Learning something new

Hi there!

I saw a card recently that I loved.  It had a piece of subway art on it.  Since I love the look of subway art, I decided to track down the stamp, scrapbook paper, or whatever the card's creator had used to make the subway art.  I had no luck.

While talking to a friend, she mentioned that she planned to make her own with her Photoshop program.  I didn't want to purchase Photoshop because I wasn't sure if I'd like it our how much I would use it.  In the end, I downloaded GIMP.  It works almost the same as Photoshop, but it's free.

There is a learning curve involved with this kind of a photo editing program.  My family can attest to the fact that I spent hours trying to figure out how to do this.  Finally, it was finished.  Looking back, there are some things I wish I'd done differently, but it turned out pretty well, I think.  My brain is full of ideas about how to take this newly acquired skill and run with it.

Anyway,  here is the completed card.

Came out pretty well, I thought.  Black and white isn't a typical color combination for Christmas, but in this case, it works.  I think the touches of red Stickles really added something to it - makes it a bit more Christmas-y.  :)

I've already created another piece of subway art, using the words from a famous Christmas carol.  I hope to post it soon.

Talk to you later!

Kathy

Blessings!

Yesterday, I spent some time doing some paperwork.  Today, I need to send some of that paperwork to a friend.  I started to reach for a plain old business-sized envelope, but then I decided to make her a card instead.

I dug out all of my fall colors and some really cool fall stamps and went to work.  The stamps are by Inkadinkadoo and the colored papers are all by Bazzill and Core'dinations.

I colored the image with my Tim Holtz Distress Markers in Fired Brick, Vintage Photo, Wild Honey, and Spiced Marmalade.  With the inks still on the stamp, I lightly spritzed the stamp with some water from my
Mini-Mister.  Then, I stamped the image onto some watercolor paper.  After that dried, I tore the edges of the watercolor paper and set the stamped image aside.

I mounted the background colors on to the card - Scarlet by Core'dinations and Tangelo by Bazzill - then tied some jute around the top color -Mango by Bazzill - and mounted it on top.  I added some 3D foam pieces by EK Success to the watercolor stamp to lift the image over the jute and give it some depth.

Next, I applied the same watercolor stamping technique to a Martha Stewart maple leaf stamp, using the Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade markers.  I cut the maple leaf out to use as an embellishment.  Then, using Tim Holtz's Gathered Twigs Distress Ink pad, I stamped the word "Blessings" on a piece of plain white cardstock and mounted it and the maple leaf on another piece of the Tangelo paper.  

Finally, for a little sparkle, I place small dots of Copper Stickles among the branches of the tree, as well as on the Blessings tag.

And there you have it - a sweet little autumnal card that I hope will bring a smile to my friend.  :)

Blessings!

Paper Roses

Hello everyone:

I finished another altered canvas.  This one has many more flowers on it than the first one did and I experimented with different types of papers this time.

I particularly like the way the vellum flowers turned out.  I like the translucent quality of vellum papers anyway, and the texture is always fun to play with.  It has a rather brittle feel to it when you work with it.  Torn edges take on ink in an interesting way, as well.  And when I color on vellum with Copic Markers, the colors don't absorb into the fibers of the paper.  In this way, I can kind of "slide" different colors around on the vellum, play up the strokes at bit, and sometimes create a kind of textured feel to it.  I particularly like to use Copics on vellum to create leaves.  So cool!  You'll see some of them here, though I didn't take a close-ups of the leaves to highlight the texture.  Maybe on another post!  :)

I also like to color ribbon with my Copic Markers.  For this ribbon, I colored it with YG97, then dragged Tim Holtz's Gathered Twigs Distress Ink pad over the ribbon.  I pulled out a small paintbrush and brushed the ribbon with a controlled amount of water.  Water can be reduced or added, depending on your tastes.  Then, I crumpled the wet ribbon, clamped it, and heated it with my embossing gun.  I had to un-clamp, re-crumple, and re-heat about three times to get the ribbon dry and produce the degree of crumpled-ness that I wanted.

I learned something in this process.  The amount of water I used and the lengthy drying/heating time washed out the ribbon in several places.  You will notice how the ribbon took on an almost silvery, rather than green, tint in a few places.  I like it, so I left it.  In the future, though, if I don't want to wash out the color so much, I may have to crumple and air dry (Oh, dear - the patience) or crumple and heat much more sporadically, allowing the ribbon to cool between heatings.  I'm always learning!

The surface of this canvas is covered with Mod Podge and then torn bits of plain old white tissue paper were added.  When that was dry, I inked it with Gathered Twigs, too.  I love that color and am sad that it was produced in a limited edition.  But lucky me - I got one!

Anyway, enjoy!!