Card featuring a ighthouse postage stamp

I found this light house postage stamp and thought it would be great as a focal element on a card!!  I glued it to a light blue rectangle of blue cardstock which I had flagged on the bottom end.  I found several bits of ribbon that worked well with the image and adhered them to the right hand side of the rectangle.  I had another piece of that beautiful background paper which I received from my Secret Sister at Christmas so I layered my element on it and stitched all the way around and then decided to do around the postage stamp as well.  It seemed a bit stark so I used my stipple stamp (SU) and some light green ink to add a bit of texture to the piece.  I adhered this whole piece to the front of a white card.  I sponged the edges of a punched (SU) greeting and added it to the front using 3D foam tape.  I like how this card came together and the colour combinations as well.  I will certainly be using postage stamps in my creations again.  That was fun!!                 Therese

Card featuring a used postage stamp

I made a few cards lately featuring used postage stamps as their focal element.  This one features a round American stamp with the Earth on it.  It is a very cool stamp!!  I layered it on a green circle and then onto a dark blue circle which I cut with Nestabilities.  I still had a piece of this serendipity background so I decided to use it up.  I layered iot onto a medium blue card front and stitched it all the way around with white thread.  I mounted the postage stamp element to an orange rectangle and mounted it to my card using double sided tape.  I found a greeting in my stash that just fit nicely below it so I adhered that with double sided tape as well.  The ribbon I found in my stash as well - I trimmed one end into a flag and cut the other straight.  I glued both ends down with double sided tape and add three blue star brads in between.  Really like the colour combinations on this card!!

Therese

Another pink and green card!!

I am still working through those pink gingham announcements I found in a box labeled "to be sorted"a while back. For this card,  I punched the bottom edge with the scallop punch (SU) and then with the slot punch.  I applied double sided tape to the back of the slots and added green glitter (MS) to the front.  Nice and glittery!  I trimmed the quarter sheet to fit on a purple card and added a bit of stippling with coordinating ink.  I folded my ribbon and adhered it to the card front using double sided tape.  The collage image was adhered over the ribbon using 3D foam tape.  I like how well the wide ribbon covers the space on the card.  Therese

Hockey postage stamp on a birthday card

Another of the cards I made using used postage stamps.  I started with this stamp that features a hockey player and glued it to the top of a green rectangle.  I used a chevron punch (SU) to add the slots on the left hand side.  I found this background that was perfect to go with this image.  It was in the gift from my Secret Sister at Christmas.  Not sure what was used below but the surface looks like ti was thermally embossed after it was put through an embossing folder.  I trimmed this background, added a length of red vintage seam binding and stitched it to a light grey card capturing the seam binding in the process.  I added a vertical greeting to the side of my focal element, adhered it to my card front with a bit of double sided tape and then stitched all the way around with white thread.  It still needed "something" so I tied on a short length of seam binding to the right of my element and that was just enough texture and colour to finish off my card nicely.
Have you ever used old postage stamps in your art?  If so, post a link to your creation so we can all be inspired to give it a try!

Therese

Dinosaur card with serendipity background

Another grandson with a birthday!! He is into dinosaurs this year so I made him a card that features a brontosaurus. In his case, I chose a realistic image because he knows their names and what they look like!!  I downloaded the image from CLKER, added a greeting in COREL DRAW and laser printed it.  I watercoloured the image and layered it onto orange cardstock which I left long on the right hand side so I could punched it with the slot punch.  I added a coordinating ribbon and layered this element to my card front which features a piece of serendipity paper which I created a while back. The serendipity paper was such a good background for this dinosaur image!!

Therese

Train card

My oldest grandson is turning 6 and is wanting trains as part of his birthday celebration so I went looking for some train images.  I found these full colour ones on  CLKER !!  They are a good marriage between realistic and cute!!  I also found the landscape there which worked really well to create a background for my card.  I placed one on the left and flipped the next one horizontally and put it on the right.  Perfect!! I laser printed the greeting and the landscape in proper relation to each other and the train cars on the same piece of white cardstock.  I watercoloured the background and greeting and fussy cut the train cars and glued them between the two.  I added a length of black cording below the cars to create a connection between all the pieces like they would be in a real train.  I mounted this element to a blue card front and added three little hand cut puffy clouds which I sponged with blue and mounted with 3D foam tape!!!   I am really happy with how this card turned out!!!

