Happy Anniversary

One of the groups I belong to has a colour challenge each month and April's was pastel colours. I also had to make a card for my friend's wedding anniversary and her favourite flower is the pansy. So this one covers the bases for both the colour challenge and the occasion The flowers are coloured with watercolour pencil crayons and then the colour is blended with a paint brush and rubbing alcohol rather than water. Someone on one of my groups made this suggestion as the alcohol evaporates faster than the water and doesn't make the c/s pill up. Worked like a charm. The yellow cardstock for the base card and the saying are actually the same colour just that the Happy Anniversary is raised so it scanned brighter than the base.

Copper Hello

Here's a card I did playing around with background techniques and using Cuttlebug Embossing folders. I used a piece of pearlized c/s and applied Caramel and Latte Alcohol Inks"randomly along with some memories chestnut ink with a brayer and when it was dry ran it through my Wizard with the Cuttlebug embossing folder "Diamonds in the Rough" I then used blending solution to remove the ink from the raised harliquin design, then with direct to paper I applied Peach Pastel Chalk ink and then Burnt Sienna Chalk ink over that (both from ColorBox/Clearsnap)to the raised areas that I had removed colour from. The piece that the image is on was pearlized c/s with Latte and Caramel alcohol inks applied in a streaking motion across the c/s. After this dried I stamped the images with Memories Chestnut ink. Both images from the "Boutique Grunge"set from Inque stamps. The hello is dry embossed into a metal copper tag and attached with antique copper brads. The layers that look black are actually shiny metallic copper c/s and mounted onto a brown base card

The Moment

This is an ATC for another monthly lottery on one of my groups where the theme was a saying or a quote. This is done on a piece of white glossy card stock that I have used acetate and spread re inkers from Tsukineko's Opalites and then laid it face down over the glossy and rubbed it around until I was satisfied with the effect. You can't see it very well in the scan but it has colours of green and an orangey gold colour sort of like interference colours. Stamped the saying in Encore Gold and then embossed with detail gold. The flower and butterfly was stamped with black Memories Ink and then coloured with water colour Pencils from a piece of pallette paper. The Butterfly has interference gold PearlEx painted over the wings with hairspray as the binder.

The Jester Serenades

Last week was pretty rushed around here between work and getting ready to go away for the weekend so I didn't get much art done. I did manage to get one piece finished which was an ATC for a lottery on one of my groups. The theme was Jesters or Jokers for which I have no stamps so I found this lovely piece of vintage art on the internet at http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ and thought she would work well for the theme. The stamps used are all from http://inkastamps.com/ and the background is done using oil pastels and rubbing alcohol in a water brush and blending with finger. Hoping to get more stuff done this week while hubby is away and I don't have to cook meals.

Torso For a Friend

This is another Torso that I did for the lady at the fabric store where I buy my odd buttons from the button trunk. When I took my other torsos in to the store trying to match buttons she started talking to me about the quilt group she belongs to doing QTCs (quilter trading cards) and because she liked the torsos I had done she wanted to know if I would do a trade with her. So this is what I came up with as her favourite colours are blues. I even dug out my embroidery machine (and I really mean dug out) from under everything that was piled on it and did some machine stitching. The wandering dashed lines are actually in the patterned paper but the diagonal stitching is done by machine. The little tiny blue buttons at the waist and the light blue one at the neck actually started out as white ones that I coloured with a blue Sharpie marker (the mother of invention).

Embossed Velvet Pincushion Tin

This is something I have been working on for awhile now. When I got my Flourish Stamps from http://www.quietfiredesign.ca/ they were discussing the technique of embossing on Velvet using rubber stamps at the Byhand Yahoo Group. So since it had been sometime since I tried the technique I thought I would give it another try. I had a hinged tin that I had been hording and some lovely dark green velvet. I primed and painted the tin black and then stamped the small horizontal flourish with white memories ink around the edges of the bottom. I glued some green and gold ribbon around the edge of the lid. For the top I used the green velvet that I embossed with the small vertical flourish and then put some fiber fill underneath it for the pin cushion and glued it down to the lid. I then used some dark green and gold braid that I had to edge the velvet with. On the inside of the lid I glued down a piece of black felt for putting my sewing needles into and glued down a piece of dark green cardstock to the bottom inside of the tin. As you can see the straight pins are contained in a small plastic container that fits right inside the tin and leaves room for a small seam ripper to sit along side. When I'm doing my costume making seam ripping is a constant chore to get it just right. They must have had very skinny arms in the Victorian era or the historical reproductions are out of whack. LOL

Torso Mingle

Well I've managed to finish my Torsos for a mingle I'm in on one of my groups. These are the first Torsos I've ever done and I tried not to look at everyone else's until I had mine pretty much finished. I wanted to see what I came up with on my own. So these are my first attempts but I don't think they will be my last. Feel free to leave me your feedback or suggestions.