Matchbook Card

I had fun making this card. I used a red cardstock, which I sprayed with gold webbing spray. I stamped the letters f, r, i, e, n, and d on red textured cardstock with black ink, using typewriter stamps, and punched them out. I then covered them with crystal lacquer and let them dry.

While the letters were drying, I took some clip art and went over it with "Old Paper" distress ink to give it an aged look, and burned the edges.

I folded the cardstock, which was cut into 12" x 4-1/4" so that there was about 1-1/2" flap on the bottom, and then folded the top so that it just barely goes behind the flap. I used the Scor-It board to make scores on the flap, and then put a brown in to age it. I used a "stitch" stamp to stamp between the scores for more texture and highlighted the scores with a darker brown ink.

After the letters dried, I adhered them to the cardstock, along with the image of the lady sitting in the chair.

I cut a piece of white cardstock slighly smaller than the inside of the card, and put it behind the flap and stapled it (so I will have something to stamp the sentiment on inside the card).

Viola! Done. A very easy card that looks very aged.

My Travel Card

Happy Friday! I hope today was good to you. It's been a long week, and I'm glad the weekend is finally here.

As promised, I'm trying to update my blog more often. Today I want to share a card I made. I'm not good at collage, but I'm trying to force myself to do it more often, so I become better at it.

I tried to use background stamps that would add texture to the card without it being too lumpy. You know how the post office hates lumpy letters! Anyway, let me know what you think....

It's been so cool for the last week, and I'm loving this weather. I wouldn't mind if it stayed like this year round. We've had lows in the 60's at night, and highs in the 70's during the day. Just about perfect, don't you think?

In upcoming posts I will share some of the Christmas cards I've made. I get bored easily, and making the same card over and over and over is just not my cup of tea. So, at the beginning of the year I challenged myself to make 5 cards a month, so by December I would have 60 cards, right? I decided each month I would make the 5 cards the same, but each month would be a different card. I was doing really well, and some months the creativity was there and I would make more than the 5 I was supposed to make. I was really chugging right along. Then I got a note from Soldiers' Angels that they were going to try to send 140,000 cards to the troops for Christmas. Now, I have a soft spot in my heart for the soldiers, since my step-son is among those deployed in Iraq. So, I got busy and made Christmas cards like crazy. You would have thought I was Santa's Elf on deadline. Yesterday I mailed 140 cards. And....I still have about 20 to send to my close friends and relatives that enjoy my handcrafted cards.

Now, here's the best part. I sent a note to my granddaughter's 5th grade teacher asking if they would like to make cards, too, and I would furnish the supplies. The teacher (who's husband is also overseas) thought it would be a good project for their "Caring for Others" module, but she's going to take it a step further and see if the whole elementary school can participate. That's 750 cards! Wowsa! I'm excited!

Talk to you again, soon!

Altered CD's

Whew! It's been some time since I've posted! But rest assured, I haven't been slacking, I've been busy making Christmas cards for the troops (140 of them), as well as helping my son-in-law start a t-shirt business. And I've taken over the accounting at my day job. And I'm working on a new sheet of stamps.

Anyway, I wanted to show you an altered CD that I did some time ago. It was a lot of fun.

I started out by painting the CD with acrylic paints. Just take a few colors you like and dab them on. You can add loose glitter at this time, if you desire. Let it dry completely. Then stamp background images using Staz-On ink. Then I used a clip-art image that I distressed to cover the hole in the CD. Cut a piece of acetate the size of the CD and stamp more images on that, making sure you don't cover up the clip art completely. I adhered the acetate to the CD using crystal lacquer. After it was dry, I mounted the whole thing on black paper, and framed it in a frame.

I'll be back soon with some more art....

Polished Stone

This is a card made with a polished stone background.


Good morning! I have had several people ask me about the Polished Stone Technique, so today is their lucky day.

This technique can be done using a couple of different inks, so I'll cover them both. You MUST use glossy cardstock for this technique to work properly.

Materials used:

• Glossy cardstockLeafing Pen (gold, silver or copper)
• Alcohol (or denatured alcohol)
• Dye re-inkers (or Pinata alcohol inks)
• Domino with felt on it (I used velcro on the domino and the felt sticks to it)

Directions:

Using Re-Inkers:

1. Using glossy cardstock, take your dye ink re-inker (any color), put some on the felt on the domino and completely cover the piece of cardstock you are going to use. You can use several different colors, applied one at a time, and blend together where they meet for a really neat look.

2. While this is drying, shake up your Leafing Pen.

3. You can either apply the leafing pen ink to a piece of felt (just dot it), or dot it on the cardstock. Then take the domino with felt and smoosh it around.

4. Spritz with alcohol and watch the leafing pen separate. It looks just like marble.

5. If you aren't happy with it, spritz it again, and rub the wet leafing pen around, then spritz when dry.


Using Pinata Inks:

1. Using glossy cardstock, take your pinata alcohol based ink(any color), put some on the felt on the domino and completely cover the piece of cardstock you are going to use. You can use several different colors and blend together for a really neat look.

2. While this is drying, shake up your Leafing Pen.

3. You can either apply the leafing pen ink to a piece of felt (just dot it), or dot it on the cardstock. Then take the domino with felt and smoosh it around over the inked paper.

4. Spritz with denatured alcohol and watch the leafing pen separate. It looks just like marble. You can also use the clarifying solution that comes with the Pinata Inks instead of the denatured alcohol.

5. If you aren't happy with it, spritz it again, and rub the wet leafing pen around, then spritz when dry.

The scans don't do this technique justice, because you just can't see the leafing pen and how it separates very well, but it is a really fun technique, and makes you cards look really elegant.

First Place Art!

The above card was made by Jean of Jeans Art Dolls (www.jeansartdolls.com) and won first place in the Blue Hill Fair "Art" Gallery. Very nice! Congratulations, Jean.

If you haven't taken a look at her gallery, I urge you to do so.

Card made with no stamps...

In one of the Yahoo Groups where I'm a member, we were asked to make a card using scrapbook supplies and no stamps. This is what I came up with....

I used a rub-on for the image, matted on white, put a few eyelets and ribbon on and viola! I was done. It was more of a challenge than you would think, tho. I kept wanting to reach for my stamps! LOL

I really don't like rub-ons. They never seem to want to "rub on" for me, and I end up rubbing and rubbing and rubbing and.....

Anyway, I was happy with how it turned out and wanted to share.

Encaustic Art

Good morning!

I'm trying to stay cool and beat the heat today, so I wanted to share a new favorite technique with you today. It's Encaustic Art, and very easy to do...

In this piece I used blues and greens crayons.

Here are the supplies you'll need:

• cardstock
• Staz-On or permanent ink
• stamps
• crayons
• aluminum foil
• iron

And this is how you do the project:

1. Stamp your image with a permanent ink on your cardstock. You can't stamp the image later, it won't stamp.
2. Cover the bottom of your iron with aluminum foil and turn your iron to a low heat setting.
3. Turn the iron upside down, so the aluminum foil is facing you and is flat. Scribble on the aluminum foil, melting the crayons.
4. Turn the iron over and swipe across the cardstock.

You can add layers of color as you go, and you don't need to make the entire thing color...some white showing through will give it interest.

A variation of this technique is to iron the paper after stamping your image, and while the paper is still warm, color the image, then run the iron back over it to melt the wax. When I do it this way, I don't take my time and try to stay between the lines, I just want the colors to be where they should be if it's a detailed piece.

Hope you have enjoyed this technique and will try it out soon!