Sunday Postcard Art - Insects

Bugs and I do not get along, but the challenge at Sunday Postcard Art this week with a theme of insects did give me a chance to try out a new stamp set I won from Paper Artsy the week they sponsored a challenge at Ready, Steady, STAMP. It's a fun dragonfly set that has a companion dragonfly die. I used it to make the shrink plastic dragonflies on the right side of the postcard. The die worked beautifully in my Cuttlebug and perfectly cut out my stamped dragonflies. While shrinking the plastic, the tails curled quite a bit and I wasn't able to get them all straightened, but I kind of like that. Actually as far as bugs go, I do actually like dragonflies - they usually just want to check out what I'm doing in the back yard and they don't bite! Additional stamps used: Stampers Anonymous, Oxford Impressions, and Hampton Arts

Steampunk cards

I thought I'd play with something a little different and made these two cards in a Steampunk style. The first is made with all Oxford Impressions Stamps and was sent to Suzanne for her Steampunk Month give away. She suggested using stamps from other sets too, so I tried one with a feminine twist using an image from Times Past as well as Steampunk Elements. Check out the details of the give away on Suzanne's blog HERE - You can enter until June 15th.
The second card was sent to my Dad for his birthday. I thought Steampunk was a good choice for a masculine card and he thought it was appropriate since he's been reading Sherlock Holmes stories so the era fit. Stamps are from Oxford Impressions and Tattered Angels and I have some Tim Holtz bits thrown in for good measure!

Gingersnap Creations - pencils challenge

This is a card I created for the Spicy Supply challenge at Gingersnap Creations with the theme of "pencils". My card is an inchie collage card - well, almost...my squares are 1 1/4". There's a great tutorial by Ali Manning about this technique HERE and just for fun I took pictures of my masterboard before cutting it up into squares. The first shows just the stamping, and the second shows it colored with distress inks and of course, colored pencils!


Stamp credits: Lost Coast Designs, Oxford Impressions, Stampington and Co., and Alpha Stamps.

More Vintage Gluebook pages

Here are two more Vintage Gluebook pages I thought I'd share. These collages use similar elements - a bird, a flower, and stamps - but I used different positions for them. I think I have a better comfort level in creating collages with color and using color as your focal point. Do you think there's better flow in one of the two pieces? I'd love to hear your comments. You can still check out Mary Green's online Vintage Gluebook class HERE.

More Fabric Collages

Here are two more fabric collages done with more French Kissed images. This time instead of using postcard backs for my multi medium transferred backgrounds, I used these digital scans of pages from a french botanical book.

Vintage Gluebook pages

Through a link from Marie of Lost Bird Studio I found a fun online class about making a vintage gluebook. I was unaware of gluebooks but have also seen another of my friends, Louise of Kard Krazy blog about hers. The cool thing is that you use paper, scissors and glue - that's it. I tend to make my projects a little complicated (no, really??) and was so intrigued by this class where you learn the principles behind a good collage. Since I have no formal artistic training - mine all comes from osmosis and genetics from my artistically talented parents lol - I thought this would be fun. Here's what I've done so far...





If you're intrigued as well, check out the class by Mary Green of Green Paper HERE.

Fabric Collages

I thought I'd share these collages that are done on a base of canvas. I've been playing with gel medium transfers and these are done with Claudine Hellmuth's multi medium. I've found that I can use my Epson ink jet printer that uses pigment ink to do this, and before, I used to print on cheap copy paper thinking that the paper pulp would be easy to rub off. But for these pieces I used my thin Epson paper and was so pleased with how true the colors were and the paper pulp still was easy to rub off!!! The background images are all done as transfers and then I added other paper images to the collage and really fun shabby fabric flowers (I know I've given this link before, but Roben-Marie Smith's video tutorial HERE is definitely worth another mention - check it out.) All my images are from digital scans of antique french postcards from French Kissed (find Trishia's etsy shop HERE) - another place you need to check out!

Gingersnap Creations - read challenge

One of the current challenges at Gingersnap Creations is to create a project with the theme of "read". My piece is an altered book. I cut a niche in the cover so it looks like an open door. I used a book page as my background following Ali's tutorial on the GC blog HERE, got out alphabet stamps to overstamp the page, and stamped a frame around the niche. My vintage image from Enchanted Mercantile worked well with my theme and made me think of days spent relaxing with a good book. I've always been an indoor girl, so books have always been a fun way to escape for me. When my parents would tell me as a kid to go outside and do something, I'd take a book and go sit under a tree - not sure that's what they had in mind, but I loved it!! You might notice that my text page is an Anne book (Are there others who love the Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery? I had a few pages from her books in a package of vintage book pages I purchased. I don't think there's a book character with a better imagination than Anne!) Stamp credits: Prima, Purple Onion Designs, PSX

Paper Whimsy ATC's

These are two ATC's I did for a Paper Whimsy swap with the theme of things with wings. I loved these bright blue wings for a splash of color. All images are from Paper Whimsy collage sheets both printed and digital versions.

