Inchie Wall Hanging

I've been collecting so many inchies from swaps and trades, and I've been wanting to display them in some way. I finally decided on a large fabric wall hanging. It's made of some sort of loopy upholstery fabric, so that inchies with velcro on their backs will stick to it. This also allows me to add/remove/rearrange the inchies whenever I'd like.

Stencilled Peaches

In the past, I've stenciled paper, fabric, wood, leather, etc., so it's seems only natural that I would progress to stenciling fruit! That's right, fruit! Actually, I didn't stencil the peaches on purpose. With a limited number of peaches on the tree this year, it was disheartening to watch the squirrels and birds consume most of them before they were barely ripe. That's when I decided to cover the few remaining peaches with pieces of net. When I removed the nets, I found that the sun had reddened the peaches, except where the nets were blocking the sun! Wa-la, stenciled peaches! BTW, they taste good, too! ;)

Colorful Stenciled ATCS

Since I made some mini stencils for one of GPP's crusades, I've been waiting for an opportunity to use them on ATCs. TMTA's colorful theme this week was the perfect excuse! The shapes were stenciled all over the card stock, using acrylic paints. Some everyday items, like nylon mesh and foam placemats were also impressed on the card stock. Then words and embellishments (brads jewels, clips, mini feathers) were added to these fun fantasy cards.

ATC Received

It's been a l-o-n-g time since my last post! Seeing that this is basically an art blog, I didn't think I had much to post. Then again, I could've posted all the serendipity backgrounds I made . . . . or the inchies I've received . . . . or a few "art junk" items that I found . . . .maybe I'll post all of that stuff soon!

Today I received an ATC from Lia. The picture shown is Lia's charming ATC - the lady seems to elegant to deadhead her own roses, doesn't she? In return, Lia ia getting my "Bird & Boy" ATC, which I posted previously for a TMTA challenge.

Lia is otherwise known as "art junk girl", and she had a great blog here. Lia's blog was one of the first that I started following regularly. Her "artjunk" blog, along with a few others, became an inspiration to start my own art blog. Lia also inspired me to try inchies, which I now love! Thanks, Lia! :)

Stencils, Part 3

GPP Street Team, Crusade No. 19 (third time): Wanting to make some stenciled backgrounds for inchies and/or ATCs, I decided that I needed some very small stencils, not found in any store. Of course, I made my own! The very tiniest ones were made with shaped punches, the rest I cut out of plastic with my heat tool. Acrylic paints were used on all the backgrounds. The pink one uses the stencils and their masks. The center one is done over a mixed text background. The one with all the different designs (the long piece on the far left in the photo) was the most fun to make, I just went crazy with all the colors!

More Stencils

GPP Street Team, crusade # 19: I don't have a stencil cutter, so did some experimenting with my multi-purpose heat tool. The tip that the package designates as stencil cutter seems to melt my plastic sheets too quickly with too wide a path. A little testing taught me that the "universal tip" cut a finer path, so that I could cut more detailed stencils this time. (A few were cut with scissors, too.)

Not enough time to try all the stencils I cut, but here are pictures of some stencils and samples using them. On the orange flower sample, I cut flower centers out of the masks. If I don't want the masks to have centers, they can be covered with tape temporarily. On the purple flower sample, both stencils and masks were used, to make positive and negative images. Both samples were stenciled with acrylic paints and outlined with fine-point pens. Now I've got lots of new stencils, in the sizes and shapes that I want! :)

Stencil Cutting

GPP Street Team Crusade #18, Cut your own stencil: A long, long time ago, when I first started experimenting with all kinds of arts and crafts, I cut my own stencils. I haven't been cutting many stencils lately, so I think it's time to get back into it! I usually cut stencils with a scissors or razor knife. I have heat tools with stencil-cutting tips, which I tried for the first time - they worked just fine! I made multiple-layer stencils for my angel drawing, even one for "background" or "shadow" stencil. Here you can see the "used" stencils with paint still on them, and the angel stencilled with acrylics in my art journal.
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A bit of shameless self-promotion here: Check out my handmade items; Retro Fashion Pins and shell angels, seen in these photos.

