The "Q" word

My daughter called me the other night and asked me to make her a lap quilt for Christmas/Chanukah (we celebrate both). I haven't made a quilt in years! My mother-in-law is quite the prolific quilter and she has given me so many quilts that I just quit making them. Luckily I didn't forget how! My new sewing machine is an absolute dream to piece on too - I'm actually enjoying this! But I did take a break tonight from sewing to work in a couple of decos. I really like how this piece came out.

This is for a deco called Shades of Blue. I bought a sea sponge today and I thought I'd try it out. BTW, buying from the bath section is much cheaper than the paint section - plus you get a way bigger and softer sponge. I figured if it looks good on paper maybe I'll try sponge painting a wall again. Did it once and it looked HORRIBLE - plus it was red - which made it EVEN WORSE! So I sponge painted this and it was okay. Then I stamped on top of it. I wonder if I could do that to the wall? Just think how LONG it would take... forget that idea!

Click image to enlarge

Art Card

Haven't blogged for a few days so I thought I'd post a photo of an Art Card I made and put on eBay to see if it would sell. Not so far, LOL.

The idea is that sometimes you can't get your answer out. It was fun to make and if it doesn't sell, well, I do owe a couple of people ATCs so it won't sit at home!

Oh - the ribbon-eating puppy is one year old today .. does that mean I can't call him a puppy anymore?

Another necklace

I had one more domino from my friend Michelle that was predrilled. This one had four holes so I had to be a bit more creative when making the necklace.

I used Wild Wire to string the beads on the bottom but I'm a little worried that it will break. I gave up on making jump rings for the top too - just ended up stringing ribbon through it. I'm going to have to do an Internet search to see if I can find big jump rings. But I think these are pretty and as soon as I get some more dominos I'll be making more.

How's this for strange?

In honor of Halloween ... a Zetti deco page.

Domino Necklace

One of the gals in the Embellished Circus suggested that I make pendants to put inside the boxes I embellished yesterday. So I did!

This is that domino that I painted using alcohol inks a couple of weeks ago. I stamped it with a permanent ink - nasty stuff! Then just melted three layers of UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) on it. Twisted some wire and added a couple of beads. I don't think this will end up in a box - I think it's going to end up around my neck!

I didn't plan for the green ink to be where it is .. the shading was totally serendipitous - but it's just perfect!

Treasure boxes

Been working on some presents the last couple of days. Saw a neat project on an episode of the Carol Duval show so I took the basic idea and ran with it. I've made four of these little treasure boxes .. but only took pictures of three since two are the same.

These didn't take long to make. I timed it today thinking these might be good craft fair items, they only took 50 minutes to make - not counting drying time, etc. So that's not too bad. They begin with inexpensive plain wooden boxes I bought at the craft store, then I painted the outside black, and the inside in a color that matched the papers used on the outside. I did various faux paint treatments on all the boxes with lumiere paints, they look much prettier in person. Then stamped the faces and used my new big square punch to get the portion of the image I wanted to use. I've never used one of those punches before and I really like it. Then used the rotary cutter to cut the white background squares and my thumb. How I managed to cut myself on the hand that was HOLDING the cutter I don't know. You know how you are supposed to put pressure on a cut to make it stop bleeding? I figured if I kept cutting while pressing on the rotary cutter with my thumb that would be the same thing. Thought it was working well until I put the cutter down and both it and my thumb were covered in blood. But the good news is that I didn't get any blood on my work! So where was I? Oh, okay, after making three boxes I figured out that it's much faster to put all the little squares through my Xyron machine instead of painting glue on each piece. So all the paper pieces are on the box and I gave everything a coat of Paper Glaze. Which, after a special trip into town to buy it, I found out is the same thing as Plaid's Dimensional Magic, which I already had. Guess I won't run out of the stuff. The Paper Glaze works great as glue too - that's what I used to stick the jewels on the lid. The feet are little wood pieces I had in my stash - just painted them and glued them on.

Click on image to enlarge

The colors show up better in this photo of the lids.
Click on image to enlarge

My husband thinks I could get $5.00 for them. I couldn't see selling them for less than $15.00. But they are kind of small - only 3 1/4" tall and about 4 1/2" in width. What do you think?

Two more CDs done

I'm supposed to have lunch tomorrow with a few of my old girlfriends - we've known each other for about 17 years but we rarely get together. We all were in the dance troupe together and I just thought it would be nice to make them little presents. Although they seem strange at first glance there's a story behind why I did what I did for each of them.

This one is for Angie - I guess it might seem odd to call your friend a 'Shameless Hussy' but this is a scan of a button that she bought. She actually bought one for each of us.

