Summer Frame of Mind

Hi everyone!

Wow, it's been a while.  I've been pretty busy with several things all at once - some paper related, some not.  I'll be posting as much as I can over the next few days to get you all caught up.

I'm going to begin with the project I finished most recently.  Michaels offers a class called Paper Crafted Gift Frame.  This class was first constructed for Christmas.  Sporting the word "JOY", the background papers were the traditional Christmas colors of red, green, and white.  Obviously, I didn't want to put something related to Christmas out on the store floor at this time of the year.  I'm also kind of beyond spring right now - I'm kind of done with the flowers, chicks, and lace.  So, I opted for a summer theme.  Those of you who know me will smile because I've gone with a beach theme - and I love the beach.

Unfortunately, because this is a class that Michaels offers, I'm bound by their public relations policies, so I can't show you this piece in its entirety.  If you live near me, it's on display at the store and you can check it out back in the frames department.

• The flowers, some trim, and tag are handmade using paper from the "Four Seasons" pad by Die Cuts With a View.  I LOVE this pad and plan to use every bit of it - not something that happens with every pad of paper I buy, trust me.  
• The solid colors of paper are French Vanilla, Avalanche, and Turquoise Mist by Bazzill.  
• I sketched in the seagrass using three different shades of yellow green markers by Copic.  I borrowed one of them from the store, so I can't give you the number for that one, but the other two are YG93 and YG95. 
•  The tag is hand lettered using a brown Zig marker.  
• The punch is Martha Stewart's Punch Around the Page in Deco Fan.  
• The large letters were cut on the Cricut Expressions machine using the Jubilee Celebration cartridge.  I think this was a promotional cartridge that was given away last fall with the purchase of two other cartridges.  I couldn't find it on the Cricut site, so if you find it somewhere, please correct me.  :)
• The frame is a 14" x 8" (I think) float frame from Michaels.  It comes in black, but I painted it because - ya know - it needed to be kind of beachy.  :)
• Paints on the frame are by Martha Stewart.  They're Beach Glass and Porcelain Doll in the satin base.    It took several coats of the Beach Glass paint to cover the black, but I love how the frame turned out.  I brushed the Porcelain Doll paint on as a very, very light topcoat.

Sorry for the size and fuzziness of this one, but I cropped it so as not to show too much.  The seashells came from the DCWV pad that I listed above.  I just cut them out and adhered them to a trim strip made of papers and punches that I also listed above.

The word down the middle of the project is "breathe".  I always seem to relax and breathe at the beach - something about that great, uninterrupted expanse of beach and water....

Remember to breathe....

Kathy

Punched Cards

Hi all:

I'm still working away at samples for Open House.  In the midst of preparing for that, our bathroom is undergoing some minor renovations, so we have a couple of workmen in the house this week, too.  Also, I worked an extra day this week, so the pressure is on.  I'm tired, tired, tired - but cautiously optimistic about the Open House on Saturday from 1-3.

I still have to put my storyboards together.  One will showcase the classes I offer, so I'm trying to finish up a few things - like paper flowers and cards - to attach to that board.

On Friday, April 13, I will be offering a class called Punched Card Tricks.  This class teaches you how to use a punch in some new and interesting ways.  Most of the time, we simply use a punch to put a decorative hole in the project we're working on, but this class makes you think about other ways to use your punches.

The class offers five cards, but I only have three done so far.  Here are pictures of the three that are finished.  The third one is a little blurry.  I didn't realize that until just now and it's too dark to take another good picture.  I apologize...

I'll try to get the other two finished and posted tomorrow.  I will also work on posting pictures from the open house.  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!!