Trying To Cut It Out

All month, I've been making foam stamps for the GPP Street Team crusade, so I thought I'd finally try rubber stamp carving. I love making inchies, so I decided to try carving a couple on-inch stamps to use on those. The rubber carving material I bought crumbles very easily, so it was difficult to carve those tiny stamps, especially without the right tools. I used a wood-carving gouge, which wasn't delicate enough for those one-inch stamps. I managed to make three mini stamps: two flowers (back-to-back) and a face. Unfortunately, part of the nose broke off my face stamp when I inked it, so I trashed that one.

As you can see from the sample of my double-sided flower stamp, parts of those stamps have broken off the edges. I drew in the flower centers and leaves. Next time, I'm going to try carving a larger stamp! ;)

Texture Effects, Purple

This time, I created two ATCs, for the themes at TMTA (texture effects) and Wednesday Stamper (purple). The texture effect is Bernie Berlin's painted paper towel technique. The paper towel was painted with metallic acrylics, torn in pieces, and glued to the card stock. Glitter glue was added to the stamped flowers. I'm not sure I like the one with all the glitter; I think I went overboard with all the different glitters! ;)

Cut It Out 3!

GPP Street Team, crusade no. 18 (again!) Here is yet another try at the handmade foam stamps I've come to love! This time, my foam stamps have three layers: the design is cut into the top layer, the second layer is for stability, and the third layer is the backing with easy-pull-up tabs on the sides. I decorated a page using acrylics with these two stamps. (Someday, I'm going to try rubber stamp carving, when the novelty of foam stamps wears off!) Thanks for looking! :)

Happy Spring!

I just had to post a picture of some of my many decorated eggs. We decorate an "Egg Tree" displayed every Easter. I try to add at least one new decorated egg each year. Happy Easter, Happy Spring!!!

Cut It Out Again!

I believe I promised some more foam stamps for the GPP Street Team crusade, so here they are. I tried them out last night. These are what Michelle Ward calls "go-with" stamps - I made the dress top, dress bottom, and wing foam stamps to go with each other. The dress stamps are mounted on another layer of foam, but the wing is loose, so I can use either side, for right and left wings. On the journal page, I glued a head and drew a hairdo, hands and feet.

And I found out how to dry foam stamps quickly after washing them off: I put my cleaned stamps down and forgot where they were until I felt an unexplained wetness! I sat on my foam stamps and they dried - but my pants were wet!

P.S. - If you haven't taken this craft poll yet, go here and check it out, no registration required!

Cut It Out!

I took a stab at GPP Street Team's Crusade No. 18, entitled, "Cut It Out" (create your own stamp or stencil). I wanted to get started on my stamps without having to stop at the store. One thing that I have a lot of is fun foam sheets, so I used some to cut my own original foam stamps. Here are a few of the foam stamps I made, a flower and two leaves. They are on another layer of foam, for backing. I made some other stamps,but I can't show them off, since I haven't had a chance to play with them yet! ;)

Although I mainly made the foam stamps to use with acrylic paints, I wondered how they would work with dye ink stamp on gesso. Here I have a gessoed page in my journal, with little bits of text added to it. Because of the smooth gesso, it was like doing potato prints! Also, the foam soaked up a lot of ink, so I could stamp forever without reinking!

If you are reading this you're probably interested in arts/crafts. If so, I'd like you to consider participating in a craft poll here. You don't need to register, the poll is free, and added your opinions/comments is optional. Your participation may help to revitalize the craft industry! Thanks for listening! :)

RAK for a Friend

I don't know if I should post this, because it's a surprise ATC for a friend - oh, well, even if she sees it, she won't know that she's "the one" until she receives it! Anyway, she's so busy, she probably can't find the time to read my blog! ;)

The card stock base is scraped with acrylics, the second layer is wrinkled, walnut inked and punched. The third layer (colored circle) was created using a technique similar to Bernie Berlin's "Inky Layers" technique in her book, Artist Trading Card Workshop. (Of course, I can't do anything exactly like the instructions say, I've always got to put my own spin on it!) I hope my friend likes it! :)

Inchies Again!

I'm still in love with inchies! Maybe that's because there are so many techniques that can be used on them. Here's an example, these paint technique inchies that were recently swapped. In the top row, I've used paint like a fabric to cover 1" chipboard squares. The second row has metallic-painted backgrounds. In the third row, the two on the left have torn masking tape under the paint, and the right two have hearts made of texture medium. These all use various metallic paints, and they shine much better in real life! :)

Watercolor Inchies

Another inchies post today! These intuitive watercolor inchies were made for a swap which is now completed. We were supposed to see images in the random watercolor blotches, and draw them. My blotches just looked like bits and pieces, so I turned them into crazy quilt pieces!

