Cure for the Winter Blues

So, last night I'm reading through the blogs and websites on my Google Reader list.  I like to read "A Blog Called Wanda"  (check it out here).  She was talking about The Cure for the Winter Blues Challenge at Moxie Fab World.  I followed the trail of breadcrumbs and was shortly off on another project.

Yesterday, I was thinking that I didn't really have anything creative in the works at the moment.  I've been so busy getting ready for Open House and doing the samples I needed to get done that when Open House was over, I suddenly found myself with some choices and had to step back a bit to look for direction.  This Winter Blues Challenge came at the perfect time and it really did challenge me a bit.

I'm not a huge fan of navy blue.  It's "professional".  I mean, I don't hate it, but I generally don't use it to decorate and I don't dress in it.  As a consequence, I'm kind of short on navy blue items in my stash.  Was I up to this challenge?  Did I even have enough to create something worthwhile?

Winter.  Navy blue.  Night sky.  Crisp.  Clear.  Cold.  Peaceful. "In the stillness of a frosty winter night....peace."  Love that, but...too Christmas-y.  (And in the end, too long for my project.)  Oooo...a Tim Holtz stamp with three pine trees in silhouette.  I can use that.  And.....Martha Stewart's Silver Ink Pad.  Oh, here's some muted silver paper and some glittery snow white paper from the Immortal Stack by Die Cuts with a View.  Oh, yeah...now I'm on a roll.....

I started with white cardstock then layered the silver and the white glittery paper on top, finishing the base of the card with a navy blue layer.  I did find a nice shade of navy blue from Recollections by Michaels, by the way.

With the base layers complete, I pulled out the silver ink pad and inked up the stamp with the three pine trees on it.  I made two impressions.  The first layer was bolder, of course.  To bring one tree out to the forefront, I filled it in with a silver Sharpie paint pen.  Stamping again without re-inking the stamp created the lighter impression, giving the look of trees in the background.  I inked the stamp up again, and stamped a piece of white paper.  I cut out the center tree, colored it in with the silver Sharpie paint pen, and popped it out with some tiny foam pop dots.

To create the look of the hills in the background and write the words, I used a white gel pen by Gelly Roll.

The "stars" are dots made by the silver Sharpie paint pen.  Three Swarovski crystals by Jolee were added for sparkle.  I finished the card off with a sheer navy blue ribbon from Michaels.

Enjoy my cure for the winter blues...  :)

Do be impresssed, won't  you?  It took me forever to get that "star" (crystal) to twinkle just right!  :)

I took this one so you could see the silver trees.  In quite a few of the pictures, the trees looked white.  You can also see two of the crystals in this one.

I like the depth of the trees in this shot.  I really brings out all of the levels.

Twinkle, twinkle little star....  A closer shot of the trees and stars.

Peaceful, isn't it?  See, now....winter isn't quite so bad, is it?  :)

Take care ~

Kath

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!!

Altered Art Canvases

Hi all:

Last night, I finished up one of the altered art canvases.  I really, really like how it turned out.

The canvas was purchased at Michaels.  It measures 4" x 4" and right now you can get a package of 9 of them for $19.99.  I used my 40% off coupon and got mine for $12.00!  I used Tim Holtz's Terminology Tissue Wrap Paper.  I cut out the "memory" part and modpodged it onto the canvas.  While it was drying, I printed off a picture in sepia tones, a tiny December calendar, and the words "No day is over if it makes a memory".  I cut apart the words and modpodged everything to the canvas.

To make the ribbon, I colored 1/2" wide white satin ribbon with a Copic marker (YR00 - Powder Pink).  Then, I wet a small paint brush , dried it a bit, and swiped it across the Gathered Twigs Distress Ink Pad.  I used that to "paint" the ribbon in spots - kind of aging it as I went.  I added more color here, more water there until I achieved the effect I wanted.  I scrunched up the ribbon, held it closed with a binder clip and heated it with my embossing tool.  (CAREFUL:  You have to use the embossing tool sparingly and keep it moving or you'll burn the ribbon!  Also, the binder clip gets HOT!)  Let it cool, take the binder clip off and check to see if the ribbon is dry and it's crinkled enough for your taste.  If not, scrunch the ribbon again and re-heat.

To make the flower, I used ivory paper with a cross hatch texture to it.  I tore out a circle about 3 1/2" in diameter.  Then, I tore the circle into a spiral and finally, rolled the spiral into a flower.  I tinted the flower the same way I tinted the ribbon, using the Gathered Twigs Distress Ink pad, a paintbrush, and some water.  When it was dry, I touched it up here and there with another Copic marker (RV11 - Pink).  I pretty much kept the pink color wherever I had painted with the Gathered Twigs.  I then dragged the Gathered Twigs Distress Ink Pad over the edges of the "petals" to darken them a little more.  Finally, I tipped the edges with Stickles in Frosted Lace.

I hot glued the flower and the ribbon, deliberately placing the ribbon where I liked it.  The embellishment of pearls is from the Recollections collection at Michaels.  I've had the key - can't remember where I got it.  It's hot glued into place, as well.  I also can't remember where I got the clock stamps.  I stamped the clocks in Gathered Twigs and Archival Black Ink from Ranger.  The "live" sticker is from the Typewriter Assorted Dots sheet from Studio 112.  The "legacy" stamp is from Michaels $1 collection.  I stamped it with Copic Marker E57 in Light Walnut.  This method will give you a rather rough outline of the stamp itself, which I kind of like.  It sort of looks distressed already, but sometimes it's hard to read, so I went back over it by hand with the same marker and brought the letters out a little bit more.

The quality of the pictures is a little lacking as my SD card for my camera broke and until I can get another one, I'm using my phone's camera.  I wanted to get this posted for you guys, though, so I hope you'll bear with the picture quality.  Enjoy!

Kathy

Welcome....

Welcome!


Recently, I was reflecting on the twists and turns my life has taken over the years.  I've worked in fast food, school districts, a flower shop, and the early childhood education field.  Finally, at this point, I have the freedom and where with all to explore one of the passions in my life - working with paper.


I started out putting scrapbooks together.  First, I attempted to document one of my husband's mission trips.  He went to Fruitful Vale in Jamaica, so I put a lot of construction paper fruit on those pages.  Ugh.  One of my next projects was to document an entire year in the life of our family.  Six months into the project, I had so many pages in there, the book fell apart. Nowadays, I look back at my original attempts, roll my eyes, and thank goodness for all that I've learned since then.  


I now work with paper both on and off the page - meaning - I still scrapbook sometimes, but I also do mixed media projects, altered art, paper flowers, glitter projects, and many other art forms that catch my attention. 


I have a wonderful support group around me - gals who are my artistic muses, fellow scrapbook instructors.  I also search out terrific sources of inspiration - Tim Holtz and Ali Edwards especially.   


Now, I'm fortunate enough to be able to combine two of my favorite things - working with paper and teaching.  I'm a certified scrapbook instructor, capable of teaching all sorts of tricks and techniques.  I love finding new tools and new ways to use them.  Stay tuned - I'll share all of my findings with you....