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.

Misty Mawn Style Canvas

Sweetpea is running a Misty Mawn Style swap in CCSwaps. The instructions were:

"These works of art should be created on either canvas board or the stretched canvas. Size - no smaller than 4" x 6" - no larger than 8" x 10". The backgrounds should be hand painted . . . the images may be cut from magazines, paperback books, etc. Please adhere with a good strong bond! Gel medium works VERY well. Please use some stamping on this project . . . background stamps, flourishes, writing, etc."

As usual, I jumped in with both feet and signed up for this swap as I love a challenge!

So anyway, here is what I did to make the swap piece:

1. I had some canvas boards and decided to use one of the 5" X 7" ones. I coloured it with acrylics and stamped a large hero art background tree with gray Versafine ink. I then stamped some flourishes with gesso and fluid chalk inks. Also added some "writing' with a stamp and fluid chalk ink.



2. I used magazine pieces and some left over printables for the image of the woman.



3. Now I can't draw if my life depended on it, but I was determined to try something on this canvas, so I drew the tree, the bird, the sun and the woman's legs using white paint as the base, filled them in with acrylic paints, then outlined them with black acrylic paint.



4. I went over the body of the woman with a bit of gesso and some of the acrylic paint (watered down) then dabbed it off a bit. I did this, as it seemed to make the image blend into the background a bit more.

This is my first attempt:




I felt it still was not quite right so I added more stamping, this time in black and some more colour around the edges and in a few other places. I think I am happy with it now.


I had absolutely no clue as to how to do this type of swap, so I did the best I could with it and had a lot of fun. Now whether it is acceptable or not ... who knows? Any comments or critique would be appreciated.

Rusted background

I ran across a new background technique on Judy Scott's blog while surfing the web for something else. I have visited her blog several times and love her work in textiles and was not aware that she did other art work.

You can see the instuctions at :http://judy-scott.blogspot.com/2006/06/my-rust-technique.html

Anyway, since this looked very interesting I decided to give it a try. I used acrylic paints and the colours I chose are darker than the ones in the pictures of the technique shown Judy's blog and maybe I got too heavy handed with the paint. However I enjoyed doing this and will be experimenting more with lighter and more vibrant colours or watercolours.

Here are the ones that I worked on today.

Next Generation Art Lottery

I think I mentioned in a previous post that there is a Art Lottery in NGS. I was the lucky winner last month, so fairies have been landing in my mail box off and on!!

As the winner, I got to choose the theme for August and I chose women. I have created a piece for the lottery and will be sending it out when the next winner is chosen.

I started off by painting a piece of 130LB cardstock using the technique I learned in the Altered Diva workshop. I stamped some word in Ancient Page black. I edged the piece with Mica Magic purple using a Colorbox stylus and black tip.

I went through my stash of paper and found some black embossed cardstock. I rubbed some Colorbox Mica Yellow Gold ink over it, then added Purple Mica ink. I attached this using 3M 465 double-sided tape.

I then added the puzzle piece that I had made long ago, and finished the piece off by adding some photo corners.