Technique Junkies - Sepia

I have been a bad, bad blogger. Too many things right now are keeping me from hanging out in my studio and I really miss my art time! Today I decided that I was going to stamp, no matter what!

After seeing so many wonderful cards made with this new stamp sheet from I Brake for Stamps, I HAD to have them. They are some of the prettiest holiday stamps I've seen in a long time. I thought that this one worked perfectly with the Sepia Technique from the latest Technique Junkie newsletter. Such a fantastic technique!

Hope all my readers are doing well and haven't totally forgotten me....I promise I will be posting more this month!

Wicked

I just made a set of six of these postcards for a Halloween swap that my friend Cindy is hosting on the TN Stampers Yahoo group. I don't know how other people operate, but I tend to use swaps as an excuse to experiment with something I've been wanting to try - my swap partners are my guinea pigs! This time I wanted to play around with texture.

A couple weekends ago, my friends Roxi and Candice of RockCandy Studios taught a class for our stamp club's annual Stampers Day Out. They showed us a faux beeswax technique using different Golden products to duplicate the look of beeswax. I had an extra container of medium and thought it would be perfect to use for my postcard.

I love the whole concept of mail art and the idea of making something that would actually be enhanced by the process of going through the mail. I knew I wanted something very textured, but still able to make it to its destination without losing too many pieces. Covering the piece with the faux beeswax concoction sealed and protected it and also added another layer of depth. I hope my partners like them!

Stamps are all from Oxford Impressions' Wicked collection.

Technique Junkies October Treasure Hunt!

Welcome to the October Technique Junkie Treasure Hunt! If you've arrived here without starting at the beginning, please make sure you head over to the Design Junkies blog to start collecting your clues. When you have all of the clues, you will leave your answer on Pat Huntoon's blog for a chance to win a wonderful prize!

My card today (and the tag below) features the Sepia technique from the October/November newsletter as well as stamps from Alluring Impressions, one of our TJ sponsors. I have been a fan of these stamps for years - please make sure you stop by and see the amazing collections they offer. The main image above is from the Girlfriends plate. The sentiment and also the image on the tag below are from the Beauties plate. The typewriter letter on my tag is from the Typewriter Key alpha set (very cool stamp set!). Speaking of which, the letter below is your clue for this stop!

Thanks so much for visiting today - your next and final stop is Pat Huntoon's fantastic blog. Enjoy!

Created Byhand Challenge - Stencils

I have been intrigued by Michelle Ward's latest Crusade - Come Over to the Dark Side. I love the idea of layering gesso and paint over a black background. When I saw the stencil challenge over at Created Byhand, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to experiment with this technique.

I started with black cardstock and scraped gesso over it randomly. Then I did the same thing with green and pearlized purple acrylic paints. When I was happy with it, I used the waste from a sheet of Grungeboard flourishes as a stencil and sprayed it with black paint. The bird is from Oxford Impressions. It's stamped on Grungeboard and cut out - it's a great way to get a nice, solid image. I added a bit of cheesecloth that's been dyed with distress ink and a few stems left over from a silk flower spray.

LOVE this technique and will be experimenting some more with it. Thanks for the inspiration Michelle!

Tech + Stamps + Paper = Haunted!

Isn't it funny how sometimes things just come together? I recently received three things - a paper order from Paper Temptress, the Oct/Nov issue of the Technique Junkie newsletter, and new stamps from Oxford Impressions. I had been thinking about the Faux Paneling technique from the newsletter when I had an 'aha!' moment. I could use the gray paper I'd ordered + the Paneling tech + the OI stamps = haunted house! The scarlet cardstock is also from Paper Temptress and looks great with the gray paper. I also used a crackle stamp from I Brake for Stamps to add a bit of texture to my paneling.

Technique Junkie Treasure Hunt!

Welcome to the next stop on the Technique Junkies Treasure Hunt! If you have arrived here without stopping first at the Design Junkies Blog, you need to head back there so you can get the info on what you're hunting for.

During the Treasure Hunt the TJ Designers will be showing sneak peeks of techniques from the Oct/Sept Technique Junkie newsletter. My sample above is the Shadowbox Card technique - one of the coolest techs I've seen in ages. I changed mine up a bit by stamping chicken wire on acetate and putting that in my window. I think it really enhances the 3-d quality of this card. What's great is that the whole thing folds flat for mailing!

