Mail Art from Dr Craftenstein

Speaking of Dr. Craftenstein - Look at this gorgeous artwork I received!- Thank you Dr. C!

Christmas Felties

Merry Christmas!

I recently had dinner with my friend Dr. Craftenstein and asked her how she handled  'craft burnout'.  In February this past year, I worked intensely on some magazine and book submissions and found that after I dropped those projects in the mail, I just could not get interested in creating anything new.  My wise friend said she moved to different things when she got tired of one type of crafty project.  I thought about it and realized that I have been working on stamping cards and art projects almost exclusively for quite some time and maybe I should branch out a bit.

Thus began my felting adventures.  Oh my goodness - I cannot pass a thrift store without scouring it for 100% wool sweaters to felt in the washer.  A great deal of my time on the internet is spent poring over felt project patterns and in the evenings I am stitching on something while the tv is on.  And yes, I did get my stamping groove back eventually.

So for Christmas this year, the kids got felt gifts.  The girls received bird ornaments (pattern from this book) and the boys received felt moustaches (and I had mucho fun!)

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2015 - November

I was very inspired by Tim's tag this month and I decided to make a colorful, Happy Birthday tag in bright pinks and gold.  Not at all Fall or Thanksgiving themed, but, someone very close to me has a birthday this month.  The edging technique is fantastic!  I love the shiny edges and the dimensional watercolor technique is quite fun once you get the hang of it.  You really can't see the dimensional quality in the photograph, but, the flame and the candle really popped out nicely.

Here are most of the supplies I used.  I cannot remember where I got the punch - I think it was a Christmas gift one year.  Missing from the picture is the watercolor paper and the remnant rub tool.

*** Wow!!  So happy to be selected as a winner! Thank you for all of your  kind comments ***

Honored to be a Winner!

So happy and excited that my entry, 'Magic', was chosen as a winner in the  Lost Coast and Carmen's Veranda Monthly Challenge!  I can't tell you how much I love this company's stamps.  Whenever the Heirloom Rubber Stamp Festival is in town, I head straight to their booth.  I am honored and thank you for selecting my artwork!

A Gift From Dr. Craftenstein

Is this not awesome?  My friend Dr Craftenstein gifted me with this cool necklace that she crafted via resin pouring. She included some skin that her pet lizard had shed (forgive me Dr. C - he is a beautiful bearded dragon, right?). I love natural items and have a jar full of oddities at home, but, I never thought about suspending them in resin and making wearable art.  I love this necklace and I wear it all the time.

I am making something special for my inspirational friend, and it should be in the mail soon.... Bwa ha ha ha....

Halloween Card

Here is this year's Halloween Card!  I bought this stamp at the Heirloom Rubber Stamping Festival this past February knowing that it would be featured on this year's Halloween card.  I have a couple of barn cats and this image made me smile.  I've seen our savage predators stalking all sorts of small animals on the farm.  There are no rats for miles as far as I can tell.  Once they had taken care of the rodents, they started going after other creatures - the worst was the sad day they felled a beautiful hummingbird.  But what skill to actual catch a hummingbird!

So this year's card is dedicated to our little terrors - Cookie and Pearl!

Some technical details - I stamped the image on watercolor paper and heat embossed it to preserve the detail while coloring.  I again used the wonderful Peerless watercolors with a brush on the image.

Here is the inside of the card...

Halloween Eyeball Softies

My love of crafting with felt continues.  I found this eyeball pattern on the internet and made three.  I was not so happy with my stitching so I bought a book on embroidery and started practicing.  Now I am slightly obsessed with embroidering and have made a huge dent in a sampler. I am going to make more of these eyeball softies with blue irises and orange irises.  I opted to put shakers on the inside so they rattle!

Happy Halloween!

Magic from Lost Coast Designs

This month's challenge on the Lost Coast Design blog is 'Monochromatic'.  I made this piece using the 'Up Close and Personal' stamp set  and the 'Dream Magic Love' stamp set from Lost Coast Designs.  The face is stamped on mirrored paper so that it appears that he is looking through a window into our world.... Magic!

Stampin Up Birthday Card

Had a bit of a slow spell in the creativity department this year.  I just couldn't come up with new ideas that I liked.  Luckily, there are plenty of things to copy if I am feeling uninspired.  This design is from Stampin Up, which always has great ideas in their catalogue.  I like the way this came out and I hope my niece had a lovely birthday.  She was in Seaside, Florida, so it must have been wonderful!

Altered Playing Card Swap

I've had these Rook Cards in my stash for years and when the RubberStampChat altered playing card swap came up, it was time to pull these cards out and have some fun.  I am publishing the steps so that my fellow swappers can see how I used the card:

Here is the original card, as it came out of the deck

I sanded off the finish on the card using one of those handy sanding blocks you get at the home improvement store.  This is my 'go to' sanding tool in the craft room.

After the finish is sanded off, color is added.  These Peerless water colors are great!  In the past, I would have used alcohol inks, but, it is hard to control where alcohol inks go when applied to a sanded surface. With these watercolors, you just use a damp brush to pull the color off the booklet page and apply it to the surface - the colors are so vibrant!

