You're special!

Finally added my inchies to Flickr, and hope to add my ATCs as well. Later on I’ll add photos of the artwork I received from my partners at Swap-bot. Do drop by and let me know what you think!

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!

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!

Another assignment in Everyday Moodlings, the free online craft course I enrolled in, was to alter a can and make it into a vase. This required painting a recylced tin can, wrapping a strip of fabric or patterned paper around it, and prettifying it with ribbon and flowers.

In my version, I plastered a Pik-Nik canister with handmade paper (recycled from a set of paper window blinds I made years ago), glued a swath of beautiful Japanese washi paper round the middle, trimmed it with gold ribbon, then topped it off with a four-layered flower of handmade paper held together with a fancy brad.

While working on this can, I made it a point to stick to the colors on the washi paper: red, pink, blue, yellow, white and gold. Hence, the gold trim and the layered flower made with blue, pink, red and white paper.  I also patterned the cutout flower after the design on the paper, down to the gold outline and the tiny white bloom in the center.

Actually I’m extremely pleased with the way it turned out. I think it’s the washi paper that pulls everything together — and come to think of it, it’s the washi paper that inspired me a lot with this project!

Cat Tags

Remember the free online course I enrolled in? One of my assignments was to make an ink-painted flower. It’s basically using the ink from your stamp pad to paint paper. The assignment called for painting a flower cut from a page of text, but also encouraged the use of other shapes. I decided to make a set of tags featuring cats, a text background and ink painting.

Here are the general steps on how to make the cat tags:

• Cut out a tag shape from card stock. An old business card with two corners cut off works nicely too.
• Cover the tag with printed paper (use a page from a book, magazine, or old office correspondence), and trim any excess paper.
• Color the paper with your choice of medium. I used stamp pad ink, but you can get great results too with a watercolor wash, watercolor pencils, or even tea or fruit juice — as long as the text shows through the color. Let the paper dry thoroughly.
• Now the fun part: Add any additional backgrounds such as a strip of decorative paper, a piece of decorative tape, or a cutout paper flower.
• Glue the cat pictures in place.
• Next, use a felt marker to write your sentiment on a piece of paper: Hello! Thanks! Relax! I used a computer printer to print the text on vellum for a soft, blurry effect. Cut out the text and stick it on the tag. Almost there.
• Punch a hole at the end of the tag, add a binder hole reinforcer, or a punched flower with a hole in the middle.
• Tie a piece of ribbon through the hole. Voila!

PS:  My cat Picart modeled for the Relax! tag.

Note to self: Find time to make stuff!

I constantly need to challenge myself to “make stuff”. Otherwise I’d end up vegging my weekends away and not getting any art or crafts done. Blame it on poor time management! I envy those artists who challenge themselves to produce one piece of art on a regular basis and actually stick to it — like Randel Plowman and his Collage a Day project.

One of these days I’m going to join Sunday Postcard Art, which shouldn’t be that demanding on my schedule (I hope) since the challenge is weekly.

But given my currently hectic lifestyle (yes, I’m blaming the Day Job!), I needed something that would still challenge me to actually make something based on certain criteria, but would not be too tough on my schedule. My solution? An online craft course!

Last month I signed up for My Creative Classroom‘s free course called “Everyday Moodlings”. Every month you’re taught a fun craft or technique via video or PDF, and you have to upload a photo of your assignment to the site for grading. Since classes started last January, I’m like four assignments behind (argh!), and have lots of catching up to do! I’ve already submitted a few assignments, and I’ll post them here next time. For now, I’ve some homework to finish…

The scrapbook page

It just occurred to me that ATCs are an excellent way to test themes and layouts for scrapbook pages, and vice versa. Of course the “page” dimensions may be different, but you can pull together different elements related to your chosen theme (say, Autumn) and see how they turn out.

I’ve done this with the “Dream” ATC and “Piper’s Dream” digital scrapbook page. Both use the same photo (though it’s not the main picture on the scrapbook page), dream theme, and color scheme, and the background of falling leaves is common to both, although done in slightly different ways.

The ATC

So the next time you have a theme or color scheme for a scrapbook page (whether traditional or digital), try a mini version of it on an ATC.

Also, if you have scrapbook page that you’re particularly fond of, try making a mini version of it on an ATC. You can even use the ATC as an added attraction to  the scrapbook page by turning in into an embellishment!

An ATC of my cat Piper sleeping on my computer monitor.

“Dream” is an ATC version of a scrapbook page I made titled “Piper’s Dream”. The leaves punched from vellum mirror the falling leaves used on the background paper, and emphasize the autumn scene in the picture.

A totally unplanned effect was the text. I used an inkjet to print on white vellum, and the edges of the text bled into the paper, adding further to the ethereal, dreamy effect. Talk about serendipity!

Best Buds, 16 March 2008. Collage.

One of my more recent ATCs. Note the happy, scrapbookish style. I assembled this when I was in one of my scrapbooking moods, and I was excited to try out my new heat gun, embossing powder and clear stamps.

This card commemorates the unique, though sadly short-lived friendship of Coal (in black fur) and Tubby (in white fur). Tubby passed away a few days after this was taken, a few hours into the New Year, due to some strange malady. Coal passed away last week of September this year due to some kidney ailment.  Oh well, we’ll meet each other at the Rainbow Bridge…

Trivia: Yes, that’s a stainless steel mixing bowl they’re snuggled in!

Fun tip: Jewelry price tags are the perfect size for ATCs, and for scrapbooks as well!

Parchment fan, dry embossed and finished with peral paints and metallic gel ink. Design courtesy of Janet Wilson.

This fan was made from clear (colorless) vellum, then painted with pearl paints and a metallic gel pen. I used an eyelet to hold the sections together, but maybe I should have used a cord instead to soften the look.

Anyhow, this was designed by Janet Wilson, another of my favorite parchment craft gurus. You’ll find details of the project in her book “The Art of Parchment Craft”.