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.  

And So It Begins

I've thought about it for years and I guess with the big surge lately I am finally taking the plunge and starting an art journal!!  This is my first spread in it.  Dylusions sprays and stamps... Stencils... Some Studio 490 stamps... The scripture is computer generated.  I really had a good time and have another set of pages started.  There's some watercolor paper flowers again (I actually made these ones first).

Rock Out

This is the other card I mentioned in my last post.  I made this for our son and mailed it to him while he was at camp last week.  He's 15... yes, pink is his favorite color... and, yes, he plays guitar - both acoustic and electric.  It was when I made this card that I learned what a cool pattern it makes to spray Dylusions onto Ranger's Specialty Stamping paper and dry it.  There is not any added flicking of water or anything with this piece.  All the variation in the pink color is just from how the color lays on the paper.  I stamped with Archival Ink jet black.  The guitar and amp are from I Brake For Stamps.  I drew the cord with a black pen.  I used alphabet stamps for the writing.  I haven't had my alphabet stamps out in forever but have been inspired lately by how much Tammy Tutterow uses alphabet stamps.  I originally didn't plan to add the black ink around the edges but while I was stamping the letters I somehow got some ink on my finger and smudged it in the bottom right corner.  I thought about leaving it thinking Tim probably wouldn't care anyway but it really bugged me so then I added the black in using the ink blending tool and it actually looked really good. Added white dots along the top and bottom... perfect.  The piece is attached to a folded glossy black cardstock card.  

Very Awesome

Check out the background.... isn't if fabulous!!!  And oh so easy!!  I started with Ranger's Specialty Stamping Paper... sprayed it with Dylusions Spray pure sunshine and dried it - No blotting, No pressing, No manipulating the color at all... leave it along and just dry it with your heat tool.  On the specialty paper is makes the most wonderful design if you just let it be... somewhat pooling and giving you lighter and darker areas all by itself... now for this one (I have a card doing this that I haven't shared yet, maybe tomorrow) I wanted even more "spots" than you get just spraying and drying so I also flicked on some water, blotted it and dried it again... this gave it some even lighter areas and more variation... for the most part the spots you see that are more round are from the flicking.  I then added mowed lawn Distress Ink around the edges using a blending tool.  For the flowers I used a really inexpensive watercolor paper from Michael's... an Artist's Loft value pack... you get 100 sheets in the pack... it's not that great of watercolor paper but it works great for flowers (and I'm sure I'll find other uses for it).  I die cut 6 flowers (Tim's tattered floral die)... sprayed the center of each flower with Dylusions pure sunshine and the petals with Dylusions london blue and also sprayed on some water... mostly, but not all the way, dried the flowers, crumpled each one up and finished drying them.  Stamped each with the Studio 490 dots background using Archival aquamarine... stacked up 3 flowers and stapled them in the center with Tim's tiny attacher.  Stamped the scripture (Our Daily Bread Designs) on the card with Archival ink.   Added the crystals to the card, glued on the flowers and then glued chunky silver glass glitter to the centers using Glossy Accents and let it dry.  The leaves are die cut from grungepaper (larger leaves are Spellbinders and smaller are Sizzix)... colored them with Distress Ink mowed lawn... tucked and glued them in as shown.  Dyed some seam binding with dylusions pure sunshine and added as shown.

I'm entering this in the Frilly and Funkie Inspiration Photo Challenge.

Journal Tag Swap

I recently participated in a Journal Tag Swap with a small group of online buds!!  This fabulous tag is the one I got from Lori!!!  That lady image is now on my want list!!!  If you're wondering, it's a dylusions stamp.    

And this is the tag I sent Michael.  I used dylusions sprays... TCW stencils... dylusions and  Studio 490 stamps.  The circles in the bottom right are done with light modeling paste through sequin waste.  There is doodling with both white and black pens.

So Sweet

A quick tag.  The background was mostly greens picked up after another project... laid on a stencil and used Dylusions spray... stamped in white with bubble wrap.  The image is from Retro Cafe Art.   Some meshy ribbon, a grungeboard flourish coated with picket fence Distress crackle paint, a Prima flower, sprayed seam binding, Ideaology chit chat sticker, and some sticky back pearls.  (ps... the colors match better in person than in the picture, just couldn't get them to look right on my screen.. if they're good on yours, great!!)

Making Art Challenge 43 and 44

New challenges on the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group are issued on Wednesdays and run usually either 1 or 2 weeks.  

We are up to Challenge 44 as of this last Wednesday but first I'm sharing my tag from Challenge 43... I managed to get it done just in time on Tuesday night but haven't had time to blog it yet.  The challenge was to use 2 hearts and 3 circles in our project (and as always we need to use at least one Studio 490 stamp - all the stamps I used are Studio 490) and Lori took the inspiration for the challenge from Wendy's Book 3, page 28.  I made a very quick tag.  I started with a 'I have lots of color left on my craft sheet that I don't want to waste' tag from my pile of these tags.  I stamped the 2 hearts on white cardstock and cut them out.  Stamped the saying onto the tag with Snow Cap paint dabber and added the 3 dabber circles under it.. decided I didn't really like the saying in white and thought I'd attempt to stamp it again with Archival Ink jet black... so holding my breath, hoping it would line up well, I stamped it, and it worked... yay!!!  Stamped the hand with jet black, cut around the fingers, added the heart.  Stamped the weed image with snow cap.  Attached the other heart.  The came the hole... I didn't want to just leave and I kept laying on things to tie through it but nothing said yet... then I noticed a scrap piece of Ideaology composer tissue paper and thought "hmmmm"... yep, I like that... glued it on and trimmed it.  

