Lilacs for Sunday

Brought out some of the Fleur de Girls to play with.  Here's Lilac -- I stamped her with black Versafine on watercolor paper.  I painted her with a combination of children's watercolors and Peerless. 

I used a black liquid stylist pen to add the quote.  And it needed something.

I guess I must have been day dreaming because I got caught up in doodling and my XS Pitt pen wound up traveling all over the surface. 

If you are not familiar with the collection over at Stampotique there is an entire garden of whimsical "fleur" girls with quotes, backgrounds and accents.  Perfect for spring. Or anytime.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Favorite background technique; SDC188

Nellie is hostess this week at the Stampotique Designer's Challenge.  Show us your favorite background technique and get a chance to win some of our lovely deeply etched stamps. 

My favorite background is anything mixed media.  For today's card I begin with gesso, scraped painted with a spend gift card, then  added bits of collage scraps.  I like to add pencil scribble and doodles.  Here I'm using Roc's bunny , my mini cube and collage definition.  Roc's bunny is paper pieced with acrylic detail.
I like the play of random and creating asymmetrical balance.

Wear the pretty dress

Verdette is from the most resent Stampotique release.  She stands demurely with her hands positioned to create a heart.  She's a daughter, a mother, a sister, a sorority girl, a bridesmaid, or a bride. She becomes any gal you wish for her to be with paper piecing and or a hair trim.  Today Verdette is the girl in a pretty dress.

For the background I applied acrylic paints with stencils on the Gelli plate adding collage scraps face down to the plate. These pieces had glue on the back, and adhered to the printing paper with the printing process. The process is a type of Chine colle which translates to Chinese gluing. 

I printed the quote using Stamping Nico with is one of my favorite fonts to use with my handmade cards.  Verdette is stamped with StazOn and clear embossed.  I used dye ink to stamp her on scrapbook paper to piece her dress.  Verdette stands above the Chine colle surface with silicon dots. 

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A way with washi

I love using scraps of scrapbook paper. You know, those little 1/2 inch slices that fall on the side of your paper cutter?  So while I've seen washi tape, I didn't think it was something I'd add to my crowded studio of supplies.  Use what you have, right?

However, the Stampotique designer's Challenge inspired me to pick some up to see if it was something I couldn't live without. 

The nature of the adhesive backed tape brought be back to my early days of graphic design.  Before computers.  Anyone with me?  We had an adhesive film product by Letraset.  It was used to create halftones -- there were also fonts  that cut with an X-acto blade and placed, but the sheets of semi clear adhesive film is what I'm referring to.  After the film was placed over an image, I would use a sharp X-acto knife to cut the film inside the contour of the desired shape. The transparent nature allowed the edge of the shape to show though, so one could see where to cut. 

In this doodle art I used the washi tape in that very way.  The inside of some of the petals are accented with washi tape.  I pulled out some "vintage" Stampotique ribbon border 2 and 3 to create my stems.  I used and old book and children's crayons and watercolors to create my circles -- then took a Pitt pen and doodled.  I added more washi to the border of the card.

Unfortunately I finished the card after a long day and a couple of glasses of wine, hence, my quote got a little crowded.  The quote, "I must have flowers, always, always, always" is from Claude Monet. 

Love the quote.  I'm still wishy about washi.

Matchbox Mini Books

I must confess, I had full intentions of making another one this week for the Stampotique recycle challenge but this is my first prototype that I came up with and it's structure is too cute not to share. 

If you like math (wink) you can use any size matchbox, but I have worked the math kinks out for you using two 2 1/8" x 1  7/16" matchbook boxes. 

 

The "drawers" hold a mini book each and the concertina fold which attach to each box also have a booklet in the center. When I measure, I allow for scoring and folding as you want your text pages to sit comfortably in the book spine.

 

 

Materials:

• 2 matchboxes
• 4" thin wire
• 2 beads (elongated) for drawer pulls
• 2 pieces of cardstock for mini book covers 2.5" x 1 6/8"
• 1 piece of cardstock 5 9/16 x 2 1/2" (concertina fold)
• 6 text pages (2 for each book but you can add more) 2 7/16" x 1 15/16"
• 26" thin ribbon
• Beads for ribbon ends
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Paints, papers, stamps, inks
• Ruler
• Bone folder
• Paper Cutter
• Awl ( or something to piece small holes)
• Needle and thread

1. Paint and decorate boxes and drawers or cover with paper.  Set aside to dry.
2. Book Covers:  After you have cut your cardstock to size, distress, stamp, decorate as desired. The long piece is to connect the boxes and the other two are the tiny book covers.   Keep in mind that  about 1 1/2 inches in on both sides of the longer piece will not show as it will be glued to a portion of the box.
3. Color and stamp your text pages as desired. When dry, fold pages in half and allow two sheets (folded) for each booklet.
4. Measure, score, and fold the longer cardstock into four ( 1 3/8") equal sections(three folds).  Zigzag fold.
5. Align the two layers of text pages in the center fold.  With all the pieces together, pierce two holes about 1/4" from the top and bottom.  Sew the text pages into the spine.
6. Covers for the mini books:  Find the center of the 2.5" x 1 6/8" cardstock with your ruler -- (this will be your sewing line) measure and score 1/8" on both sides of the line.  Sew your text pages on the center line.
7. Glue ribbon ends to the center of boxes first, then glue the plain ends of the folded cardstock to cover the ribbons and attach the two boxes.
8. On one end of each "drawer" poke two holes the length of the bead and attach from the inside with a bit of twisted wire.
9. Tuck the little books in the little drawers -- add a charm for a surprise.
10. Add some bead embellishment on the end of the ribbons.  The assembly collapses into a tidy container -- wrap the ribbons to and tie to close.