The Country Girl stamp collection from Oxford Impressions is one of my all-time favorite stamp sets. Can you believe the little girl and the house are both rubber stamps?! I will never stop being amazed by photo realistic stamps. I have used them with Paper Temptress' Heavenly White Premium Ultrasmooth cardstock. This is probably the BEST white cardstock I have ever used. The finish is silky smooth and it takes ink wonderfully, with no bleeding. You get a crisp clean image every time.

I hope you've enjoyed this sneak peek! Your next stop in the hunt is Manna's fantastic blog. We will be having a treasure hunt on the last Monday of every month, so make sure you check back in October!

Your letter for this stop is:

Theme Thursday - Script/Writing

This is a 4 x 4 piece I made a few days ago. The background was done using Trish Bee's worksheet wonder technique - one of my all-time favorite techniques! The addition of the vintage German paper made it perfect for the Theme Thursday challenge.

Little boy and dog stamp is from Oxford Impressions and the quote is from I Brake for Stamps/Time to Stamp.

Published!

Last year, I was lucky enough to be asked by the wonderful Audrey Hernandez to participate in a 'With One Image' challenge for Somerset Memories. It had been so long since I'd submitted that I was a little rusty! Sometimes I feel like my blog has taken the place of being published - there is no deadline, no typing up instructions, and no letdown if your pieces don't get chosen. Instant gratification!

The cards appear in an article in the Autumn issue of the magazine. The other artists are Carlene Federer, Karen Brown, Dawn Rice and, of course, Audrey. Everyone's pieces came out so great - unique and different, yet all of them seem to complement each other. Here are mine:

The first card was created using the Wrinkle Free Distress technique (aka Watercolor Distress to Technique Junkies), which I have been in love with ever since I saw it on Robin Beam's blog. I thought the blue and brown looked really good togther. I made another one with pink and brown around this time - also very cool looking. I need to dig it out and make something with it.

This card was one of my favorites. Guess where that tag came from? The dump! Well, the Desoto County Rubbish Pit to be exact. No, it's not a nasty garbage dump, just where you take all your stuff when you're remodeling or cleaning out your shed. Once I saw a guy bring a boat that had two jet skis sitting on top of it! Since we've been remodeling our house for the past 6 years or so, I've had lots of opportunities to hang out at the dump. Some day I'll post pics of all the cool stuff I've found there. This tag was in a bundle that was held together with a rusty bulldog clip. I did let it sit out in the rain for a long time before I used them. I figure nature cleaned anything nasty off. :-)

This is the third card I made. Sadly, it didn't make it into the magazine. I thought that of all of the cards, this one would have made it! I like the simplicity of it. I think I was in a 'clean and uncluttered' mood when I made these.

Thanks so much to Audrey for inviting me to be part of this - I had a blast making these cards. Maybe I'll get my submission mojo back. Maybe.

Tag Tuesday - Children

I was so happy to see the theme for this week's Tag Tuesday - I could use my new stamps from the Oxford Impressions Haunted collection! Suzanne has outdone herself again. This is another perfect set of Halloween images that is truly a must-have.

Check out the trim along the bottom. It looks like Dresden trim, right? Well, it's a stamp! I was pretty proud of that, lol. I stamped and embossed it on the bottom of the tag and then cut out as well as I could. Now I will never run out of my favorite trim. ;-)

Wednesday Stamper - Dress

Every couple of months my stamp club has a challenge. We are given different materials to work with and/or alter. Our completed pieces are brought to the meeting two months later to share. At our July meeting one of the members passed out these:

They were little voodoo dolls that had been given out as part of a promotion - I think it was for DirectTV or something like that. The doll was supposed to represent cable, I think. Anyway......

I had thought that I might do something where I bound the doll and made it into more of a cone shape. Last night I was hit with a flash of inspiration and came up with what you see at the top.

Thanks to being such a junk collector, I had everything on hand. The legs and head were cut off and reused as the strips for the top skirt. It's hard to see, but there is a harlequin pattern stamped in black on the strips. I know it's not a lot of stamping, but I think it does (barely) quality for this week's Wednesday Stamper Dress theme.

It is always very interesting when we have these challenges. It brings out something in me creatively that I can't explain. Here are a few other things I've made for these challenges.


