Okay, it’s a bit corny, but I don’t care. I’ve been having so much fun with a new project I’ve been working on and since I stamp a sun image in the center and a fun stamp on some petals, I’ve been calling them fun flowers. The stamps are generic foam stamps and the flowers are the cheaper silk flowers with four to six layers taken apart.
This is my first one. Just stamps and flowers. After I made it, I decided to make mixed media flowers instead and they are much cooler. I am still working on them, but I have to run out and teach an ATC class, so I’ll have to finish them up and show them to you later.
(The class is a freebie I’m doing for 1st-3rd graders. I’m hoping to hook kids in the area on art. We should start a nationwide campaign. “Get hooked on art, not drugs.” Or maybe a boring looking brain and a tag line of “This is your brain.” and then a tie dye wild colored brain and “This is your brain on art.”)
Firecracker Designs is a rubber stamp company with a great idea - matching die cuts for their stamp line. It is a great way to quickly add depth to a card without having to cut out stamped designs, since they are pre-cut. Here’s a video explaining how they work:
I have had these things sitting around for quite some time and only just found time to play around with them today. I used regular ink pads and acrylics, so I had to spray fixative after each step to avoid smears. The company that makes them, Zsiage, LLC, recommends alcohol ink.
I was flipping through the new Cloth Paper Scissors today and came across a new product - Golden Digital Ground, which can help all kinds of surfaces accept ink jet printer ink without getting all smeary. They are billing it as a revolutionary way to make clear image transfers with ink jets. I got all excited, went to their website and read up on them and placed an order. Well, now I have to wait a few days for them to arrive, so I started checking to see if anyone else in the art world read the same ad.
Cyndi from Layers Upon Layers did more than that. She actually got free samples and already used them. It looks like they are just as awesome as the ad says they are.
I’m going with the matte medium because I don’t have to modify my printer to use it. Also, it is less likely to smear if it gets wet. However, the other two sound like they’d be fun to play with if you have an old printer sitting around.
This is another heirloom collage I put together. In this example, I have a letter from the late 1800’s that I didn’t want to affix permanently, so I created a pocket to hold it. I used a fern home decor stamp inked with gesso. After the gesso dried, I rubbed a brown ink pad over the entire pocket.
I used a piece of mat board for my foundation canvas. I’m kind of fond of them for collage pieces that aren’t painted on and are just going to be framed and hung. Not only do they come pre-colored, they are very reasonably priced. My local craft store sells them for $1 to $3 each because to the store they are just 8×10 scraps from framing jobs.
I had such good intentions for the weekend. I tidied up some space and sat down to work on some projects. I didn’t get very much done before the county wide artist studio tour (very fun) and when I came back from the tour, I had two little visitors come to spend the day.
While I got nothing done, they had enormous fun and created quite a few works of art. When they finished anything, they ran right to the light tent to take a photo. My niece even created a complete layout - I didn’t even realize what she was doing until I looked at the photos later in the day.
Anyway, while I never got to complete any of the challenge pieces I was working on, we had a blast and I thought I’d show you some of their work. Pretty good for a four and six year old, huh?
Photos by my niece and nephew and used with their permission.
Once again, there are quite a few great projects in this week’s art blog explorations. Enjoy! A quick and easy market bag to crochet for ‘WOW MOM’s!
Noreen Crone-Findlay designed a quick and fun market bag in honor of all the Wow Moms out there. And it’s good for dear old mother earth, too!
I thought you might like to see my progress on the pieces I am working on for Paulette Insall’s class. I have been using a lot more water when I’m applying the acrylics and I think it does make a big difference.
Can you believe I am still using that Fleur di Lys stamp? It is literally falling apart from over use. And yes, there are crows in both portraits. Seeing them at the feeders every day is inspiring me.
If you’re anything like me, you spend half the time you’re drinking your Arizona Tea admiring the can. However, cutting up aluminum cans is kind of like dancing on razor wire barefoot. It is a dumb idea and you’re going to get cut. I drink a lot of this tea in its pretty green and pink can, though. And every time, I look at the design and think what a shame it is to crunch it up and stick it in recycling.
So, today, I put on gloves and carefully cut the can open using tin snips. Good thing I was wearing long sleeves, since it snapped back on me once and snagged my shirt. I sat and stared at the can awhile and then started thinking about how the die cut machine kind of bevels the edge under. I grabbed my Sizzix machine and very, very carefully put the sheet of aluminum in place. I laid the dies out and rolled them through.
Perfect! And the edges are nice and smooth. I’m still not going to try dancing on razor wire, though.
You may have noticed the umm…horribleness of my photography. My art looks blurry, grainy, or both. So, I bought a light tent to see if it would help me take better art photos. They were awful, but I had the light tent in what we’ve renamed the shade room until someone puts the windows required for a sun room in it. (Seriously, a sun room with no windows just can’t be a sun room, right? It has a French door and tile floor and people called it a sun room.)
Anyway, I moved to a room that has windows and beefed up the light bulbs in the sidelights. So, here is what happens:
No Light Tent
Light Tent
I think there is some improvement with a light tent. Want one and don’t have the cash? No worries. There are a ton of tutorials on making a light tent.
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Okay, it’s a bit corny, but I don’t care. I’ve been having so much fun with a new project I’ve been working on and since I stamp a sun image in the center and a fun stamp on some petals, I’ve been calling them fun flowers. The stamps are generic foam stamps and the flowers are the cheaper silk flowers with four to six layers taken apart. 
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