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.

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! :)

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!

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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! :)

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! :)

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!

Holiday Greetings Card

Since Wednesday Stamper has an open theme this week, I thought I'd post a holiday card I made. This card is an unusual color for the Christmas season, pink (one of my favorites, could you guess?). It has ornaments cut from old wrapping paper over pink print paper, with a stamped strip on the left and a stamped greeting. The strip was stamped with lime green ink and colored with glitter glues.

I hope that you are continuing to enjoy the holiday season! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Christmas Tree ATC

I missed last week's TMTA challenge, so I wanted be sure to do this week's challenge! The theme is "under your Christmas tree".

My ATC has "peace" under my Christmas tree - the 1969 Christmas Seals show children joining hands around a Christmas tree, and below, there is a stamped dove and Christmas message. Decorative ribbon and button stars provide added embellishment. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to all!!!

Faith ATC

Seems like I haven't done a Wednesday Stamper challenge for a while, I'm not sure how long it's been! This week's challenge is "words", a good one for me, since I like using word stamps. I made an ATC with background text and "faith"stamped on tissue paper, "wonder" and "love" stamped and torn, plus a gold glitter-embossed dove over gold mesh ribbon.

Hat ATCs

Right now, my favorite art challenge blog is the "Think Monday, Think ATC" blog. Even if I'm not able to participate in the challenge every week, I still love to go over there and check out the challenges. This week's TMTA challenge must have been especially inspiring, since I made two ATCs this time!

The challenge is to use any type of headwear in on an ATC. For both of mine, I chose a hat. "The Girl in the Little Green Hat" starts with a white cardstock base stamped all over with pine boughs. Torn speckled paper, mesh paper and two square studs adorn the corners. The hat is cut from green paper, and her fur collar rests on torn mulberry paper. "The Lady in Red" is on red cardstock with torn music sheet over wrinkled and ink-rubbed Tyvek, with photo anchors and heart brads in the corners. Her hat is cut from red paper, and her outfit, earings and lips are colored with Glaze pen. Both ladies are lightly tinted with colored pencils, and both names come from old song titles.

Home ATC

Since I haven't had the opportunity to participate in the TMTA challenge for a couple weeks (seems like forever!), I'm glad to be able to do it this time. Houses are the theme this week. My "Home Sweet Home" ATC is made up of pastel cardstocks, music sheet, tiny images of children, outlined with a black marker and topped off with a heart brad. Of course, the song on the music sheet is "Home Sweet Home"! So much of my artwork ends up with a "cute" style, I guess that's just me! Thanks for looking! :)

My Muses

It seems like a long time since I got to do a challenge, so I decided to take a challenge break! The new GPP Street Team Crusade (no. 14) is called "Imaginary Friends". It asks the question, "Who or what is your muse?"

I think that my muses must be angels, because they turn up so often in my art. Whether they are vintage-style, cute or elegant, angels show up in many of my creations, as ornaments or wall decorations, on cards, altered books, wearables - everywhere!

Here is a children's board book that I turned into an angel altered book. The all-gold angel is on the front cover, and the all-silver angel is on the back cover. (Of course, all the inside pages have angels on them as well!) Thanks for looking! (HI Michelle!) :)