Zentangle cards!

Our final day the students created these clean and simple cards with Zentangles they had created over the course of our art sessions. I think it is important that everyone know how to create cards for themselves using their own art! These are quick and easy - simply trimmed zentangles layered onto black and then onto a coloured square and mounted onto the embellished card using 3D foam tape. I provided word templates so they could trace greetings onto their cards using fine tipped Sharpie markers if they wished.

As always, I am delighted when students branch out and do their own thing with the supplies I provide and the techniques I teach them. I so do enjoy teaching and feel blessed that I get opportunities to do so!!

Thanks for dropping by!!

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - charm

I stamped some shrink plastic with this cool quote about art!! I do feel that art has a restorative effect on our lives - it certainly does in my life!! The students added colour with coloured pencils and shrunk the plastic to create these cool little charms which were tied to the binding of their books using fiber!!

The books were bound using large brads through a black spine cover which helped to neaten the look of the book and provide some stability to the handmade paper. The back of the spine was covered with a strip of black cardstock to hide the tang ends of the brads. Makes a nice looking binding and finishes off the book very nicely.

The students always love playing with shrink plastic so creating charms in one of our last sessions after our books were bound worked very nicely and gave them some time to play.

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - paper weaving

This page features a panel of woven handmade paper. I cut a piece of white cardstock 5"x5" and added double sided tape to each side. I did not remove the carrier from the tape right away. To start the weaving, the carrier was removed from one side and strips of handmade paper were placed side by side over it adhering them to the square. It was then fairly easy to weave strips into them using just a simple over and under pattern. Once the weaving covered all the white cardstock the carrier from the last three strips of double sided tape was removed and the paper weaving pressed into them to secure it. Any pieces overlapping the edges were trimmed, any ends that were flapping were glued down and the weaving was glued to the handmade paper sheet. Both the quote and the trimmed embossed handmade paper (from the first day) were coloured and layered onto the page overlapping the weaving and attached using brads.

I like this quote because it emphasizes that our life is the accumulation of days!! It seems more manageable to make changes in your life when you can start with making changes only for one day!!

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - patchwork

This quilt was fun and easy to do!! I cut quarter sheets of label and we laid strips of decorative paper down on the sticky side leaving space between all the pieces. Once the piece of label was completely covered we trimmed the decorative paper to its edge and sprinkled gold embossing powder on the front which was caught in all the places where the label's adhesive had been left exposed. A run under the heat gun and we had gold threads running through our patchwork!! They looked great!! We glued them to the handmade paper sheet, added our embellished quote by overlapping it onto the patchwork and attaching it with brads which nicely attached all the pieces together. The dragonfly die cut (cut from sheets made the first day) was stapled on and the black body part nicely covered the staples.

I chose this quote because as our lives get busy we need to be sure that time with friends is woven in into our days!!

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - metal embossing

This page features metal embossed flowers in a garden on some light blue handmade paper!! I die cut some silver foil (pie plate) into flowers shapes and we used pencils to draw designs using light pressure which embossed the metal. It is best to place the metal on a giving surface - in our case, we used folded newspaper which works really well. I added a flower garden using a black Sharpie and coloured the flowers and stems with chalk. Glued down the fence die cut (made longer by folding the cardstock in the same way I lengthened the film strip) and added the embellished quote with brads. The handmade paper butterfly die cut (cut from sheets made the first day) was embellished with chalk or pencil crayon and details were added using Sharpie markers. The butterfly was stapled to the background in its body area and the black body shape was glued over it nicely concealing the staples. The embossed metal flowers were embellished with yellow centers and attached to the page with brads.

We always have choice to make the best of the circumstances of our lives and bloom!!

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - colouring with paper

This page was fun because we used tissue paper to "colour" our page! It is cool to see the colours that are created as the tissue paper strips are glued down in an overlapping pattern. Each student cut out a house shape, added details using marker or gel pen, stapled it to their tissue paper background, coloured and trimmed their quote and added it with brads and finally glued on their embossed red hearts!! I laid my tissue paper strips to create a rainbow. Each student was provided with a variety of colourful paper strips to choose from so each background was somewhat different. One student glued hers vertically for a really different look!

Chose this quote as a reminder that when we choose to love it has a transformative effect in our lives!!

Choose to think, speak and act more lovingly today!!

Therese

Handmade Paper Art book - cover

The cover of our books!! Each student chose a set of four sheets of handmade paper for their covers. We used two sheets of handmade paper (5.5"x8.5") for each cover/book page which allowed the backs of our brads and staples to not show in our book. After adding our art/instructions to each sheet we glued it to its coordinating sheet to create our pages. We glued a small black circle over the edge of the joined sheets, punched a couple of holes and tied on some colourful fiber - a decorative element that was added for style & function!!

In our second art session we created Zentangle designs!! These nice bold letters (A, R, T) are a font printed with only the outline and perfect for filling with zentangles. It is wonderful that the student's personal work is so prominently featured on their books!

In the next session we glued our decorated letters behind the holes of this film strip die cut (SX). The die has only two holes in it, so to create a continuous strip for our letters I folded over one section of the black cardstock strip and placed the fold very close to the cutting edge of the die before passing it through my Big Kick - voila! - a film strip with three holes!! I gave them a large silver star die cut, a small round tag for the year and some brads to add them to the front cover.

The back cover features a small silver star punchie attached with a brad. They all added their "rock star" signature next to the stars!! It took a little practice to make sure that art was not placed on the binding edge and to keep the pages upright to each other but with a little vigilance on my part we managed reasonably well to have all the art and pages properly oriented.

This quote ended up on the inside of my back cover because we required a catch up day to ensure that everyone's pages were ready for binding at the same time which eliminated one of the pages I had planned and left this quote without a page of its own. I thought it important enough to insert into their books at some place or another!!

