A Garden Journey Book

On AFTCM I am participating in a swap where we are making a house shaped book themed " A Garden Journey". A friend on the group was kind enough to send me a template of various shapes for the house and I cut them out on some cardboard.

For the front I printed off a gate on a piece of acetate and cut it to size.

The first page is an picture of a door from my friend Adrienne from her personal collection which she shared on one of our groups. I cut out images from an old calendar which had various garden themes and worked them around the door image. For the peak of the house I chose a butterfly from a brochure - one of my favourite things.


The back of this page was covered with some scrapbook paper and again I used some flowers from the old calendar as well as a magazine page.  The image of the lady is from magicmoonlightfreeimages.blogspot.com. I added a border from an old greeting card at the bottom and the word sticker on the top.

Page 3. I coloured a piece of cardstock with Cathie Allan's Stamp Smoosh technique, and lightly stamped a music stamp all over, cut it out and attached it to the cardboard shape. I stamped and coloured the LaBlanche stamp of the little girl in the daisies, cut it out and added it to the stamped background. To complete the page I added a transparency which I recently bought and a little sunflower button to which I added a punched image and a dewdrop which I coloured with alcohol ink.

The back of this page was covered with scrapbook paper which really is not floral but I thought it would work well with some little dimensional plastic flowers that I had in my stash. I added gems to a couple of the flowers that had holes in the centre.

Page 5, I started by stamping an old favourite PSX stamp of a garden pond scene and coloured it with Lyra coloured pencils. I then added colour to the background with chalks then added stamped trees, rocks and grass. I printed off the bird image which is a freebie from Elizabeth's blog. I then stamped the "welcome" stamp coloured and cut it out and added it at the bottom.

The back of the previous page started off with what my friend Trish B calls "worksheet wonders"; basically a piece of paper that has been under a project while stamping or spraying. In my case this was a piece of cardstock that was under a project that I was spraying with Adirondack color wash. There were a lot of white spaces so I added Ranger distress stain over the whole sheet, which is transparent enough to allow some of the original colours to show through.

I stamped a Judikins Sunflower stamp on the background using distress ink and distress embossing powder.

I printed off a poem and put it under a cute little frame that I bought for a couple of dollars at Michaels. The bird image is a thin sheet of self-adhesive cork precisely laser-cut from Magenta which I coloured with pigment inks. Finally I added a butterfly, a little rainbow and a grass sticker.

Page seven, I covered with a floral themed paper. I had some chipboard pieces left from my Ezee Pzee design kits and decided that the tree would be my centre piece. I coloured it with acrylic paints. I found some apple and squirrel stickers in my stash and added them to the tree. I also had a smaller Magenta cork bird that I had already coloured and added it on one of the branches. The little pink cat was from a stash of embellishments and I thought he/she would be perfect sitting under the tree, perhaps hoping the squirrels would come down?

At the top I added the acrylic daisy and the Escape stickers  to finish off the peak.

The opposite side of page 7 started off with a piece of a brochure with a floral design at the edge. I printed a poem/quote and coloured over it to make it blend into the background, but the edges still showed so I added some sticker borders around it.

The bird image is from Elizabeth's blog and the 3-D bunnies were a gift from my friend Tracy. To complete the peak I cut out a large flower from the old calendar to make it look like a roof. The little bees are from a free sheet of images from vintagepaintworks.com. I am not sure if these are available anymore as I could not find the site when I recently did a search to link to them.

For the back cover I cut a piece of thick vinyl and stamped a saying at the bottom in Stazon ink. I had some wooden bird pieces from Kaisercraft which I painted with acrylic paint and glued to the cover.

This will be on the way to my partner later this week. Hope she likes it as much as I enjoyed making it.

February Ezee Pzee Design Team Projects

The February kit came filled with all kinds of goodies, the main one being a bird house that we had to decorate and "build".

I started by painting all the pieces of the bird house in nice bright colours. For the front I took an old plastic doily and applied embossing paste, then when it dried I highlighted it with yellow paint.

For the flower on top I coloured it with Smooch ink and added a little pearl as the centre. The little birds were stamped and attached with foam tape.

For the next project I took an acrylic tag and embossed it in my Cuttlebug and inked it with green Stazon, then highlighte some of the areas with copper Goldfinger wax. I covered the Ezee Pzee flowers with some book text and coloured it them with Distress Ink. I painted some  washers and painted them with  copper paint and glued them to the centre.   The  Ezee Pzee bird was painted with copper, crackle finish and red acrylic paint.

The next project is a little chipboard square that I had in my stash that was painted and covered with various embossing powders.  I coloured the Ezee Pzee flower with orange paint and Perfect Pearls, and added a pearl to the centre. The Ezee Pzee  butterfly was coloured with orange and green Perfect Pearls. The letters were originally pewter so I coloured them with a gold Krylon leafing pen.

