NGS Art Lottery

The theme for the NGS Art Lottery was flourishes/swirls. I purchased a new stamp set by Magenta which fits the bill. I decided to make an Artist trading card for this month.

I started by stamping the background using a technique I learned at my Local Rubber Stamp store, taught by Cathie Allen. It is called "stamp smooshie-smooshie". Basically, you load your stamp with ink, "slap" it down on the cardstock and then rub it around.

I added some flourishes in the same colour of Colorbox Chalk inks that I used for the base. Then I added the bird flourish Stamp in Versafine Onyx black. I stamped the image again on a piece of cardstock that I coloured with the Direct-to-Paper technique; cut it out and placed it on top of the bird portion of the stamped image on the ATC using thick double-sided tape.

This month's winner was Melissa, so I will be sending it off to her along with the two pages from the Chunky book house pages.

September Tag-It

This month's "Tag-Your-it" person is Adrienne and she chose Medieval as the theme. I have been trying to come up with something for the last month, and finally sat down tonight and worked on a canvas.

I painted the canvas with purple and red acrylic paint and then stamped some words in gold ink. After it dried I added the picture of the woman.

I painted some cheesecloth with acrylic purple paint and then dipped it in some porcelain stuff that I had bought eons ago. I then draped it around the edge of the picture. To add more dimension I added some crackle molding paste around the canvas.

When it was dry I brushed gold, purple and red paint over the surface. I continued adding layers of paint to get the desired colour I wanted. I also sprinkled some pearl embossing powders over the surface and dry brushed paint over it again.

To complete the piece I removed the backs from some brads. dabbed gold paint over them and glued them at the top. I then took an old heart shaped earring and painted it gold and added a cross charm and glued it to the bottom left. I attached a piece of Magenta border sticker to the bottom; muted it by rubbing Concord Grape Distress Ink and gold acyrlic paint over it.

Not sure if this is "Medieval" enough, but hope Adrienne will be pleased with it.

Silver/Gold/Bronze tip-in

I just finished off the latest tip-in for CC Swaps; the theme this month being Silver/Gold/Bronze.


I had an idea in mind using my Cuttlebug. I had some Gold paper that was an insert in something I bought so I put it through the cuttlebug embossing folder twice so I had a larger piece. This was attached to the middle of the front page.


Then I took a piece of silver card stock and put it through the Cuttlebug and cut it into pieces to put around the edges of the gold section. I then stamped an image with a clear embossing ink pad and embossed it with metallic bronze embossing powder. This was adhered to the middle of the front page. I added some "rivets" to finish it off.



I was not sure what to do with the back page, so I just grabbed a piece of black card stock and my gold and bronze embossing powders and sprinkled them over the page and embossed them.


To continue the theme I stamped some swirl stamps over the page with platinum ink and embossed with silver embossing powder.


I added some pieces of the embossed cuttlebug silver pieces in the corner. I then stamped and embossed some patterned circles with the bronze embossing powder and adhered them to the little squares.



The final touch was to stamp a saying with gold metallic ink and embossed it with gold embossing powder. I edged it with a Krylon gold leafing pen and attached it with double-sided foam tape.

Chunky books

I am participating in an international chunky book swap titled "In This House". We each chose a theme for our house and will be sending to 14 other people in each group. I signed up twice and the themes I chose were Farm house and World Travellers house.

The first one I did was the Farm House and I used the rusted metal background for the front page. I was thinking along the lines of an old farm house so used the image of the little girl and her mom with the lambs which I got from Lisa Vollrath's site. I had the ivy from a long ago project and decided to add it to the piece.

The dog stamp and welcome sign from another stamp were things that seemed to fit with the theme.

I could not really decide what to do with the back so rummaged through my stamps and papers.

The paper on the back is Banana Paper and the stamped house image is a stamp I bought for Christmas cards a few years ago because it reminds me of a winter day.

I had originally signed up for a glass house but the idea I had in mind was not feasible. Since I had a bunch of acrylic sheets for what I initially had thought about, I decided to use them when creating the "World Travellers" house. I started out by cutting out the small house shape from the acrylic and coloured them with alcohol inks. Once they were dry I stamped images on the reverse with Stazon Jet Black.

The background was coloured with Fluid chalk inks and then I stamped a flourish stamp and the words Souveniers from a new Magenta set of unmounted stamps. The image of the man in the old car is from billblanton.com who generously shares old images on his site.

The back is direct to paper with Colorbox Fluid chalks. The image of the people on the bicycle is a new Magenta stamp by Crafty Individuals and was coloured with DTP using Colorbox pigment inks.

I decided to add the pictures as a vignette representing the travels of the person living in the house. The picture of the cabin in winter is one I got from my brother-in law and the one of the mountains is my own picture. I cannot remember where I got the other two pictures otherwise I would give credit to the photographer. Hope I have not inadvertantly broken the copyright law by using them in my art work.