Tag #2

I was reminded of this lady image when the new releases for summer CHA were being shown.  She was coming out in one of Stampers Anonymous's classic sheets but I have her as a wood mount. I just had to get her out and use her!!  Again I started with a #8 manilla tag.  The background is Dylusion sprays.  If you look along the right side you can see a "ghosted" image of the word Dream.  I used Tim's movers and shakers Dream die and cut it from plastic packaging... layed it on the tag, sprayed water, took off the die-cut packaging, blotted up the water and dried it.  All stamps used on this tags besides the lady (Stampers Anonymous) and a grungy background image (Tim Holtz) are Wendy Vecchi Studio 490.  Around the top of the tag is a partial stamp of a flower stamped 3 times and embossed with green ep.  The flourishy weed image is stamped with Adirondack snow cap pigment.  The script and grungy background images are Distress Ink.  The lady, word Dream, and sentiment are all stamped with jet black Archival.  A white pen highlights the dot in the eye.  Red ink on the lips.

Back to those tags

Those tags being the ones I made and took with on my trip to Ohio over Stampaway weekend.  If you don't know what I'm talking about scroll down a few posts.  This is one of the tags I made (I'm scheduling the other 2 over the next 2 days) to take with and swap. A very cool technique that was mentioned to me at our last local in-person atc swap by one of the new people that come to the swap, Alexis.  A technique using paint and 91% rubbing alcohol.  She mentioned it was in the book Surface Treatment Workshop which rang a bell and when I got home I checked and, yep, I had the book.  I really need to work through all the techniques in this book... very cool  Anyway this particular one is found on page 86.  For my tag I used a #8 manilla tag from Ranger.  I painted it with Paint Dabber lettuce and let it dry completely.  Then I used Paint Dabber colors raspberry and sunset orange... these need to be watered down... you paint them on and then drip on the alcohol while the paint is still wet.  What I did was use a pipette, made lots of drips and then blotted with a paper towel.  It made the most wonderful variegated color on the tags... totally awesome.  You could do more controlled drips and you don't have to blot leaving a more defined pattern but for these tags I loved how it turned out with the blotting.  After it was dry I used an alphabet stencil (Dylusions) and Archival ink in the background.  Stamped the border image (Dylusions) along the top and bottom with jet black Archival.  Added the white in the borders with a pen.  Stamped laugh with jet black.  "Stamped" all the white circles with white paint and various lids or items sitting around.  The larger black dots were done with a pencil eraser and jet black.  The little black dots are an old stamp.  "laugh" didn't stand out as well as I wanted so I went around the edges with a black Glaze pen.

Making Art Challenge #50

It's very hard to believe that this is the 50th Challenge issued by our most fabulous list mom, Lori, on the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group!!!  Our challenge this time is to take the techniques Tim Holtz shared in the Stamptember video on Simon Says Stamp's Blog HERE but use at least one Wendy stamp or as in the video, stamps from one set.  So I took a bit of time this afternoon and made a tag.  I used stamps from one of Wendy's new stamp sets, Art For You.  This is a fabulous set with insects, a honeycomb background and two word stamps, one of which is the "Be You" that I used.  For most of it I followed the video but then added a couple of other techs too.  I started with a manilla tag and the Distress Stains I used were spun sugar, scattered straw, and picket fence because I don't own the metallics yet.  Distress Inks used in the background are picked raspberry, ripe persimmon, and vintage photo.  Distress Inks used on the main bee are peacock feathers, and seedless preserves applied with a water brush.  After following along for the background and stamping I then used the water brush to put just plain water in the wings and body of the main image bee, let it sit a bit and blotted it up.  This lightened the color in the bee and then I went back in and added color.  The heart is one of Wendy's blossom bucket pieces colored with Archival Ink and then I rubbed Distress Stickles spun sugar on it.  Also around the bee and the heart I added a line of Distress Ink pumice stone with the water brush to give a little shading for depth.  It was great fun getting inky as I haven't had much time for that lately.  Thanks to Wendy Vecchi for her fabulous products and wonderful inspiration on her blog and to Lori for taking such good care of use on the Wendy group!!!