Therese

Pink and green shabby chic card

Yet again, another card made from the pink gingham announcements that I unearthed from a "To be sorted" box!!  I changed it up a bit for this one.  I added a piece of black lace to the right hand side of a quarter sheet of the gingham announcement and added a collage image (designsbymikel) with a black hummingbird just inside the pink border.  I added a laser printed greeting (Pink Cat Studio) which I layered onto green on the lower right hand side and just above it a gold embossed butterfly image adhered with 3D foam tape.  After assembling the elements I thought it needed a bit of grunge so I used my stipple stamp (SU) and added some green stippling around the edges of the card.  That was better!!

Therese

Delicate pink and green cards

 I am in the process of using up some pink gingham announcements from a "To be sorted" box and here are a couple more cards I made.
For these two I simply folded the half sheet announcement in half to make a quarter sheet card.  I used a strip of white cardstock and punched one edge with a scalloped border punch (SU) and the other with the slot punch.  I found some pink ribbon that coordinated and added it to the slots before I used double sided tape to adhere it to the left hand side of the card.  For the top one I used a laser printed tulip image (CLKER). I watercoloured it and sponged the edges in green so it would show up nicely on the card front.  I slipped the left hand edge under the border and glued it in place.  I sponged an oval greeting (SU) with green and added it over the image using 3D foam tape.

For this card, I layered the image over a green backer and used chalks to colour it.  I added a scroll greeting (CLKER) which I chalked to coordinate with the card.

The little girl is a digital image from Lilac and Lavendar. I used this image on these cards as well.

Therese

Heart Art Quiltie for February

I am hosting another Art Quilitie mingle!! The theme for February is Heart - you just need to include a heart in your design any way you wish - fabric, stitching or embellishment.
I started by cutting a 5"x 5" piece of white on white quilting fabric and stamping words on it with my magnetic Making Memories alphabet stamps in "Soft Stone" Memories ink.  The words are the qualities of love - kind, patient, polite, joyous, calm, forgiving, etc. After that I stamped a beautiful LOVE (QF) in red after making a heart outline in pencil to ensure good placement.  I stitched pearl seed beads all along the heart outline, added a 4" batting to the back and sewed on all of my white and pearl buttons starting

with the one at the bottom and adding as I went.  When I got to the middle I added the little red heart button and kept going.   Once, I was finished, I added a five inch square of red fabric over the front, stitched around the edge with my sewing machine leaving a gap to allow me to turn it inside out.  Once it was right side out, I stitched up the gap and added blanket stitch all the way around the edge using white embroidery floss. Traditionally, the line of the blanket stitch is left on the outside edge, instead I stitched mine leaving the line about a quarter inch inside the outside edge giving it a different look.
I love the way it turned out!!  I added my credits to the back using iron on fabric labeling tape, hand lettered a quote with a fine tip sharpie and embellished the whote back area with white french knots.
It will be on its way to my partner by the end of the week.  You can check out the other art quilties I have made  - October, November and January.  I am hoping to continue to get participation so we will all have a good number of pages to sew up into a project.

Therese

Pink and green baby card

I am working on cleaning up my "To be sorted" boxes and in one of them I found a package of pink gingham announcement cards which I bought somewhere for a really good price knowing for sure that I would get some quick inspiration and in no time at all I would have a pile of cute cards.  It has been years and so far that has not happened so this week I thought I would see if I could get some cards made with them.
I started by cutting the half sheet down to quarter sheet and punching the non ginghamed edge with an eyelet border punch (SU).  I backed the edge with a strip of green layer  - two of my favorite colours together.  I found this laser printed vellum with a baby buggy in my image stash which worked very nicely so I trimmed it down to the right size and chalked the back to add colour. I positioned it on the card, punched two holes with my Cropadile and used vintage green seam binding to create an innie - outie bow.  I mounted this element to a white card front to finish it off.
I just remembered that I did use a few last year to create these cards.

Therese

Vintage looking Valentine's card for a special guy

I created this card for my DH for Valentine's!!  I started with a black quarter sheet of cardstock which I trimmed slightly to leave an even border all the way around. I stamped it with a flourish background (IO) and embossed it with red embossing powder.  It worked out great!!  I rubbed on a bit of gold mica powder to add a bit of depth to it and stitched it to the front of a kraft coloured card using black thread.  I added a red layer (ATC from my stash) that had a metal butterfly, some black stamping and a gold shimmer finish over which I mounted a square of serendipity background in reds and golds.  I created my focal element using a laser printed digital image of a heart with leaves (CLKER) which I trimmed and watercoloured.  Once it was dry I added some clear dimensional magic to the heart and berries.  Once that was dry I mounted it to my card using 3D foam tape.  I really like the vintage look in the red, white and black colour scheme!!