Next, I cut a small mask for the rook from an extra card and then stamped over the mask onto the card using Versafine and the mirror script from Tim Holtz.  I like the fact that the script is backwards - it looks like a rune or a spell.

I used Distress Ink on the edges and I heat embossed the edges with Clear powder to make them shiny.

Finally, I embellished with spider web tape overlaid with film strip ribbon.  I colored the staples with a Sharpie to make them look kind of rusty.  I added the text strip in green after edging with ink.  I also splattered the whole thing with distress ink.

Thought I would post what my swap partners made.  Such cool artwork!  It is always interesting to see different artist's takes on a challenge.

Happy Birthday Fi!

My dear, sweet, grandniece, Fiona, has a birthday this month, and here is the card I made. These are 'Stampin Up' stamps that I have been eager to use.  I copied the card design directly from the 'Stampin Up' catalogue sample.

Double Carves at Double Dutch Press!

Earlier this year I took a two color stamp carving class at Double Dutch Press and created these wonderful rubber stamps.  The design I chose is from Geninne Zlatkis' book and I am psyched about how they turned out.  The card is on the left and the envelope is on the right.  The background stamp is on the top and the detail stamp is on the bottom...

Pattidee Returns

Wow!  I can't believe how long it has been since I posted.  I have been dabbling in some new mediums and have quite a few exciting things to post around the holidays (starting with Halloween).  In the mean time, let me catch up.  Here is my Easter card.

The frame on the outside is intended to look like tarnished silver.  I created it by heat embossing the die cut frame in silver and then heat embossing again with UTEE.  To get the tarnished effect you just dab on the UTEE sparingly - only where you want the piece to be tarnished.  I was going for a shabby chic vibe withe floral paper and I even went so far as to sand the paper here and there.  I love these little birds on a branch!

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2015 - March

I loved this technique so much that I made a batch of cards!  I really love the depth and texture on these (and the bright colors).  I will add embellishments as needed.  These cards would work for Valentine's Day, feminine birthdays, and Mother's Day as well (hope I am not ruining the surprise, Mom!)

Supplies used:  Distress Paint in Picked Rasberry, Mowed Lawn, Mustard Seed, and Broken China.  Various tissue tapes and embossing powders.  The stamp is from Stampin Up.

Red Robot

While at the Heirloom Paper Arts Festival in Lawrenceville, I was thrilled to find this robot stamp and also this rocket stamp at the Lost Coast Designs booth.  Space themed artwork has long been a passion for me and I could not resist these beauties!  The robot is stamped in Versafine Onyx Black and then embossed with clear embossing powder to make it shiny.  The rocket was stamped on shrink film, colored with pencils and then shrunk to make this cool embellishment.  Colored the background with Tim Holtz Faded Jeans Distress Ink, and the rest is colored with Copics.  The shiny rays are silver heat embossed.

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2015 - February

Just last month, I was experimenting with collage techniques, and then Tim's February tag shows a very cool method of collaging with scraps and then using Distress Markers, Distress Paint, and GlueNSeal to up the cool factor and add dimension.  I couldn't resist making this tag!  I didn't have any felt, so I used textured red paper for the heart.  The paper didn't take to being stitched so well, so I reserved the stitching for the lace.  Happy Belated Valentines!

My Favorite Technique

This is a technique that I fell in love with (found it on Tim Holtz website).  I hope no one minds getting a card that I have made a few times.   Happy Birthday!!

January Birthdays

I am blessed with some of the most awesome grandnieces and grandnephews that ever lived.  They never fail to delight me with their wit and inventiveness. Three have birthdays in January and I made these cards.  The first is for a young lady who loves dolls.  I had a fun time dressing this card up!  The other two were made using a 'scrap collage' technique that I learned on the web.  It is a cool way to use up ephemera and paper scraps that get collected over time.  The collaging technique is quite soothing somehow and I was very happy with the result.  Niko's card incorporates some paper that wrapped chopsticks at a restaurant that I saved some time ago.  Also, some graph paper from the computer room that tracks the air conditioner's performance.  I definitely raised some eyebrows when I asked that they save me those papers...

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2014 - December

Here is the last Tim Holtz tag of 2014 - you can see Tim's tag here.  I went a different direction with this one, but, the background is much the same.  I did not have frosted sheets, so I used unembossed frosted film and sewed it onto the tag with a zig-zag stitch.  You can see the stamped snowflakes and painted background under the film - I love the gentle frosted look of the film on top.  The snowflakes are die cut from chipboard that has Tim Holtz paper collaged onto it.  I wired the snowflakes together so that I could add beads, buttons, and a jingle bell.  The snowflakes can be detached and used as an ornament.  I do love a card that jingles!

So that completes a whole year of tags.  I have learned so much this year by taking the 12 tag challenge.  First and foremost, I have learned to add depth and many layers to my work.  I think my cards before were just a bit too one-dimensional.  I also learned some really cool techniques and had a lot of fun.  Finally, I am now more confident in going my own direction with the techniques.  Thank you Tim for the inspiration!