Chunky Time

We just finished a swap on the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group of Chunky ATCs and this is the chunky I made and sent to Susan.  I received an incredible chunky from Anita.  She has pics on her blog Here and also another somewhat similar chunky on her blog Here that is awesome.  

If you don't already know, a chunky starts as a piece of 2 x 4 wood cut to 2 1/2".  A 2x4 is actually only 3 1/2" wide and 1 1/2" thick so by cutting a piece at 2 1/2" you get a piece that is ATC sized and 1 1/2" thick; therefore, a chunky.  Our only requirement was to use at least one Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 stamp but I used many.  I also got my order of Wendy's new stencils and some of her stamps and art parts in time to to use them on my chunky.  So all stamps and stencils used are Studio 490.  

I started out by painting all sides of wood with Distress Crackle Paint weathered wood and broken china... I just poured some each onto my craft sheet and picked up the colors randomly letting them swirl together on the wood.  Once everything else was done to it you can't really see how they swirl together but I'm sure it must have made a different in my finished project :-))  After it was dry and crackled I stamped with the background image from the set Material Art using Archival Ink Manganese Blue on all sides.  Next I brushed watered down snow cap Paint Dabber over a side, let it sit just a few seconds and wiped it off, and then continued until all sides were done.  This toned down the stamped a bit and emphasized the cracks more.  Along the way I did some pieces flake off here and there but not too much and it just added to the distress of it all.  I stenciled dots on the front and back with purple twilight Paint Dabber.  Around the top edge I stenciled on the stripes with espresso Paint Dabber... it sometimes bled under the stencil but that was ok too... and then I used a white pen to bring out the design more.   

The bird nest is just wadded up raffia.  I also sprayed a little brown Dylusions on it, blotted it and let it dry.  The bird is cut from grungeboard - I cut 2 and glued them together.  

The big flowers on the front and back are modeling paste through a stencil, let it dry, colored roughly with Tombow markers and then blended with water, let it dry, put the stencil back on and stamp the flower with a background image.  The center pieces are a couple of Wendy's Blossom Bucket pieces, the colors altered with Sharpie watercolor paint markers (one with regular color and the other with glitter color).  

The flower on this side is an Art Part and matching stamp.

The leaves and flowers were stamped on grungepaper, cut out, inked, leaves stamped with a background image, leaves and flowers highlighted with a white pen.  

The piece around the bottom is Ranger's sticky backed foil cut with a Tim die, colored with alcohol ink, and then coated with matte Glue 'n Seal to tone down the shininess.  

Long Time No Blog!!!! And Stampaway!!!

 The weeks have just  flown by!!!  Life has been busy... work, family, company... but it is all good!!!  Now that school has started I think things will be their more "normal" busy rather than crazy busy, lol!!!

I have lots of cards and atcs from the summer that I haven't shared yet and will hopefully be getting to those very soon but first my trip to Ohio over Stampaway weekend, the first weekend in August.  Several of us from a small online group had been planning for months to meet up that weekend and I'm so glad I was able to go.  I had an absolutely fabulous time!!!!!  I made the 10 hour drive over on Thursday and drove back on Sunday.  I took one class while there.  It was an art journaling class.  We each received a spiral bound book and then we spent time using several different mediums in different ways to create backgrounds (or the beginnings of backgrounds) in the book.  We used white gesso, black gesso, black gesso with aluminum foil, acrylic paints, tape, various inks, sprays.  It was a lot of fun!!!!  Now to turn all those started pages into finished pages.

We all had tickets to the Stampaway preview party Friday night.  It was wonderful to browse and shop without all the big crowds.  I got to meet Cheryl of  TENseconds Studio.  She was demoing VerDay paint and patina in the Marco's Paper booth.  Here is a pic of her and I.