Therese

February card exchange cards with hearts

I made these two cards for my February Card Exchange.  I started with an alcohol ink background that I had stamped over with black ink.  It is on the top of the pile here. I added a few more images to fill it out and then cut it in half.  I layered each piece onto black cardstock and added a slim strip of black cardstock across the middle.  On the left hand card I also added a length of black 1/8" ribbon tied with one knot.  I created the hearts using scallopped die cuts I had received from my Secret Sister that were covered with Sookwang tape.  I added the little hearts in the center of the tape and applied red glitter to the rest of them.  That worked out very well.  I mounted them to the alcohol ink pieces using 3D foam tape.  I worked out my designs, stamped the red card fronts in black with a script stamp, added two quarters of a little white doily to each card and then mounted my main alcohol ink elements to my card fronts.  It was fun to create one portrait and one landscape!!  

Therese

Cards using transparent diecutsI

A few cards I made in the last week or so using die cuts that I received from my secret sister, Rena for Christmas.  Out of the collection she sent I used the cups and the large birdie with a cloud.
For the birdie card, I embossed a red frame and mounted it over my "grass" which was several layers of green die cuts which I had stamped a bit to provide some texture on a kraft card base.  I mounted the bird over the frame using a small piece of double sided tape and did the same for the little cloud.  I added a dyed piece of crochet thread across the top and mounted a round birdie greeting (Bird's Cards) over it using a mini brad.  I included a red sequin below the brad to embellish the greeting.  Afterwards, I added a bit of watercolour to the greeting because it seemed to "bright" compared to the rest of the card.
For the cup cards, I layered the cups on white using double sided tape, layered that onto a coordinating coloured cardstock and then laser printed a greeting on white card fronts and layered the cup elements just above  using 3D foam tape.  I really like the Clean and Simple look of these thank you cards.
It was fun to use these die cuts and I expect the others will show up in future cards.  Thanks, Rena.

Therese

Pink serendipity heart card

I found this pink serendipity heart in a "To be sorted" box this week and decided to just make a card with it right away!! The scalloped layer was with the heart so I just layered them.  I added a green embossed layer over a pink card front and added the wide pink ribbon that matched perfectly gluing the ends to the inside of the card. I added the heart element using 3D foam tape and lastly, added the laser printed greeting (CLKER) that I had trimmed closely and watercoloured.  Another one for the stash!!
I am seriously trying to keep my crafting area neat & clean and have set the goal of going through my boxes of "To be sorted" which have been sitting there for more than a year!!!  So far so good!!

Therese

Monoprinting using a gelatin plate

My sister was here this past weekend and we played with the gelatin printing plate that I bought a while back.  We hauled out all sorts of paint, marking tools, stencils and paper and got started.  We had watched a couple of online video tutorials earlier in the day and we quickly realized that it was not as easy as it looks!!  All in all, we were happy with most of our prints.  She managed enough pieces to use in her next card making class and I have several sheets of background paper which will be added to the stash and used in future projects.  We used old greeting cards, maps and brown paper as our substrates.  We used glaze and acrylic paints for colour and a variety of items as stencils to make marks in the paint before we made a print.
The plate I bought is made by Stampendous and is about a quarter inch thick.  It has a plastic protector on both surfaces.  We just peel off one of them before we started printing.  It worked reasonably well but I am wondering if the GelliArt plates work better because they are thicker and therefore a bit more flexible.  It is possible that our results were more about the paint we were using rather than the surface.  We will try it again and may have a better perspective then.
If you have not tried monoprinting, consider trying!!  It is a lot of fun. You do not need a gelli plate to mono print - you can easily use a white garbage bag or a silicon sheet on your kitchen counter as your plate.  I like the unique look of the papers that we created which I digitize for future use before I use them up!!

Therese

Studio improvements!!

I am fortunate to have a very capable and willing partner who this past week created for me a paper storage rack.  It was specifically designed to fit on the top of my file cabinet and arrived ready to go - paint and all!!  It reaches to the ceiling and features fifteen openings that will be used to hold all of my paper that is on rolls.  I previously had a 4 cube moving box up there laying on its side with all of my paper rolls in it.  It did the job reasonably well but it was hard to access the lower rolls because of the weight of everything that was piled on top of them.  This will work much better!!  I have emptied the box and there is now paper in each cubby hole but everything fit in and there is space to access all of the paper very nicely.  I did cook him a good meal in appreciation for his effort.

