Vintage Birds

I love using ephemera in my mixed media art--old sheet music, game pieces, book pages.  

So I was thrilled to see that Ali Manning started Vintage Page Designs, selling the very things that I love as well as some of her own designs created from her findings.  

And this week she's offering the very first limited edition Vintage Page Kit in her Etsy store on Thursday, May 3rd.  The theme of this first kit is birds and it will contain all vintage book pages and bird illustrations.. 

I'm honored to be a guest designer for Ali's first kit. 













Here is a tag I made using the kit materials:

All the papers and ribbons you see are from Ali's bird kit, except for the slate blue background paper upon which I matted the tag.

I tore 6 different text pages and used the pieces to decoupage a tag base.  I added some white Gesso, rubber stamping and Ranger Distress Ink in Weathered Wood.  I finished with one of the lovely bird images (also outlined in Weathered Wood), the orange stamps and the seam binding (which I had soaked in water and crumpled).


Please visit Ali's blog VINTAGE PAGE DESIGNS for kit sneak peeks from the other guest designers.  


You'll be seeing more items I've made from the kit as the week goes by. 

Peachy Keen Day

We're wrapping up at Gingersnap Creations.  I will miss being on that design team.  Many of us are moving with Shar Briss to her new site, Unruly Paper Arts so you will see me there as I continue to enjoy rubbing elbows with so many talented artists.  I'm finishing up the draft for my first column which will be in the May issue of Unruly Paper Arts blogozine. 


In the meantime, each of us official Gingers are being showcased on the Gingersnap Creations blog.  My turn was on April 11.  I appreciate Shar's comments about my work in her post.  You can see the post HERE.

I loved being a Ginger--so much that I made this hangy thingy quite some time ago which got me one of the Ginger Gem honors before I became an Official Ginger.  So here it is again, one last time for sentimental reasons:

Today I'd like to share a couple of birthday cards I received.Thanks so much for all the birthday wishes here and on FB.


This one is from the artsy staff at Prairie Art Stamps:

I love the gold embossing and the notched gold thread framing.


And this one is from Susan K:

I love the softness of the color palette and stamped ink.

I found it interesting that both cards were in peach tones.  I truly did have a peachy birthday! So this is the last post featuring the number one song on the hit parade when I was born!

Since it's also Pink Saturday, I want to share my beautiful deep pink roses in my front yard.  I took several photos so that I could make a photo card.

 Thanks for visiting!  Have a great weekend!

Getting Down to Earth

To celebrate spring colors and earth day, I made this ornament from a recycled baby food jar lid and some diodes/conductors (for the butterfly antennae).

The edge was too small for my punch so I used my paper piercer.  The metal was soft enough that I was able to punch two holes for my hanger.  Since the holes were small, it limited my options for ribbon but I found this delicate organza ribbon that I was able to thread through the holes with the help of a needle.  

After edging with Ranger Alcohol Ink in the color currant, I applied flower ribbon to the outside and pink ruffled ribbon to the inside (with double sided red line tape). 

I printed the Gecko Galz circular image twice so that I could cut out the butterflies which I edged with the softer (than black) weathered wood Ranger Distress Ink.

The back is a circle of scrap paper, some flea market ric rac, and a Prima epoxy pressed flower.   

Entering this in:


Gecko Galz Yahoo Group for the April Color Challenge:  pink and yellow and one Gecko Galz product. I used a circular jewel image from the Spring Jewel Collection.  How perfect are the yellow and pink butterflies for the color challenge?


Starr Timmons is hosting the Shabby Tea Room "Week 111 April Showers" challenge this week, using this inspirational photo and asking for flowers and ribbon.


Frilly and Funky is sponsoring a re-purpose to upcycle challenge using at least two recycled items. (jar lid and conductors)

Adding another challenge:
the new Recycle, Repurpose, Reinvent site's first challenge: Anything Goes using one recycled item.  I explained in the post how I altered the jar lid. The diodes were taped to the back of the butterflies.  I used wire cutters to trim the top of the antennae to an appropriate length.  I folded under the bottom wires to add some bulk for my 3-D affect.

RRR Bonus Question

What’s the strangest thing you have been hoarding for the purpose of using it in your art and how do you plan to use it?

I have some hammered metal jewelry that I'm hoping to use on a mixed media project.

 

She Loved an Adventure

This lovely circular image is from the April ephemera releases at Gecko Galz.  For my design team project, I decided to enlarge it to make a card.

Distressed the edges with scissors and weather wood and broken china distress inks.  The white doily was "kissed" with spun sugar distress ink.  All inks by Ranger.  Martha Stewart key. Flying Unicorn roses.

Entering these challenges:

Crazy 4 Challenges C4C 133 Adding Black Cardstock to make your card pop---I used a pre-made round black cardstock base.


Art With No Boundaries: Challenge #6 Anything Goes  -- this young lady is going places


Cheerful Stamp Pad: Challenge #40 From the Past--this lovely Gecko Galz image is definitely from the past by the style of her hair and dress.

