Love Notes

Cathy recently hosted a vintage Love Notes Envelope swap in our Paper Traders group.  I still need to make my covers to bind together the pages that I received...  I'll try to remember to post another photo once I've got that assembled.  These are the envelopes I made using vintage sheet music overlayed with pretty napkins, doilies, and vellum flourishes.  I added rub-ons for some pretty touches.  The notes inside said:

Love
is just a word
until someone comes along
and gives it
meaning.

c

Updated:  Here's my finished book!

Imaginary Garden

This is the last spread for the current round in the Paper Traders Round Robin Journal swap.  We'll be starting a new round after the first of the year.  This last book that I worked in belongs to Heather and she chose a beautiful theme: Imaginary Garden.

For this page, I used the watercolored paper she had included in her book, sponged ink around the edges, and glued a printed floral napkin over the top.  I then added dimensional aspects with silk flower petals and punched paper flowers.  Finally, I used my fingertips to spread glitter glue to highlight certain flowers.  The butterflies and birds were actually rub-ons.  Since hummingbirds are a rare thing for her to see up in Canada, I think she thought it was a real treat to have them in her book.

Assemblage Art: Time Heals All Wounds

I have been waiting for weeks to be able to show you my newest steampunk creation.  The Gingersnap Creations blog challenge for this week was to use gears, cogs, and watch bits so I created this assemblage, which was a lot of fun!  I may have found a new art addiction  =)   Stay tuned because I have another assemblage to show you next week...

The Gingersnap Creations challenges are fun and anyone can play along so come and join in the fun!

Christmas in July

It's time for another art challenge on our Paper Traders blog! This time I made a greeting card for the "Christmas in July" theme using a transparency layered over sheet music and adding a pink flower rub-on:

These challenges are so much fun!  And they're open to all art bloggers so check them out and come play along: http://papertraders-art.blogspot.com/search/label/Challenges

Round Two: "Happiness is..."

It's time for Round Two of our round robin journal project in our Paper Traders group.  This month, I was working in Ammi Rostin's journal.  Her theme was "Happiness is..." and one of the things that makes me happy is having some quiet time to curl up with a good book  =)  I went a little crazy with the rub-ons for this page!

Fashionistas

Recently I hosted a "Fabulous Fashionistas" canvas swap on our Paper Traders group.  For these, I used a pre-printed texture paper background and then I glued printed napkins over the top using PPA (Perfect Paper Adhesive).  When everything was dry, I used some rubons for added details.  The ladies' clothing is a combination of papers and fabrics and lots of glue  =)

Asian Influence

 If you follow my art, you probably know how much I love asian themes in my art.  Here are some items I've done recently - all for Paper Traders swaps.  At the top, small chipboard houses using some really great joss paper I found for backgrounds.  Above, some paper thread bobbins for a tiny bobbin book.

Below is the triptych and handmade envelope I created for another swap.  The lady in this one is a pop-up... a little trick my mom taught me  =)

Secret Valentine Birdie

I'm just barely finishing up all the Christmas candies and treats and now the stores are full of tempting valentine sweetness! Makes it very hard to stick to my healthy eating goals...

In our Paper Traders group, we are having a secret valentine swap and this is the front of the card I made:
I made the background by tearing pieces of vintage text and music and layering them with some Perfect Paper Adhesive (love this stuff!). Then I covered it all with a layer of flower-printed tissue paper and added some rub-ons from EK Success. The little birdie was a pre-made embellishment from Prima but I made the lacy heart myself.

This background technique is my favorite - I've used it on several projects - it's super easy and always turns out so pretty!

Making It Up

I am one of the moderators for an online art community and sometimes we find ourselves put in a difficult position. Recently, a new member joined a collaborative project and received art from a couple of other participants but failed to contribute the work in kind that she was committed to do. We tried repeatedly to contact her with no response and were finally forced to make the difficult decision to boot her from the project and the group.

Having had one of my own art journals stolen last year, I felt empathy for the two artists who had made special journal pages for this woman and got nothing in return; I decided to make pages for their journals myself - even though I'm not signed up to participate in this particular project.

Above are the pages I made for a school-themed journal and below are the "Italian Affair" pages I did for the other one.

Soul Journaling

One of my new year resolutions was to start a personal art journal this year. The problem was that I didn't have any idea where to start. One of my dear art friends told me about Sarah Whitmire's Soul Journaling prompts and so I have decided to jump right in! I know I won't be able to follow along daily but will try to work on this project as regularly as I can.

The first two spread are my take on Sarah's first prompt - to cover my pages with text, then pick out words that describe how I am feeling, circle them, and write down some of my thoughts:

The next step was to get out the gesso and cover up all of my words, taking time to contemplate on them as I painted them out. Secondly, I needed to "claim" my book by putting my name all over the first page...
Finally, I needed to create my "soul armor" and decorate it using words that describe how I can protect my creative spirit. Those of you who know me know I love asian things so I just had to use this samurai on my page... I decorated the background with a piece of gold-printed joss paper and some kanji rub-ons. I will probably go back and add more detail to my armor but this is what I've gotten done so far.

Altered Dominoes

I made both of these altered dominoes for a swap on Paper Traders. Both of the images were sealed with crystal lacquer and then I dropped the gold items into the wet lacquer to attach them (the key, bow, and gold micro beads). The pear one has pretty little rub-ons around the edge while the key one has a ribbon glued around it.

Third Anniversary Project

Above is the inside of the mini frame I decorated for Paper Traders' third anniversary project. Below are the front and back covers. The challenge for this project was "A Celebration of Art" utilizing the number 3 in some way. The covers are strictly rub-ons over a sponged cover.

Vintage Family Holidays

These are the hanging ATC's I made for Teri's "Vintage Family Holidays" swap on Paper Traders. You can barely see the ribbons behind that are the hangers for these cards, which can be used as ornaments. I was very limited with images and inspiration so I relied heavily on these gorgeous rub-ons from The Paper Studio.