Gingersnap Creations Color Challenge - Red and Gold

This week at Gingersnap Creations it's a new color challenge using the colors of red and gold, and here is the card I made for the challenge. This month we've had many projects and tutorials using folding, so I found in my stash an old brass template for adding a decorative fold to your cards. By cutting sideways V's in your paper using the template, and folding them back, they can be interlocked to create a cool looking decorative border. I painted the back of my red and gold paper with gold paint so more gold accents would be added to the overall card when the folds were created. My main image is stamped onto mulberry paper - I always love the beautifully frayed edges you get when tearing this type of paper. What can you make with the colors red and gold? You can add your project to the Gingersnap post HERE until May 22. Hope you'll join in!

Stamps are all from Donna Downey for Unity Stamps and the folding template is the small wide arrow Cut and Fold Template by American Traditional Designs.

Gingersnap Creations Spicy Supply Challenge - Mists

This week at Gingersnap Creations it's another spicy supply challenge using mists. I'm definitely a fan of spray inks - they are such a versatile supply to have on hand. In my project I used two different types. The outer frame uses Adirondack Colorwash sprays in cranberry and red pepper sprayed over a Prima stencil and on the text paper in the frame opening, I sprayed both creme de rouge and gold Glimmer Mists. This whole month the focus is on the Far East and with so many thoughts recently on the people of Japan, I used that as my inspiration. My picture is a tape transfer of an image from Enchanted Mercantile and I embellished the frame with a sprig of Prima cherry blossoms. That got me thinking about the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC that takes place during this month. The trees were a gift from Japan to the US in 1912 and they are very impressive to see in person. As a high school student I had an opportunity to participate in the parade one year in our marching band - I was part of the flute section. Why not get out your mists and be inspired to create a project for the challenge and post a link to the GC blog here - you've got plenty of time as the challenge runs until May 8th. Hope to see your project!

Circles and more circles...

Here's this week's project done in my Mixed Media online class at My Creative Classroom. I find myself working bit by bit throughout the week - so much fun to just play! I love the backgrounds I'm playing with - layers of text paper from an old dictionary, acrylic paint, watercolor paint, gesso, and oil pastels. My circles are all favorite bits of scraps - patterned papers, old ledger paper, French dictionary text, and more gel medium transfers - you can never practice that technique too much!

Mixed Media Canvas

Here's something definitely different from me to share. It's a layered canvas I completed for an assignment in a Mixed Media Class at My Creative Classroom. There are so many layers to this piece and experiments with how various media work together. I've included a gel medium transfer of a picture taken by my husband of a window from Rosecliff, a mansion in Newport, RI. When we toured the mansions a couple years ago, I loved imagining and wondering what life would've been like there in the Gilded Age, when the mansions were in their glory - hence my word on the piece. That also was completely inspired by watching Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesday videos on her blog - big, scrawling swirl-embellished text can add so much I think. I had lots of fun with this - you should've seen my fingers - covered in gesso, color wash, glimmer mist, and acrylic and watercolor paints!

Tag Tuesday - Vintage Sewing

Here's my tag for this week's Tag Tuesday theme of "Vintage Sewing". Lots of thanks to Rebecca for continuing the challenge! I embellished a dress form diecut with tatted lace, buttons, and stamps and layered that over a stamped tag. I used a combination of victorian velvet and wild honey distress inks to create a color on the tag and lace and ribbon that is at times peachy, and at other times a bit more brownish mauve - made me think of the worn colors of the fabrics you find when unpacking vintage dresses that have been stored for a long time.
Stamp credits: Oxford Impressions and Paperbag Studios

Bella Creations mini book swap

I belong to a mini book swap group at Bella Creations and this is my first swap I've participated in there and I sent this project out in the mail earlier this week to its new home in Texas, and I know that Sherri has received it. The theme was "spring" and it needed to be 6 x 6, but aside from that, anything goes! I made a star book structure and had fun adding pink pages made by spraying Glimmer Mist through table lace, along with flower and tissue tape accents.



I love the look of the book opened up - such a fun dimensional way to display some favorite pictures!

Sticky Back Canvas Cards

Last Saturday I taught a class at my local stamp store, Your Maine Stamper in Winthrop, ME featuring techniques using Sticky Back Canvas for cards. I had such a good time with a group of really fun women - Hi to Nancy and Donna if you read this ;-), and I thought I'd share my cards here. I originally learned these techniques from an online class with Claudine Hellmuth who taught the techniques with paint, but they can also be done with Distress Inks as in my cards.

Here are the first two cards: On the left is embossed canvas highlighted with Distress Ink, and a flower die cut from a patterned paper transfer which is done by adhering the patterned paper to the sticky side, spritzing with water, and then rubbing off the paper pulp. On the right, the canvas is first inked with DI's, spritzed with water to blend, then debossed with an embossing folder, and Perfect Pearls applied to the debossed areas after "coloring" them in with a Versamarker.

These two show 2 more techniques. On the left, my image is stamped on tissue paper to get a crisp image, then applied to Distress Inked canvas with a coat of Multi Medium underneath it and on top of it. Sometimes, stamping on canvas gives you a worn, vintage look, but sometimes when you want a crisp image, this tissue paper trick is quite handy! The other card is a resist created by first stamping with Multi Medium and then inking over top to reveal the stamping.

These final cards show the debossed perfect pearls card again, but with a painted and darker background - more dramatic, I think. The second card is using paint and Extra Time medium to stamp directly onto the canvas. The paint gives a more complete image, and the Extra Time does exactly as it says and gives you more time before your paint dries. There's also another patterned paper transfer die cut flower. A final technique that you can see on all the cards is with the sentiments - I ran the canvas through my ink jet printer to create the sentiments. Really versatile stuff!

Paper Whimsy ATC

"I live my daydreams in music." Albert Einstein - this is the theme prompt for March's ATC swap at Paper Whimsy and I wanted to share the ATC I made to swap. Sometimes it's so much fun to hunt for just the right bits to combine into a collage!