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Hello, friends -
This will be my last post here until the new year. I will be leaving for Colorado next week and have lots to do before that happens.
Here is my ATC for the Paper Traders December lottery:
I used a paint chip for the background. A simple collage with elements from various collage sheets and other ephemera. I love this sassy image and I do imagine that she is a very free spirit!!
May the holidays bring many blessings to you and yours and may 2014 be a healthy and happy year for you!
Thanks for visiting!
Here's what I got for the December green swap (A Swap for All Seasons) from Becky. First the card and tag:
I love all of the fun details on these beauties!! Becky did a lot of stitching on them and the background of the tag is so textured and pretty.
And, here are the wonderful goodies she sent:
I love everything, Becky! Thanks so very much. I am currently working on what I will be sending out to Pam for January. I need to get it done and ready to go before I leave for Denver on the 19th.
Thanks to Linda for hosting this swap!
This is my first time participating in this swap. We were to make a Christmas card and tag and send along some green stash to our recipient. Here is a photo of my card and tag:
I forgot to take a photo of the green items I sent to Linda. Perhaps she will share.
Thanks to Linda Smith at A Swap for All Seasons for such a fun swap. I definitely want to do this again!
Here is my ATC for this month's lottery at the Paper Traders Yahoo group. I was hoping I could get one made before the month was over and I finally did.
The image and faux postage stamp are from ArtChix Studio. I created my background by white embossing an Impression Obsession stamp and adding distress inks over it. The snowflake punches are from Martha Stewart and the crown punch is from EK Success. I added sequins with gems in the middle and some blue chenille trim. The title is computer generated.
Sure would love to win this lottery - there are some fabulous creations there this month!
The Paper Traders Yahoo group has a lot of fun swaps. Cathy Calamas is currently hosting a 4 for 4 ATC swap for "flat artys".
The ATC's must have only one layer with no 3D embellishments. I used rubber stamps, distress inks, colored pencils and Stickles glitter to create mine. Am looking forward to seeing the four ATC's I will get back from this swap!
Here are some book pages for my local swap with two friends. First, two Paris pages for Renee:
This is the front of the page. Renee's favorite color is pink. Here is the back page:
On both sides, I used a lot of rubber stamps and rubons, too, along with some washi tape.
Here are the two Halloween pages for Maureen.
The front:
And, the back:
Pretty spooky, if I do say so myself. I had a lot of ArtChix Studio items that I used on these pages. I am not a fan of Halloween, but Maureen is, in a big way. She always has her house, yard and barn decked out for the whole month and culminates it with a huge Halloween bash every year.
For the Paper Traders Yahoo group monthly lottery, I made this ATC:
Sprayed with Dylusions ink, sponged through a stencil and then stamped. If I am lucky, I may win some fabulous ATC's from the other gals this month.
Have a great day!
This month, Magenta sponsored an ATC swap. We were given a swap partner and were to make four ATC's using Magenta stamps to send to our partner. Here are the ones I sent to Mariette in The Netherlands:
I used several different stamps on each ATC. Most of them were older stamps but I did use a few new stamps that I recently won from Magenta. I enjoyed making these very much and hope there will be more swaps in the future.
Thanks for visiting!
The Paper Traders Yahoo group had a swap your stuff swap, one on one. I received a great assortment of things from Krisha in California. We were to make two ATC's with some of the items we received and send back to our partner. Here are the two I made for Krisha:
The background paper, images and black sparkly ribbon were sent by Krisha. I added some rubber stamping, orange and black gems and some orange glitter glue. She has let me know that she received these, so I am posting them now. I will post the ones she sends to me when they arrive.
Each month the Paper Traders Yahoo group sponsors an ATC lottery. Submit an ATC and one person from those who submitted will win all of the cards for that month. Here is mine for September:
I decided to do a Halloween one. Most of the images were cut from ArtChix Studio collage sheets or faux postage sheets. I cut the numbers with a Memory Box die. The tiny hat on the crow was cut from orange paper and Stickles glitter was added in some places.
Enjoy your day!
The Paper Traders Yahoo group sponsored a one for one manila envelope journal swap. My partner is Lillian in Canada. Here is the journal I sent to her:
I used gesso to cover the whole envelope and then added some torn paper strips and pieces of doilies to add texture. Then I used paints, inks, stencils, bubble wrap and rubber stamps randomly until I liked the results.