On the weekend, I also gained the benefit of some new lighting thanks to the same wonderful guy!!  He replaced four fluorescent bulbs in two fixtures with 14 tubes in four fixtures!!!  WOW!!  What a difference that made!!  They are now the T8 bulbs which are much more energy efficient and also provide more light.  It has made such a difference!!! I am grateful for his time and effort on my behalf!!

Therese

Journal page - Solace

I joined a Journal Page swap on one of my groups.  The theme for the year is Nature's Blessings and Solace is the theme for January!!  Solace is different for everyone but it does serves us well to know what comforts us because it allows us to go there first instead of spending time numbing or distracting ourselves when in fact we need to be loved and nurtured to feel better.  This subject was covered in the Brene Brown course - The Gifts of Imperfection - so I just went back through my notes and knew exactly what I should include in my journal page - a walk in nature, a cup of tea with a book and a good soak in the tub.  Works every time.
So I went looking for images to use on my page.  I found most of them on CLKER.  The book page I found on Morgue Files.  I imported them into Corel Draw and sized them to fit on an 8.5" x 5.5" page.  I printed the book page, tea cup and bathtub on one half and the road and road sign on the other half of the letter sized sheet of white cardstock. The half with the tea cup became the base of my journal page and I fussy cut the road and the road sign from the other half.

I started by adding blue watercolour at the top for the sky and then added green blending it gently into the tea cup area to start my collaged landscape.  I added a layer of blue paper napkin to simulate mountains.
I slit the edge of my tea cup with an exacto knife to allow the road to slip in behind and then glued it into place.  I glued a torn strip of green scrapbook paper over the end of the road to simulate the tree line and added a couple of other pieces on each side to fill in the gaps.  I added watercolour to the green paper to help it look more like a trees. I added some little bits of green paper napkin to either side of the road to add texture and colour and also added watercolour to the tea cup so it looked like you could see the road through the transparent tea cup and added the tea as well.  I love transparent tea cups!!!!
Next, I watercoloured some striped wall paper behind the tub, added brown watercolour to simulate the floor and watercoloured the water in the tub.  It was coming together very nicely.  I added a towel to the right of the tub - a strip of white fabric draped over a wire which I attached to the page using two silver mini brads.  I coloured my road sign and added it to the left of the tea cup using 3D foam tape.
Very happy with how it worked out. I added a piece of watercoloured cardstock to the back where I added my journaling and my credits!!
This is my first journal page!! It will be off to my partner early next week.

Therese

Art Quiltie for January

I am hosting another art quiltie swap for January!!  You can check out these links for November & December.   I have always loved the look of crazy quilts because of their randomness and their beautiful embroidery so I decided to go for it and made my January quiltie using that technique. I started with my back (on the right) so I could practice and start again if it didn't work out.

I started with a small dark piece and sewed a light one to it.  Pressed them open and trimmed evenly the edge perpendicular to the seam and sewed another piece on that side.  Repeated until I had a piece large enough to trim to 5" x 5". I was pretty happy with it so I chose the fabrics for my front and repeated the same procedure to create another crazy quilted square for the front of my art quiltie. I decided to machine stitch the outside edge so I put them right sides together and stitched almost all the way around leaving one side open so I could turn it over.  Once I had my right sides out, I cut a 4" x 4" of batting, inserted it between the two layers and hand stitched the opening.  Once it was pressed, I ran a line of stitching all the way around to properly anchor the batting to both sides.
Then, I started hand stitching.  I had to download some stitching patterns off the internet to expand my repertoire of options for embroidery stitches.  Once again, I started with the back, stitching in a variety of colourful embroidery floss over all the seams and in some cases adding beads as I went.  I added a few flower sequins as well in a couple of the areas.  It was fun to try new stitches and some didn't turn out quite like I thought they would but still looked good so I left them in place.  Once I had finished the back, I started on the front.  Again, I added stitching to all the seams and a variety of other stitching in the open areas. I added beads here and there as well!!  I wanted to add at least one 3D embellishment so I went digging into my stash to see what I could find that would work. Quite happy with this little metal tag with "dream big.." on it.  I stitched it on with embroidery floss.  I am very happy with how it turned out though having added beads to both sides meant it required additional postage to get to my swap partner.  No problem, it is still a reasonable cost for participating in international swaps. I added my credits using "iron on fabric label" by simply writing on the fabric label with a fine tip Sharpie and sponging on a bit of ink to tone it down before I ironed it onto the back of my quiltie.  Details of the swap I added to a tag which I pinned on.