If you are not a math person you can eyeball the picture above and use the boxes to trace onto your cardstock to approximate your measures. Please feel free to ask me any questions if these directions are not clear. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the birds...

Today I have two bird images to share with you, one is a digi stamp, and one is in rubber! Both images will give you a smile.

Meet Magnolia.

Magnolia is a very versitile digi stamp, she comes with two additional images for you to manipulate in your card and paper crafts.  This image can be stretched for a tall card or pulled to create a shorter and chubby bird.  Magnolia's pusre can be small or stretched to create more of a shopping or oversized bag.

If you enjoy using digi images, please stop by Vera Lane Studio's Etsy shop.

If you prefer stamping in rubber, you may want to check out two sizes offered of "Bird Legs" from Stampotique.  She has lots of character, with a little more serious feel than Magnolia.
Stamp or print - today is for the birds.

 
Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Friday.

Simple tags, clean and easy

One of my favorite quotes is from artist Joan Miro.

"The simplest things give me ideas." 

How true.  And I like keeping it simple. 

 

Here is a simple tag tutorial for the beginner stamper or just for a little creative pick-me-up. 

 

Recipe for simple tags:

 

•         Small  pieces of white card stock (3” x 5”)
•         Colorful scraps of paper and ribbon
•         Glue stick
•         Rubber stamps (these are all from Stampotique)
•         Copic markers or color tools of choice
•         Hole punch/ grommets if desired

 

Select a scrap of paper and trim to create edge of tag.  Glue in place.  For an option add an additional layer of paper and or ribbon. 

 

Stamp an  image on the tag.

 

Use the paper to guide you in color choice, add a pop of contrast or keep it monochromatic.
Punch a hole in the top center of tag, add grommet and color coordinated ribbon.  These can be further embellished but just sweet and simple as is.

 

If you want to “upcycle” repurpose the inside cover of greeting cards for your white cardstock. 

 

Make a stack of cards and set the materials out for the kids.  Decoupage a little box to store your homemade tags or package to give as a gift.   Simple?  Quite!

 

Happy Friday everyone!   J  

Brown Eyed Girl

When I came across the “Less is More” challenge for the week I didn’t think I would be able to make a submission. After cutting a few hundred blank “inchies’ for my enthusiastic ten and eleven year olds, I decided I needed to make a little something before the day was out.
The challenge is to make a simple card, white space, with the color of your eyes. Since the blog is from the UK there sure were plenty of blue and green submissions!
So here is one from the brown-eyed girl from Arizona.
The little “pretty party dress” is stamped in coffee. Old book scraps, brown chalk edges. A little stitch and button accent. That’s it!

Treats

I’m not so sure my dogs like the Trader Joe’s natural dog treats nearly as much as I enjoy the packaging.

The lettering is too inspiring to toss in the recycle bin, so I used it as my inspiration for this gift card holder. Cas-ual Fridays put out a challenge to use ribbon as a tab or a loop. So here is my response, featuring the word “treats” from the Trader Joe’s dog treat box. Believe it or not, this was fast to put together. I created the card holder and made a pouch that was ¼" wider to accommodate the fold and the card. I extended the dimensions to create a side and bottom tab to glue the pouch closed. The pouch was decorated with Tim Holtz Distressed Ink in Milled Lavender, and scribbled with NeoArt water soluble wax crayons. I used Stampotique stamps; dots Medium checkerboard . The "inchies" are cropped from my Corie and Little Skull Boy images also Stampotique. I used a circle punch to allow the card to be pulled easily from the pouch. A piece of ribbon attached with a grommet. Pop in your gift card and you are all set for a spooky and sweet surprise!

Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verdes ramas.

Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.

This is the opening of the beautiful classic poem, Romance Sonambulo by Federico García Lorca. Albeit it is as tragic and strikingly similar to Romeo and Juliet, I do love the way the opening words roll off the tongue, in English and in Spanish. You can hear this beautiful poem in song on You Tube.

I am mentioning this poem as it is my inspiration for the Cas-ual Friday Challenge. A monochromatic palette with three of a color and brown? Clean and simple? Even with my hectic schedule I can certainly manage that! (I do happen to love green and brown together).

I created this simple "thank you" card so the back extends out to show a compliment scrapbook paper. The edge is fihished with a folded ribbon. Stamp Stampotique ribbon border # 2. and ribbon border #3 in coffee colored ink…a little color with Coptic markers and Prisma colors , brad on a few paper flowers and viola! Clean, fast, and simple!

Chicken in...

The beginning of the school year cold is one week in. It was one of those sleepless night mornings where I rolled into my studio after feeding the doodles.

Humphrey ran away with a roll of ribbon, which knocked over an art journal.  I came across this tiny watercolor experiment after getting my Pentel Aquash™ Water Brush a while back.  If you don't have one it is a wonderful little gift to yourself that you will treasure.

I digress.

The little landscape needed a chicken.  My Stampotique cube chicks had the perfect one.  For copy I stamped Just Chicken in on You, also from Stampotique.  Simple, fast, easy.  The chicken is raised with a little sticky foam. 

Have a wonderful Saturday.