My Art - Fat book page

Created this page for a friend of mine. I usually take a few days after the WAF to stay and play at her house!! As always it was really great to be at her house. She has a wonderful space for creating and does awesome art. You can check out her blog. She is a teacher and was back to school this week! I hope the little package I sent will cheer her once she is back from school and the gym!!

I printed a full sheet of beauty images onto a transparency. Cut out this one and used photo corners to attach to the page. I had to trim the corners because the backs can be seen through the image. Used glossy and stamped with an antique looking fabric image in a coordinating colour and added a purple ribbon with a heart charm.

We worked on cards as well. She was finding it hard to get back into cards after having mostly created altered art projects so we played with the Cuttlebug and she was very quickly back into the flow of cardmaking. We discovered that you can use the Cuttlebug embossing folders in her pasta machine - been in the upper cupboard for a while!! Nicely repurposed into her stamping studio and one of the settings will easily shred paper for making hanmade paper!!

She created this wonderful Asian book in our creative days!! Check it out!! She is on the Altered Pages design team and I think her little Asian Love Book turned out great!!

Therese

My Art - Fat book page mingle

I created this beauty page for the Yalpha mingle! I cut all sorts of images from my printed collage images and glued them tastefully to this letter B. Added another layered flower embellishment and some typewriter letter punchies to the back!! I am really liking these large letters!!

I create them in Corel Draw - use any design program - and then print them out. Create them with a white fill or no fill so you just get the outline then cut them out and embellish away!! It was fun digging through the stash to find images that worked and were the right size!!

Therese

My Art - Card exchange

These are my September cards for the card exchange I participate in! Each person sends two cards per month and over six months you get a nice variety of cards in the mail on a regular basis! Nice to get mail!!

I used some junkmail decorative paper and a book page to create these two cards. I like the vintage feel of the papers so paired them with these very soft antiquy looking paper flowers! Added a large brad to the center to attach them to the card front. Used a white gel pen to write the greetings and then used a bit of watercolour to tone them down once they were dry. I am really happy with the way these cards worked out!!

Therese

My Art - card for god daughter

My god daughter will be eight next week and I made this cute little card for her!! I love that little bird and it seemed to go so well with this paper! I layered several flowers - some silk, some cardstock to create my flower embellishment!

I have discovered a new blog that has card maps called "A Sheet Load of Cards". Check them out! Great for anytime you are feeling lost of ideas and need to get some cards fast!!

Therese

My Art - Believe Mingle

This is my Yalpha mingle for August. We are featuring large letters in our mingles so I made one that was 4x4! I watercoloured it and stamped on some inspirational words. The little punched letters (typewriter letters and a half inch punch) were added with dimensionals so they pop!! I added in handwriting some quotes to the outside and inside of the letter. You can purchase a sheet of typewriter letters at my Mixed Media Market.

Always fun to make up these little pages. Starting to have quite a little collection myself which need to be bound!

Therese

MM - new product and WAF

I have been away from my blog for too long!! Time flies.

I made these products for the Women's Art Festival in Kingston and for the Merchants Mill.

At the top, a photo album/scrapbook. These albums hold 4x6 photos but will also take 4x6 index cards if you choose to use it as a scrapbook! I made several and thought they would be nice for a special event like an anniversary party or a shower. Would be perfect for a short trip or for someone to record there first time to summer camp. The covers were all hand decorated papers as were most of the spines! Each one has a little embellishment on the front.

On the right you can see the Scrabble tiles! I made necklaces with them by drilling a hole and inserting an eye screw and adding a waxed cording that was adjustable. I altered some of them with little images to make them more versatile.

Made the tile photo holders and magnets with the 2x2 marble tiles. They were really fun to make and I tried to make them all different. I also made more marble coasters with old fashioned cars, cardinals, sailboats and loons on them.
The Merchants Mill closed on Sunday of the Labour Day weekend and will reopen on October 24th which is the weekend of their village festival called Haunting in the Hamlet. A great day for both adults and kids with lots of activities planned. I will be working on product for Christmas to be ready for the reopening!!

Therese

My Art - ATCs for trading

These are the ATCs I made for trading at Stamp Fest on Saturday!! It was a great day and a carload of us went to Bancroft!! There were some terrific make and takes put on by the vendors - waterfall card by Stamp Barn, Positive-Negative card by Frogs Whiskers, glitter card by Stamplicity, watercolour card by Scrapbook Moment and more, tags by Stamp Cellar, angelina fiber by Class Acts, and several more that I cannot recall! The crowd was not as large a usual which made it great for shopping! We all got some goodies and then did another round before we headed home in early afternoon. There were not many who had ATCs for trading - thanks to Dyke, Marilyn and Susan. I got some neat ones in return. I had also took some of my ATCs from previous years in case the demand was high so a few of those were traded away as well.