Valentine Inchies

These inchies are perfect to post on Valentine's Day because of their theme. They were created for swap and were distributed to the participants, so now I can show them here.

Most of them have some punched areas made with corner punches, or punch-out hearts. The two red ones in the lower right corner were my favorites, so I kept them for myself! ;)

Valentine ATC

Wednesday Stamper Challenge: OK, I like pink, but this time I wanted to do something different, not your typical old-fashioned Valentine. This ATC is stamped with flowers, then brushed with magenta, orange and yellow inks. The vellum is stamped with a heart, torn edges are rubbed with magenta ink, then everything is attached with hot pink mini paper clips and a hot pink flower brad. My funky Valentine! :)

Bird and Boy ATC

It's fun to take time out of my day to do the TMTA challenge, but it seems like I'm always trying to do to many things at once - many of you probably know what I mean!

Anyway, for the "child/children and bird" challenge, blue papers and torn music sheet is layered on card stock, with boy image and cut-out paper bird; everything is tinted with sand dye ink. It sayys, "Please, litle birdie, sing a sweet song to me"! :)

Asian ATC

Wednesday Stampers' theme this week is Asian. A difficult one for me, because I only have one Asian rubber stamp. But it's good to make art with a no-so-favorite theme, because it builds skill and character, right? Well, I don't know about that, but here it is: On black card stock, large small Asian characters from printed papers, stamped and colored bamboo postage, two black mini brads. The large Asian characters mean "Harmony". I need to get offline, so I'll check out everyone's Asian art tomorrow! Thanks for looking! :)

New Collage Book

I've heard about a new collage book called "Art from the Heart", by Catherine Matthews Scanlon. I haven't seen this book "in person" yet, I can't wait to get my hands on it! The link for the author's blog is here.

Cats ATC

I don't have any cats, but I like animals, so here is my answer to this week's TMTA challenge. The green paper was randomly stamped with assorted rubber stamps. I chose a portion of the paper that had a mouse stamped on it, very fitting for a cat ATC!

The large image is cut from wallpaper, the one to its right is a postage stamp. The top two images are cut from bottle cap stickers. (Design Originals has lots of different bottle cap stickers here.) Thanks for looking at my kitty card! :)

Geometric ATCs

This time I completed two ATCs with geometric designs for the TMTA challenge. The first has a vintage look, with a collage paper image, linen scrim and rick rack around the bottom, and circles and diamonds stenciled on the background. Unfortunately, the diamonds are mostly covered by the scrim, and the circles show up much better in person then on the scan.

The second ATC has a 1950's/1960's look featuring a man and woman image, two star brads, diamonds on the background paper and circles on the torn paper strip. The words are: "Close To You" and "The pleasure, I'm sure, is mutual", since these two people look lik they are having a great time!Thanks for looking!

Colorful Inchies

I love making (and receiving) inchies! I like "small stuff", and that includes creating small art projects. Until I found out about inchies, though, I never knew that art could be so tiny (and yet so fun to make)!

I have been participating in some inchies swaps lately. The photo is a set I made for an "intuitive watercolor" inchie swap. Colors were dripped randomly on watercolor paper. When dry, the "crazy quilt" designs were drawn on with a fine-point black pen. The watercolor paper was then cut into squares (slightly smaller than 1") and mounted on 1" black card stock squares. Last, the words and buttons were glued on.

Walnut Inky!

Recently I spent a lot of time completing a special project (sorry, can't go into to details, since it is in the process of being published). Anyway, I mixed up a batch of walnut ink for this project, and I wanted to use most of it up before tossing the excess. So, I went crazy, walnut-inking many different kinds of papers: heavy card stock, watercolor paper, sketchbook paper, music sheets, paper doilies, even a couple pages in my art journal. I think sometimes brown is underrated, it's a good color!

Blog Revival

I knew that it was a long time since my last post, but I didn't think it was THAT long! Well, it's time to revive this old blog - it's not dead, it was just sleeping!

Here is an ATC I made for a nice swap hostess; shhh, don't tell her! The background is acrylic-painted paper towels, torn and glued onto cardstock. The black and white images has some words, purple iridescent flower sequins and gold brads added.