In memorium

We lost a great friend and wonderful artist this past week.  My friend Cyndi was a very intuitive artist, self taught, prolific.  She loved altering books, making artist trading cards, inchies, and making 3 dimensional pieces with vintage papers, inks, paper punches and such.  Cyndi very bravely fought her cancer for 3 years.  She will be remembered always.

Serviettes

Fancy name for fancy napkins. I recently was involved in a trade of napkins from people in swap group around the world. I sent a number of my own nappies from my collection and received these back. They are so beautiful. I use them in my art by ironing them onto cardstock with some plastic food wrap which melts with the iron and adheres the napkin to the card. The colors and textures are wonderful.

Linda Lee

One of the most talented, lovely, personable individuals I've enjoyed lately is Linda Lee of the Sewing Workshop. Went to her lecture/trunk show tonight. So inspiring to see all the garments she showed to show off her patterns. Loved the Ikina Jacket and the bags in laminated linen! I'll put a link to her website. Patterns are so unique and it is great to see them made up in just the right fabrics!

Shutter card

I'm back! Don't know where the time goes. Been TRYING to study for work related course, ...blech! Why do I do this to myself? No reason to take this course; no degree; no work advancement (probably not anyway). Glutton for punishment? Maybe...

I did some things for fun. I made this shutter card. It is an acordian style card but sliced in the center panels and folded alternate ways. The photos show this is kind of orange but the paper was more a dark beige. I think it was lack of flash in the room which has alot of brown and yellow in it. Anyway, the paper is the fun Graphic 45 double sided scrapbook paper with coordinating tags and pieces. I made this as a card for my "secret stamper" in LATS. That is Ladies and the Stamps club! Who is the "lucky" recipient? I'm not saying!!

ATCs ready to trade!

Spent Sunday working on my ATCs. Some are for club swaps locally and some are going to be swapped with internet swap groups. There's no rhyme or reason for these. I just let myself freely play with pencils, crayons and dye ink pads. Interested in swapping? Just add a comment, your email and I will contact you.

Made a card

Made this fun card for a friend. I used some distressing techniques such as roughing up the edges with a distress razor tool. The ticket and other little snippets are just found items I saved for collaging.

SWAPS!

I'm eager to get some more "followers" on my blog. When I get 5 more followers who are stampers or artists I will issue a challenge for an ATC swap. What is an ATC- Artist Trading Cards! It is a small piece of art, usually rubber stamped or using some form of pictorial artwork, that is 2.5" x 3.5" inches. It usually but not always has some sort of dimensional embellishment. The artist signs and dates it on the back and if the piece is one of a sequence, it is numbered. I've uploaded photos of some recent trades-- Asian theme. When I do the swap it will require that I be mailed at least 5 ATCs. I will then send 5 back to you from the other participants. More to follow...

Rhubarb Tags

Rhubarb tag? My experiment resulted in some pretty cool looking tags. While I was cutting rhubarb for a rhubarb/strawberry/raspberry crisp I noticed the juice beading up on my plastic cutting mat. I ran to my studio and got some manila tags and soaked up the juice. It was interesting that two different shades of rhubarb pink/purple came out on these tags. I guess the difference was that they were from two different manufacturers and the manila cards reacted uniquely. Yes, the crisp was delicious!

Booty

Went to rubber stamp convention and bought all these goodies. Mostly unmounted rubber; 1/2 the price so u can buy twice as much! Flower soft, little flakes of color to make it look like flowers growing on your art. Paper that you can sand and reveal another color under. Alcohol ink pens. White stabilo pen. Glue pen. Embossing powders and more. I've been so busy with my goodies this week I haven't posted for a while. My stamping friends... let me hear about your purchases and what you are doing with them!!