Crayon Glassine Cards

OK, so I can't stop playing with my scraps of crayon glassine! Here are 2 cards simply put together by stamping an image on the side opposite the melted crayon with Archival ink - so simple and such a great look......well, I think so!


Stamp Credits: Crafty Individuals and I Break for Stamps

Another Fabric Heart and a GIVEAWAY!!

I just had to make a 3rd fabric heart (if you're interested in seeing the others #1 is HERE and #2 is HERE) - it's so much fun to lay out lace, ribbons and trims and create a beautiful background for my TAP transferred image - I think it all goes along well with her dress. The photo is of Pauline Frederick and is captioned "The Girl in White". It's been too long since I've held a giveaway and I think Pauline would like to do some traveling and see the world. What would your area of the world have to offer Miss Pauline? Leave me a comment making sure I have a way to contact you if you win and next Friday I'll randomly draw a name and send her to you!

Jane Austen Concertina Book

I have another concertina book to share! This one was so much fun to create and is basically one long piece of folded Glimmer Misted watercolor paper with the individual panels just a bit larger than ATC size. It is made using stamps from the Jane Austen set from Oxford Impressions.

This is the book untied and first opened:

And here it is all opened up:

The individual panels include a piece of textured paper created by adhering text to cardstock, a gesso wash to mute the text, Cuttlebug embossing, and then green metallic rub-ons to bring out the pattern. Then I stamped the various characters, cut them out and added color in spots with pencils. The real fun was in combining them and choosing Pride and Prejudice quotes for each.

This one had to be Jane and Mr. Bingley:

I chose a line about Kitty for this one:

And I liked this line about poor Mary:

And this just MUST be Lizzy and Darcy - I loved how he's looking down his nose at her!

I had so much fun making this book and re-reading Pride and Prejudice - do you have a favorite Jane Austen novel?

GC Color Challenge #116 - Primary Colors

The color challenge at Gingersnap Creations for this month's Joys of Childhood theme just had to be primary colors. I used more of my melted crayon glassine paper background (see my post HERE for photos showing how to do it) and stamped on it with jet black Archival ink. I used a vellum adhesive spray to attach it to watercolor paper, but also did a bit of machine stitching to make sure it was securely attached. It's attached to a piece of bookboard covered with 7Gypsies tissue paper.

I really love the textural effect of the melted crayon on the glassine - and all the texture is on the underside, so you have a nice smooth surface for stamping. Here's a close-up:

Since I was revisiting my childhood and playing with crayons, I also decided to play with some clay - paper clay actually - and made it into buttons.

After rolling it out...
...I stamped into it with a stamp inked with Ranger's Adirondack pigment ink - using primary colors of course ;-)...

...cut circles using a piece of copper pipe and a bottle lid....

and pricked them with a skewer creating buttons.

After an overnight drying time, they're ready to attach.

So that's my piece made with primary colors - I hope you're inspired to create something fun and maybe bring back some childhood memories of your own. Enter the challenge at the GC blog post HERE - the challenge is open until Sep. 25th.

Stamp credits: Stampers Anonymous

Rogue Rebel Challenge

Did you know that Rogue Redhead Designs has a monthly challenge? The curent one is running all through August (ends on Sep. 4th) and there will be a random drawing for a $15 GC for the RRD Etsy store. The challenge is to use both dry and wet embossing. I used that as my inspiration for this card using stamps from the new Beach Babes plate. My dry embossing is a Cuttlebug frame embossing folder with the embossing highlighted with distress ink. My wet embossing is the heron stamp that I stamped on alcohol inked glossy paper and embossed with white EP. I also used just a part of the Thoreau quote from the set.

Here's a close-up:

If you'd like to check out the Rogue Rebel Challenge and play along all the details are HERE.

Nocturne in E-flat Major

I got a chance to play along with the current Stampsmith Challenge and this one is based on a sketch that you can see on the challenge blog post. I haven't worked much with sketches, and thanks to Lynne's inspiration, I flipped the sketch. I should confess that I drew out the sketch and had it on my table upside down and thought - hey, the big circle could be silvery moonlight and I went from there! I used a flapper photo stamp from the Stampsmith and added some lace to one side so it was more of a square shape like the sketch. I also wanted some Art Deco style patterns as in the vertical strip and my circle. That circle - or the moon - is actually silver paint sponged through a damask template overlayed with a big circle template. The horizontal strip from the template is the lines of music from one of Chopin's Nocturnes - a musical composition inspired by the night. Finally I stamped some subtle text in the background with the circle masked and added a bit of pumice distress ink.

Stamp Credits: the Stampsmith, Basic Grey with Hero Arts, and Paperbag Studio

Crayon Background Book Cover Collage

Remember this background paper? This is what is achieved after ironing the crayon coated glassine to the mixed media paper. (The crayon melting technique can be seen on my post HERE.)

And here's what I did with it:

I really am addicted to making these book cover collages - there just are so many possibilities and it's a great sturdy surface that doesn't warp. This 7Gypsies piece of bookboard has a decorative frame and so inside of it I added 7Gypsies printed tisssue paper with gel medium. Then a strip of my background paper and a favorite French Kissed image of Madeleine picking flowers along with a piece of German scrap and my collage is complete.

Bright and Beautiful

As promised, here's what you can do with the melted crayon glassine paper. (See yesterday's post HERE if you'd like to see the technique.) I've stamped on the side opposite the crayons with jet black Archival ink, attached it to white cardstock with a light spray of vellum adhesive, then machine stitched it to make sure it stayed. To complete the collage, I stamped two flourishes onto script patterned paper and cut out around them in spots with an x-acto knife creating a nice way to hold the glassine panel to the rest of the card. I'm entering this into the Crafty Individuals August Challenge where the theme is "Bright and Beautiful" - I hope US entries are OK - and honestly, it was just coincidence that the same Helen Chilton who inspired the crayon paper also set the challenge theme - but a fun coincidence indeed!

