Busy Bees

I recently made a cute little card for my favorite cousin. It was her birthday, and I wanted her to have something pretty. I know she likes my layered pieces, so I decided to send her a hive of bees. 

I started out with some yellow and yellow green papers. I put them through the Cuttlebug with the first embossing folder I ever bought. It was the Honeycomb folder from Cricut/Cuttlebug.

 
I cut a few of the hexagons out here and there, and also cut pieces to go under the 'windows'. I also cut a few pieces to layer on top of the original layer.



I used a tiny bee stamp that I got with a small Prima set several years ago. I fussy cut them and colored them to look like bees. Then I layered the whole thing using foam adhesive squares to give the layers and the bees some dimension. I used two different thicknesses. The thicker foam I used to separate the layers of hive, and the thinner foam to pop the bees up just a tiny bit.

I was pretty pleased with the final results! This is a relatively simple process that results in a pretty high impact image. By far the most time consuming part of the job is the fussy cutting of the bees. 

I hope this has inspired you to go make something pretty today to send to a friend. It is totally worth the work when they open up the mail and see something other than bills in the mailbox. 

Have a happy weekend, and happy arting!

The last day of February...

What a glorious day! The sun isn't shining, the birds aren't really singing and nothing special in a good way is happening. But I woke up breathing, and everything seems to be functioning. So it might not be a beautiful day, but it is glorious nonetheless. 

I didn't blog on Monday. I was busily working on finding a supply I needed to finish a set of ATCs for the gallery showing and swap I participate in every year in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It took me literally all day to find it. I hate when that happens. I seem to be losing things a lot lately. That means it's time for a reorganize. That means some things are going to get packed away. Other things will get put in the forefront, and everything will get revamped. More on that later.

I want to share the ATCs I created for the gallery swap with you, then I want to share the swap details with you, just in case you are interested in playing yourself. So without further nonsense...

I started out by going into a tub of 'junk' I've been putting bits and pieces into for a while. I have tried to keep things in there organized, but there's still a little bit of chaos. I pulled out some bags of scraps and bits that I've been wanting to play with for a while now. There are so many here that making a set of 7, and 2 full sets of 12 ATCs hasn't even really made a dent in the stash. :(  I was really hoping to do better. lol

I made a full set of these, all 'identical.' Identical being relative as there are always little random differences.

I had a full 8.5x11 sheet of this shimmery, textured paper. It was sent to me wrapped around a set of ATCs for protection in the mailing system, so I only got 8 cards out of the sheet instead of 10. I recently got this distressed filmstrip die from wish.com, and the stamp from my stash. The tiny acetate ticket came from another friend recently in a my stuff/your stuff swap. I think all together they make a striking image.

The second set I created were different, but I created 2 of each card. One for the swap, and one for my personal collection. I did use postage stamps as my theme this year. I had an ok time finding 2 of each of these, but that was it. Amazingly, I couldn't find any more of them!

 

This and all of the next papers have been in the stash for a long time. The acrylic piece and the flowers are from the my stuff/your stuff swap and the gems are from Paper Studio. That's what I spent all day looking for. lol...this card just wouldn't be the same without them though.

 

 The lace is vintage, and came from a thrift shop somewhere. The pearls in the center are also from Paper Studio. My favorite brand of bling.

 The button came from the my stuff/your stuff swap. I used 2 different kinds of glue for this set. I was worried about my tried and true Elmer's school glue on these funky papers, so I used Aileen's Paper Glaze and Aileen's Fast Grab tacky glues instead. I have to say. They did a stellar job on these super slick finishes.

 

 This paper was put through an embossing folder before it was sent to me. I kinda liked it, but have never seen the embossing folder. The gold braid and string of black beads were in my stash.

 

 This is probably the simplest one of the set. This is actually a vintage paper doily I found in a thrift shop. They are exactly 3.5 inches wide! They are hard to see in the photo, but there are also some teeny tiny red gems on the berries on the stamp. Paper Studio strikes again. Lol





This last one is my favorite I think. I used some leftover pieces of a window shade sample from The Shade Store. I loved how it looks like the parrot has his feet resting on the bamboo, and like he's going to nibble at the braided grass. I only wish his tail was all in the picture. This set was fun to make, and came together pretty quickly once I found the bling.