The second Ezee Pzee butterfly was covered with Be Creative tape, then I cut around it
and removed the backing. I punched out some flowers from the backing tape and placed them on the butterfly. I covered the whole piece with Glitter Ritz, then removed the flower pieces and added a second colour of Glitter Ritz. To complete it I added some gems and a piece of copper wire for the "feelers"

For the last Ezee Pzee butterfly and flower, I decided to make an Artist Trading Card. I took a piece of a worksheet that I had used to spray Smooch Spritz on previous projects and attached it to an ATC blank. I stamped a Magenta image first in black ink then with Brilliance Silver, and edged it with a silver Krylon leafing pen. The flower was coloured with Smooch Ink and some Perfect Pearls. The butterfly is coloured with Pearlex. I aded some micro beads for the body and a piece of black tie down for the "feelers". I coloured a little saying embellishment with the Smooch Ink.

The Kit also included an acrylic piece with a bird on it. I chose to incorporate this into a card. I coloured the background with pigment inks and stamped the Impression Obsession  cover the page stamp in Versafine ink and edged it with a marker. I added circle coloured in orange and attached it to simulate the sun. The acrylic piece was coloured with alcohol inks and attached over the "sun".  I then stamped the Hero Arts saying on another piece of cardstock and edged it with the marker. I placed a scrap piece of the background on the card and attached the saying; adhered the panel to the card.

The final piece is the last Ezee Pzee bird I decided to do a tag for an upcoming swap in my AFTCM group. I started by inking the background with a Magenta stamp using Cathie Allan's stamp smoosh technique using 3 different colours of fluid chalk inks.

I stamped the Diamond stamp (Hero Arts) in a darker blue at the top and bottom of the tag.

I had some wooden birdcages by Kaisercraft and took one of them and painted and embossed it using a technique by Shelly Hickox from her blog which has a tutorial on it.

I coloured the Ezee Pzee bird with the lighter and darker blue fluid chalk inks and stamped a text stamp over it with Versafine onyx black, then embossed it with clear embossing powder. I added some Judikins Diamond Glaze to the branch.

The little Ezee Pzee circle was coloured with a dark blue pigment ink. I coloured a piece of cardstock, stamped the Crafty Secrets word sing then placed it on the circle and embossed it in clear ink and embossing powder.

Prior to attaching all the elements, I edged the tag with a blue marker.

C is for

On CC Swaps we are continuing with the Alphabet for a theme, technique  or medium. the one I did is C for crackle, corners and Cat.

I started by painting the back of a mini canvas with acrylic paint, then crackle medium then a coat of white acrylic paint. I then rubbed it with some distress vintage photo ink.

I cut a piece of acrylic to fit in the "frame" then cut a piece of 130 lb card stock and coloured it with Brilliance Sky Blue ink  and stamped with Ancient Page Coal. I inserted the stamped piece and the acyrlic in the frame portion.

I then took some corner pieces and coloured them with Pinata Burro Brown ink and glued them to the corners.

I stamped the little cat with Onyx Black Versafine and embossed it with black embossing powder; coloured it with a light grey Prismacolor pencil. I colored the bow and added glossy accents for dimension. I placed some thick pop-dots on the acrylic and attached the little cat to simulate him looking out the window. The acrylic has a bit of a glare at the top, so it is hard to see the little bird.

Pin Swap

On CCSwaps we are having a brooch/pin swap. Now I do not profess to be a great jewellery maker but I will give most things a try, so I signed up for this swap.

 I started with a blank jewellery piece that I had in my stash. I cut out an Image from Moonlight Journey and covered it with Judikins Microglaze. I then cut out a piece of acrylic in a circle to fit over the image and adhered it with Glossy Accents. I glued this to the centre of the blank. I added some tiny glass beads around the piece then attached a bead to the bottom.

A is for...

On CC Swaps I joined an Alphabet Swap where we use a medium, technique or theme using the alphabet A.

For this swap I used one of the pieces of Acrylic pages done on metallic cardstock. I covered a piece of heavy weight cardboard with it. I then took some embossable window plastic and coloured it with alcohol inks. I attached these to the covered cardboard with eyelets  and some thin strips of double-sided foam tape to form pockets.

I then added some little cooking utensils at the top with a plastic piece (from socks) and attached them to the top. I covered some typewriter keys with page pebbles and added them to the bottom pocket to spell out recipes. ( I got the idea for this from Julia Andrus' book but did not use the same techniques). Finally, I wrote out two of my favourite recipes and put them in the pockets.

Use it or Lose it

A current swap that I am participating in on CCSwaps is to use items that we received for Christmas to make an item for our partner.

Some of the craft items I received were a small paper cutter, some beautiful Fibermark paper (http://www.fibermark.com/details.php?productID=278&appID=&page=2), new stamps and alcohol inks so I used these for my swap item.