Here is the inside front cover:
And the inside back cover:
And the back:
Vintage seam binding was tied around the whole journal - a generous length to allow for expansion. Five sheets of Bristol board paper were folded in half to make the signature which was sewn into the cover with waxed thread.
Since this is the first ever journal I have made in this fashion, it was an interesting process and one that I will do again sometime.
If you are interested in joining the Paper Traders Yahoo group, click on the button on my sidebar to learn more.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hello! Inspiration Avenue sponsored an altered postcard swap and I just finished mine. We were to use actual postcards, old or new, to alter in any way we wanted. Here are mine:
I will be sending these three postcards to three separate people and I will received three back from three other people. Can't wait to see them!
Here is a photo of the backs, which we were to alter also.
I really had fun doing these and like the way they turned out. The beach scene is my favorite one!
Have a great day!
The theme for this 6-for-6 ATC swap is "Wings & Things".
I decided to use a butterfly with this clipart image to, in a subtle way, reference the metamorphosis of a blossoming young lady transitioning into womanhood. The background was made by misting water over an ATC cut from watercolor paper. Then I brushed distress inks over the paper until I was happy with the blended colors. After the inks had dried, I used a Magenta crackle stamp to add some more texture to the background. Strips of text were torn from an old book (1925), distressed along the edges and added to the bottom. The images were also distressed with ink before adhering them. A Martha Stewart punch was used for the butterflies. Two tiny gems were added to each of them. The words were computer generated.
It will be fun to receive some more tiny ATC treasures in my mailbox!
My friends and I were unable to meet on the second Wednesday of August for our book page exchange, so we met this past week. Here is the front of the page I did for Renee:
And, here is the back:
Pretty simple pages using a freebie collage sheet I have had for awhile. The background patterned paper was purchased at a local craft store along with the fluffy flower. I love placing a piece of mica over an image. This time I roughly cut it into a heart shape for this pretty gal. I used some rubons, a sentiment stamp and lots of glitter on the front page. On the back, I used a punched fleur de lis, some braided trim and more glitter!!
Have a great weekend!
Over the weekend I had a chance to make an ATC for the Paper Traders monthly lottery. I didn't start out with a Paris theme in mind, but this is how it ended up:
I used Faber Castell gelatos on a watercolor ATC base to make a background and added some rubber stamping. The image of the girl is from ArtChix studio and the washi tape is from Cavellini. The transparency over the image is also from ArtChix. A red heart and some red Stickles glitter added some extra color and bling.
Here is my latest journal spread, which was actually done a couple of weeks ago.
I disliked the background but I continued on and added the various butterflies. Still not crazy about this! :(
I am hoping to work on two more upcoming swaps this week if I find some free time to do so!
Hope your week is a good one!
for the Sunday Postcard Art:
It has been a LONG time since I played in the SPA challenge, but it sure was fun to create this postcard. The fish were cut from a piece of gift wrap, outlined and detailed with a fine tip sharpie. Red sequins for the eyes. Polka dots punched from some red foil. Moon and stars stamped with frost white ink. Crystal glitter added randomly and used to edge the whole card. Computer generated words.
Have a great week!!
is the theme for one of the Paper Traders current swaps. Here are mine:
These are a bit different than my usual style of making backgrounds and then adding my collage elements over them. I kinda' like the way they turned out. I used rubber stamps, an apple from a cookbook, the heart from a Crafty Individuals collage sheet, a postage stamp and lots of glitter.
I never know what the end results will be when I am working on any collage. I just start assembling things and it somehow falls into place!
Have a wonderful weekend.
This week's color combo for Kristin's Summer of Color, voted in by participants, is sepia and sage green. Here are my last two ATC's for this fun summer project:
y summer is going by so quickly and I have been busy with my church activities, my family and my yard work/flower garden. Not much time to do artsy stuff, because I would rather be out and about! However, I did get a couple of journal spreads done in my little moleskine. Here is the first:
A quote by Emily Dickinson. I used rubber stamps, a Hero Arts stencil and distress inks on this spread.
And here is the second:
More stamps, stencils, die cuts and Stickles glitter.
Hope you are enjoying your summer, too!
Just a quick post today for Kristin's Summer of Color. This week's colors (chosen by popular vote) are red and yellow. I rarely use these two colors together, but had a bit of fun coming up with two more ATC's to add to my collection:
Stamps are from Magenta. I think of these colors as a bit Asian so that is what inspired these ATC's.
Thanks for all of your sweet comments and, also for your inspiration during these colorful weeks!!
