Halloween Night

The frost is on the pumpkin or would be if we still had pumpkins in our fields, which made me realize I haven't posted in quite a while. So let's catch up with cards and holiday projects: first let me share some Halloween cards that were designed with Graphic 45 papers from their Halloween collection in 2012....okay I liked the designs for 2013 but the little store I teach at still had their paper from last year. Love Graphic 45 designs.

I used black silk ribbon on this one, popped several layers to give it lots of dimension and coated the "bat" with a ton of Glossy Accents.

 This card got a shot of Tim Holtz pumpkin treated with crackle glaze and Distress inks, again lots of layers and texture with the combination of two different kinds of border treatment.

More Tim Holtz pumpkins and a circle cut out - hard to see in this picture but trust me there is a circle window cut out to view the clock that is part of the inner message. Simple fun card that is flat enough to earn a first class stamp.

Little Books

At the end of June I attended a 50th Anniversary celebration with a group of women who have spent 50 of their adult years as Sisters of Providence. It was a great occasion, very touching, inspirational, full of joy and deep emotion. To remember that occasion I've been working on a limited edition of 18 carousel books which have taken more time and effort than I thought possible.

This format, the carousel book, only in three layers rather than the two pictured above, was my choice this year for the annual family Christmas card. These books are easy to create especially since the inspirational Carol Barton pop up workshop in June...but making a series is very time consuming, now I'm thinking it may take me well past Christmas to make a series of 25 for the family! OY

Catching up.....sorta

My oh my how the time do fly....traveling just sucks all the time right out of studio play and creative art making but soon I'll be home for a nice long stretch of time. I haven't been totally idle, just a blogging slacker...however I just completed a five day Pop Up books arts workshop at the Oregon Collage of Arts and Crafts, Portland OR, with the irrepressible paper engineer and book artist, Carol Barton . Do check out her website if you have any interest in creating books that move, pop up, tunnel, expand and contract.

And now for some of the goodies I created using Outline stamps for a class coming up on July 6th at Rubber Stamp O Rama in Philomath, Oregon.

Fun putting all these wonderful deeply etched rubber stamps to good use. Unfortunately Outline Stamps has gone out of business.....so if you were clever enough to purchase these lovelies already you now have collectors images in your stash. 

Pattern Play - Day 4

Loved the hearts card Jennifer McGuire created today but unfortunately I don't have those cute little heart die cuts, so I took inspiration instead from Sheri Carroll's very clever "Thank You" sample.

Here's my take on it....

Of course I couldn't just do one....

Pattern Play - Day 2

Techniques for Day 2 of Pattern Play included using clear embossing as a resist on pattern paper....so I dug out a stamp I don't often use but this seemed like a good time of year for bunnies, even Japanese ones.
Now that I'm taking a second look I notice I used "christmas" colors for an Easter card....yikes. But I still like the card and how it turned out.

....and another use of that darling stamp with pattern paper only in a more modest and muted style.

Pattern Play - Day 3

Yesterday we were encouraged to use "bold" prints....in a different way, by breaking up the pattern...this was a technique Kristina Werner showcased in her video and this is my take on it. Again with the Easter theme...in anything but "easter" colors!

Pattern Play - the online version

If you haven't yet caught one of Jennifer McGuire or Kristina Werner's online classes give their latest one a try.....it's a very clever well conceived series on using patterns, especially all those yummy colors and designs that come in 6x6 or 12x12 paper sizes. Personally I like using 8x8 or 6x6 pattern papers for card making because the designs have been reduced in size and make great cards. If you have no idea what I'm talking about check out Pattern Play....it's worth your time.

Here's a card from the lesson taught in Day 1.....

A year later and still haven't gotten into the habit of regular updates :-(  Oh well this is all a learning curve and the latest change is I'm teaching regular card classes at a local stamp store. They've gotten so popular that a second class time has been added to handle the overflow.

Here are some samples from the latest Clean & Simple 2 online card class....an ombre technique that was fun to create using stamps in my stash rather than buying the stamps used in the demo class....

And here are samples for the Copic blending class I'll be teaching March 16th.....

Thanks for stopping by....