Victoria Day!!

Happy Birthday Queen Victoria, wherever you may be! Today I made sure I didn't have to go anywhere so that I could work on my art all day. And so far that is what I have done! I recently joined a new Yahoo group called Art For the Creative Mind, and they have lots of great swaps - just what I need to keep the juices flowing! I made an Alice in Wonderland postcard for that group, and still need to make 2 Asian ATCs, an art doll, and a bird card. For my ABCanada group I made a Nature ATC, because we have another ATC swap where we make the ATC we receive into an Altered Book Page! And for my Stampscapes group, we are doing "Animalscapes" this month, so I did mine today. Over at the Altered Books yahoo group, we are celebrating a 7th Anniversary with Arches, so I have to make 17 arches. I started designing it today.

So here they are!

 My Alice-In-Wonderland postcard was inpired by a magazine article in Stamper's Sampler, June/July 2009. The article is called "Deconstructed Stamping" by Pam Carriker. I loved the zig-zag around the edge and thought it would be perfect for this card. It was fun poring through my stamps and finding things that would work!

This is my Animalscapes card to mail off to my partner. I found the eagle (Old Island) when I was re-organizing all my um's - so many I had totally forgotten I had! Since I've been watching this eagle and her baby eaglet, it inspired me to make this card.

here is my nature ATC for my ABCanada group:

I love my new word stamps from Michael's - only $1.50!

Update on Beatles Swap!

I received my wonderful Beatles ATCs!

The first one is "She's a Woman" by Martina Fuchs in Germany, the second by Marnie Blum - "rain", and the third by Ingeborg in Germany -"Michelle my belle". My plans are to create pages around these beautiful ATCs in My Beatles Altered Book. A summer project!

And lastly, a journal page. I have been neglecting my journal lately. I think its just because I'm tired and I don't have a lot of energy at the end of the day, especially on those days that I go to the gym after work. I get home late, have to make supper, and by the time I've eaten and washed dishes, I'm ready to zonk out in front of the telly for awhile. I know - I can hear those violins too! Usually asleep by ten. Also I've been a tad depressed lately, and that may be part of it. I'm trying to use more stamps in my journalling lately (why have 1000s of stamps just to cut photos out of magazines??) Also used my new TH die cut, which I had a helluva time getting through my Spellbinder, but it's been easier lately. I may use this die cut for my Aches. Or maybe not. i think these are all TH stamps.

Well that's it for now. If I have forgotten anything I will add it later on. Have a wonderful holiday to those of you who get the day off!

Weekend Fun!

First of all, Happy Mother's Day to all my blog friends!! here is my Mother's Day card for my Mom:

Front - heart from Tim Holtz new die cut

The paper is "cloth paper" made by gluing thin pieces of napkin to a cloth base, drying, and ironing flat. I also put some shimmer mist on it and Lumiere paint. I used 3 different napkins. This piece folded over a thick card that was meant to hold 2 photos. I also stamped the leaves across the top.

Back:

Inside the card I put two photos, one of me as a child, and one of me now. It reads: 

I got all my good qualities from you, Mom

Isn't it lucky you had more than enough for both of us?  

(from the internet)

I made this card last weekend at our local stamp club annual workshop. It was one of the projects, and I think I will make this fabric-paper again, it was a lot of fun! Here are the other projects we made last weekend:

 This is the card I presented, a tri-fold card. Most of the participants were able to do 

this with not much trouble.

This is a bead doll that went with the fabric-paper card, 

but I'll find another use for it. Easy and fun!

This didn't have anything to do with stamping, but one of our members works with glass, so this was a fun out-of-the-box project. We started the day with this, let it dry and finished the day with the grouting. It's supposed to be a bird bath, but I may use it for something else. 

A "milk-carton" box. Will make a great gift box! 

We colored the white ribbon with markers then 

spritzed the ribbon with water. Nice effect!

This was a simple card to make, just put the white cs through the embossing folder, then the blue ellipse. Swipe the tops with color (I used distress inks), put it together and add dragonfly stickers to the middle.
It made a neat effect.

This one came with a circle cut from a post-it, we stuck the circle on the card
and brayered over the card with blue.
Then using yellow and purple distress ink, I added the color with a sponge.
Then stamped and embossed the mice and the reeds. Simple but effective.

This is the Sunflower card. It came already stamped with the 1/2 sunflower on each side.
We embossed the flowers with the cuttlebug and folder
after we used watercolor crayons to color the flowers. Then we cut the flowers out.

Opened up:

The inside was pre-stamped as well, I added the word BLOOM. (Michael's - $1.50!)


I bought 2 used stamps that day and used them on these metal tags.
This was fun! But you have to buy a "squisher" from Memories
to squish the metal down over the paper tag. Might get one!

We also made this very easy necklace. I used a Tim Holtz stamp and distress ink

The cover of this is raised so things can float inside.

This last one is a crayon resist. We colored the image that was pre-stamped onto Chrome Coat paper (apparently the only kind of paper this will work successfully with) and colored one flower with a light color crayon (I think mine was tan). Then we rubbed distress ink all over the image and wiped it off with a paper towel. The white flower popped out! Stuck on a jewel, mounted on black, then the card, stamped BLOOM and done! Fast and easy.

Well, I hope I got all the instructions correct! It was all from memory, and that seems to be on and off these days! But we had fun, and got a LOT done for one day!