This is another art doll I made. The challenge this time was to alter an eyeglass case. This, along with some of the other member's cases was featured in an article in Altered Arts magazine. Unfortunately, they photographed most of them as a group and it was impossible to really appreciate any of them. Very disappointing!

This is a book I made to hold pages from a Gothic Arch swap. The covers are made of ceiling tiles. Very fun stuff to work with!

This one has been on my blog before. It's a plastic medicine bottle that I altered.


Last one! This is a cover I made to bind all the pages from our coffee filter swap. It is much cooler in real life - the brown ink on the burlap seems to have lightened and turn a bit reddish over time.

Apparently when faced with a challenge, my weapons of choice are wire, copper, and rust!

Tag Tuesday - Grid Tag + UHU

I haven't participated in Louise's Tag Tuesday in ages and I've really missed it! I think doing a quick tag is a great way to get your artistic juices flowing.

For my grid squares, I cut up a background piece I'd made awhile back using the Background Smoosh Resist technique from the Feb/March 2009 issue of the Technique Junkie newsletter. If you look closely, you'll notice that I also used the Drywall Stitching tech from the April/May issue and if you look really closely you will see that I used the Painted Mesh tech from the Dec/Jan 2008 issue.

To put the whole thing together, I used my trusty classic purple UHU glue stic. UHU is my favorite brand of glue stick because it really sticks! I am a diehard glue stick fan because no other type of adhesive gives enough 'open' time for me to move my pieces around. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I need to be able to adjust!

Did you know that every month the nice people over at the UHU blog give away free samples? All you have to do is promise to use the sample in a project on your blog. Head on over to snag a sample of UHU Twist and Glue - I'm excited to see how this works with things like ribbon and other embellishments. Tell them Shelly sent you! :)

Stamp credits: Oxford Impressions and Innovative Stamp Creations

Technique Junkies - Faux Sanding & Simple Whitewash

I haven't been too busy in the studio lately - I have been trying to get caught up on so many different things it seems like I never have time left for fun! I did take some time earlier this week to play around with two techniques from the latest Technique Junkie newsletter.

The card above uses a technique called Faux Sanding. I absolutely love the texture you get from this tech. I added a background stamp from Oxford Impressions and the girl is a wonderful photo stamp from ARTchix Studio.

This card uses a technique called Simple Whitewash. It is true to its name - very simple! I love the Shabby Chic look that it brings to the background. The main image is from Artistic Outpost's new Generation Redux collection.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Technique Junkie - Another CD7 Sneak Peek!

Here is another sneak peek at one of the Bonus Techniques from the new Technique Junkie CD. This one is called Art Squared. I love how quick and easy it is!

After I made the background I knew I wanted to use some kind of masculine stamps - I was thinking automotive, but what stamps did I have? Hmmmm.....aha! Artistic Outpost's Route 66 collection has just the stamps I needed. I think this will make a fantastic card for a man's birthday.

Here's a little embossing tip you might want to try. There are times when I want the look of metallic embossing, but I don't care for the brightness of it. To tone it down, take a fine grit sandpaper or sanding block and lightly rub it over the embossed image. It takes it from 'in your face' shiny to a slightly more vintage look.

If you haven't checked out the Technique Junkie Treasure Hunt, make sure you read this post!

Technique Junkie August Treasure Hunt!

Welcome to my blog! How fantastic was Lisa's card?! She is such a talented artist - I am a huge fan of her work.

I know you've been treated to some awesome artwork so far. If you have landed here without starting at the Technique Junkie Newsletter blog, please make sure you begin your journey there. As you visit each of the TJ Design Team member's blogs, you will be collecting letters. When you've gathered all of your letters, you'll leave a comment on Pat Huntoon's blog. What are you playing for? The prize will be a TREASURE CHEST of goodies that will include the new cd, a couple of stamp sets and a package of shimmers! You have until 9:00 am on Friday, September 4 to enter the contest.

For this month's treasure hunt we are all featuring Bonus Techniques from the upcoming Technique Junkie Newsletter CD7. My card features the Bomber Jacket technique. In my opinion, this technique alone is worth the cost of the cd! It is just too cool for words.