 The third set, are all the same, but used different papers and stamps. I started out with poker playing cards from the dollar store, and covered them with leftover scraps of paper from the stash. Then I cut up a couple of paint paper towels I had around for the next layer. The third layer is some thin packing paper that I put through the Cuttlebug in an embossing folder from wish.com. Next is a piece of clear plastic that I also put through the Cuttlebug with a set of tiny doily dies that also came from wish.com. They didn't cut quite all the way through, but the plastic is pretty thick. I really like the way they look. I topped the whole thing off with a postage stamp. I stapled the stamp, doily and embossed bit together before gluing the embossed bit down. I didn't think any glue would hold those doilies down. Tell me in the comments which is your favorite?

  

  

Now, as promised, here are the deets of the swap. Tis link may not work. Wen I find a better one I will edit this.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2060562907498792/?ti=ashttps://www.facebook.com/events/2060562907498792/?ti=as
Well, that's all I have for you today. I will try to have something on time for you next Monday. Even if I have no photos, or it isn't even art related. ;)

Bye for now> Happy arting!

Only 1 day late...

I'm so sorry I didn't get a post in yesterday. I don't know if it was my computer or the internet, but I just couldn't get it to let me write a new post. I spent a few hours trying to get it to work before I finally gave up. So here I am a day late, with nothing much to share. 

All I have to bring you today is a few Artist Trading Cards (ATCs). I am a member of a swap group called ATC Fun. If you click the name it will take you to the group home page. I occasionally host some swaps there. For the month of January I hosted three. The subjects were Cake, Cardinals and cold. 

I tend to be pretty lenient when I host swaps. I will allow any materials, any techniques, any interpretation as long as the 2.5x3.5 inch size guideline is observed. I didn't get very many players for these swaps. Plus I spent 12 days in the hospital in January, so I extended the deadline to February 15th. That date has passed, and the swaps are closed now. I've exchanged all the player's returns and they are ready to mail back.

Here are photos of my contributions.

                                         Cake...

The base, or substrate of all three of these cards is a poker playing card. Plain uncoated paper ones are available at dollar stores. I covered the card with a piece of old book paper treated with iridescent watercolor medium from Windsor & Newton. I hand drew the cake slice, and painted them with watercolors. Then I outlined and defined with a black sharpie. I also stamped and cut out the words, then glued the whole thing together.




Cardinals...

The background of this card is a mixed media background similar to the one from a few blog posts ago. I will do these again soon, and post about them. The pine tree is a die cut from Wish.com, and the cardinal is from Tim Holtz Mover's and shapers.







And Cold...

The background on this one is from a scrap of paper a friend sent me. I thought the lines of the napkin scrap kinda looked like wind. The snowflake is also from my stash of goodies sent by friends. The snowman is from a set of stamps I've had for so long I don't even remember who made them. I filled in the hat and scarf with glitter gel pens.

I hope if you're interested in ATCs that you will consider visiting ATC Fun, and maybe join in and swap with us!


For Monday's post I will be talking about ATCs again. Stay tuned...

This was truly a mess...aka, what to do with ugly papers.

Today's post was a lot of fun to prepare for. A little background...I am taking over a big ATC swap in the summer this year. To learn more about that, check out the second page of my blog. Anyway, I thought for the spring trade, I would make enough ATCs for every player to receive one, with an introduction on the back. That was a great idea, the current hostess thought. Then she dropped the bomb...the swaps average 40-50 players per swap! WOW!!! I better get busy!

I should confess at this point that this isn't all my idea. I totally followed a YouTube video in my process. My pieces came out totally different than hers! I used alcohol inks instead of india inks, and came up with a completely different look. I will post a link to the video at the end of the post.

So let me begin by saying this. If you only make one sheet, this process should only take an hour or two. Knowing that you can get 16 ATCs from every 12x12 sheet of paper though, I made 4 sheets. It took me a couple of afternoons to get these all done, and I decided to skip the last couple of steps in the tutorial because I don't have a roll of drywall tape that I can get to, and I don't feel that heat embossing is going to add much to the end result. Basically, they are screaming at me that they are done.

Without further ado, lets jump in. Do you have any paper you are just not that crazy about? If you answered no, you've purged it all out, or you're lying to yourself. Personally, I have quite a bit of ugly paper. I usually buy patterned papers by the 12x12 pad, and there's always two or three patterns in the pad that don't get used because I just don't like them. I used to wonder what to do with them. I've given tons of them away to grade school teachers in the past for use in the classroom. I probably will continue to give 'ugly' papers and other things I will never use away periodically, but I will be making a point of keeping some around for this and other techniques in the future. So begin, by pulling out a sheet or two of paper you know you're never going to use. Here's a photo of the one I chose.

