Postcard Challenge Week 16 - Romania

Transylvania Region
Romania

I found an article on the Transylvania Region in Romania and it had so many pictures that I absolutely loved that I ended up using bits of several of them.  Would love to visit there someday!

Check what everyone else has created for their Romania postcard by checking out Darcy's blog HERE.

Postcard Challenge 2012 - week 15 Iceland

Check out what everyone else made for Icelabd pcs by checking out Darcy's blog HERE.  Many thanks to Darcy for such a great challenge.

Postcard Challenge 2012 - week 13 Turkey

Postcard Challenge 2012 - Week 12 Israel

Check out what everyone has been making for their Israel postcards this week by checking out Darcy's blog HERE.

Postcard Challenge 2012 - Week 9 Switzerland

I just want to thank Darcy again for hosting such a fun challenge!  Check out what she made this week as well as everyone else's cards by going to her blog HERE.

More Bird and Butterfly Collages

I'm hooked on sewing collages.  My old Singer has a great zig zag stitch and I love the texture it adds to my mini collages.

This time I made folded cards:

You can find them for sale with postcards and mini journals at my Etsy shop HERE.

Birds and Butterflies

I've become obsessed with sewing on paper.  I have an old Singer my mom bought almost 50 years ago and it has a really nice zigzag stitch.  So I got out some scrapbook paper - mostly 7 Gypsies Conservatory 8x8 paper pad.  And I've been making little 4" x 6" collage postcards.  They are turning out great!  Here are some of them:

I just love the stitching on the cards.  It looks cool and adds really cool texture.  Just love it!
So, some of these I have mailed out, some I have kept for my bulletin board, some I'm sending to Dede to give away on her UStream shows (you can find her HERE, she streams early morn Wed and Thurs), and some of them are listed for sale on Etsy.  You can find my Etsy by clicking HERE.

Thanks for taking a look!

Have a creative weekend everyone! 

Bird Altered Book Stitched Collages

It's been awhile since I posted anything from my bird altered book.  I love birds and making bird themed art.  I've been working in this book off and on for a few years now.  Here's the book cover:

Lately I've been using the zigzag stitch on my sewing machine rather than glue.  Maybe that is because (gasp!) I am out of Golden Gel Medium.  I really need to find a coupon and get to a Michael's!  But in the meantime I am really enjoying sewing on paper!  I love the texture the stitching adds to the collage.
I used to work in and manage retail fabric stores and sewed all the time.  But that was before paper arts took over my life!  Now I seldom sew.

So, here's a couple bird collages I made using 7 Gypsies Conservatory 8 x 8" papers.  I love that their paper pads have multiple (I think 6) of each design so I can cut pieces out of the multiples.

 
The background on the book pages is two shades of craft acrylic paints sponged on.  I did end up using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive to glue the bird cut outs to the collages and to glue the collages into the book.

Thanks for taking a look!
Have a creative weekend!

A Couple Cool Cats

I found a couple free info cards at a display at the grocery store for pet health insurance with these great cat images on them just beggin' to be fussy cut and used for something.  So I brought them home and made a couple postcards!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       The backgrounds are K&Co Tim Coffey paper.  The butterflies were cut out of a gardening catalog.  I sewed a piece of cardstock to the back of the postcards to add stability.


I'm having so much fun sewing on paper!  I'll be sharing more postcards and some collages here soon!

Thanks for taking a look!

Postcard Challenge 2012 - Week 5 France

This postcard challenge is from the wonderfully creative mind of Darcy.  You can read all about it on her blog HERE.

Postcard Challenge 2012 - Week 4 China

In Taoism, the Red-crowned Crane is a symbol of longevity and immortality.

 

To make it easier to read the message:

Lilies

Here's my latest journal page:

The background is sprayed with a homemade spray I made with reinkers.  All the pieces are glued down with matte medium (I used Daniel Smith brand, you can\find it here) .  The very back paper is some round ephemera pieces I have, I cut it half and glue the pieces down, then adhered the lilies magazine image I had fussy cut.  The leaf is an actual leaf I had dried between the pages of a book.  "LILIES" is hand written with a Sharpie® pen on a scrap of watercolor paper I painted Lime Green.  And the text is hand stamped (a Printworks rubber stamp).  How appropriate as what has a more wonderful fragrance than Lovely Lilies?!?
Thanks for taking a look!
I hope you are having a CREATIVE weekend!