I paired it with some wonderful papers from one of the Technique Junkies sponsors, Paper Temptress. I used one of their red card stock papers to layer my background to. For the main image, I used this wonderful stamp from the new Artistic Outpost Generation Redux stamp collection. It was stamped once on red card stock and then on manila. The pieces were fitted together for a nice two-toned look. Next, I took a piece of vellum from Paper Temptress and layered it with a German text piece to make a subdued background for the central image. If you've never been to Paper Temptress, make sure you take some time and visit. I guarantee you will not leave empty handed!

I hope you've enjoyed this stop on your journey. Your letter is:

Your next stop is Manna's blog, where she is displaying another one of her magnificent creations. Thanks so much for coming by and good luck!

Theme Thursday - Orange

I wasn't planning on making anything for this week's Theme Thursday challenge, but I had cleaned up a little bit in my studio and thought I deserved a little art time! I started making a tag using the wrinkle free distress technique. Then, I was looking through my scrap tin and came across a background I'd made a few months ago using a technique called Pigment Scrunch from the Feb/March issue of the Technique Junkie newsletter. Ooooh, it was so cool I abandoned my tag and decided to work with the piece I'd found.

It had a grungy look to begin with, so I did some spray painting using a stencil and a piece of Grungeboard waste. All stamps are from I Brake for Stamps.

Doesn't it look kind of like that Basic Grey paper from a few years ago?

Theme Thursday - Purple!

I didn't get a chance to make something for yesterday's Theme Thursday, but the Purple theme has been knocking around inside my head for the past day.

Some of my friends are going to get together tomorrow and play around with fusing tissue paper to felt. When I started making a sample to show them, I thought purple would be a perfect color to start with.

I first saw this technique in the Spring 2005 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. If you haven't tried this before - I highly recommend it! After I fused the tissue to the felt using fusible webbing, I painted and stamped it. The little girl image is from the new Oxford Impressions Wonderland stamp collection.

I may embellish this further - today I just wanted to get a sample done so everyone could see what we were going to be doing. I was pretty proud I managed to machine-stitch around that clock gear! ;-)

Tag Tuesday - Summer Flowers

This is a bit of an experiment that didn't turn out like I wanted it to. The theme for Tag Tuesday is Summer Flowers. This morning, Michelle Zindorf posted a tutorial where she used Prismacolors on black card stock. It is so stunning - I wanted to try it! No fancy colored pencils tho....I've never been big on coloring. I had a couple lying around (probably cast offs from my kid's old school supplies). I gave it my best shot, but it is absolutely nothing like hers! Guess I need some more practice......and maybe better pencils?

I added some homemade shimmer spray and thought it kinda came out looking like she was in a garden at nighttime. Use your imagination! ;-)

My flower stamp is from Starving Artistamps and the girl is from ARTchix (no longer available).

I Love Estate Sales!

I have been having a tough time the past couple of weeks. Dogs attacked and killed 10 of my chickens and three of my turkeys (horrible experience), my dad was in the hospital (he's home now, yay!). Just not a very good time lately. I needed something to make me happy! When I saw a friend of mine post something on Facebook about getting clock parts at an estate sale, I was like, d'oh! I totally forgotten there was an amazing sale this weekend.

My sweet husband volunteered to go with me to this sale which was about 30 minutes away, in Memphis. I wasn't really in the mood, but knew it was one of those chance of a lifetime kind of things......

I got a HUGE bin of clock gears. I also got a fantastic clock case - so many things could be done with this! My well-trained man found the box of bezels. There are tons! I can't tell you how hard I've looked for these on eBay, etc. Again, imagine all the altered things that could be done with them! Um....ignore that mess in the background.

Hitting the jackpot like this was just what I needed after all that stress. It was a great reminder that you can find joy in the smallest things....like a beautiful Sunday digging around in dirty boxes looking for treasure with the man you love. Best day of my life*!

*I am one of those people who has lots of 'Best day of my life' days. It doesn't take much to amuse me. :-)

Technique Junkie Treasure Hunt!

Good morning! What better way to start the week than with the first ever Technique Junkie Treasure Hunt? If you've just come from Manna's blog I'm sure you have just been treated to some wonderful artwork. I absolutely love everything she does!

If this is your first stop, you need to make sure you head over to the Design Junkies blog. As you go from blog to blog, you'll be collecting 'treasures'. When you have collected one from each blog (starting at the DJ blog) you will put them all together and enter to win an AMAZING prize on Pat Huntoon's blog.