Yesterday I had a question about what exactly is glassine - it's very similar to wax paper that 's used in the kitchen, but rather than being food safe, it's archival. You can see it in old books opposite an illustration to protect it, and artists will also use it to protect paintings done with acrylics or pastels when they need to be transported or stored.

So that still leaves me with another piece of crayon paper to play with......you'll just have to visit me again tomorrow to see what I've made ;-)

Stamp credits: Crafty Individuals stamps: CI-121 and CI-182

Crayon Background Experiments

Here's a fun technique to share. My inspiration comes from a Craft Stamper magazine article by Helen Chilton from this June of a wax crayon masterclass, my friend Janine's blog who tried out and shared a lot of different ways to use crayon shavings in backgrounds (see HERE and HERE and HERE) and then made beautiful cards that I thought looked like Impressionist paintings, and a silly kid's project sandwiching melted crayons between waxed paper to make window hanging ornaments. I used just primary colors from a Crayola box because they would melt and blend beautifully into their secondary colors. After creating crayon shavings, I sandwiched them between two pieces of glassine and ironed them to create what's shown in the first picture.

Allow that to cool - just takes a minute - and slowly pull the glassine apart. With all of mine, I found that one side would have more melted crayon attached. Take that piece of glassine and iron it onto a sheet of paper. Mine is from a Canson tablet sold as mixed media paper that's a thinner weight than watercolor paper.

And this is the result:


You are also left with the piece of glassine, that is a more muted version. Here I've photographed it against the tablet of paper so it shows up better:


So what do you do now? Two beautiful backgrounds, one with brilliant intense color, and another that just happens to have a smooth top surface with all the waxy crayon underneath....hmmmmm.......

I'm going to tease you a bit and make you wait to see just what I did with my backgrounds so until tomorrow..........

Regency Faux Book Collage

Here's a book cover collage to share where I cut out the center to create a niche and give a shadowbox effect. The images are all from Oxford Impressions from the Regency Fashions set. I wanted a rich looking piece and liked adding the gold accents - the strip of textured gold paper, gold swirls and gold pen on Haute Nouveauté. The image reminded me of a wealthy lady posing for her portrait - she needs to have all that gold around!

Imagine Canvas

I have recently been playing around with collages on canvas board and have one to share. This one is 8 1/2in x 11in. I love to start with a base layer and just keep adding on subtly changing what you've done before. I started by adhering scraps of text paper and sheet music, then used washes of gesso and acrylic paint to build color. I also added die-cut circles of sheet music, gessoed over them, and then highlighted with oil pastel - let me tell you, my fingers were quite pretty by this time! Then I stamped flourishes with black acrylic paint, added tissue tape and black cardstock strips, then chipboard letters altered with ink and UTEE, and finally the word "possibilities" with pen and india ink. So much fun! I'm also entering this in the August Challenge over at Inspiration Emporium where the theme is acrylic paint which I've used both as washes and for stamping in my canvas.

Stamp Credit: Stampers Anonymous

Gingersnap Creations Spicy Supply Challenge #114

The August Spicy Supply Challenge at Gingersnap Creations is to use baby wipes. I don't know about you, but I find these to be indispensable in my project room! You can clean up with them of course, your stamps as well as your surface, you can use them to apply paint or wipe off paint when creating layered backgrounds, you can dry used ones with all kinds of mixed multi color variations and use them as interesting backgrounds, and you can dry unused ones and then go crazy with your stamping supplies! Using them this way is very close to using fabric in your project. I started with a clean, dry baby wipe and sprayed it with 3 colors of Glimmer Mist: burnt red, yellow daisy, and denim and allowed those basic primary colors to blend into their secondary colors. After heat drying, I could emboss it with an embossing folder - a Technique Junkies technique known as Faux Velvet - and I could also stamp on it using archival ink. I even die-cut a scalloped edge and also die-cut flowers from the scraps to make dimensional embellishments along with book text flowers. Who knew this humble supply could be so versatile!

Keeping with the "Joys of Childhood" theme of the month, I created a bookcover collage with a Red Lead trio of children photo stamp as my main image, a vintage text page from an arithmetic book, snippets of gaffer tape and brads. What creative ways can you come up with to use baby wipes to create a project or use them in a project? I hope you'll share them with us on the GC blog post HERE - the challenge will be open until September 11th.

New Rogue Redhead Designs Release

I was excited to be able to play with the new Beach Babe stamps from Rogue Redhead Designs - especially creating a card based around the sailboat stamp since sailing is such a part of our summers. It's one of my husband's favorite pastimes. My stamped circle is colored with watercolors, but my favorite and quite serendipitous part of this card is the background stamp. Shar created a cool sandy beach texture stamp, but if you color the stamp with a watercolor crayon, spray it with water and then stamp it onto watercolor paper you achieve a background that looks like splashed water - how cool is that! A perfect fit with a sailboat!

Here's the background stamp just inked and stamped:

And here's how different the look is by using the watercolor crayon technique:

Check out the RRD blog for more information and samples using the new release (and it's even available at a discounted price until September 6th!)

Happiness is Homemade

Here's another stamped collage using the Sewing Notions stamp set from Oxford Impressions. My collage is partially done with masked stamping, but it's also combined with layering. I just had to add fabrics for a homespun touch - especially the ticking pattern which evokes a comfy, homey feeling for me, and I thought the corrugated cardboard base also added some fun texture. Does anybody else feel that you absolutely have to sew on your buttons? Empty button holes just look incomplete - I don't think I can add buttons to a piece without making sure to sew them!