This one is for Anne. I used the same photo but used a distortion effect to make us taller and thinner, LOL. The longer I look at this the less I like the letter stickers - so I'm just going to stop looking! The gold paper doily gives this a nice Victorian feel - I had to use some burnt umber glaze to tone it down. Reminds me of a story Sue used to tell . We had just finished a show for the Chamber of Commerce at a hotel ballroom and had gone to the adjoining bar to cool down and have a drink. She overheard a woman calling us 'soiled doilies' instead of 'soiled doves'. Guess we weren't what the tourists expected, LOL.

The photo was taken back in, oh, 1990 or so. Our whole troupe had gone to Alaskaland where we were having photos taken by a professional photographer to be used for the cover of the Fairbank's Visitor's Guide. It was my birthday that day and after the photo shoot we had cake and took these pictures of our little clique. We sure don't look like that anymore, sigh.

Done with Paris!

Got done with everything Paris today! The final thing I had to do was to make two decos, one for me, one for my swap partner. Although they both get mailed to my swap partner, she'll work in mine before she mails them both out. I made them pretty small - about 4 1/2" by 2 1/2". Here they are:

Collage with Eiffel Tower embellishments.

Too much swapping

I've decided I really need to cut back on all the mail art I've been doing. I seem to be making things I need to make to meet commitments but not things I want to make. I like making these things but I'm hearing the call of the dolls. So I'm going to concentrate on finishing up everything for this month in this next week. Today I made two paper Artist Trading Cards that had no theme for one of my swap partners. I got this image in the mail today from Penny and I liked it so much I used it right away.

I used a paint color sample that I picked up at Home Depot the other day for the background. They are big enough that you can cut a whole background out of it without getting any of the writing on it.

Altered CD

Finished up a present for my best friend today. For about 8 years we were in a dance group that performed for tourists, for local events, and we even got to travel to perform. It was a lot of fun and a huge part of our lives. We haven't danced for about 10 years now but we have fond memories. She recently sent me a photo of us in costume - our can-can costume. So I thought I'd use the photo to make a wall hanging for her.

First, I took the photo she sent and changed it to sepia tones in my Paint Shop Pro program. Then I covered a CD in papers - you can't see it really well but some of the words are "old friend", "memories" and "the language of friendship isn't words". Added some microbeads in a couple of spots, an old rhinestone earring, and edged it with gold pearls. Had a hard time getting the pearls on - tried two different glues but they didn't work. Finally figured out that if I made a circle of cardstock a tiny bit bigger than the CD the pearls would have a ledge of sorts to sit on. Had to break out the hot glue gun to stick them on though - it's been a long time since I've used one of those! The hanger is funny - it's the top piece of a garter. Yep, using underwear in my art now.

Click on image to enlarge

Oh - that's me on the left.

It's a Paris kind of a month

Seems like I have a lot of projects this month that have a Parisian theme. I have two decos yet to make, worked in another Parisian deco, and I just finished up my Paris ATCs. This is my 2nd Paris ATC. It's simple but effective. I think a good background is key to a decent ATC. I've tried different techniques but I keep coming back to direct-to-paper with the stamping pads. On this one I glued on crumpled up white tissue paper then sponged on three different color inks then added some colored gauze fabric. The rest is obvious. I like it - too bad I couldn't keep it,LOL.

Decos and stuff

The new JoAnn Fabric superstore opened yesterday. So I went and checked it out today. I was very good - I didn't do too much damage to my checkbook. I did buy some more of those alcohol inks - got the last package left in the store (love that 40% off coupon!). They have tons more stuff, plus a huge scrapbooking section, so I can see myself saving money on shipping now, yay!

When I got home I tried to get some deco work out of the way. I don't have many left to do now, yay. Of course, someone will send me more as soon as these move along to the next victim, er, artist. But I got to play with something that was new to me today so that was cool.

This is a page for a vintage lady deco - it's about 3 1/2" x 3". The heart was dull metal and I put some blue alcohol ink on it. It was still dull so I thought I'd try putting some UTEE on it. That's Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel. It's like coarse embossing powder - I'd never used it before - it's neat stuff. Took three layers to get a nice finish and then I smooshed it around with my finger to give it texture. It's nice and shiny now! Everyone always does vintage with browns and beiges so I thought I'd do something different.

This is a tag for another deco. It was 'free expression' so I decided to do another vintage lady since I have a bunch of those images already printed out. Yeah, yeah .. browns and beiges, LOL.

