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!

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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!

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