Magnolia Journal page

Magnolias are one of my favorite flowers.  Awhile back I got a card from a friend that she had made with a magnolia she had put on the front.  A day or two later I got a card from another friend and she had used a Magnolia postage stamp to send it.  Then while out and about I had gone to an antique store that had a painting of a magnolia very similar to the one on the card that had a black background.  A journal page inspiration/idea started building in my head!
Heres' what I came up with:

I painted the background with layers of gesso, black acrylic, and dark green acrylic.  Then I used a Tattered Angels mask for the fence and used a makeup sponge to sponge two shades of green acrylic.  I used another mask and two shades of green again for the mask in the upper left corner.
I toned down the white on the postage stamp with green ink and also, edged the magnolia image I had torn off the card with the same green ink.  The page needed one more thing, I looked through a bunch of magazines and found the center image.  Everything was glued down with matte medium.  The magnolia from the card got a sort of cool texture, almost crackled.  Here's a close-up you can sorta see the texture:

  Cool, huh?

Here's a close-up of the masking also:

I really like how it turned out with the two shades of green.


Thanks for taking a look!
Enjoy the rest of your week!

Ok, I'm ready for the REWARD!

Here's a journal page I made based on a fortune cookie fortune "Your path will be difficult but will be rewarding".
When I got the fortune my first thought was that it would be great for a journal page.  I've had it sitting on my art table for awhile.  While looking through ALL the stuff I'm saving for collage and trying to organize it I came across this winding river image I've been saving for just the right thing.  The two just seemed to go together!

The background is acrylics - maroon, white, and a drop of ultramarine blue.  They are blended and spread around with a palette knife.  I printed the words out on card stock.  I edged everything with an olive green ink pad to grunge it up a bit.  Everything was glued down and sealed with acrylic matte medium.
I put and extra REWARDING at the bottom for good measure.
Bring on the rewarding part!
Thanks for taking a look!
Now - go do something creative!

Crate Label Birds

Happy May Day!
Here's a spread in my Birds of a Feather altered book.  The crate label images are from a little calendar a friend sent me.  I decided it was time to quit hoarding, eeerrrrr, uhhhmmmm, I mean TREASURING (I don't hoard!) and give them a place of honor in my book!

For the First Pick page I applied Golden acrylic to the background with an old hotel key card.  Scraping the paint on this way is my current favorite way for putting down acrylic phint in my altered books or journals.  Then I used sequin waste and a heavy inking of a foam brush to make the black boarder.  I stamped the word "spring" across the top and stamped a bird themed postoid rubber stamp all over before glueing down the label I had cut out with deckle edge scissors. (you might need to click on the image to enlarge it if you want to see the stamping as it didn't show up so well in the scan)  I glued everything on these pages with matte gel medium.  I glued a flower I had die cut out of an old book page and then painted with same red paint as the background in the upper left corner of label.  

For the Kentucky Cardinal label page I chose a page I had already covered with black patterned paper and glued the label down.  I die cut a bunch of flowers using Sizzix's Tim Holtz Alterations Tattered Florals die.  Sprayed them with Cranberry Color Wash (made by Ranger).  I glued them around the label, and cut one in half to glue on the side of page to sort of pull the white edge into the design.

Thanks for taking a look!

I hope you had a creative weekend! 

Songbirds

After a long period of time, I finally have something to post here!

It's taken me a long time to get my creative mojo back after being so sick for so long.

I've had plenty of ideas but not very good at executing them.  I've spent alot of time sitting at my art desk "thinking".  But one day I got going and have been working on this page in my Birds Of A Feather altered book.  The birds on branches are from a large sheet of Cavallini paper (my friend Debbie sent a bunch of the images to me - very cool stuff!).  The background is sheet music.  I tore some pieces, applied gel medium to the center of the pieces and pressed them onto the page.  When dry I tore off the edges that weren't glued down for the torn edge look achieved.  Then painted purple with watercolor crayons.  Next I put down the 3 stripes of tape (some green tape with birds on it).  I wish the tape wasn't shiny - maybe I'll finish with matte medium to see if that tones down the shiny.  Next I glued down the two bird images with gel medium.  Last I had some die cut birds I glued on with gel medium.  I just got a die cut machine before I got sick and have barely used it.  I don't have many dies but did just get an alphabet and used it for the letters for "Songbirds".  I used glue stick to apply them.  I figured I would make a huge mess using gel medium on something that small.  I'm  messiest enough as an artist as it is!

