Friday, July 3, 2009

Baby Quilt

When I saw the Faux Iris Folding technique in the latest Technique Junkies newsletter, all I could think of was a quilt. At the time, I has just gotten the new Doodle Factory Oh Baby! stamps from Starving Artistamps. All of the elements seemed to be meant for each other...you know, like chocolate and peanut butter, so I just had to make this card.

For the quilt, I grabbed a bunch of coordinating scraps to make my piecework. To add to to the quilty feel, I drew stitching in the border with a white gel pen. My images are colored with Copic markers.

Enjoy the weekend!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

smARTworks Tea Party 21 - Pass the Salt!

This was a fun challenge! Donelda asked us to use the salt technique somewhere on our cards. Believe it or not, I had never tried the technique before. Well, it turns out that it's wicked fun! Just create a wet wash with your choice of watercolor media (I used watercolor crayons), drop grains of salt into the wet paint and let it dry. Magic! I was having so much fun that I made 10 backgrounds before I knew it!

Here are the cards I made with two of them. The first one incorporates my latest addiction--Inchies. I stamped the butterflies (Inchie Blocks - Set 4) with Chestnut Roan chalk ink onto a piece of leftover piece from a watercolor wash I had hanging around and colored them with Prismacolor pencils. I cut out my squares and mounted them onto white Inchie Squares and covered the edges with more brown ink. For the background piece, I did a wash with shades of brown and yellow. The paint had dried a tad too much before I added the salt, but I still liked the effect, so here it is. The sentiment I used is from the Indigo Bunting set.


The second card I made was completely inspired by the background, which reminded me of a star galaxy. For this background, I blobbed three different colors onto a really wet piece of watercolor paper and added the salt while everything was still quite wet. Keeping with the swirly star galaxy theme, I chose a flower from the Star Flowers set and colored it with Copic markers. The center of the flower is a round paperclip attached with a large round glue dot. After I attached the clip, I sprinkled on micro beads to cover the exposed adhesive. It's much prettier IRL!

Susan, Dina, Donelda, and Giovana are joining the party this week, too, so be sure check out what they did. This was a fun challenge, and unfortunately, it's the last one for a bit. The Design Team has decided to take the summer off, but don't worry...we'll be back! In the meantime, we'll be participating in other challenges, and of course, we'll be posting on our blogs.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Monkeying Around

I did a lot of stamping today. Yeah, I was feeling pretty virtuous because I starting stripping the wallpaper in our dining room yesterday. Got a lot done, too, so I figured I deserved a day off. Besides, I had some Design Team assignments that I needed to work on, so it's not like I was just goofing off, lol!


Here's a card I did using images from DoodleFactory (Starving Artistamps) and a cool and easy technique called Depth of Field from the latest Technique Junkies Newsletter. I colored Chip, from the Valentine's Remix collection, with Copic Markers and created my background with the jungle leaves from the same set.

Later, friends!

Friday, June 26, 2009

Blue Butterfly


This is my latest colored pencil drawing done from this reference photo at Wet Canvas. It's 5" x 7" done with Prismacolor pencils (and a white Pablo) on black Strathmore Artagain paper.

Thanks for looking, and we'll return to our regularly scheduled card postings tomorrow!

Monday, June 22, 2009

SA @ 2S4Y

That's shorthand for "Starving Artistamps is sponsoring this week's sketch over at 2 Sketches 4 You"! Check it out...you could win the latest DoodleFactory release, Oh Baby!, there's a discount code good for an amazing 25% off Starving Artistamps and DoodleFactory rubber, not to mention some awesome cards to ogle over!

Here's mine. I used Zing! embossing powder and the Starving Artistamps Weaves BG on black cardstock to make the background, and the main image is Zeebo from the DoodleFactory Animals collection. The printed paper is from Basic Grey Urban Prairie, the flower is a Prima, the sentiments is stamped with black Stazon, and I did my coloring with Copic markers.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Got Inchies?

I do!!! And so can you...smARTworks now has a whole line of Inchie stamps AND they carry Inchie Arts products! I just got my order of goodies yesterday, and today I plan to play all afternoon. Yup. Life is good!

Here's my first card for the day. I used the sketch from Card Positioning Systems (CPS121), which is perfect for showing off an Inchie. I used the birthday cake from the Little Bits #1 set and a sentiment from Square Say. Believe it or not, I colored the cake with Copic markers. You need to have a very light touch, but you can color tiny areas with the brush tip.

Gotta go...I've gots lots more stamping to do!

Friday, June 19, 2009

Mark your calendars and set your alarms!

We're having another Blog Hop at Starving Artistamps! There's a new DoodleFactory release coming out on July 8th, and trust me, you don't want to miss this. Irene has outdone herself this time. I won't give anything away, but I will tell you that the new stamps are something new and different, but they still have that DoodleFactory quirky charm and will mix and match with other DoodleFactory collections. Did I get your curiosity up? Then make sure you check back here at 11 a.m. EST on the 8th to see what all the buzz is about!

Since I can't show off the new stuff yet, I'll share a card I made with one of my favorite Starving Artistamps images. I know I said that I posted my last tulip a few days ago, but I couldn't resist doing just one more. I stamped the large tulip with Versamark and embossed with Zing! white embossing powder. For the coloring, I did a variation of that watercolor technique that been so popular lately. I don't have many reinkers, so I did my version with Inktense pencils. I worked section by section and started by wetting the area with plain water. Next, I used my wet brush to pick up color from the tip of the pencil, and then dripped the color onto the wet paper. Worked like a charm!

Don't forget...mark those calendars!