So if anyone is interested in trading 1 for 1 ATCs please send me an email (under profile) and we can set up a swap!! Counting across then down #3 and #6 are no longer available.

It was fun making these. Started with a blue leather paper I created a while back (acrylic paint on cardstock, glue on tissue paper and then paint on more acrylic paint) onto which I layered paste paper dresses in yellow (one pink one). I colour printed heads from various copyright free images I have and layered those on the top. For some I layered fiber arms behind the dress, for others I just added arms on the sides. It was great fun!!

Here are the few extras I brought along for trading from past years. Counting across then down #2, & #4 are no longer available.




Therese

My Art - Mingle page

July's mingle page!! Used blue colour printed cardstock as a base and added a strip of sheet music, a large letter "b" printed on acetate and a little red heart with a black brad. I stamped the background with a music stamp then stamped "BLUES" with individual alphabet stamps from Fontwerks. I handwrote in white gel marker several blues that came to mind like blue skies, blue birds, etc on the back and added some blue stars. I glued the bottom edge when I assembled it so that I could add a tag. The recipient will be able to add their own favorite blues to the tag!! Really happy with the way this one worked out!

Therese

My Art - Heart card

This is the card I created for my husband for our anniversary!! I cut the heart with a Sizzix die in my Cuttlebug machine!! It was red cardstock and I glued on red with gold stars tissue paper and tucked all the edges to the back. Layered it onto sheet music that I ripped around the edges except for the right hand side. Added my handwritten greeting (gold gen pen on black handmade paper) below the heart.

A few days after I gave him the card he asked me if there was any significance to the fact that the music sheet was upside down!! There certainly wasn't any concious significance but who knows - it may have been well past my bedtime!!

Therese

MM - Brag book/ Photo albums - Mini scrapbooks

A few more of these cool little brag books which are made with name badges!! They make a cool gift for anyone who has children or grandchildren, had a special event like a birthday party or christening, taken a trip or vacation or even for a child who has been to camp or field trip!!

Have also made these mini scrapbooks using the same technique that have little pages that you can scrapbook on instead of the photo pages.





These are at the Merchants Mill!!

I will be there tomorrow, July 6th, doing a hanmdade paper demo as their featured artist for this week!
Therese

MM - Art on a string

I created a few more of these cool pendants for the Merchants Mill - a little boutique where I have some of my items for sale! I used paints instead of inks this time and like the look better. I also made the string piece so it would slide back and forth and afford the person who is wearing it the ability to adjust how long it would hang. Neat idea! Thanks, Alida for the suggestion!! The summer is just beginning and it will be open 6 days a week!! If you are in Central Ontario on holidays, come and check out this little gem of a place!! Great ice cream!!

Therese

These are metal washers that I have painted with arylic ink - used alcohol inks last time. The one on the right has decorative paper applied to it on both sides - in this case - polished stone.

My Art - Journal pages

My last set of journal pages for our Altered Journal project!! Ancient Architecture was the theme and I chose to do a page on ancient bridges in China! I used a new to me technique which I am not sure has a name. You paste down your image and then paint the edges to include them into your background. I stamped the blue cardstock with Chinese characters and then pasted down some pieces torn from a Chinese newspaper and watercoloured over them. After I pasted my colour printed images down I added more watercolour to the page to incorporate the images into the page. I expect that the transparency of the watercolour made it not the most effective medium but I liked the results! I added Chinese in die cut letters and Bridges was colour printed. I colour washed over it so it would blend with the page. It has been a fun project!! I have one more set of sheets to arrive before I can bind all of mine together into a journal.

Cardstock for sale!!

I have returned from Ohio with some new cardstock!! I have it listed on my spare blog so you can check it out here:

http://www.tmalakrsc.blogspot.com/

Several colours are already gone but there is some Vintage Christmas, Autumn, Spring and Summer left along with a few other collections!! Click on the links on the right hand side for quick access to the scans!

To email me click on my profile!!

Have a great day!!

Therese

My Art - Cardmaking - window

This card features a window on the front that highlights part of the inside image!! It takes a bit of figuring out and working in a certain order to get everything lined up but effective once you are done.
This is a card that fits in the #8 envelopes. The front flap is white cardstock layered with colour printed decorative paper which has the window. Once you lift this flap you see the coloured flower image which is glued to the bottom flap. Once your flip open the bottom flap you see the insert on the inside! A bit complicated!! I started by gluing the white flap to the top of the coloured card. Next coloured the stamped image and glued it to the bottom flap ensuring it did not show once the front flap was folded down. It sticks up beyond the edge of the bottom flap. With the front flap folded into place sneak it up a bit and see where you want to cut your window to see the little flower on your coloured image. I used a 1" punch to make the window but you could just cut it out. If you glue your decorative paper in place before you cut your window you will not have a white frame around it. To get a white frame on your window cut your white cardstock first and then trace the window onto the back of your decorative paper and trim it just a bit larger. Either way works well. Then you just need to add your single sheet insert to the inside!