Lastly, I'm supposed to be doing some Paris ATCs for a swap next month and these dancers are painted by one of the Impressionists. I always associate them with Paris so it works for me! I scanned the dancers from some notecards I have and they don't say who painted this .. if YOU know please leave me a comment.

My first magazine cover

Oh - this was too much fun! One of the girls in the Embellished Circus made a magazine and told us where to go to make our own. So here is the first edition (okay, so it's just the cover) of The Godmother Gazette!

Make your own magazine cover or trading card or art stamp! It's fun! Hope it works for you - it didn't work on my laptop, something must have been interfering with the program - I ended up having to use my desktop computer to get it to work. But I'm glad I did! I see more magazines in my future, LOL.

New Orleans

I've wanted to make an ATC about the tragedy in New Orleans and I found this quote on a piece of paper in my kitchen. I'm not sure where it came from - obviously it came in an envelope of mail art but I don't know whose. So I decided to use it on a paper ATC. I made a montage of some photos from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and this is how it ended up.

Sunflower ATC

Here's a very simple ATC ... background was pieces of a sunflower napkin torn up and glued down, on top of that are various papers and a vintage fruit crate label with mini brads in the corners. Some gold ribbon, copper trim and an iron-on stone finish it off.

Even more ATCs

I have lots of bright cardstock and cutesy papers from when I scrapbooked a few years ago. I worked really bold and bright when I scrapbooked but I seem to use softer colors on my ATCs. So I'll have to see if I can break out of this mold! Anyway, I finally got the Vintage Sewing Artist Trading Cards finished up today. I made 9 of them so I should get 9 back. That should be fun! I found some images of vintage trade cards that I used for some of them. Here's the two I made today.

This one is pretty plain but it's really pretty in person. It has a trade card for the White sewing machine company. In case you're wondering what a trade card is ...

Over a century ago, during the Victorian era, one of the favorite pastimes was collecting small, illustrated advertising cards that we now call trade cards. These trade cards evolved from cards of the late 1700s used by tradesmen to advertise their services. It wasn't until the spread of color lithography in the 1870s that trade cards became plentiful. By the 1880s, trade cards had become a major way of advertising America's products and services, and a trip to the store usually brought back some of these attractive, brightly-colored cards to be pasted into a scrapbook. Some of the products most heavily advertised by trade cards were in the categories of: medicine, food, tobacco, clothing, household, sewing, stoves, and farm. (Ben Crane, www.seedsofknowledge.com)

So now you know what a trade card is. Both of these cards have one. This card has some great background paper that looks like old wallpaper, some lace and ribbon. I got the paper as a gift but I imagine if you got to a scrapbooking store (instead of the hobby store) you could find these - you can find papers that are a heavier stock than what's normally at the hobby shop. I have some Steam-a-Seam that is 1/4" wide and it worked a treat for attaching the ribbon. Way less messy than glue.

Next, is a Singer card. I tried to put more elements on this one. I used the same 'wallpaper' plus some of the 7 Gypies tape measure paper. The Singer logo looks a bit blurry because it lost some resolution when I made the illustration bigger. Let's just call it a dreamy glow! The trade card says "Tired and Nervous? No need for it" .. yep, advertising never changes, buy a better machine and you won't be frustrated! Now don't get upset that I have a little metal tag that says 'wife', I'm sure it was politically correct back then, LOL. I had thought of putting a button there but even though I have tons of buttons none looked quite right.

So that's today's productivity. I think we should have a contest to see who can guess when the next time I work on a D*O*L*L* will be !

Typo Generator

I belong to a select group of artists who make quality mail art. One of the projects we are doing is making business cards so we will have each others addresses handy for mailing. Right now I seem to keep everyone's addresses on post-it notes which I constantly lose! One of the women posted a link to a site which makes ‘typo posters’ - it is a very interesting little application which takes text you write, searches Google images for pictures that correspond to the words and then makes a little poster for you. You can change the text attributes, the colors, and backgrounds until you get one you like. This is what I chose for the background for my business card. The group is called Embellished Circus and I think the program did a great job of combining all the elements. The website is called TypoGenerator. It really makes cool little collage images - you’ll have to try it. But be prepared to spend some time there playing!

Queen Bea

I've been just the busy little bee the last couple of days. Today I finished up my paper doll for a challenge on Doll Street and I got the fronts done for a couple of fabric postcards. After these are finished I'll only have two postcards left to make for the international swap that I've been doing for the last 5 1/2 months. I'll miss getting them in the mail! But then it's on to fabric artist-trading-cards - I've got three swaps to make them for. No rest for the wicked! Anyhow - here's Queen Bea - my paper doll. I used an illustration from a Dover Book for the torso and drew everything else.