My card features a background I made using the Gesso Off technique from the upcoming August/September issue of the Technique Junkie Newsletter. I morphed mine just a bit by adding a smidge of Distress ink over the top of the card. This promises to be a very addicting technique!

I've used some wonderful stamps from Innovative Stamp Creations and I Brake for Stamps. Both of these companies are TJ sponsors and both have an incredible selection of rubber stamps. Make sure you stop by and check them out!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Your treasure for this stop is the letter:

(That's the letter O in case you can't tell!)

Your next, and final, stop will be Pat Huntoon's fantastic blog - The Technique Trail. Enjoy!

Gothic Arches - Bathing Beauties

The By the Sea collection of rubber stamps from Oxford Impressions is perfect for today's Gothic Arches theme. This lady in particular is one of my favorites!

Technique Junkies - Pigment Spritz

I made this card today using the Pigment Spritz technique from the latest Technique Junkie Newsletter. It's a shame that the scan doesn't at all capture the shimmer in this technique - it is so pretty in real life! I am absolutely in love with these stamps from Starving Artistamps. They are just perfect with this technique.

Make sure you check back on Monday - the Technique Junkie Design Team is having its first Treasure Hunt! We will all be showing sneak peeks of the fantastic techniques from the August/September newsletter. The final stop will be Pat Huntoon's blog where you will have a chance to win a lifetime membership to Technique Junkies! How cool is that?

That Sounds Like a Dare!

Some friends and I are planning to play around with wax collage/encaustics soon. Someone mentioned we shouldn't use acrylic paints with wax. Why, I wondered? It seems like it might have a cool reaction. Well, because it's just not done. Hmmmm.....sounded like a challenge to me. How do I know if I haven't tried it? You know, I almost named my blog 'I Wonder What Would Happen If....?'

I hurried out to my studio to see what would happen. If it was a total bust, at least I could say I tried. I grabbed a piece of cardstock and glued down the nearest scraps of paper available. I added a beautiful image that I got here. I used my heat gun (I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon too) and melted some beeswax over the whole thing. When it was cool, I broke out my new Adirondack Dabber and started dabbing. While it was wet I hit it with the heat gun again and it did what I thought it might. It reacted with the wax and started breaking into chunks and was suspended in the wax. VERY cool!

I just found this fantastic quote:

"Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun."
- Mary Lou Cook

I think I'll make that my tagline!

Wednesday Stamper - Colorful

For Wednesday Stamper's Colorful theme. I was experimenting with Trish Bee's Gold Leaf resist technique, but was doing it from memory and didn't realize I was supposed to use watercolors. Ooops! I used acrylics but still like the look of it. Elephant stamp is one of my faves from The Stampsmith's Passage to India plate. The whole piece is stitched on to a piece of black velvet. Very hard to see from the scan.

I'm thinking it would make a really cool purse. I don't know how I'd protect the paper though....maybe just scan the whole thing and then print it on fabric? Iron on transfer?

Created Byhand Challenge - Inchies

One thing I have just never gotten into is inchies - they are just so small. When I saw that they were the theme for this week's Created Byhand challenge I was like, too bad for me! Then I remembered this bracelet I made a couple years ago for Innovative Stamp Creations.

I used the inchie stamp sheet to make little fabric charms for a bracelet. I also made a little box for it to go in. To make the charms I first stamped the images onto tissue paper which I then fused to felt. I think I'd also just got my Cuttlebug and was obsessed with cutting things out with it! The flowers are felt that was cut using a Quickutz die.

I think that was about the first and last time I ever made an inchie!

***Char and Ellen asked how you fuse paper to felt. I originally saw this in an issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. In it the artist stamped and painted tissue paper and then fused it to felt using fusible webbing. This is kind of a simplified version of that.

Tag Tuesday - Emboss It!

I was so happy to see the theme for this week's Tag Tuesday was embossing! I think we need a revival when it comes to embossing. I've heard it disparaged too many times as not something 'real' artists would use. Ha! I totally disagree. There are so many cool things you can do with embossing powder.

For this tag I used it in a couple of different ways. I did a bit of faux batik and then finished by embossing the poppies (from Starving Artistamps, I love this stamp!) in white.

I thought this little girl photo stamp from Oxford Impressions was the perfect image for the tag. She was stamped on glossy paper using Ranger's Archival ink and then colored with a water pen and Distress inks.