Cardmaking - January - Old car

A card suitable for any guy and for almost any occasion!! The decorative paper is gift wrap I bought a few years ago. I will be sad when it is all gone because it makes really nice guy cards!! Will have to keep my eyes open for something similar in my travels! In the past, I have used stamped images of old cars with this paper. I was cruising several font sites the other day and came across this font called - OLD CARS! Downloaded it and printed a few of them onto transparencies for this card. Worked like a darn!! I used a circle of colourful cardstock to highlight the car and make it pop from the background. They are attached using double sided tape behind the brown strip!! The greeting could easily have been added to the brown strip but I decided on a tag instead! I stippled it with brown ink and added colour to the edges to make it pop a bit!!

It would seem that I have a bit of a theme of "use what you have" and "make it yourself" in my cards this month which was not intentional. It is a good practice to make use of the "stuff" you already have!!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Therese

Cardmaking - January - A forest

Had a totally blasty time creating backgrounds for this card!! I hauled out my stamp pad reinkers, rubbing alcohol, felts & wooden block that I use for "polished stone" technique. I used coated copy paper instead of glossy cardstock! I cut the paper into quarter sheets and did individual little pieces of art. The reinkers I used are the really OLD ones for office stamp pads!! The rubbing alcohol worked really well for dispersing the inks and I made a whole bunch of cool backgrounds.

I overstamped them all with this image of a forest from Applalachian Arts Stamps which I have had for many years and just finally inked!! Because they were all different colours I used several different colours to overstamp the image. Amazingly, once stamped the backgrounds looked so great and appropriate!! I punched the card front with my corner slot punch on the the two bottom corners and trimmed my image to fit inside the slots. The greeting is printed on transparency and just placed between the slots and the image. I added a strip of cardstock behind the greeting to highlight it.

Take some time to create a bunch of backgrounds with the supplies you already have!! When you create your own background paper your cards and creations have a bit more of your touch in them!!

Therese

Cardmaking - January - Hearts

I cased this idea from someone on Splitcoast. I printed the black circles/dots right on the cardstock and created the b&w designer paper in a layout program (Corel Draw). I created long skinny rectangles filled with black, white & grays and printed it on my laser!! Too easy!! The hearts are cut from a Sizzix die I got for Christmas from one of my sisters! Yeah for getting crafty stuff for Christmas!! I cut two different red cardstock hearts sets and then mixed them up!! I like the little play on texture with two different red colours.
This was my effort for those who might be needing a Valentine's card for next month!! Would also be good for a wedding or anniversary! I created some with pink hearts as well which would be also appropriate for girl friends!!

I challenge you to create some of your own art supplies! My sister has created several different designer papers to suit her projects and colour printed them!! You are capable!!

Therese

Cardmaking - January - calendar flower

January cardmaking was last night!! It was a great night and we had fun making cards with a few new people!!

This card uses a calendar page!! We have all started replacing our 2008 calendars and are often loathe to recycle them because the photos are so nice. Consider reusing them in your art!! You can use them as backgrounds or the base for any background technique or collage, cut them up and use as design elements in your art, rip them up and use them as layers in your collage work, etc.

In this case, I stamped the petal image on calendar pages of landscapes and then embossed them with black embossing powder!! These photographs had sky, mountains, water, tree lines, meadows that were similarly coloured and worked well for this technique. I used any yellow and green to create the centers and the stems. We cut out the petals and created flowers which we layered onto the Cuttlebug embossed backgrounds. This was layered onto a coordinating cardstock. The greetings were either stamped & embossed on vellum or laser printed vellum. We attached them to the card fronts with black diamond brads.
Consider stamping any sort of image onto any glossy page - calendar, magazine, junk mail, etc. You will find that there are a lot of free supplies that you can use in your art just around your house!! Challenge yourself to some GREEN ART today!!

Therese

My Art - Thank you cards!

My Thank you cards for the holidays!! I used the finger painting art I made over the holidays with my grand daughter for the main element. Added a complimentary cardstock below and sewed on an embossed colour printed vellum greeting! They needed just a bit of something else so I added some silk flowers with a brad!! Really like the way they turned out!!

I am so looking forward to sharing my love of creating with my grand daughter - all of my grandchildren actually. We have another on the way!! My other daughter is expecting for the end of February!! Yeah!! I just know that there are a few more yet to come!!
I hope you are back to the routine of your life and feeling grateful for all that you received over the holiday season. Be sure to express your gratitude to those who have blessed your life in any way!! I know there have been struggles as well but as a human being with free will you have the choice to focus on that which you choose. Even in the sea of a struggle you can choose to keep your eye on the beacon of light on shore! Remember, this too shall pass!!

Therese

Shared Art - finger painting!!

Finger painting with my granddaughter - 1.5 yrs!!

My daughter brought along paper and finger paints for us to share over Christmas - she is a great Mom!! My grand daughter was not too sure about just what to do with all this colour - she enjoyed squeezing the tubes and getting the colour on the paper - not quite as keen about getting her hands into it. We were using the tiled kitchen floor of the suite as our format. Maybe not the best choice for her! I noticed that the next morning at breakfast that she had the technique down pat with her juice on the table so next time we will have the luxury of being at home and using the table instead of the floor and I expect she will be much more interested in participating with her cute little hands.
So with LOTS of paint on the paper I decided it was worth taking a few minutes to create art!! This is what it looked like once I was done! I brought the artwork home with me and used it to create my holiday Thank you cards which you will see in the next post!!
Take time to create everyday - make background paper, do a little stamping, colour stamped images, take a photo or two, create a card, ATC, inchies, etc, do some scrapbooking, read a few magazines, etc. Whatever is your fun activity - quilting, felting, painting, drawing, cooking, etc - Just do it!!

Therese

My art - 2009 calendar!!

Happy New Year!! Many you all be blessed in 2009 with all that is good!!

I created a 2009 calendar for my kids as Christmas gifts!! Each page has a photo I have taken with a calendar page below. I created it 8.5x11 (double sided) because that is the format of the calendar program (Print Master) I was using. The pages were colour laser printed and then bound with my Zutter Bind it all!! The first binding was a little wonky but the others were much better!!

It was very fun to create the calendar but getting it to print was a bit more of a challenge. I am hoping to create another one next year so have already started thinking about what sort of photos I will need for it. Winter photos for December need to be taken now!! I do not have photos of all the pages! Needless to say, I was in a time crunch just before Christmas!!

A calendar is a really fun gift that can be personalized for each person! You can use all sorts of your art - cards, scrapbook pages, 3D and mixed media items, quilts, etc - whatever you are creating!! I think I will be seeking out another calendar program that has more options for sizes, etc.

Therese