DIY Postcard Swap 2011

Here's examples of the postcards I made for ihanna's DIY Postcard Swap.  I made 10 postcards for the swap and they were all a variatiom of these 4 designs.  They were all sort of a spn-off from some pages I was doing in my bird themed altered book (I'll post those soon).
They all started with watercolor backgrounds.  I sprinkled then with salt while wet to make some fun designs.  Then found some of my fav bird stamps, stamped them on tissue paper with permanent black ink, then tore them out.  This is a trick I learned from a journal artist friend, Kerri .  Once you have the tissue paper image you can "glue" it to your background with gel medium.  I like to use matte medium.  This process makes for a lot sharper image when putting an image on cold press watercolor paper which has a rough texture.  I stamped or wrote the words on each card.  They went out in the mail on the 8th so are making their way to thier new homes!
Thanls for taking a look.
Have a fun and creative weekend!  

Time for some Postcard Fun!

Ready to jump start your creativity?
Looking to get some really fun mail in your mailbox?
Looking to try a new background technique or make
some art to welcome spring to get past the winter doldrums?
How about a Postcard Swap?!?


Check out the Postcard Swap IHanna is hosting.  You can read all about it here.

Hope to see you in the mail!

Fall is in the air - postcards

It's been cold and wet here in Oregon lately.  And very windy!  Looks like it is snowing leaves as the wind speeds along the process of the trees shedding their leaves.
A friend of mine that is too far away for me to go visit is sick and in the hospital, so I've been making postcards to send her so she'll hear from me daily.  Even got my mom to paint one for her.
Here's some of what I've sent:



                           

Using Inktense Pencils by Derwent

This is the card my mom watercolored.  It's the scene from where/when we met my niece's school bus the other day.

And the following is from a one-for-one swap I participated in at Swap-Bot.com.  It's Inktense Pencils again.

I put one of my favorite quotes about this time of year one the back

"Autumn is a second spring

when every leaf is a flower"

-Albert Camus

Hope every one is enjoying this season.  I think it is my favorite.

Thanks for taking a look!

In the style of (I hope) Urgent 2nd Class Mail

One of my favorite artists is Nick Bantock.  And one of my favorite art books is Urgent 2nd Class by Nick Bantock.
An online friend, Catherine, mentioned she was reading the book and we decided to exchange some mail art postcards, therefore having actual mail art as they had to go through the mail!
Here's the postcard I made using acrylics for the backround, Nick Bantock rubber stamps, and used postage stamps.  For a last touch of green I used a regular hole punch and punched out dots of green paper and glued them on.  I colored the PELICOS rubber stamp image with Derwent Inktense Pencils (more on those coming in my next post).

And here's the card I got from Catherine.  I love the metallics in the background.  Also the adirondack chair - and check out the sea and sky in that image - wish I was sitting there!.  And I think any collage that includes postage stamps is COOL!

Making and swapping postcards is always a great time!

Postcard Swap

I made some postcards for a swap I'm participating in over on the ArtJournaling.ning.com site.  That is a great site to find alot of info about Art Journaling, meet alot of great people, see alot of photos, and there are free and pay classes.

Anyway, the swap was fall or Halloween themed (a couple of my favorite things!).  I painted watercolor paper purple and orange backgrounds with craft acrylics.  Cut them into 4x6 pieces.  Then got busy with stamps and punches, and scissors and some scrapbook paper.  Some of the stamps I used were ones I got out of the $1 bin at Michaels.  I like shopping smaller independant art and craft stores but not alot of choices where I live and you can't beat those $1 deals.

I cut my watercolor paper the wrong size so ended up with only one orange background...I skipped that measure twice cut once rule...oops!  But now I have some nice 4x5 pieces to make card fronts.

So above you see a couple Halloween cards and below is my one orange post card with a fall theme.

For the orange one I left the deckle edge of the watercolor sheet intact along the bottom.  I love how that looks!

Thanks Kerri for hosting the swap!

Happy Fall y'all!

Tags for swap and journal page from leftovers

The Yahoo Mini-Books Group I belong to had a swap I participated in with the subject "Things That Fly".  Each person was to make a 3x5 tag for all participants and then mail them directly to each participant.  I made my tags out of watercolor paper.  I coated both sides with gesso, then used acrylics and a spray bottle and painted on an orangish backgound.  I then used punchinella/sequin waste as a stencil to add the blue dot design.  At that point I cut the paper into 3x5 pieces and made them into tags. Then rubber stamped the image and words.   Lastly was to add the blue hole protectors to the hole I had punched (white ones bought at an office supply store and dyed blue with ink pad) and then add the yarn.

Once I got done with the tags I had all these strips of watercolor paper with the orange paint and blue dots on them.  I just started playing around with them and kinda started weaving them together.  It was looking pretty cool so I though I'd put in in my journal.  I had this blue background I had made by rubbing a colored pencil over the page while it was resting on the rough wood of an old picnic table and got a wood grain design.  I decided to use that as my background for the weaving.  And as long as I was sitting there with all the leftovers from my tags I decided to glue a few of the holes around the edges.  Then I decided I should use the little triangles left over from cutting the top corners of the tags off.  Those and gluing a few more of the left over holes around the weaving, as well as using a bird paper punch on a scrap and adding those completed the page for me.  It was pretty fun to use up my leftovers like that!

What do you do with your leftover pieces from a paper project? 

Zendoodle ATCs

Here's some ATCs I made for a Zendoodle Swap at Milliande Art Community for Women on Ning.  I haven't participated in alot of swaps lately but I'm kinda missing them and getting fun art in the mail!  So I've tried to sign up for a few lately.  I got off track meeting deadlines for awhile so quit taking part.  But I just need to discipline myself cuz if I don't send any fun mail out into the world I'm not going to get any showing up in my mailbox - and I want mail art!

Thanks for taking a look!

I wish you all a happy and safe 4th of July!

House of Blues

Here's a collage I made for Red Lead Paperworks Fly Away Home Altered House Swap.  All of the materials used (except the acrylic paint, punchinella stencil for dots, paper punch and glue were from Red Lead, one of my fav places to find COOL art supplies!).  I took one of their chipboard houses and painted it with navy blue craft acrylic paint.  I then painted the bottom half, back, and edges with silver craft acrylic paint., also painted the chipboard bird with the silver paint..  I then stamped the house using a rubber stamp Story Set on the blue chipboard house using the silver acrylic craft paint.  Also stamped it on gray paper using the navy blue acrylic craft paint.  While that was drying I used punchinella as a stencil and brushed the navy blue paint over the bottom half of the house I had painted silver.  I also stamped the bird on the left side of the house using the silver paint.  I had also painted some of the gray paper with the navy blue paint and accented it with silver and used a 1" circle paper punch to punch out the circle I glued the silver bird charm to and glued it on the chipboard house.  I cut out the house I had stamped on gray paper and used the circle punch again to punch a bird image out of a RedLead collage sheet .  And I punched the circles with music out of another RedLead collage sheet.  I then put it all together as shown, and glued the chipboard bird on.  I created the text in MS Word, printed it on blue paper, cut it out and glued it on the bird.

I mailed them off to the great gals at Red Lead and can't wait to see what I get back.

We each made two bird house, one to trade and one to be one display at the store.  Both of mine were the same, just different bird images from that same collage sheet.

I had alot of fun creating it and hope you enjoyed taking a look!

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!