We all need to remember that the trajectory of our lives is affected by what we think, what we say and what we do. It is always best to choose these wisely!!

Therese

Handmade paper - small sheets & embossing

We made these handmade paper sheets the first day of my sessions with the students!! They made plain white sheets, embossed white sheets and, at the end, we added some blue pulp to make some coloured sheets!!!

The embossed sheets were created using "moulds" I created several years ago for creating paper casts. I used hot glue to trace a hand drawn image I had placed under small sheets of handiwipes - kitchen wash up cloths! Both sides are affected when creating the sheets - one side is embossed and the other is debossed (sorry I should have flipped one over so you could see the difference). I love the contrast and texture of these pages which are most effective using a solid colour plain paper pulp - I really like them in white!!

I always use waste paper for making handmade paper, so in this case, I used white paper/cardstock that had no printing or stamping on it. As I am creating, I always put my scraps that are plain white in a special container so I can use them to make these nice clear sheets of white paper!!

These were used later in the creation of our Handmade Paper Art books!!

Therese

Envelope book swap

On one of my groups we are having an envelope book swap!! I thought it was a great idea!! I choose to use the theme - from our house to yours - referring to the communication between families that is done through the postal system - we all love to get mail!!

I used walnut ink to distress my envelopes and added coffee cup stains to most of them!! Cool effect!! I created art on the front and the back and included fun stuff inside too!!

The front of the A2 sized envelope features a road stamped on the bottom using an unmounted distressed wheel (SU), a bare tree stamp (Applachian Arts), some mountains (Applachian Arts) and words stamped with my set of magnetic letter stamps (Making Memories) - all in dark brown ink (Memories Chalk). I used an old funky book, drew houses with a large black permanent marker on the pages and cut them out to embellish my envelopes. Colour printed the mail box onto label, cut it out to make a sticker and placed it by the road near the house. I stamped the little envelope on label as well and cut it out as well. I placed it near the top of the house and used a fine tip Sharpie marker to create a line of movement from the words to the mail box.

On the back of the envelope I stamped the unmounted wheel stamp of houses (SU) across the bottom edge and added a bit of colour with coloured pencils. I dug through my postage stamp collection looking for an appropriate postage stamp. Found enough of these that feature flags and were similar in colour to my mailbox so added that to my flap next to the my words along with a line of movement with a black Sharpie.

To the inside of the envelope I added a little petal envelope cut from brown paper embellished with french script (SU) that has postage stamps inside it. They all feature houses of some kind. I also included one of my 3D house ATC!!! These little ATCs actually can be unfolded and make a three dimensional house!! Very fun!!

I have mailed them off and am looking forward to the little stash of envelopes I will be getting back!! I will make myself some interesting covers and bind them all together using my Bind it All!!

I am starting to have a little collection of interesting art books that are all my creations!!

Therese

Vintage love letters postcard

This is my creation in response to a challenge to create a vintage love letter postcard. It was totally fun to put together but gathering the supplies took a bit of time. The background is colour printed - a vintage postcard with music on it - front and back. I downloaded them from Jack and Cat Curio - they have great art and occasionally some images for download - very cool stuff!! I downloaded the handwritten letter from a collage Flicker group where people upload stuff for sharing. The rose I downloaded from the internet - not sure where from.

I printed the postcard - front and back and glued it to cardstock and then colour washed the edges with walnut ink so it would look like it was only one piece. I colour washed the handwritten letter with walnut ink as well and then cut a piece the size I needed for my project, from it. The rose I colour printed and cut out close to the edges. I cut the little envelope using the petal card die (SU) from gold vellum which had heart swirls on it and put a vintage heart tag on the inside closing it off with a brown seal. It is a reuse item - can you guess where it came from - leave me a comment if you figure it out. The ribbon is brown vintage seam binding and I dug a gold heart embellishment from my metal stash. The postage stamps are used stamps I have collected along the way.

After preparing all of my elements I started laying them out and seeing how they all worked with each other. Once I had all the items laid out the way I wanted them I glued everything in place starting with the lower items and finally adding the seam binding and the metal heart!!

I love the way it came together!!!!

Therese

Pop UP Card

On one of my groups we were challenged to make a pop up card that featured flowers!! Wanting to be a little more creative, I did a search on Splitcoast Stampers for some inspiration!! After finding several interesting cards I came up with this design. It is somewhat like a Diorama card - you push in the sides and flatten the card before inserting it in the envelope and it pops when it is taken out.

I used my rectangle Nestibilities to cut the opening in the cardstock and the decorative paper. Love the way they cut perfectly!! I added a couple of five petal punchies (SU) to the front along with a little gold sequin flower and a laser printed greeting.

On the inside I added some decorative paper and two cardstock rectangles - one white and one red (cut out of the front). To the cardstock I mounted several layered silk flowers with a gold brad.

Very happy with the card!! It stands very nicely and looks so dimensional!!

Therese

Handmade paper!

Another stack of handmade paper!!

Over the last month and half I have been teaching art to high school students - we have been working on creating a handmade paper art book - one page and technique at a time!! The book pages are all handmade paper - hence a stack of handmade paper was needed!!

I love making paper though in this case I made paper that was a bit more subtle than usual because we were going to be adding our art to the pages and it worked better if the paper was not too busy.

Any size of paper scraps can be used for making paper and I am fortunate to have several Stampin UP demos who save the scraps from their workshops for me to reuse!! Stampin UP cardstock makes really nice handmade paper!!!

Therese

I am back!!

I am finally back to posting to my blog!! It has been a busy month with having the flu, teaching 2-3 classes a week and having a death in the family and therefore a trip out west!! I have been making art so I will be posting my creations over the next week or so!!

Therese