Click to enlarge

Vintage Sewing ATCs

Still not working on that on-line class! Instead I made a set of vintage sewing themed artist trading cards for a swap. We can do a total of 9 cards, with each set being different, I might just do that if I can find some more vintage images that would work. The idea was to incorporate fabric, trims, lace, buttons, etc. in your work. This is what I came up with...

This one is my favorite .. it has a fabric background, then a piece of mulberry paper that you can barely see. On top of that is the image, some glossary terms from a pattern piece, and some tape measure pieces. 7 Gypsies has a 12"x12" piece of scrapbooking paper that is just rows and rows of different size tape measures, the name of the paper is Mesurement. It's great for this type of thing. Oh yeah - buttons. Getting the needle through the fabric, cardstock, and all the rest was a pain - probably would have been easier if I hadn't used an embroidery needle - it has a rounded point instead of a sharp one!

This one has a painted background with pattern tissue over it. The pattern tissue isn't as sheer as regular tissue paper. I wish it was. This one has some rick-rack on it that I dabbed with acrylic paint to tone down the red. Look at that machine - looks heavy as hell! Back when sewing machines were metal not plastic! I wonder what she was making.

Mimi Kirchner sent me some vintage sewing emphemera from the 70's. Pages from sewing booklets, the ones with photos of the clothes and the pattern numbers, plus how to articles. Think this one was put out by McCall but I don't have the cover just a bunch of loose pages so I can't really tell. The photos are a riot! It even has those stupid jumpers that I had to sew in Home Ec. Boy, does that bring back memories! But they are great for cutting out words and sayings, etc. This one has a sewing article as background, covered with tissue paper, then stuff glued to it. Technical term there .. stuff! It has lace on the bottom but it doesn't show up too well.

Back to the grind!

One more project done

My folks left this morning. We didn't do much and I was able to get a couple of projects finished while they were here. Here's the flat doll that I made as a thank-you gift.

I couldn't find lace that I liked for the skirt - our JoAnns is closing and the choices right now are pretty dismal. So I bought some off white lace and just colored it using Jacquard dye-na-flow fabric paint. I used two colors of blue and two colors of green - mixed both with white so I had four blues and four greens to dye with. I soaked the lace in water so the colors would blend and just brushed the colors on randomly. I think it turned out really pretty. I left some places with a hint of white since there is white on the torso. Boy - you should have seen my hands! One of these days I'll learn to wear gloves when I do this!

These are the dangles - they are the fun part of making this thing. You get to go through all your 'stuff'! The first and last dangle are metal words backed by abalone colored buttons - they say Thanks and Friend. I just glued the word onto the button - the ribbon is between the two pieces. There are two paper tags - both have a napkin background and one is stamped New Ideas, the other is stamped Creative Juices. One tag has a couple of buttons glued to the ribbon and the other has a large bead threaded on the ribbon to give it weight. Middle piece is a bit of paua shell and the last two dangles, which you can't see, are a heart and a little metal tag that says Inspire. The metal tag has two of the diamond shaped jewels that are on the torso to help it hang.

Click to enlarge

I'm mailing it out today - so I'll let you know in about a week what she thinks of it!

Just stuff

My parents are here visiting - we're doing the tourist thing and my girls have been coming for dinner every night - it's been great! I'm busier than I thought I'd be though and haven't had any time to write. Nor any time to play. My folks brought up the Prismacolor pencil set I had ordered online and had delivered to their house (another office supply company that won't ship to Alaska). Wow - it's the entire set - great colors - but now I have like 140 pencils to sharpen. Ugh. Don't know what that has to do with anything. I wanted to show you the ATCs I finished right before the folks got here.

This first one is for an Anatomical ATC swap. I chose lips because I really like the photo I used. It's inset inside a photo mount - painted with gold acyrlic paint and stamped with black. The words were off this awesome tissue paper that Heather sent me and the silver wire coils were from her too. I scanned this and the colors aren't right (again) - the background is brown, the photo mount gold, and the coils silver. Sigh.

This is just an odd one. I started out with the japanese soldiers, found the words (which is actually the name of a painting) and then added the woman's image.

Who said fairies always fly themselves? This one is flying Alaska Air.