It is good to try out new things - a card design, ethnic food, etc!! Makes life interesting!!

Have a great day!

Therese

My Art - Cardmaking - Pop up

Pop up cards!! Have never made one of these before though have wanted to for quite a while!! They are fairly easy!! The card front has a layer of decorative paper (colour printed), a ribbon through a slot with shorter ones tied on and an accent on the lower right corner. I made several different ones and the accents are different on all of them. The pop up insert is made of cardstock cut just a little smaller than the card. To create the little pop up step make two cuts into the spine of the insert about 3/4" deep and 3/4" apart in the middle of the insert. Push the popup to the inside of the insert and fold gently to get the edges of the pop up folded. Your insert should look like the lower right hand image. Once you have created your pop up just glue your layered greeting to the front of it and then fold the card shut. This ensures that the card will fold properly with your greeting in place. For those of you with kits, you will have a piece of cardstock in your kit with a small P on it. That is the pop up you would use if the inside of your card is not messy with ribbon and so on!! You can make a pop up step with just a small strip of cardstock and glue that to the inside of your card and add your pop up element. It works best with light coloured cardstock where you can write on the inside of the card. You could have more than one pop up on the inside and so on!! The pop up greeting adds a nice touch to the card! You can put anything in the pop up just make sure you test it before you glue to make sure it does not stick outside the card!!

My Art - Cardmaking - roses tissue

I love the colours of this card!! Here I stamped the leaf stamp on white in black Memories and then watercoloured it. I trimmed off one of the end images so it would fit on the pink layer which I distressed. Layered that on the green which I also distressed.
The background it created similar to the faux silk technique - crumple the tissue and open up. After sort of fitting it on the card front apply glue and layer your tissue paper over it leaving some wrinkles and texture! Trim off any that overlaps the edges. I have a box of tissue paper and I do not want to tell you how long I have been carrying this one around!!!!! I glued the accent to the card front,added the window punchie with a brad and simply folded the other end to the inside of the card. I added a bit of green stippling to the edges with my stipple stamp and a green ink. This card design could be changed up using different supplies for just about any occasion.

My Art - Cardmaking - sunflower

A quick and simple card featuring a new sunflower stamp!! I used the SU Sanded background stamp with navy ink on the yellow cardstock. Reminds me of the Basic Gray papers!! The sunflower is coloured with watercolours and then mounted to a rectangle of navy which has been distressed. This is mounted over the fiber using 3D foam tape! The greeting is stamped in navy ink on the left hand corner.

Therese

My Art - Cardmaking - slider

Just had my last cardmaking session for the next few months!! It would seem that I chose some more complicated cards! I was just trying to do something different!
This card hides its colour!! When you pull the fiber (it should have been on the right hand side to make the pulling easier but that's what happens when you are talking instead of paying attention!!) the tag is removed to reveal the colour beneath!!
The main element of the card consists of a frame which has stitching around the opening, an acetate with an image stamped on it and then a layer of coloured paper. These are taped to each other in order and the tag with the fiber fits between the acetate and the decorative paper. This whole accent is then attached to the card front with four brads. I used glossy paper, a spectrum pad and a brayer to create the decorative paper so it would simulate a nice landscape. Used a punch to create a little recess for the fiber on the tag. Really like the way this one turned out. The tag could also reveal a greeting!!

Therese

My Art - fat book mingle page

Here is the fat book mingle page I made for June!! Started with another scrap of that great watercolour paper!! Added a transparency with a large C on it using gold photo corners leaving a margin on the left for binding. I added "olour" with Letraset rub on letters from many moons ago!! I added the words "Why does ...sing?" with a fine tip marker right on the watercolour paper. On the back of the page I added a layer of "Caught in crystal" which uses a piece of acetate covered with ink or paint onto which you lay some tissue paper. In this case I used acrylic paints for good effect. I used a fine Sharpie to add the verse and then my info!! I am enjoying the alpha mingle and am trying to work in art supplies I have on hand.

Therese

My Art - tip in pages for journal

Finally got this one off the camera! The theme for these 9x12 pages was nature. I usally do nature themes in greens and browns so decided to think outside the box and worked with pink and blue this time. Worked out well. I started by choosing the vellum quotes and collaged papers all around them. I added some layered calendar pages for more visual interest and a few 3D items for more texture. I did do a bit of stenciling on the right hand page as well. It was fun to dig through my collection of collage "stuff" to find pieces that worked with the colour and nature theme.
Thanks for checking out my art!!

Therese