Some of us, including me, bought the VerDay kit because it's just way cool what you can do.  After I got back to the hotel room I had to have a play.  The night before I had picked up a large sheet of 300# watercolor paper (there was a Hobby Lobby and a Michael's not far from where we had supper) as I was planning to make a book and had already torn it down into pieces about 7 1/2" x 11".  I decided the VerDay would make a way cool cover.  I did make a mistake as I somehow missed the fact that you are supposed to let the first coat of paint dry for at least one hour... I painted the first coat, dried it with a heat tool, sponged on some of every color over it and then sprayed on the patina.  Then went to bed so it could "cook" all night.  In the morning... way cool!!!  But I think I would have had a bit more rusting if I had done the first coat of paint properly.  But I still like it!!!  This is a pic...  the pink you see is from spraying the other side with Dylusion sprays... didn't plan for it to get on the VerDay side but I'm messy and it's all ok!!  

Here is a close-up of an area.  

While at the preview party we decided to get our pics taken with Tim and Mario.  In the pic are Mario, Michael, Trent, Nancy, Tim, Me, Lori, and Deb in the front.  

On Saturday Michael had arranged for us to use the studio area of Stamping Buddies, a stamp store that had just opened this year.  The owner was super sweet and it was so much fun to just play and visit with everyone.  The first thing we did was get out our VerDay so we could do up some things and they'd have time for drying and patinaing while we were there.  I did this manila tag... it is so cool!!!! ... I haven't done anything else with it yet but will although I don't want to cover up too much of it's awesomeness.  

I also started working on my book.  I took each piece of watercolor paper and sprayed it with Dylusion sprays, dried them, and then did Dyan's ghosting technique with various stencils on each one.  Here are just 3 as I've already started finishing pages and hadn't thought to take pics of them all beforehand.  Each of these pages gets folded in half ... they'll all be nestled together and then bound.  I'll share the whole book once it's finished.

Another thing I did was try my hand at Zentangling.  Nancy gave Lori and I a lesson.  I started with a stencil of a flower, just traced the design with a black pen and then went on to fill in all the areas.  Then free-handed with white pen around it and added the words with black pen.  I chose those words because as I was working on the flower I would find myself holding my breath trying to get things "right" and then all of a sudden take a big breath and Nancy would tell me to breathe, this was supposed to be relaxing and fun, lol.  And it was fun... so much fun that the 3 of us are having a little swap of strings and tangling them and sending them back (I'll share all that when we are done).  I did this flower on the inside cover of the book I started. 

Something we had planned ahead of time was to have a tag swap.  We all made tags to swap.  I totally messed up!!!  I forgot that we were supposed to make a tag related to either where we live or where we grew up.  But I had fun making the tags I took and have promised to make Iowa tags for everyone later.  I made these first 3 tags, a few of each, and let everyone just choose which one they wanted.  (I'll share each one separately with info on future blog posts)

These are the tags everyone else made.  Left to right - Trent, Lori, Micheal, Nancy, Deb.  Aren't they all fabulous!!!  These are all going in my book.  

And here is a picture at a Mexican restaurant (can't remember the name) where we had supper Saturday night.  Good food, friends, and fun!!!!

Four for Today

Some simple cards from the last several months that I haven't shared yet.

The image on this first one is from a puzzle box.  I almost threw it away - gasp!!!  But saved it in the nick of time and used the image, cut with a Spellbinders die, for a birthday card.  

A Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 Art Part with coordinating stamp make the fish on this card.  I think I used Distress Stains to color the fish starting with the white.  The background is kraft resist paper inked and then stamped with a couple different Stamp Zia seaweed images.

The drum set, stamped and embossed with black, is from I Brake For Stamps.  It's stamped on a piece "marbled" paper created with spray paint ages ago.  I did an online class with the technique and the link is HERE.   Be sure and click on each picture along the left side starting at the top and you will find directions with the pictures.  The black and white marbled piece on this card is also the same technique.  Bottom background piece is embossed in a folder and sponged with ink around the edges.

This card uses printed paper, a scripture stamp from Our Daily Bread Designs, and a strip of a butterfly border punch.  I used a Tombow marker inside the punched butterflies to help them stand out from the background.

