Archive for June, 2009
Guest Artist: Kathy Greene, Angel Kat Creations
Lavender Gold by Kathy Greene, Angel Kat Creations
Yipee! My first ATC arrived in the mail last week, much earlier than I expected! This one is “LavenderGold” by artist Kathy Greene of Angel Kat Creations. Kathy is currently a stay at home mom with five kids and three grandkids, and lives with husband Steve in Pendleton, SC, USA. Kathy enjoys paper crafts, crochet, knitting, cross stitch, plastic canvas, and needlepoint, to name a few.
Now this ATC is so pretty — it reminds me of a fresh, dew-filled Easter morning when everything’s in bloom. I just love the colors! Too bad I couldn’t capture the gold butterflies very well in the photo. I’ll have to work on that.
Anyway, I do hope you enjoy this ATC, even if it’s just the picture. I’m lucky because I got the real thing! Thanks again, Kathy!
Tags: Art Cards, Artist Trading Cards, Artists, ATCs, Crafts, Paper Crafts
Inchies with Wings
Inchies with Wings
OK, here’s the first batch of inchies I made for a swap. The theme is “Wings” so I decided on bugs, birds and angels. I snail mailed them today to my swap partner in Scotland, two days before the deadline. Whew!
I used a variety of materials and techniques here. Clockwise, from top:
Dream Butterfly inchie: Aluminum flash tape reverse-embossed and colored with permanent markers.
Angels inchie: Iron-on transfer on cheesecloth on a washi paper background, embellished with a bit of ribbon and gold dimensional paint.
Harmony Dragonflies inchie: Dragonflies and Chinese character stamped in black ink on red cotton, and dotted with a tiny bit of gold dimensional paint.
Ladybug inchie: Handmade paper with grass and petals serves as the background for a ladybug doodled on red paper and finished with a dome sticker. (Thanks to my sister Choi for showing me how to make ladybugs!)
Happiness Bird inchie: Iron-on transfer on cheesecloth plus a layer each of maroon and white tulle, all hand stitched together, with a hole cut in the tulle to reveal the image. Happiness stamped on a strip of handmade paper and stitched above the image.
All inchies are mounted on sturdy card. If you have questions about any of these techniques, feel free to drop me a line!
Tags: Angels, Birds, Bugs, Collage, Embossing, Handmade Paper, Inchies, Iron-on Transfers, Markers, Sewing, Stamps, Stitching, Wings
La chanson de la mer
ATC: la chanson de la mer
I made this ATC for a beginners’ swap over at Swap-bot.com. I’ll be snail-mailing this ATC soon to my swap partner in Argentina, and I hope she likes it!
This ATC uses a vintage image from Art E-zine’s Little Darlings collection printed on iron-on transfer and, well, transfered to a piece of cheesecloth.
The image inspired me to add the torn piece of sheet music and the title, “la chanson de la mer”, or Song of the Sea. It took me some time to find the right piece of lace, though (I had wanted to use this lovely scrap that looked partly like a fish net, but it was quite unwieldy and so it ended up as the background for the photo shoot!), and it took me just as long to decide whether or not the dainty lace and ribbon would contrast too much with the rough cheesecloth (which is mounted on some handmade paper). Well, I eventually decided to push through with the dainty stuff, and I’m glad everything turned out pretty well.
BTW, I had just as much fun shooting this card as making it! But I’ll probably save that for another post…
Tech Musings, plus a Quick Look at TechnoConvergingZone
Yipee! Feedburner’s back, thank goodness!
Technology is great when it works the way you expect it to. As a crafter/artist, I’ve come to rely on technology mainly for imaging – taking digital photos, scanning precious ephemera, printing text and journaling – and for research and communication as well: tapping into vast resources online for trends, tips, and lots more images; drawing inspiration from fellow crafters and artists through their websites, and sharing my ideas and “evil experiments” with family, friends and like-minded individuals.
There’s another thing I’d like to master, though: how to use technology to boost my micro online business. Early this year I signed up for a basic (free!) shop at Artfire to sell my digital stuff. I was elated when I made my first sale ever, but I wasn’t able to leverage on that due to some really lame excuses. So now I’ve decided to get really serious with my online shop and am trying to learn about online business basics while continuing to make crafty/artsy stuff.
With this in mind, I subscribed last week to TechnoConvergingZone, a blog about “Business matters and financial views, tips and opinions mixed with eccentric flavors of articles around the globe.” At least that’s how owner MeanMissy – my college buddy – describes it.
For the most part, the blog delivers on its promises, from the numerous practical how-to’s on using tech for your biz (Your Website as a Doorstep in the World of Business – Yay! Just what I’m looking for!), down to the somewhat “eccentric flavors of articles” (Getting Rid of Bedbugs through the Herbal Way or a review of the Air Mattress. Hmm.).
Don’t laugh. I suspect that these seemingly irrelevant articles help pull in the traffic that helps pull in the dollars, and vice versa. As a matter of fact, in her post on TCZ’s first anniversary just last month, MeanMissy said that TCZ’s Google page rank went from 1/10 to 3/10 in a matter of months.
(For those of you who aren’t familiar with page rank, it’s how important a web page is in Google and how likely it is to show up at the top of the results page when you do a search. The higher the number, the better, and a rank of 3 is pretty decent: gazillions of websites and blogs don’t even have a page rank – like this one, boohoohoo! Not yet, at least. You’ll have to help me get there, hint, hint).
In short, it looks like TCZ practices what it preaches. If you can forgive the occasional off-topic post, TCZ is a good resource, and a blog to keep on your radar.
Tags: Tech Stuff