It is hard to believe that this is the fourth week of Kristin's Summer of Color. The colors that were voted in for this week are charcoal gray and pale pink. I do not think of these colors for summer, but maybe that's isn't the intent of this challenge. Perhaps it is just a way of getting us to think of using colors that we may not normally use.
Again, I chose to make two ATC's for this week. I will enjoy looking back at my collection of ATC's using the six different color combos.
Kinda' girly and romantic this time. I found both of these images in an old Readers Digest song book. The word phrases were cut from old books; something I do when I am watching TV and there are too many commercials! I like to use them in ways that make sense or not; whatever strikes my fancy.
Have a great week!
for the local monthly swap with my friends. Here is a page I did for Renee, whose theme is Paris, or anything French related.
This page was pretty much a LOVE page and I like the way it turned out. The doily was made with a Martha Stewart punch that allows you to make different sizes of doilies, the smallest being 6 inches wide and the largest being 12 inches wide. LOVE it!
And here is a page I did for Maureen, whose theme is Halloween:
She also collects owls, so I thought this page was very appropriate for her and a bit spooky, too.
Just a reminder that Google reader is shutting down as of Monday. If you are still interested in following my blog(s), you can do so at Bloglovin'. Check it out.
Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!!
I didn't think I would be able to come up with anything for this week's colors at Summer of Color number three hosted by Kristin. But, I did make two ATC's that are pretty cool:
Dylusions spray inks and Ranger distress inks were used for creating the background. I masked off some loose stripes and sprayed over the tape. The inks did seep under the tape, but that made it more interesting. I used the cap from the Dylusions bottle to make some marks on the one and a stamp to make splotches on the other. The image on the right is from B Line Stamps. German foil scrap is from Artchix Studio.
Thanks for visiting. I'm off to check out some of the other creations.
The colors for this week at SOC are orange and hot pink. I do like these colors together. I am going to be busy the rest of this week and may not have time to post again, so decided to post today. I used these colors for three different projects, the first being this ATC:
The background was made with a Hero Arts, stencil and background stamp and a Impression Obsession cover-a-card stamp. The large heart is a Sizzix die and the medium heart is one that I hand-carved. The small heart is a punch from EK Success.
Then, I made this card:
A new circle stamp from Hero Arts was used for the background and for the rest of the card. As you can tell, I do have a lot of Hero Arts stamps!!
And then I did an art journal page in my new Moleskine journal:
This spread turned out a bit murky to me. In hindsight, I would have omitted the script overstamping or, at least, used a lighter ink color for it. Friday will be the first day of summer and, I am looking forward to lots of lazy days!!! Summer goes by way too fast in my opinion.
I am also linking this post to the Glue It Tuesday Week #14 challenge.
Hope your day is a great one!
Last week, members of the Summer of Color, sponsored by Kristin, the owner of the Twinkle, Twinkle blog, were asked to vote for their choice of a color combination to use for this week's art projects. The colors chosen were citron green and turquoise.
First, I created my background by combining Dylusions lime green spray ink with some squeezed lemon distress ink on a craft sheet. I pulled white cardstock pieces through the inks and let it dry. Then I added some Dylusions turquoise spray to the sheet and added that to the previous colors. I repeated this process until I was happy with the results. Some random stamping with a Magenta dandelion was done with salty ocean distress ink.
Here is the first ATC I made, which I will enter into the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, since I do have one tiny button on the butterfly.
The die cut butterfly was sprayed with Dylusions blue ink. I let it dry and then used a polka dot stamp dipped in water to "bleach" some spots on the butterfly. Turquoise Stickles were added to the dots.
My next ATC was created in much the same way, using ArtChix Studio clipart, a sentiment and some dew drops.
I do love to use touches of black on most anything I make because I like the contrast.
Lastly, I made this tag:
A stencil, white gel pen, die cut flowers, Tim Holtz and Wendy Vecchi stamps, glitter and seam binding dyed with distress inks were used for this tag.
Have a wonderful day!
Finally finished my pages for a gypsy deco book page swap at Paper Traders Yahoo Group. I had a lot of fun making these:
Lots of steps, but I think they turned out pretty nicely. We are only required to make six pages, but I made an extra one for me to add to my book when I get it back.
I used Dylusions spray inks for the backgrounds of these 3.5 inch square pages. The clipart image was colored a bit with colored pencils. The flourish stamp is from Stampington & Co. and I gold embossed it along the left side. Also edged each page with gold embossing. Sequins were added and words generated by computer.
