Smile!

The word for the October ATC Word Swap was "Smile", and here are some cheerful ATC's the mailman delivered to me recently:

Just the thing for a dreary, rainy day, and we're certainly getting a lot of those.  But the sun is shining today!  So smile! 

Here is my entry:

Mosaic

Years ago, when my husband was "helping" me shop in a stamp store, he found a sheet of stencils that he thought would be useful to me.  I wasn't sure quite what to do with them, but he's a smart guy, so I added them to my basket.

Turn the clock forward a few years, and the standard 1/2 sheet of card stock card was getting old.  So I was enjoying adding square cards to my repertoire.  Now for me, the difficult (and sometimes impossible) part about making cards is coming up with a design/sketch/ layout for the card.  It can, unfortunately, result in a complete block.

So when I found this stencil tucked away in a drawer - Eureka!  I traced the components onto scraps I found in my "green" baggy, and the following card was born:

Peel-Off's and Gel Pens

I must admit that I rarely think to use Peel-Off's, those lovely, unique stickers made by Magenta.  But last summer, at Stamp Out Breast Cancer, sponsored by I'm Impressed Paper Arts Ltd., I did a fun "make and take", at the Cherish the Thought booth.

I finally had a chance to try this fun and easy technique again. After applying Peel-Off's to watercolor paper,  I watercolored with gel pens.

A Taste of Something Different

After some encouragement from my sister, Dianne, I thought I'd share with you a page from my Art Journal.  This is where I experiment with different techniques and don't worry at all about perfection.

It Must be an Age Thing

These days, it seems I need more "Get Well Soon" and "Sympathy" cards than I used to.  About the same time that I realized this, I was inspired by the talented Alison Manning over at New England Stamper, and her blog entry 5 Ways to Use Patterned Paper.  I love patterned paper and haven't used any in awhile.

Here are a couple of "Get Well Soon" cards I made to have on hand ready for sending:

Vintage ATC's

I recently received my October Vintage Collage Artist Trading Card swap.  Here are a few of the beautiful ATC's I received:

And here is my contribution:

Mistakes Happen

Let's face it, when you are painting, mistakes happen.  Sometimes you can fix the mistake, and sometimes you can't.  My sister, Dianne, throws these in the "poubelle".  (She lives in Montreal, and that's what they call the "garbage can" there).
Now, I must confess that I am a pack rat.  (You would think that I was raised in the Great Depression, but I'm not quite that old.)  So when I make a mistake that I can't fix, I can't always bear to launch it into the poubelle.  It goes into an envelope and into a drawer until I run out of space in my craft room/office, at which time I throw it all away in a rage of de-cluttering.
It's going to be even harder to throw away the mistakes now that I've discovered you can make them into inchies!

Inchies

Inspired by a Magenta stamp used in my August 26 posting, I decided to try some inchies in the same format.  I love inchies! (These are small pieces, an inch square).
I had a couple of false starts, and learned that for me it is much easier to cut inchies from a large image rather than to create inchies using small stamps.
I had some poinsettia images that I'm not all that fond of, so I painted them with watercolors and punched them using my inch punch.

Joy to the World!

Now that I am back from vacation I have started to work on my Christmas cards a little more seriously.  (That means there is a bit of a feeling of "must do" about them, but the process usually turns into fun once I get started.)

Hope

Here is an Artist Trading Card I made for a swap recently.  The theme was "Hope".