Giveaway winner!

With a little help from my husband, we have a winner for my giveaway...........


Congratulations to.........................

I'll be emailing you Debby to get your information so I can send you the collage!! Thanks so much to everyone who entered - this was so much fun that I'll have to do it again soon!

Ready Steady STAMP! Challenge

Here's a piece done for the challenge at Ready Steady STAMP!. Ingredient list: 1:Angel, 2:Turquoise, White, Silver, Black, 3:Ribbon and Lace, 4:Heart, 5:Wood. My project started with a base of turquoise Glimmer Misted watercolor paper stamped with the Fab Flourish stamp from Stampers Anonymous. My heart is Glimmer Mist sprayed through a stencil and accented with a silver pen and gems. My angel is a combination of 2 Oxford Impressions stamps - the little girl is a photo stamp from Maiden Voyage and I combined it with silver embossed wings from Steampunk. The lace is also Glimmer misted - you can never use too much Glimmer Mist!!! :-). Oh, and the wood - this was the hardest part of the challenge for me this time - I found an ornate piece in my stash I bought at Home Depot a long time ago - painted with a little silver and white paint, it fit!

Lots to Do Challenge

The challenge at Lots to Do for this week is to make a stamped collage. Mine is done on a Maya Road chipboard piece that I painted with gesso first to make my colors more vibrant. So after stamping and masking and Glimmer Misting.....here's my piece. I've used stamps from Oxford Impressions - The Fairest Flower and French Script - and a favorite border stamp from Technique Tuesday.

Paper Whimsy ATC trio

Gale of Paper Whimsy fame is having a challenge to make 3 ATC's using Paper Whimsy images (see the details on her blog post HERE). There's plenty of time for you to enter - contest ends May 30th - and you could win a $50 gift certificate to Paper Whimsy and maybe have your creation chosen for an ad! My trio uses these images of two girls from a collage sheet along with pieces from a text background, a postcard background, and a book cover image background just peeking out as the base for each ATC (You can find all these images available at the Paper Whimsy shop). In addition to the images, I added some folded flowers I made from Prima paper flowers.

Giveaway!! (now closed)

I'm having a giveaway! I have had such fun connecting with people through my blog, and since I love receiving fun things in the mail, I thought this would be a great time to brighten someone's day with a chance for something beautiful in your mail! This is a hanging collage done on a shaped clear acrylic piece using images from collage sheets from Altered Pages. Not only can you receive this piece, but Jackie from Altered Pages has offered to add to the giveaway the digital collage sheets I used! If you're not familiar with Altered Pages, you need to visit their site (HERE) and peruse the more than 1500 collage sheets. She has wonderful vintage images to use in your artwork and has them as digital downloads as well as selling printed copies too.

These are the two sheets I used that will be part of the giveaway - the winner will receive a high quality version that you can print at home.

Would you like the details? Simply leave me a comment on this post with some way of contacting you if picked as the winner - either leave me a link to your blog or an email address (you can use a form like "janedoe[at]blogger[dot]com") and I'll randomly pick a winner next Sunday May 16. I'll contact you for your mailing address to send you the collage, and I will then give your email address to Jackie at Altered Pages so she can send you the download link for the collage sheets.

Art Creations Friday Challenge

Using this fantastic picture was the challenge this week at Art Creations Friday. I made my collage using a Paper Whimsy image of a book for the base that I attached to a piece of book board and ran the edges through a Distrezz-It-All from Zutter - it made it look like I had a vintage book cover to work with! I also added a scrap of sheet music with the tempo marking Allegro energico - seems like an up-beat tempo for kids to learn to dance, don't you think?

Just a share...

I wanted to share a beautiful giveaway I received from Marie of Lost Bird Studio - imagine coming home from work, opening your mail and finding this beautiful fabric pouch with a little notebook inside! I just love it - what's not to like when the piece has a vintage french theme! - and wanted to show off this picture I took. Check out Marie's blog (HERE) to see more of her lovely work!

Botanical piece

I created this piece for 2 challenges - First, at Gingersnap Creations where the Random Redhead Challenge is Botanicals and Second, Ready, Steady, STAMP! where the five ingredients for are: 1: the letter M, 2: purple, pink, green and black, 3: stamped flowers, 4: gesso on your background, and 5: rubber. I haven't done an RSS challenge in awhile and I've missed it! - they always give such a good challenge with all their ingredients! This one though, took awhile to come together - I couldn't come up with a way to use rubber that fit with the overall look, and I figured that using rubber stamps probably wouldn't count! You can see that I finally decided on attaching bamboo skewers using rubber bands. I stamped with gesso over my Glimmer Misted background, and I also used Glimmer Mist and a water brush to paint my tulips that are mostly pink, but with purple tips. While creating this, my tulips bloomed in my flower garden - I guess April showers really do bring May flowers! Stamp credits: Hero Arts