This came in a pack of 25 sheets from Tuesday Morning. I have no idea what I bought it for, or what I had previously used it for. It's really not my usual style though, so it's a perfect candidate for the ugly paper treatment. It comes from a company called GCD Studios. The grouping is called Country Charm, and the specific pattern is called Item 1510, Strawberry Jam.



Before I started, I got out my pencil and ruler, and laid out my cutting pattern on the back of my paper.

If you lay out four 5x7 rectangles, there will be a two inch square left in the middle. Then measure each 5x7 inch square into four 2.5x3.5 inch ATCs. Total 16 ATCs.


The first thing I did was slap on a couple of thin coats of gesso.

This isn't card stock, it's just patterned paper. It's going to need some help to take the beating we're going to give it. We don't want necessarily to completely obscure the existing pattern though...so a couple of thin coats should do it. It will keep the paper from disintegrating from the next steps, but will leave a bit of background for texture and interest.

The next thing to do is select a stencil or two. I sorted out several as I was doing so many sheets.

As you can see, I'm not always diligent about cleaning my stencils before I put them away. LOL I don't know anyone who is. The one in the center there has a nice coating of Dylusions spray ink...hmmm. If you don't have stencils, use whatever strikes your fancy to create some texture.

So the next step is to get out your texture paste, modeling paste, joint compound or whatever putty medium you use to create texture. You will also want a putty knife, pallet knife or old credit card for scraping the paste through the stencil.

Most of my stencils are 7mil. That is a measurement in that industry that means just over a millimeter thick. That pile of modeling paste probably covered about half the sheet, and the larger pattern of the stencil twice.

I would also like to point out here that it's a really good idea to thoroughly dry each layer between applications.

A heat gun is not the same as a hair dryer, for any novices reading the blog. You could use a hair dryer for this, but please don't ever try to use a heat gun on your hair. It's much too hot and could result in injury!

I found this one in floral. It was the only one they had in the store. They didn't even have one in the stamping area with the heat embossing powders. It was with the shrink wrap for making gift baskets and such.

Here are my results after adding texture paste...

 

I left the texture paste to dry overnight. I wanted to make sure the paper and paste were thoroughly dry. You don't have to do that though. You can totally heat it up with the heat gun and dry it out in a few minutes. I saved these two views for last so you could see what the spay ink on that dirty stencil did. It looked kinda cool imho. What do you think? Let me know in the comment section!

 












The next thing I did was to spritz them with Dylusions sprays. I just used two colors per sheet. I didn't want to get too many layers and end up with mud.

 

 

I did use a sheet of paper towel to mop up some of the spray ink. It was a bit puddly in spots, and I didn't want to wait forever for it to dry. My paper towel came out real pretty too!

After hitting the sheets again with the heat gun to be certain this ink was dry, I started choosing colors of alcohol inks to go with the Dylusions sprays. I used four or five colors on each sheet. I dripped a few drops of ink in the area I wanted to color, then used a mini mister with 91% rubbing alcohol to make it a bit more liquid so it would run real nice. Here are the inks I used, and the results of the runs.

 







These inks are from Ranger industries. I used Celery, 
Eggplant, Meadow, Stream and Sailboat Blue.

 







Here I used Watermelon, Ginger, Caramel, Slate and Currant.

 Mushroom, Currant, Red Pepper, Cranberry and Wild Plum.

This last one I used Sailboat Blue, Stream, Wild Plum and Eggplant.

Now I will just drop the video in here. It is only 10:33 long, so no afternoon commitment is required, I think you can see from the preview image though that my results are much different than hers!

I encourage you to play creatively today. Use whatever it is you have to play with. If there's a supply you have that you want to try, go for it. Any supply I used can be substituted somehow, or even made at home. There are tutorials on YouTube for homemade spray inks, alcohol inks and even homemade texture paste! 

I hope you enjoyed today's blog post. If you did, leave me a comment and share with your friends! Thanks for stopping by! 

A few ATCs I've made lately.