Thanks for taking a look.  I hope I'll have art to post more often going forward.  We'll see...

Bird Altered Book

Here's another couple number themed pages in my bird altered book.  Plus on the right side I made use of the printed words on the page.  Just had to add the word birds.  You might need to click on the pic to enlarge so you can see the other words.  I love it when I can incorporate the words on the page!  I also got a chance to use some of my fav blackbird rubber stamps.  As well as the blackbird postage stamps.  Years ago, prob atleast 10 now, I bought a lot of postage stamps on Ebay - I think it was 7 lbs - and about half of them were bird stamps from Ireland.  Yippee!  I love stamps with birds on them.  They are my fav!  I may never run out.  Unless I ever do get to a project idea I had to cover a wood chair with them.  Think for a minute how many stamps would equal 7 lbs - it is alot!  The rest of them were mostly Australian, again lot's of birds, including the ones I used to cover my Bird Altered Book.

      

I also did a quick page using one of the other things I like to collect (I'm a COLLECTOR not a HOARDER!).  A postcard.  This is a really nice vintage one so I put it in with photo corners so as not to damage it.  The backgrouns is scrapbook paper with an edge.  And I spread some white pigment ink on it before I wrote Baltimore Oriole on it and inked the edges.  And drew the line in the center with the same black sharpie I used for the words.

Hope you enjoyed taking a look!

Have a creative weekend!

Nurture Nature Journal Page

Here's a collage I made in Carmen Torbus' Spill It Revisited online class.  I used Golden Fluid Acrylics and Golden Gel Matte Medium. It was a great class and I learned so much about fun ways to use acrylic paints!  You can check out Carmen's class here.  I highly recommend it if you like to play with acrylics and want to learn a fun technique for using them.  I really enjoyed it!

Once I got the torn paper, mesh and acrylic paint portion of the collage done I did a leaf print using Golden Fluid Acrylics in Phtalo Green and leaves from a Japonica Pierias shrub in my yard.  And added the Nurture Nature words which I had printed out on ledger paper.  The original collage was 9 x 12 but I cut it down to square to fit into my art journal and glued it to an existing page.  I think I'll use some antiqued brads in the corners to add a little interest.  Just haven't decided on the color yet.  I have some small square brads I think will be just right. 

I hope you are staying cool wherever you are!  It's been pretty warm here in Oregon.

Thanks for taking a look.  Go create something!

Owl Collage

Here's a collage I did as part of the Spill It online worshop I took from Carmen Torbus.  You can read more about the workshop in this previous post,  I am soooo LOVING this workshop and all I'm learning about acrylics!!!

For this piece of art the lesson was transfers.  I learned alot in this lesson - mostly to learn from my mistake and move on.  My orig transfer was too similar a color and didn't really show up.

So, as you see in the completed collage (first photo) I painted over it in black. 

I then used some of my very favorite owl postage stamps that I had been hoarding, because I love owls, to complete the collage.  I've been wanting to do something cool with those owl stamps for a long, long time so I'm glad I finally came up with something! 

I've finally decided it is alot more fun to have something I made with a fav supply I have than hanging on to the supply!  What am I saving them for?!? 

I am an art supply junkie!  There, now I've admitted it!

Anyway, hope you enjoy the collage.  It's pretty cool, huh?  

Having a BLAST spilling acrylics!

I've been taking an online workshop from Carmen Torbus called Spill It!.

I've loved playing around with acrylics for awhile now but Carmen has taught me to take it to a whole new level and really helped me expand my creative use of them.  Now I get a whole range of colors out of each bottle and from using colors together.

Also, I tend to be a messy artist anyway so anything that tells me to Spill It! on purpose and get my fingers into it and messy...well, all I have to say is more power to it!

Here's my first completed collage above - this one is pretty much all paint with a few touches of some fav paper added at the end (then painted over again).  She's also taking us through some transfer techinique, more collage, using words and using inks.  I'll have more art to share with you soon.

I would highly recommend this workshop if you are looking for some fun backgrounds, great art and collage pieces, want new ideas and technique, want to see a great artist at work, and/or want to meet a very nice lady online!