I cut some 130lb cardstock into 6" X 6" pieces, and decorated several of them using various background techniques. I left the inside pages blank so my partner can use the book in whatever manner she pleases. I covered the back page with some scrapbook paper to coordinate with the front which is covered with faux leather Fibermark.

For the front, I took a piece of acrylic and coloured it with some new alcohol inks that coordinated with the colour of the image I chose, then edged it with a silver Krylon pen. I attached a piece of white cardstock with vellum tape, to have the colours show through. I then layered a different piece of faux leather on top then a piece of some homemade background paper edged with a Tombow marker.

I took an image from Moonlight Journey.com and attached it to a piece of cardstock to make it sturdier, cut it out; applied some Judikins.com Microglaze to waterproof and protect it. This was attached to the panels with double-sided foam tape. I added a little quote tile and some corner pieces.

Tool Time

I signed up for the tool time swap on CCSwaps. We are to use one or more of our tools to create an article for our partner. The tools I used were my Cuttlebug, inkpads, rubber stamps, alcohol inks, punches, transfer foil, mica watercolour paints and my computer.

I decided to make a mini calendar for this swap. I started by colouring an acrylic tag with alcohol inks to use as the back.



I got out my stash of homemade background papers and tried to choose an appropriate colour for each month of the year and punched out small tags. I stamped images that would also go with the seasons of the month. After that, I printed off a full year calendar from Calendar Home and cut it to fit on the tags.

For the front cover, I chose a white cardstock that I embossed on the Cuttlebug. I coloured it with Marvy stampads, then adhered transfer foil to the raised embossing. Since it did not adhere to all of the embossing, I then painted over the whole piece with my Mica watercolours from Art Quest which gave it a nice vibrant look.

I added the year by stamping then punching out on some worksheet glossy photo paper, and attached a leaf to finish it.

I was going to put this together with the bind-it-all but decided that I would use a binder/looseleaf ring instead, so that the recipient can make new calendar pages the following year or recycle some of the pieces .

More Post-it Note pads

Dh and I are hosting a pre-Christmas supper this weekend, so I decided to make some Post-it note gifts for the ladies.

For the first two I used acrylic and stamped images on them with Stazon ink and then coloured the edges with permanent markers. My Freind Lea loves Hummingbirds and fortunately I had a stamp for hers, my other friend Sonny loves Roses, hence the rose on the second one.

I coloured the back of the vinyl with alcohol inks. The back pages were done with a technique called stamp-smooshie which I learned at a rubber stamping class.

The other two for my DH's siste and roomate were done on the Cuttlebug. The first one is vinyl, which I double embossed. The firs time was the top and bottom edges only, then I embossed the whole piece again with a different embossing folder. I ran some paint around the edges, then rubbed the Goldfinger antique gold over it.

The second one is simply embossed with the Cuttlebug, using Fibremark paper and adhered to chipboard.

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.

NGS Art Lottery

On the Next-Generation-Stampers there is an Art Lottery where there is a theme each month, and we upload the art to the photo section. A winner is picked randomly and that person receives all the pieces of art that were entered. The Winner then picks the theme for the following month.

Junes theme is.......The Letter B which can mean ANYTHING at all - things that begin with the letter B - butterflies, the colour blue, backgrounds, or even a piece of artwork with the letter B on it! Anything at all so long as it is related to or begins with the letter B!

I created an acrylic painted background on watecolour paper. I coloured a piece of acrylic with alcohol inks then stamped a Buddha stamp with Stazon black. I added a piece of white paper behind the image and adhered it with glossy accents and attached it to the page with brads.

I then cut a few pieces of the coloured acrylic and stamped a pattern with Brilliance gold ink, and attached them to the page with glossy accents.

ATC (Artist Trading Card) Holders

I am participating in a swap where we make some type of ATC Holder. I had two different ideas in mind and have completed both.


The first is the same idea as the book I made for my sister at Christmas time. I just did not add the additional pieces of cardstock to divide the pages, as I thought it would add too much bulk. I have taken individual ATC sleeves and attached them to the pages. On the back inside cover I added an envelope, in case the person recieving it would like to add some additonal items in the book.

Below are the front cover, inside front cover page, first page with some ATC's inside to show how it works, and the back inside cover.














ATC Holder #2




The front and back cover of this holder are made with acrylic. I coloured them with Alchohol Inks, then stamped with Stazon black. To make them stand out a bit more, I cut a couple of pieces of white cardstock and added them in the book to accent each cover. On the backside of the pieces of white cs I coloured and stamped and added an image (courtesy of Trish B.), on the other, instead of adding an image I glued a handmade ATC envelope (received from my friend Deanna), which can hold an ATC or other items.


I used heavy weight badge holders for the ATC holders, (2nd picture above shows how the ATC is inserted) and bound it together with book rings.