese

Creating a page

I am sure you can all relate to the little bit of space there is left on your work surface once you start creating! Here I am creating a page for my Chunky Art Book in about 6" square with a table full of "stuff" to choose from!!
It was a very fun project!!
I provided the students with a copius amount of papers, images, accents, embellishments, words and letters to augment the ones they had created in previous classes as they started creating their books. First of all, we glued decorative paper to both sides of the pages being sure not to cover the holes. All the pages were pressed for a weekend to give a nice flat surface. We coloured the spine and edges with black marker to give them a nice finished look. Then, the process of creation began!! Choosing elements, designing a layout, adding, rejecting pieces until both covers seemed finished. Gluing everything into place and making changes on the fly!! A reminder to organize pages and keep them all upright and properly aligned with each other was heeded by most. It took several days for the pages to be finished and even then, last minute items were added to finish them off!! We added the bindings and the Chunky art books were a reality. Once the pages were done we had a session of playing with shrink plastic to make the charms they would be using to decorate the spine of their chunky books!!
They were provided with blanks of Rough and Ready shrink plastic about 1.5"x 2" and reminded that the charms would shrink by about 60% so it was advisable to use most of the rectangle to create the charm. They used Sharpie markers on the smooth side to create their designs and pencil crayons on the rough side to colour them. Some used only coloured pencils to create their charms!! Once punched with a 1/4" hole for attaching, the students enjoyed using the heat guns to shrink their charms and watching "the dance" of the shrink plastic!! I added my charms between the pages on the top rung of my binding using colourful fibers. To help keep that rung of the binding closed so no charms are lost I applied double sided tape between it and the back of the spine. The students added their charms as they wished to their books.
The books are as individual as the students!!

Therese

Creating chipboard books

I have illlustrated the steps taken to create the chipboard books the students used as a base for their Chunky Art books!!

The chipboard started life as the backers of full year planning calendar which Santa brings me every year!! I cut them into strips and then into pages. The pages were then assembled into books and stacked. Each page of each book was punched using my GB Ceralox binding machine. The 3/4" black bindings were cut to size and added to complete each chipboard book!! They looked great and it was going to be perfect that the pages could removed and added to the bindings manually!! The pages are 4" x 5 1/4" or so!! I knew these pages were going to hold up to any sort of material or technique we were going to use in our books!!

Therese