Here is an ATC I made for the monthly lottery for June at Paper Traders.
Everything I used on this ATC is from ArtChix Studio except the little flowers and "lady luck". I enjoy making ATC's for this lottery and, there's always the chance that I might actually win and receive some fabulous creations to enjoy.
I'm running behind on my altered book pages for our little group, Mo Jo Nee'. Gotta' get started on them this weekend for our exchange next Wednesday.
Till next time . . . .
This week I haven't had much time for any fun things due to the holiday and also, helping my daughter move. However, I did make a couple of ATC's. The first one is for the monthly Winner Takes All lottery in the Paper Traders Yahoo Group:
The background is from a Gelli plate print. I have a lot of old postage stamps and loved this one with the umbrella on it. I used an EK Success punch along the top to mimic rain. A rubber stamp with tiny lines was also used for rain and I used a glitter pen to add highlights here and there along those lines. A portion of a Sizzix flourish die cut from another Gelli print added a border at the bottom. The words were computer generated and colored with distress ink. I like cutting the ATC a bit smaller and mounting it on black cardstock cut to the exact size; this gives it a nice frame. One little black opal gem accents the top of the umbrella.
This next one will be offered as a trade:
The image is one from a Somerset Studio collage sheet. Rubber stamps and distress inks were used for the background. The bird is also a rubber stamp. The circles are plain white reinforcement labels colored with distress ink. The word was cut from an old book. A black Sharpie was used for the dots all around the edges.
Loved making these - am hoping to make some pages for a deco book swap this coming week.
were my inspiration for this book page that I made for my friend, Maureen's, Halloween book. This page was for the first exchange we did in April:
I found the quote somewhere online and that was my starting point. Random strips of patterned paper were cut and fashioned into a fence for the large crow to sit upon. More patterned paper, a chipboard jack-o-lantern and some sparkly pipe cleaners were added. Here is the back of this page:
The focal image is from a collage sheet and it was framed in with some copper German scrap. The paint spatters are actually a stamp from DeNami Designs. I used a Tim Holtz ticket to add my name and date for this page.
I also wanted to share with you a little book I am working on using Gelli print pages.
My Gelli plate is the 6 x 6 size, which is perfect when making cards and smaller projects. I selected several prints to use and cut them down to 5.5 x 5 inch pages, or smaller. Some of these pages have prints on the back and some do not. I will just add more inks or stencils or stamps to them as I go.
I punched two holes for the binding and threaded a fuzzy hairband through them from the back. A pair of chopsticks were used to hold the band - looks pretty and cool!! :*) The sequins were all the embellishment I wanted because the print itself is so gorgeous.
Have a wonderful weekend!
This week I played with some Dylusions spray inks that I purchased a few weeks ago. They are beautiful and so very vibrant. Initially I only purchased three colors, but I will definitely be getting more colors as my budget allows!
These ATC's are for a Paper Traders swap called Chirp Chirp. I got a partial sheet of gift wrap at a barn sale last year for 25 cents. There were lots of birds, nests w/eggs and butterflies on it. For the background, I sprayed a full sheet of cardstock with water and then the blue and green ink sprays. I added another spray of water to help blend the colors and then let it dry in the sun. Then I splattered some watered down white acrylic paint over the whole sheet. After that was dry, I stamped a small flower image randomly with salty ocean distress ink. The collage came together so easily and I love the German scrap trim to ground it all! The small white butterfly die cuts were sent to me by a friend and were the perfect accent. The alphabet letter die is from Memory Box. I am very pleased with the way these turned out and had so much fun making them!
Here is the front of the page I did for my friend Maureen's book. Recently she has been seeing spiders here and there inside and outside of her house, so I thought this would be a fun page for her.
The back of the page is open at the top to make a pocket to hold the tags I made with spider poems on them. I used some fluffy yarn for ties on the tags and, serendipitously, the yarn hangs over the front of the page and kind of adorns the girl's hair!! Cool. Here are the tags:
And, here is the front of the page I did for Renee's book:
Just some clip art of Paris fashions that I colored a bit and added some gems to the dresses, etc. Some French papers, lace and trim were also added to the page. Here is the back of her page:
To go along with her page I made a tag booklet with fashions from the early 1900's on each tag. She will be able to tie this to one of the binder rings of her book.
Thanks for sticking with me for this long post - I really enjoyed making these things this week and hope you enjoy seeing them! Thanks for visiting!