Now onto Challenge 44 which is to use Wendy stamps and products but use bright colors!!!  Now I'm not completely sure I totally like what I've made and as it sits around I might do a little more to it... but it's done for now.... I like all the individual pieces, just not sure I'm thrilled with them together.  The circle base, flourishes and flowers are all Studio 490 Art Parts.  I covered the circle with a piece of paper I had after working on a card yesterday.  It uses Dylusions sprays for the background and this piece that I used is the extra piece I got while working... on the card (which I'll share sometime this week) I layed on the flower stencil and sprayed and then on this piece of paper I pressed the stencil that had spray all over it.  The paper I used is Ranger's Specialty paper.  I glued it onto the circle with Ranger's Glue 'n Seal matte, let it dry, cut around the circle, sanded the edges to be sure they were smooth, and then painted the edge of the art part with Pearl Paint Dabber also getting a small line of pearl on the front.  Next I stamped the splatter stamp (all stamps are Studio 490) using Archival deep purple.  Then moved onto working with the flourishes and flowers... I painted them all with Pearl Paint Dabber, both sides, just dabbing it on rather than wiping leaving fantastic texture.  Next I used alcohol ink on the pieces.. the shimmer from the pearl paint shows through the alcohol inks.  I inked both sides.  Then I stamped the flourishes with the screen image using Archival emerald and the flowers with the large alphabet background stamp using Archival manganese blue.  Lightly brushed white paint dabber on the edges of the petals.  The went to work on placement... I knew what words I wanted to stamp and first stamped them right on the circle but they just didn't show up as much as I wanted so I took a scrap of the original paper that didn't have the flowers on it and stamped the words with jet black, tore it out and glued it on.  Stamped a small week image around the edges of the circle with pearl paint dabber... glued on the flourishes and flowers... decided to stamped some weeds with color, Archival magenta hue.  The white centers on the flowers are part of a berry bead... when we (mostly my hubby) use to make beaded animals, berry beads were used for several things but we made these owl magnets that only used part of the bead and I've kept the left overs for years... the piece has a whole in the center that I didn't want so I used liquid pearls to fill it in which went very well with the bead.  Added white dots on the saying and white stitching around the circle with a pen.

Beautiful Day ATC and a Winner

I started with a piece of Authentique paper from the Splendid 6x6 pad and glued a piece of old book text across it.  The girl image is from Collage Stuff - Crazy For Kids collage sheet.  I cut out the image, brushed white paint around the edges and then edged it with green paint.  I also edged the background with green paint.  The leaves are cut from grungepaper using a Sizzix die, colored and also embossed.  The flowers are prima, some I've inked around the edges and stacked holding them together with a yellow brad.  On top of the brads, in the smaller flowers, and in lines on the right and left edges are drops of Liquid Pearls.  Beautiful day are Ideaology chitchat stickers; after sticking them on I added black dots and black lines around the stickers.  s

 

And now onto the winner of the tag in the previous post.  Random Number Generator chose the number 3 which is

Ally White Cat said...

Everyone is so cute of course we all love your art..who could chose they are both beautiful.
hugs,
susan s.

Congratulations, Susan!!!!  Send me your address and I'll 


get your tag in the mail!!!

Would You Like A Tag?

I took a little play time last night and thought I'd make a tag for the current Frilly and Funkie Challenge which is Kraft and Twine.  I also just got all the Dylusions sprays this past week and had to have a go with them.  I started with a Ranger #8 manila tag, sprayed it with water and 3 colors of Dylusions spray - squeezed orange, bubblegum pink, and melted chocolate, layed another tag on top to pick up excess liquid, pulled them apart and dried them.  So now I had two tags started and normally I would have thrown one off to the side for later use but decided I'd just go ahead and make two tags.  I continued to layer using stencils, sprays, inks, water, and then added some stamping... decided I'd like a lighter area for the quote and used Jenni Bowlin malted milk paint dabber to lighten an area large enough for it, dried it and stamped the quote (Tim Holtz) using Archival jet black.  Added a piece of old lace, a torn piece of corrugated (a free gift from Linda with an order from the Funkie Junkie's Boutique) with a little paint rubbed on, burlap string (another free gift from Linda), a metal filigree also from the Funkie Junkie, and a flower.  The flower is die cut (Tim's tattered floral die) from kraft glassine... I stacked 3 together - 2 are sprayed with squeezed orange and 1 with bubblegum pink - after sprayed I did NOT blot off any extra, I just dried them with a heat tool... Love the speckled color!!  Stapled the flowers together and then glued an Ideaology button on the top (shank cut off).  Tied a piece of jute (from my stash) at the top.

Since I now have two tags I thought I would give one away... just leave me a comment before I check the computer early Monday morning and I will randomly pick a winner... oh, and if you like one better just let me know which one in the comment.