April Workshop

I spent a fantastic day with Linda Cain and the amazingly talented gals at Prairie Art Stamps in Springfield, IL.  Linda presented a workshop based on a piece she made for CHA.  Therefore,  you won't see my watermark on this piece as its Linda's design.  

We added our own choice of alcohol inks to embossed metal and then wrapped the metal around small canvases.  I used Denim, Pesto and Currant.  Then Linda suggested adding another color to the denim (on the cracked glass piece) because I wanted something to tone it down.  So I also added it to swirl piece for balance.  (It was one of Linda's colors, and I can't remember what it was but it had a teal tone!) We mounted the canvases onto an 8x8" canvas that we decoupaged with old papers.  The photos are of my mother's parents.  I put grandpa on the cracked glass because he worked for awhile in a glass factory in Pennsylvania. 


When I got home I put the canvas into an 8x8 inch shadow box frame that I purchased at Michael's after I left the workshop.  Here's a bad photo of the finished product.  I'm too impatient to wait until morning daylight for a photo.  A lot of shadows, but then this is a shadow box!

Linda and I took a photo together.  We both have birthdays this month.  Linda, the music playing on my blog today was the number one hit when we were born!!!!! Sure sounds like an oldie to me!

This photo is of all the April birthday girls who attended the workshop!  I'm standing with Judy.  Rhonda and Sandy are with Linda.  Today actually was the birthday of one of these lovely ladies which meant we had some scrummy (srumptious + yummy = scrummy) desserts to help celebrate:  blueberry cheesecake bars, brownies and cookies.  Plus the store owner, Terri, came in to prepare chicken salad croissant sandwiches for us!  In spite of working diligently to finish our projects, we all found time to enjoy our treats.

For more incredible art from Linda Cain, visit her blog, Friends In Art

For the latest happenings at Prairie Art Stamps, click HERE

I'm Back!

I'm back from my amazing, wonderful trip to California and getting into crafting mode now. 


I've changed my blog background again, replacing the Easter chicks with Elegia's oriental flowers.  I spent part of the day visiting some blogs and looking up the current cyberspace challenges.  I have some assignments due which will be my focus for the next few days.  And I'm looking forward to Saturday when I'll be with Linda Cain, attending her workshop at Prairie Art Stamps where we'll be making some fabulous art based on her CHA piece involving canvas, embossed metal and alcohol inks.   


Since this is an art blog and I haven't been around to make anything of my own, I'm showing you my sister's art--her beautiful handwork.  When the power was out in our hotel (at the time we returned from dinner), we went back to her apartment where I admired and tried on several of her pieces.  So when you view this photo, don't be looking at me but rather be looking at the beautiful scarf I'm modeling.  My sister inherited the family knitting/crocheting skills. 

Taking a Break

Life is good.  Life is rich and full.  

Taking a break from paper crafting.  

Will return to blog land early next week!

New Cards

My Stampin' Up Club met this afternoon.  Here are the three cards we made.  Gail designed the first two.  Judy designed the third one.  As always, it's fun to get together and chat while we stamp, punch and assemble our cards.  This get-together is a real mojo boost for me.  Too bad we meet just once a month!

This first one is just my vintage style.  I like the frame die and the crumb cake ink color.

Last month I bought this set of flower stamps with the matching punch.  Of course it's still in the package so I was thrilled to use it today to make this card.

This is a beautiful stamp set.  We heat embossed in silver.   And I ended up ordering the shimmery white card stock.

It's TIme to Get Unruly!

Whoop Whoop!  The Front Page of the first issue of the blogozine, Unruly Paper Arts, has been released today!


What exactly does that mean?  The Front Page?
It will show a Schedule of Contents - who's writing what and when.  Why when?  Because we're a bit different than most e-zines in that we'll be posting our articles throughout the month instead of all at once.


The first Reader Art Quest will be posted later today as well.  What is a RAQ?  Consider it your creative challenge to get unruly with the current month's theme.  And you may vote for your favorite entry too!

April's issue is all about ink....

Come see what all the excitement is about......



Here's a list of all the unruly columnists:

Editor:
Sharon Briss - Ill Tempered Ink

Our Columnists:

Jean Franks Beck - Bluebird Paperie

Brenda Brown - Bumblebees and Butterflies

Lucy Edmondson - True Colours

Carol Fox - WelcOme 2 m Y wOrld

Gerri Herbst - It's All Treasure

Helene Huber (me) - Lotsa Scrap 

Marjie Kemper - She Who Stamps and Scraps

Laura Liddell - As Happy As...

Deborah Powell - Altered Minds

Samantha Read - Me and My Stamps

Zoe Sanderson - This Little Place

Debbie Scriven - Dallying Debz

Trisha Neal - easily amused, hard to offend...

Plus there are monthly guest contributors!  Check out the contributor call for May!


It's all right here at the Unruly Paper Arts blog.