Gingersnap Creations Challenge-Jewel Colors

As I approached my last creation this month for Gingersnap Creations color challenge I knew I wanted to play with this stash of paper I have had for quite awhile, by Penny Black and yes, she still offers it on her site. It is a gold foil filigree on a white background which would be perfect for wedding designs. With the background white my instincts were to simply colorize it with instant bold color.I used my markers and made casual lines of vibrant jeweled toned colors. Then I had to wipe off the excess ink to better reveal the gold.  I trimmed the panel with a gold paper charm border that I toned down with a black marker.

Then I place this panel on a  black card stock that had been brushed loosely with a gold leaf sizing  medium and I used gold foil on that. I then mounted a stamped image of the heart and crown from A Stamp in the Hand (I have always love this stamp company!) which was accented with

gold and purple foil.  Shooting metallics is always tricky.

Here is an image of the paper as I was coloring it.  

Thanks to Gingersnap Creations and their creative team for inviting me to play along and to all of you who stopped by to see my work.

Carving Stamps - Flowers Brighten the Day

Well,  here it is mid February and we have had so much snow and cold, but today is much warmer and sunny so I am celebrating with flowers to brighten the day even more.  I uploaded this image to VistaPrint for some customized notepads for my daughter's upcoming birthday.  (No worries about her finding out about her gift here...lol!!)  The original stamped image I stamped with a watercolor effect, using markers and a water mister and the flower was only stamped in red.  I altered the other flower colors in Photoshop and filled in some of the leaves with more green.  I will let you know how my first custom order from VistaPrint turns out.  They get lots of ravs on blogs and Etsy.  (edit) I decided to add this design to Pinng.com.  If you haven't been there yet, go see all the fabulous e-cards. Here is my design.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Crown Collage for Gingersnap Creations Challenge

This week's challenge on Gingersnap Creations  was to use crowns in our creations.  Now, I know that crowns are everywhere in designs, scrapbook supplies and other things. But I wanted something different, not the vintage, French elements collages that are everywhere, however nothing wrong with these designs, they are romantic, beautiful and very appealing. As I was looking on Etsy for inspiration and perusing the countless digital collage sheets available I came across this one in a shop called Gallery Cat.  A great shop that even offers some of those lovely romantic collage elements I mentioned above, but when I saw the hen, a bird and even a pig wearing a crown, well that was it for me.  I purchased the download, printed it out and got busy creating a fun, colorful collage complete with a sassy crowned hen. I assembled other small elements like  a piece of a Paris map, a stamped crown from Cat's Life Press and made a tag from a Hampton Arts stamp of a bird egg study and colored it with Prismacolor pencils.  The design under the hen is a toner transfer image of clip art.  This collage was playful and carefree and even as I was creating it the song  King of Anything by Sara Bareilles came on the radio.  I though it was perfect so I had to share.   

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day

 I stamped this sweet floral heart

 with one of my favorite small stamps

 and one color ink (cherry, by Marvy). 

This is the same stamp used in

my blog banner.

SketchBook Challenge Two

Well, this Sketchbook Challenge has been exactly that for me.  This month's theme is 'Opposites' and I was wanting to do some actual drawing in my sketchbook.  As I was looking around my studio and thinking about what sort of opposite subject I could draw, it occurred to me that my "highly prized" stamps sit around looking at me carved side up and showing their opposite side.  Pardon me for stating the obvious, but when you look at the rubber side of a stamp it is in reverse, ok let's just say 'opposite'.  So there was my logo stamp and since it is already on the first page of my sketchbook I decided to draw it just as it is.

The image on the left I drew free hand. My drawing hand is really out of shape, it was a bit uncomfortable at first. Next I stamped the image on some tracing paper, flipped it over ( to make it opposite) and used  my light box to trace the actual stamped image.  I wanted to compare my free hand drawing to the traced drawing,  in which I reversed the negative and positive spaces, adding more of an opposite factor.   It was an interesting process.  I think I am going to have to keep that pencil (and eraser) closer at hand and try some more, good old fashioned drawing techniques.

Charmed Heart ATC

When coming up with an idea for a Gingersnap Creations Blog challenge for charms, well I could not resist this perfect charmed metal heart as the focus for this ATC. Making these little works of art that express your mood are immediately satisfiying, it is no wonder they have been so popular.  Reproduction feed sack fabrics are rightfully getting a lot of attention these days.  Their little patterns make the perfect background for ATC's (which are approximately the size of a playing card and ideal for swapping with fellow artisans) as well as quilt projects.  This ATC has a background of a sweet sky blue feed sack fabric, a small golden gingham check fabric and the well-loved ric rac woven trim.  I brushed red acrylic paint around the edges and then adhered the endearing puffed metal heart with a few words of printed text to declare my love for creating with fabrics and paper. I  added a red gingham ribbon tied off at the top of the charm which easily announces Royal Americana.

Blue Heart Card

Getting ready for Valentine's Day. A blue collaged heart card I made recently for a friend's wedding. I stamped the heart with Chablis embossing powder and watercolored over it and edged it with black opal embossing powder.  Thanks for looking.

Royal Pair, Visiting Art for GingerSnap Creations Blog

I am happy to be invited to be a visiting artist this month for Gingersnap Creations Blog.  The theme is Royalty and the first challenge is King and Queen. As I started digging through my stash of ephemera I originally was thinking of playing cards, but I came across some neglected collage sheets from Teesha Moore and when I saw the image of Einstein well, I knew I was off in another direction. He had to be King and I knew Mona Lisa had to be Queen (she came from an old collage sheet from Design Originals). I wanted to make some ATCs because I had not made any in awhile and making two is just as easy as making one.  I started with some Golden acrylic paints, printed papers, metallic papers, text papers, and one of my carved stamps of a crown which I embossed with Egyptian gold powder.

  

The other crown was from Teesha as well. I glued down some papers, added paints and  some gel medium transfers of tiny playing cards.  Of course, some fiber, black lace for the Queen and houndstooth for the King.

The heads and the crowns needed to be mounted on black cardstock to make them standout against the collaged paper. This gave me the perfect opportunity to give Mona a new 'do'... so I gave her some hair extensions, a bit of make-up too (colored pencils), I am sure she would be wouldn't mind. 

I adorned their crowns with foil, Stickles and a few pieces of bling, then I added some additional bling and other paper bits.

  

What I had forgotten that I enjoy about making ATC's is all the detail that you can just keep adding and adding and adding. Check back for next week's challenge.