My Art - Cardmaking serendipity

Another serendipity collage card!! For the cardmaking class I created black & white collages with just one more colour - silver, gold and tan. It is nice to use textured cardstock with these collages!! You can refer back up a couple of cards for more information on the collages and the cards!!

Create some art today!!

Therese

My Art - Cardmaking - fishy!!

This is the most fun card I have made in quite a while! It uses a little ziploc with a bit of hair gel in it to create a window that looks like it has water in it. I just folded back a flap on the front where I captured my little ziploc after I punched a circle for the window. I stamped the little fish inside the card so it would show through the window!!

I got the idea for the gel card off of splitcoast

www.splitcoaststampers.com

They recommend padding the card when you mail it and also maybe not mailing it until after the freezing temperatures are over!! The decorative paper is gift wrap!! So fun!!

Therese

My Art - Cardmaking Triptych

This is another relatively easy card that can be made in any colour for any occasion!! This one features nice soft colours that are great for Spring!! I used scrapbooking paper and created my own 3D embellishment using a plastic butterfly charm, some embossed metal and a scallop punch!! I used a strip of cardstock across the cards but you could easily use ribbon instead.

Therese

My Art - Cardmaking with Wallies

Hey! The next time you are strolling through the home improvment store with time on your hands check out the wallpaper aisle see if you can find some of these Wallies. They are small little wallpaper accents!! Very cool!!

These were the perfect size for the front of a card so I just added a colour printed embossed vellum greeting and a die cut flower!!

Easy peasy!! You might even surprise your partner by offering to come along when he's planning a trip to buy "stuff" and buy some of your own!!

Therese

My Art - Zentangle Monograms

This past week I created Zentangle monograms with my students!! Another very cool way to incorporate your personal art into your cardmaking!! I laser printed some large letters in outline on coated paper and they used fine tip Sharpie markers to fill in the shapes with their own fun doodling! They made several and then choose one that would be featured on their monogram cards in the next class!! They looked great and the students were happy to have their art on their cards!! I scanned their art, reduced them to fit in the space and printed them. The monograms were layered onto black then a colour!!

These are the ones I made!!

Therese

My Art -

I know that Valentine's has been and gone!! I did get my card made in just the nick of time for our Valentine's celebration! We have started the tradition of cooking a meal together for Valentine's. Always a great way to spend time together and eat good food. We went out and bought some really special ingredients and had a great meal!!
My card features a heart background in gold on the red card front. I layered on some stamped vellum and my greeting stamped in red on white cardstock. I created the accent using several punched circles and a red felt heart ( $1 store). The gold layer is actually gold foil (tea liner) glued to cardstock and then embossed with my Cuttlebug!! It was so great to have this cool metal accent!! I used hot glue to adhere the layers so that they would be well stuck to each other and I would not lose the texture of the embossing. Totally fun!!

Saving the foil lids from dips and yogurt, etc and using them to create metal accents for your cardmaking using the embossing folders and punches is a great way to save $$ for rubber!!

Therese

My Art - Serendipity cards

Was teaching some students last week and thought I would get them started with collage art! We created serendipity collages for card making!! The students enjoyed creating their collages with scraps of paper and were very happy to see how cool their cards looked using their own art. We used a variety of accents with a layer to really show off the mini works of art!! Some added greetings using embossing powder!! To the uninitiated, that is always a huge wow!!

For those of you who may not be familiar with serendipity collage it is very easy and can be done in several different ways. In this case, we used scraps of paper in several coordinating colours. These ones used blues and golds. They were all different - teal, green, reds, purples, etc. Using a quarter sheet of cardstock - can be a rejected card, a commercial card, a poorly stamped image or just junk mail - just glue ripped pieces onto to it until it is completely covered. We used pieces about 3/4" - 1" so when we cut our collage we would still see a good amount of different pieces!!

We cut our quarter sheet into four pieces - in half one way and then those in half again. The little collages were layered onto coordinating paper - in this case gold gift wrap - and glued to the front of the card. If you want to add a greeting using embossing powder it is best to do that before you glue your collage to the front. The 3D embellishments varied from metal charms to layered accents which I created with punches and some fun accents!!

This is a great technique for creating a set of cards which can be given as gifts by just varying the accent and greetings!!

Therese

My Art - housewarming card

I created this card for a friend of mine who just bought her first house! They are excited about it and looking forward to moving in and having their family and friends over!! I thought this card would work very well as an invitation for a housewarming party! She thought it was a great idea!!
The house image is one I found on the internet. I printed it onto ivory cardstock, trimmed it, distressed the edge and layered it onto brown. The words are printed right onto the card. I stamped the card to get a bit of an antique look. The keys are printed on transparency, cut out and added to the card front with a brad.
The house could easily be chalked or lightly coloured to add a bit of dimension to the card.

Therese

My art - fat book mingle page

A fat book mingle page! This is the final installment for this mingle! I created two similar looking pages - one in red and one in pink! I will be sending both of them out to the recipients tomorrow!!
I used vintage clipart (The Lady's Closet) I dowloaded from the internet and laser printed. The backgrounds I created using modge podge and tissue papers!! I filled my large L with a lacy background texture which did not show up quite as much as I thought it would. I added a sticker to the front to finish it off. I used a sanded (on the back) transparency of a rose on the other side which I applied with modge podge just to see how it would work. Very reasonably!! I added colour to the back - the sanded side - of the transparency with Memories ink and I like how it turned out!! Added a stitched line to the edge of the transparency with Sharpie marker.
I have really enjoyed being part of this monthly mingle and am looking forward to other monthly projects to keep me making art.

Therese

My Art - Postage book

My postage box with a new book for storing my correspondence items like stamps, return address labels, etc.

Since forever my items for correspondence have been living in a ziploc bag on my desk. Not attractive but close enough to be handy. A few weeks ago I was planning on making mini books with my stamping friends so I decided that a book to hold my stamps, etc would my project. When I dumped the ziploc I also found a glue stick and whiteout in there and thought that was a necessary part of my correspondence items but they would not fit in a book. Then, I remembered that I had bought this gorgeous box about a year ago that would probably be the perfect container for all of these items. Yeah! It was perfect!! I tailored the size and colours of my book to the box allowing room for the glue stick and white out to fit beside it. Worked wonderfully!! I have pages with pockets in my book that hold all the things that I need. To close it up, I just tuck the back flap under the scallop and it keeps everything where it needs to be.

I am very happy with my new little book and its new home - this great box! It looks much nicer on my desk than the ziploc used to and everything is handy. I did rid myself of quite a bit of "stuff" that had accumulated in the bag and really just needed to be thrown out. Because the box will only hold a slight bit of extra "stuff" there will be much less temptation to store unneeded items.

One of the very first projects I made for me!

Therese