Half done

Today I received the most incredible box in the mail - it was packed full of goodies for making paper art. It was from Heather who I met through swapping mail art on Nervousness. I can't begin to tell you how amazed I am at the friends I have been making via email lately. The level of thoughtfulness and sharing exceeds anything I've ever known. I was going to take a picture to show you the stuff she sent but it covered my table and I couldn't get it all in. I’ll be sending her a goodie box too but I wanted to make her a thank-you gift too. So I started making one using some of the stuff she sent me. This is based on the Barbara Willis Sew Lovely paper doll pattern. The base was an off-white highly textured paper from Heather - I think it might have been a wallpaper sample. It is wrapped around a piece of illustration board so it has substance to it. I - guess what - stamped it with dye inks, then I colored it with water soluble oil pastels and blended them together. Then I added some metallic rub on and then some metallic blue paint. I never seem to stop at one type of media to get the look I’m going for. After that I threaded some ribbon through eyelet trim and ruched it along the top of the bosom - it looks like it was gathered with thread but it was just squished with glue. Great trick that Barbara taught us. Put more of the same down the middle and then covered it all up with jewels that Heather sent me. The bottom is a pre-pleated dark green trim on top of which I put some ‘pearl’ trim. I think this is off to a good start!

I wish I could figure out why my camera just doesn’t do colors properly indoors. The background was a bright yellow folder - but it sure doesn’t look that way in the picture. Oh well. Maybe some day I’ll get proper lights to take photos under. But I doubt it.

Fallen Angel ATC

What's nice about making these ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) is that when you want to be a little creative you can be. After all - they are pretty small! I had bought a couple of note pads with little angels on them, a label maker, and had read about a new technique to make backgrounds. So I figured I'd put them all together. This is what I came up with...

The background started with my usual - dye inks dabbed on with makeup sponges. Then I took some Stitch Witchery and placed some strips on the cardstock. Heated it with the heat gun till it stuck. Then sprinkled some embossing powder on it and heated it again. Put down a couple more strips and used a different color of embossing powder. Interesting effect. Then I cut the little angel out and dabbed on a bit of vintage type ink to age the paper. Found a striptease ad in a book and put them together. Then I had to think of some words to add to explain the composition. I tried Loss of Innocence but it was too wordy and didn't fit on the card so I settled for Fallen Angel. To be honest I think that fits the arrangement better anyway. The look on the little angel's face says it all.

Click to enlarge

I'll have to figure out how to photograph these without getting the reflection off of the tape. Maybe I should scan it. Another experiment for another day.

I showed this to my husband and he said that I'm getting weird. I disagree, but if I am then I'm enjoying every minute of it!

Fiona's journal

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have done this but that journal was crying out to me to be altered. Three of us have worked on the journal now and it has some nice work on the inside. The outside was, well, undecorated. It didn't speak to the beauty and joy being created inside. I couldn't help myself.

So I took some decorative paper and made a cover for it. Then I cut out a heart shape from some extra heavy cardstock and did my usual background. What's the usual? I take makeup sponges and rip them so they are textured rather than smooth and then sponge color on from stamp pads. I usually use two or three colors. On top of that I put some words that were fabric stickers - they say Friends Together Forever. Thought that was a nice sentiment for a round robin journal. Punched a hole in the heart, added one piece of eyelash yarn and a couple of beads. I did make sure they were long enough to get out of the way when other people write in the journal. Simple but appealing, at least I think so.

Click to enlarge

Just one more

Thought I'd share just one more of the vintage nude ATCs I've been making. I keep deciding to keep them so I have to keep making them so I have enough to trade. Now I understand why the house is filled with dolls! I can't stand to see them go either! I lost a little resolution as I resized the image down but I think it still looks okay. This is one I've decided to keep:

More ATCs

I finally got some time tonight to play and I whipped out some vintage nude ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) for ANOTHER swap I'm doing on Nervousness. I think I'm getting hooked on these things .. at least for this go-around. But this particular piece is of a dual nature - not only did I make it for the swap but I did it for an assignment in my Creative Voices online class. We were supposed to make an ATC about our favorite outfit .. well ... I don't have one. What I do have is clothes in many different sizes that I've saved over the years as my weight goes up and down. So without further ado ...

Faces ATCs

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day! We got our kitchen garden planted, I brushed out the dogs, and just enjoyed myself outside. I did end up having to hide from the sun after a while though and I worked on a couple of paper ATCs that I'm doing for a swap on Nervousness. It's a Faces ATC swap and I thought I'd try drawing them. So here they are ...


Click on image to enlarge

I drew the faces with pigma pen, colored them with pencil and gel pen. Then made the hair and hats from pieces of scrapbook background papers. I think the blue girl looks Tyrolean! Yes, that is a fish on the hat of the other girl. I have one more to make for this swap. I'm getting caught up though, little by little.