I about panicked this morning when I realized it was blog day. It's been a strange week around here. My youngest had all four of his wisdom teeth surgically removed on Tuesday. No I didn't take video of the crazy talk, but I may have to quote a short conversation...
     Me:Would you like to take your jacket off?
     Gasper:NO! It's the only thing that got me through the war!
     Me:What war?
     Gasper:The one where I lost my teeth!
     Me: How did you lose your teeth in the war?
     Gasper:They shot em out!
Then he dissolved into the giggles and took his jacket off. Anesthesia is so much fun!

 Also Andrew had the day off on Tuesday and Wednesday so I spent time with him and preparing errands instead of making art. At least our tax forms are all filled out and sent in. That is one headache I refuse to procrastinate over. It's so much easier to just fill out the forms early while you know where all the paperwork is. If you wait till April, things start getting lost. Plus, we will have our tiny return back in a couple of weeks instead of having to wait for every person who waited to file to get processed first. Bonus!

On top of it all, yesterday was Valentine's day. I love gooey hearts as much as the next gal, but this is the year I give up sweets. I'm getting pretty serious now about losing some of this weight. I know it's killing me slowly, and I'm not ready to die...or have to go into a long term care facility because I can't take care of myself.

Anyway, now that I've caught you all up with my daily life...how about some art pics?

I really enjoy making ATCs. They are tiny pieces of art that can be made with virtually anything you want. I've seen clay, cardboard, fabric, wood, metal and probably several other materials used to make the 2.5 x 3.5 inch cards from. I've also seen all of those same things and more used to embellish those bases into some amazing works of art! I'm just glad the recipients of the pieces I'm about to share liked them.

Let me start off by saying I've been making ATCs since 2010. About six months into the process I started having trouble remembering what the cards I had made for the swaps I was joining looked like, so I started making an extra card for myself. This is one of the best decisions I ever made! I now have a really nice collection of my own art to pass on to my descendants, and I find inspiration in my past work quite often. So, these that I'm showing are the extra pieces I made for myself. I hope you enjoy them.

First up are these two. I can't really remember what these were for, but the other two had butterflies too. I used bits and pieces I found on my desk and layered in a background and added the focal points last. Then I dropped in some shading with my aqua pencil and a bit of water for shading in spots. I like them pretty well.

This little cutie is meant to be the baby hidden in the King's cake for Fat Tuesday. I colored the adult coloring page in Mardi Gras shades, Then cut the page down to ATC size pieces. I glued a piece of magazine page with cake on the back, and made the hole with foldout bits to resemble an opening in the cake. I put another piece of cake photo behind it. I found the tiny little doll on a collage sheet I've been hoarding. There you have it. Pretty simple, but I thought it was kinda clever.

These two were made for a challenge swap called six steps. We were to use torn cardboard, so I tore the apertures for these frames. The background is printed burlap for the burlap step. Wire was another step, and white and line were two more steps. I can't for the life of me remember what the sixth step was, but it got met too. The figures are from Tim Holtz paper dolls ephemera collection recently released. I have enjoyed those quite a lot really. This was the January challenge. Only one of these was required to fit the challenge, but it was too fun!

These are also six steps challenge ATCs for the February round. Once again, I can only remember five of the six steps. Sigh.

Purple, I splattered purple metallic paint on the background. Embossing, I used dry embossed music notes, which was another step, for my background piece. Three steps knocked out immediately! Another step was hearts which I either cut or tore out of some packaging. Recycling beautiful packaging is the perfect thing to do on ATCs! The last step I remember was stencilling. So I put embossing paste through a stencil to create the words. The top card was for the challenge. The bottom set is similar, but not required to meet the challenge, so they are a little different.

These last three were for an entirely different type of swap. It was called My stuff/Your stuff. The idea was to stuff a 6x9 envelope with goodies from your stash and send it  to a partner who would then make 2 ATCs from your stuff and send them back to you. I have to admit...it was kinda hard to find enough

 stuff from my stash to fill the envelope. lol I am so attached to all the bits and pieces I've hoarded it's kinda sad really. Anyway...I had no trouble at all whipping these three up from the supplies my friend Marilyn sent me. Thanks again Marilyn! In her package were several Tim Holtz items I have looked at repeatedly but never bought. Extra fun for me!


Well, I hope you all enjoyed today's episode of show and tell. Hopefully on Monday I will have a mixed media background to share. I need to find the video that has a formula I liked, so wish me luck! It's been some time ago I last saw it.

See you on Monday! Tootles!