Old West Coasters

Jeri is hosting a swap over at Paper Traders using those paperboard drink coasters you get at restaurants.  I snagged a big stack of them from the manager at our local Islands to make these.  The theme for this swap is Old West and I used images from vintage postcards.  The backgrounds were done using the decayed paper technique with an extra top coat of clear crackle and Distress Ink rubbed into the cracks.  The coasters from all the participating artists will go into little books for each person.

Blog Challenge: Hello Spring

I watch these online videos of mixed media artists just throwing stuff onto their paper and coming up with these fabulous creations.  Come on... who really does that?  It's certainly not me as I am way too much of a control freak to just toss things about willy-nilly.  Then, recently, after watching one of those annoying yet wonderfully amazing videos and feeling completely lost as to what to make for the upcoming blog challenge over at Paper Traders, I decided to give it a go.  What could it hurt?  It wasn't in a precious journal that I was afraid to ruin or for a specific swap that I would have to send to another artist to judge.  No, it was just for me and if I truly hated it, I could toss it in the trash and try something different.

When we were discussing what the theme for the March blog challenge should be, I was leaning toward "luck" since St Patty's Day falls right in the middle of the mix; but the other moderators were really itching for Spring to get here and so the theme this month is "Hello Spring!"  I decided to take my "lucky" idea and incorporate it into the Spring theme with some purple flowering clover - fresh greens and pretty lavenders and a touch of shiny gold.  I started by layering torn vintage text over my cardboard canvas and then I smeared the paints around... ... ...Did you know that purple and green when mixed together make a kind of ugly brown?  Well, they do and it was icky and I already hated it and ALMOST threw it in the trash secure now in my knowledge that all this creative slinging was a bunch of hooey!  But I grabbed my paper towel and blotted and wiped most of the brown gunk away, then slowly and CAREFULLY placed more greens and purples on my page, gently sponging them on instead of smearing them around.  Ooh, now this was kind of pretty... maybe a little more of this, a little more of that, some white paint touches, some black stamped text... yes, yes, I can see this might not be a totally wasted effort.

Once it was all dry, i almost chopped it up into ATC backgrounds.  But, in digging through my stash, I found a few coordinating treasures and the following canvas was born:

(One of my favorite little secrets about this canvas is that the green lined journaling paper with the distress inking on it came from Suzi Blu's garage sale - actual paper that one of my favorite artists inked and chopped herself.  I feel somehow connected to her by using this little treasured scrap in my work  =)

Now, my next adventure in messiness will be a test to see if this was just a fluke... or maybe a whole new creative approach for me!  Stay tuned...

...oh, and don't forget to join in the blog challenge at Paper Traders.  It's easy, lots of fun, and you might win recognition for being the month's Trader Treasure!

Does this dress make me look like a cow?

Cathy is hosting a Moo Card swap over at Paper Traders.  The theme is Vintage Fashion.  I was lucky enough to have a whole page of fashions through the ages that I snagged from a thrift store book.  The backgrounds were made by layering actual sewing pattern tissue over cardstock.  Once everything was assembled, I topped it off with a shiny coat of Glossy Accents.

Beauty in Bronze

Every month, our Paper Traders group has a winner-take-all ATC lottery and this is the card I made for February's entry.  I used a leftover "failed" background from my CNY cards (it was a "fail" because the colors were too blended and brown - the ones I used for that swap were just black & red).  The scanner never does very well at picking up the shimmery bits but this card has a gold sheen and some touches from my gold foil pen.

Lace Challenge

There's another great blog challenge happening over at Paper Traders.  This month it's all about Lace.  I actually made this greeting card years ago but thought it was a fun twist on this theme.  I laid the lace onto sticky paper and then pressed microbeads through the holes and then gently peeled the lace off, leaving the beads behind... pretty isn't it?

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!

Mardi Gras Masquerade

I recently hosted a Mardi Gras themed ATC swap in our Paper Traders group.  I made my backgrounds by using blue and purple alcohol inks on aluminum foil, then overlaying that with a piece of iridescent punchinella. They're really much more colorful and shiny than the scan shows.