card-a-palooza

This weekend I decided it was high time I replaced my card "stash." I like to have several different blank cards on hand because I am always forgetting some one's birthday or anniversary.
This first one I made was a graduation card. The car stamp is by Stampington and Company.

The next two I made using a butterfly stamp from Viva Las Vegas Stamps. This first one I embossed using UTEE to give it the shinny look.

This one I spritzed with water before stamping, to give it a water color look.

I have a couple more that I will post tomorrow, hopefully along with a journal page. If I can just tear myself away from Enterprise to get some work done.

last of my samples

Here are my last card samples that I created as part of my design team work for Wishful Thinking. They both use stamps by Stampington and Co. the first is titled "Lotus" and the second is titled "Calligraphy Robe."


I haven't gotten a whole lot done today, my brother is in from NY visiting (and upset at the picture I posted of him here. He says he looks like a dork. Hehehe.) So I haven't had a lot of time to make much this weekend. But he's leaving tommorow so I'll be back into the swing of things.

Wednesday Stamper

The theme for this weeks Wednesday Stamper is cars, so I created this little ATC, using a dyed baby wipe that I sewed onto the ATc Back. The sun stamp is just one I picked up for a dollar at Jo-Anns, and the man in the car is a Tim Holtz stamp.

A little India and some samples

When I was in Chicago, we went into Little India, which was a ton of fun. We were the only Anglos as far as the eye could see. Which is always a fun experience. I'm sure they wondered at us, wandering around, going into used book stores, looking at Bollywood videos and trying to figure out some of the strange food-stuff for sale. We went into a Sari store and ogled all the beautiful fabric. I wound up buying these traditional bracelets. In the store they were a feast for the eyes, in every color imaginable, hanging on long wooden dowels, looking like long arms bejeweled with sparkles. I wanted to take a photograph, but they had very clearly marked "No Photos" signs up, so we'll have to make do with this little one of the bracelets I bought.

Here are a couple more samples that I've been working on as part of my design team work for Wishful thinking. The first two use a stamp called Geisha Collage by Invoke arts. The last one uses a stamp by Stampington and Company called Lotus.

Asian Cards

I started my work this week for Wishful Thinking's Design Team. I am making some cards for a class they are hosting using Asian inspired images. Both the cards below use images by Stampington & Company. The first is called Puccini's Muse, and the second is called Calligraphy Robe.

You can't really tell from this photo, but I cut out the butterfly on her face, so that it sticks out. Since I scanned this in, it got pushed back down, so you have to use your imagination.


I think I'll be making eight cards in total (two with each of the stamps I have) so there will be more over the next few weeks.

A picture and a couple of ATCs

So I was going through some old photographs today and I came across this one of my brother Andrew. There's no date on this, so I don't really remember what this was for. (Andy, do you remember?) But I got a big kick out of it because he's so serious in this picture and if you knew him you'd know that he's NEVER serious. I am so lucky to have someone who is more than family; he's one of my best friends.

I made a couple more ATCs this week for the meeting this weekend. This first one is a Tim Holtz stamp, that I cut out. The background is embossed with some Pear-ex and clear embossing powder. I cut out the crown, and the text. The purple part of the background is hand dyed paper towels.





This ATC is a stamp by Lost Coast Designs. I rolled on some different colored inks to get the metallic effect. I cut it out and placed the image behind it. Pretty simple, but I like it.

Wednesday Stamper

The theme for this week's wednesday stamper is shoes. Oddly enough, I don't own a single stamp that has a shoe on it, so i got to thinking and decided to make a giant shoe out of fun foam. I was thinking about the children's rhyme about the woman who lived in a shoe. After cutting out my shoe shape, I heated the fun foam and pressed my alphabet jumble stamp into it. When it was cool, I painted it with acrylic and then dabbed some ink onto the top of it so that the stamping would show up a bit better. The background is an old piece of organ music, that I stamped grass and stars onto. I cut it down to fit in my art journal as a tip in.

Monthly Challenge+ATC

So I belong to a yahoo altered books group and every month there is a challenge to try out new techniques. This month it was to use fun foam. I cut out the shape, heated it with a heat gun and then while it was still hot, I stamped into it with an alphabet stamp. When it was cool I painted it, rubbed some glitter and a little bit of brown ink onto it, to give it some dimension. I really don't know how I'm going to use it in a spread yet--but I'm sure it'll be one of those things that sits on my table and then one day I see the perfect use for it.

This is an atc I made messing around with UTEE. I've never really used it before--but after seeing how many different uses it has, I'm kind of excited to start playing with it. I painted a pink background, stamped and embossed UTEE, and then washed black paint over it. The guy in the middle is from a Lost Cost Design stamp and the text and paper is from an organic chemistry text book.