More Pattern Play

 

More of Mindy's Flowers

This card is for my niece for her birthday.  Inside it says "a flower blooms once".  To make this card I stamped and heat embossed Mindy's flowers on a gelli print.

Stamping on Painted Backgrounds

ATC

Mindy's Flowers stamps by Autumn Leaves

Pencil Crayon on Watercolor

I've seen some lovely cards lately over at Stamping Mathilda and Some Fiddling on the Kitchen Table.  Yesterday I looked through my file of painted backgrounds and made this artist trading card.  I also stamped a few larger pieces that will likely become cards.

A New Bookmark

 

Hand Carved Bird Stamp

Other stamps by inque boutique and Autumn Leaves

 

When I made this bookmark recently, it was to replace the ratty old one shown above (on the right).  But I found that I still couldn't bear to throw it out.  The only solution was to make a new one!

Twelve Tags of December

Playing with Paisley

These stamps are a big set of "build it yourself" paisleys by Autumn Leaves.  I stamped them all in pigment ink, including the solid ones that colour the inside.  I decided to have a good session with them as part of my "Use Every Stamp" challenge.

Thanks for all your wonderful comments on "My Home" Artist Trading Cards,  They are very encouraging.

 



Tags, Tags, Tags



 

Stamps by Inque Boutique and Stamping Bella

 

Stamps by Tim Holtz and ???

 

Stamp by imaginesce

 

Stamps by Autumn Leaves and ???

 

All of these tags are coloured with pencil crayons.



Back to Collage

 

 

 

The last few days I've been drawn back to tearing, cutting and gluing.  Such fun!

 





Update on the Calligraphy Journal

I finished another page in my Calligraphy Journal over the weekend.  I'm not 100% happy with the journal or the paper.  The pages fall out of the glued pad too easily and the paper is a little bit thin so certain stamp inks bleed through.  Yes, it is really just a pad of paper if I could only admit it.  So, I should say that I'm working on loose pages at the moment.  The advantage of this, however, is that if I find paper I like better I can switch over and bind it all together when it is finished!

One Layer Cards Lesson

Earlier this week I CASE'd this card from Amusing Michelle.  I love its design and the "Spirograph" nature of those flowers.  Isn't it fabulous???

I learned a lot of lessons during this process, and finally came up with a version I can only describe as "not very spectacular":

I had 4 attempts at this.  Here's what I learned:

1.  When I CASE a card, I'm not using the same stamps, so I should test them on a scrap first.  I'll save a lot of expensive card stock this way.  For example, I didn't have a dot border stamp, and the ones I tried to substitute were too busy and had to be eliminated in the final version.
2. The same goes for ink. Now that I look at the cards together, my inks lack the punch of Michelle's.
3. Although I love pearls (and own them), I'm reluctant to send them through the mail, so I don't use them on many cards.  Here, I've used dimensional paint dots instead.  Lesson learned:  don't buy bulky embellishments.
4. What I thought were similar flower stamps weren't really vivid enough to make a one layer card like this.  I decided they were better suited to paper piecing, so I did this as well:

Flowers by Autumn Leaves

Greeting by Biblical Impressions

I like the punch of this much better!

Use Every Stamp 2013

I signed up for a free class at the Creative Classroom called "Use Every Stamp 2013".  You can read about it on this blog.   I've been trying to find a way to use my stamp collection more and I thought it might help.  Here's a couple of art journal pages I made in January that use stamps, as well as a bookmark:

Stamps by da Vinci and Tim Holtz

Stamps by Silver Crow, Autumn Leaves

Watercolor Pencil Crayons and Portfolio Pastels

Stamps by Stampington, Autumn Leaves and ???

Mixing Stamps

When my creative brain is working I like to mix stamps from different sources:

Flower stamps by Kelly Panacci

Flower stem stamps by Autumn Leaves

Greeting by Biblical Impressions

Stamp It! 3 Ways Part 3

Please see this previous post for an explanation of my new project.  

Here's another card by Ambre Daigre.  (Please ignore the blue ribbon on the left side; it is from another card on the same page of the magazine.)

I'm seeing a couple of trends in my choices so far:

• I'm drawn to single layer cards
• I'm enjoying these creative uses of border stamps.  I keep buying them thinking, "Oh, how versatile!". But then they don't get used as much as I thought they would.

Here is the card I made:

Border Stamps by Autumn Leaves

Greeting by Studio G

And a few observations about my creation:

• I'm sticking with the colours used by the original creator, but after I'm finished I can envision all kinds of other choices.  This is good for me.
• Freed up from design decisions, I can concentrate on matching the greeting font style to the stamps.  This is good for me!  (Did I say this already?)
• This is fun!

Stamp It! 3 Ways: First Attempt

Please see this previous post for an explanation of my new project.  

This card by Amber Daigre in Stamp It! 3 Ways, inspired this attempt of mine:

Flower stamps by Autumn Leaves

I'm sorry, I don't know who makes the greeting, but I like the way the swirly font matches the swirls on the flowers.

So far so good........

Letter to 2011

I'm still catching up on my 2011 preparation for my 2012 Book of Days.  Our instructions from Effy were to write a letter to 2011 and put a pocket or envelope in the front cover of our journal to hold it.  I decided to do a card; inside I'll write the letter.  My word for 2011 was BIGGER.

Masks by Tim Holtz

Spritzed Watercolor

Pan Pastels

Stamps by Hero Arts, Autumn Leaves, Making Memories, Rusty Pickle and ME!

My word for 2012 is "Inspired".

Field of Dreams

The last in my series of "spring" Artist Trading cards LOL

Portfolio water soluble pastels

Stamps by Tim Holtz, Hero Arts, and Autumn Leaves

A New Journal

The journal I created this summer feels wrong somehow - the colours, mainly, I guess.  It feels like an orange rather than a pink time of year.

Like the last journal, this one is 6 x 6, created from scrap book papers from my stash.  The ones I chose have the lovely oranges, yellows, reds and browns we associate with falling leaves.

One Layer Black and White

This started out as a Thank You card for a nice lady at my local stamp club who gave me these wonderful alphabet stamps and a set of "doodles".  (See the photo hinge I turned into an exclamation mark?) 

I mounted the letters on a large acrylic block, and made many prototypes before I got something I liked.  Then I made a few extras for swap cards for the ladies at the club.  One layer cards are hard to get right, but easy to execute once you like the design.

January Vintage Collage

The January Vintage Collage Artist Trading Cards have been distributed, so it is safe to post my version:

I'm not thrilled with it, but I haven't created much else lately because of holidays and post-holiday work.

O Happy Day!

I've been making a few birthday cards lately.  Here's one of them:

I wish I could remember who inspired this card so that I could give proper credit, but I confess that I started this card quite some time ago and only just finished it.  And I just can't remember where I saw this grid/masking/colouring/doodling technique.  But I like it, so thank you!