Therese

Postcard - Traci Bautista style

Here is the postcard I mentioned here!!  I am super happy with how it turned out as it is my first attempt at doing the Traci Bautista style of art.  I used the hot glue stencils I made the other day  - they were really fun to play with.  I watched several of Traci's videos on line so I could get a feel for how she did her layers and what supplies she used. Most of the videos are in "quick mode" so I had to really pay attention to figure out what supplies she was using and how she was using her tools.
I started by creating my background on glossy photo paper. You can check below for more information. Once I was happy with it I found a bright piece of hand decorated paper in my stash and punched six ovals (SU)  from different areas of it to get a variety of colours.  I used a red stamp pad and a Making Memories magnetic alphabet set to add the words to the petals - life, thoughts, words, deeds, kindness, joy.  I used a red gel pen to add a squiggly border to each petal.  I created the flower center by layering a red scallop outline over a yellow scalloped circle and layered a C over it.  The C was created by cutting two neighbouring circle Nestibilities out of yellow cardstock which created an O.  I then trimmed out a section to create the C and added an outline filled with cross hatching using the red gel pen.  I eventually added red watercolour pencil and used a wet brush to push it around to get a more solid shape.  I hand lettered the rest of the letters to spell "Choose" and once it was dry I spritzed it with yellow ink spray.  I hand cut the leaves and stem from a piece of green hand decorated paper and added some definition with a green watercolour pencil blending out the colour with a wet paintbrush.  After positioning all the elements I glued the petals, stem and leaves in place using white glue in a fine tip applicator and added the flower center over them using a small square of 3D foam tape.  

So here is what my side table looks like after a stint of playing with ink sprays and hot glue stencils. I created sprays by mixing a few drops of dye reinkers with water in little TH misters. That worked great.  I ended up using navy (Night of Navy), medium blue (Brocade Blue), red (Real Red) and yellow (Crushed Curry) (SU) for my creations.  You can see in the photo the first three backgrounds I created and how much paper I had down to catch the over spray (those will eventually have more colour added and be added to my hand decorated paper stash).  The first one - yellow & blue - the blue was too dark.  The other two were too close to the colour of the flower petals to be effective backgrounds. The lighter blue was a much better choice.  I laid several stencils over my 4" x 6" glossy photo paper and spritzed it a couple of times with the medium blue spray.  I removed those stencils and added others and added a couple spritzes of yellow. When I removed those stencils I turned them over, spritzed their flat backs with yellow and laid them on the corners of my developing background.  I was happy with that.  Next, I turned another stencil over, spritzed it with blue and laid it over my background, repeated the spritzing and laid it in a different place.  That was better.  I was quite happy with the results and the contrast between it and the bright petals was really good, but it still needed a bit of something.  I decided it needed a bit of red/pink.  I knew that spraying the red would be too dark so I punched an eyelet border (SU) out of white cardstock hoping to use it like a stamp.  It was very porous and immediately absorbed all the colour I had spritzed it with.  Bummer!!  I kept experimenting and eventually discovered that once it was saturated with colour I could use it like a stamp - perfect.  I just laid it over my background in three places and rubbed the back to transfer the ink.  That worked very well and gave me the more subtle colour I was looking for.  I have resisted adding any black to this piece of art mostly because I did not want to ruin it and also to let myself just appreciate the colours for what they are though I may consider just a few drops of black ink spritzed in a few spots from the bristles of a toothbrush!!

Therese

Hot glue stencils!!!!!!

I have signed up for a postcard swap and we have been given free reign as far as technique and theme go. Several artists had been suggested earlier so I went looking for Traci Bautista as I had been to her site before and liked her art.  I discovered that she makes hot glue stencils!!  What fun!!! After a search online for tutorials on making these I got started.  I dug out my silicone mat, plugged in my glue gun and in no time I was making stencils.  It was a blast!! I made flowers, stars, grids, circles, hearts, arrows, and a few miscellaneous all over patterns that are just swirly.  Fun!!  I did have to remove the glue strings which took a bit of time but in the end I have over twenty stencils of my own art!!  I will be using these along with some ink sprays to create backgrounds for this postcard swap. I expect I will be adding some designs to some of my hand decorated papers as well.
Here are some close ups of some of the ones I made.  Therese