MAC #45

Wow!!!  It's hard to believe that this is the 45th Making Art Challenge on the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group!!!   Lori, our totally fabulous list mom, bases the challenges on projects from Wendy's books but keeps it simple so you don't actually have to own the book (but I have them all and recommend owning them).  This challenge is based on the project from Book 3 on Page 17 - which I have not looked at yet because I wait until I'm finished so as not to be influenced - and our actual challenge is to use the color blue and use green dots.  I chose to make an atc mainly because I have an in-person swap coming up in 2 weeks that I need to make atcs to take to.  I started with white cardstock and used Dylusions sprays... the 2 blues - vibrant turquoise sprayed and blotted, london blue picked up off a stencil.  (A note here... on my screen I could not get my color true... the blue background is much more turquoise that I'm showing)  I used a green paint dabber to dot around the edge - do half dots count as dots?, dried it and doodled with a white and then a black pen.  The flowers are Wendy's clicker cuts... way cool!!!!... these are 2 of the smallest flowers from the 8 Petal Flowers CFA White pack.... I colored the flowers with alcohol ink sunshine yellow and stamped Wendy's dot background (these definitely count as dots :-) on them with Archival Ink viridian.... heated and shaped the flowers.  The stems and leaves are cut freehand from printed paper... I added ink to darken the stems and used a white pen to highlight one edge.  Used Tim's foliage in the center of the flowers.  Along the bottom is a piece of 7 Gypsies adhesive backed metal scallop trim cut to size and dots added with green paint dabber using a small paint brush.  Bloom is hand written on white cardstock layered to a scrap of cardstock colored black with Archival ink (I could have used black paper but I had scraps and ink at my fingertips so went for it, lol)

Encourage Your Hopes

Lots of inspiration lead to this card.  First I was inspired by THIS post on Lin's blog, Yours Artfully... but I didn't have the paints and crackle glaze that she used... so I thought I'd try using Distress Crackle Paint and it worked great!!!  I used antique linen onto a piece of muslin... as it dried it kind of rolled and curled but a little pulling and it layed flat... I used watered down espresso paint dabber after the crackle was dry and wiped off the excess... before I brain kicked in I already had paint on the muslin edge and wished I hadn't done that... I did spray extra water along the edge and blot it but it still tinted the fabric but all in all it looks great.  I stamped the Studio 490 flower right on the crackle using Archival Ink jet black... the flower has dots in it (they don't stamp) and I highlighted them with a white pen and also some edging.  I decided I wanted to use the piece on a card that would work for both the Frilly and Funky Challenge, Let's See Some Texture and you must include fabric... and the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge - Spritz, Spray, or Stencil.  My background used Dylusion sprays... the brown, red, yellow, and black... working in layers... the dots are a Studio 490 background stamp stamped with Archival Ink jet black and then randomly with Adirondack snow cap Pigment ink.  The letter on the bottom half are a Dylusions stencil and I sponged Distress ink vintage photo through it.  This is all done on Ranger's manilla cardstock.  The edges are distressed using the Distrezz-it-all.  I've added a piece of light colored burlap for more texture...  I've had burlap for a long time but hadn't used it much and dug it out some time back (I used some on the atc in this post) after I started watching Lynne's blog, the next best thing by lynne... and seeing her use burlap and lots of textures and layers in her projects.  The words on the Ideaology piece have white paint dabber in them and it's tied on with jute.  I took the burlap strings I had pulls out of the piece of burlap, tied a knot in the middle, trimmed the ends and tied it on with the ends of the jute.  I also use a burlap string in the button that I glued to the middle of the flower.

Every Possibility

A card I made for our daughter's birthday last month.  The background uses sprays, stencils, stamping... lots of fun... I didn't write anything down and don't remember exactly what I used.  The edges are distressed using the Distrezz-it-all.  The quote is a Tim stamp.  The vine is a Sizzix die.  The flower is a Studio 490 Art Part.  The butterfly is a punch.