Bejeweled beauties

 

Bejeweled beauties of crazyquilt blocks waiting to be made up into something special. A collage of fabric art. A hand made card. And a box of little treasures. The box is a soap box with a seahorse on the front, a thrift store find which included the buttons. Do you see the little hand mirror? Clearly a treasure box for a mermaid.

Things that fly

 

On my art desk is paints and paintbrushes and such. There's little watercolor ideas for future paintings some fanciful like the above acrylic on canvas board 8 x 10: Flying Lessons. Other ideas are more whimsical. There are also fabric collages happening too. A return to old things I favour.

Radiate Gaiety and Mr Banks

 

Three postcard size collages using some KaiserCraft paper, modern tickets, & Air Mail Envelopes, retro images from google, words from old thrif store books, and Tim Holtz stamps.

Good Cheer

 

It is looking a bit like Christmas on my work desk after making some handmade Christmas cards. For these cards I used what I had in my stash. The paper for some came from KaiserCraft 6" paper pad Christmas Carnival Collection and the free kit from Issue 6 of Cardmaking in Easy Steps. I also added some dollar store stickers to dress up the cards with a little more cheer.

 

And last but not least some little things to remind me it is getting close to Christmas, despite the heat!

out and about

 

When the weather is hot it is best to stay where you can catch the breeze to create some simple stamped enevelopes to send off for Christmas and to tuck away in between journal pages. The easier the stamping the better when it comes to thinking and the heat. When it rains and things cool off enough to have a cup of tea, that's the time for creating more fancy ideas.

Faux and Florals

 

I've been printing out my photos from this blog and off my camera, and playing around with creating fauxlaroids. A fauxlaroid is just a fancy name for a fake polariod photo look. These polariods are a little smaller than the normal polariod size of yesteryear but I think they turned out okay for a first attempt. I gave my 'polariods' a  coat of all purpose sealer from Jo Sonja range and I used Stazon in black for the stamping. I added an edge in black pen on the inside of the image, next time I may leave it out.

 

I also made a very simple card to test out my new Memento ink colors. I used one single stamp image of a butterfly with scroll work and inked it a few different ways. The single stamped 'Love' is a kaisercraft stamp I forget which set it is from but it is one with hearts and love words. The 'OXOX' and 'Forever' stamp on the fauxlaroids also came from that set.

little paintings

 

 

I've been doing some postcard size watercolors using inspiration around me. I'm not too concerned with them being perfect, they are just little snipets to keep my hand and eye in painting. I think I'd like to make sure I try one every day.

Summer holiday

 

Not long now until Summer is fully here. The Summer storms have already begun with spectacular lightening shows. The heat is here and so are some of the bitey insects. But the butterflies are out and enjoying the full blooms. We have tomatoes maturing and grapes are just starting this seasons, maybe more will show next year. I like the Summer for one reason only Christmas! - I would prefer a Winter Christmas.

 

The mini album I made has a very summery feel. I didn't buy anything in particular for this mini album rather using up what I had. Papers include Kaiser Craft and some random mixes. The image on the cover is from my stash and I'm not sure where it came from. I printed off some images from Clearly Vintage blogspot to use on the inside pages as I thought the colors went well with the summery theme. I used long enevlopes for the pages and some wide lace on the sides gives it an overall light cool look we all want in the summer heat. The big large tigerlilly looking flowers on the cover came from a thrift store fake basket of flowers. They are plasticy-y but look fine enough for the cover after I added the big huge bling stones.

 

Stay cool in the heat. Drink lots of water and don't forget to slip, slop, slap!

Pretty Goods - a tutorial of sorts

 

For this simple card you will need:

 

One Card Blank of your choice

Self Adhesive labels

Your photos printed out 2x3 (Wallet size)

Some stickers or papers of your choice to decorate your card

Alpha's

Glue of your choice

Ink

 

Step 1:  Glue your photo to the paper side of the self adhesive label - the side of label you write on. Pay attention to how you are 'cropping' the image to get the best out of your photo. Glue Image to face upwards.

 

Step 2: Cut the image to the size of the self adhesive label.  (Do not remove the sticky back yet!)

 

Step 3: Ink around the edges if so desire.

 

Step 4: Use your photo label to decorate your card with. When you are ready simply peel off the sticky back of the label and stick to your card.

 

Further Ideas: If you want you can also keep your photo labels for your junk journals and so on. The same approach can also be used to decorate postcards. Scrapbookers could use the photos and fill a whole 12 x12 page maybe with a December Daily theme. If you don't want to use your own photos cut some from magazines.

Bliss and Joy

 

 

 

 

These sisters are lovely, I brought them from Artstock on Etsy. I'll use them for paintings and such. Summer is so much into fullness here even though it is just beginning. The purple Jacaranda trees are all in bloom and covering the ground in a carpet of pale mauve. Every time I see a Jacaranda tree it reminds me of the painting: Under the Jacaranda tree by Godfrey Rivers. Have you seen it?

 

I almost have a new mini album finished...very summery... and I am thinking of some paintings I want to do.

 

 

 

Peacock green

 

The mask I started here is now finished. I wasn't sure quite what to do with it, only that I wanted it to be very peacock-ish. I used real peacock feathers and lots of shimmery, glittery, jade colors for the mask. There's stamping on the mask and pearl ex powders and tulle all together to create a lovely textured surface. I added some hand made flowers and thrift store find flowers and snippets of lace and shells, a fairy charm and butterfly beads as well as more pins from the pin swap. Finally I used a Tim Holtz stamp for the words.

 

I then stamped and such for the canvas background using lots of techniques and using a mix of watercolor crayon, gesso, and pearl ex powders to get a back ground color I like. I added more flowers ( I like flowers) and more of the bling used on the mask to trim the sides of the canvas with.

 

I can imagine a series of these masks, this one for summer. One for Autumn. One for Winter. One for Spring. Wouldn't they look nice together!

 

 

early summer greens

 

Today is a good washing day as the older women in the house would say. You know, warm and with a good breeze to dry clothes on the line early. The weather is changing to summer and you can see the difference in the greens to know summer time is approaching fast. For me grapes have always been a summer time memory, our grape vine is a young one and is now just starting to show new fruit.

 

Last but not least an art journal page, pinks and greens, showing spring and summer.