No. 10 for Christmas, 2022

Today, I'm sharing a nature-themed Christmas tag made with a fussy-cut bird from a Graphic 45 paper collection, mounted inside a handmade box lined with Christmas/Noel collage paper, and a piece of Tim Holtz Christmas ephemera.

The background was embossed with a Texture Fade, there's lots of Stickles, a bit of gold paint, a tiny scrap of muslin and a vintage button. I just don't do bows well so to balance the top I created a tiny paper scroll.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

No. 9 for Christmas, 2022

For this tag, I created a landscape with watercolors using a few stamps. I was mindful of my color choices (and their intensity) in order to create a sense of depth and realism for these somewhat contrary subjects. A general rule of thumb: Keep your colors dark and bright in the foreground, light and dull in the back.

I like to use hot press watercolor paper because the smooth surface makes the stamped images crisper. I trimmed the border with platinum Stickles and used Stampendous Clear Snow glitter on the branches and berries. The text and snowflakes are Remnant Rubs.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

No. 8 for Christmas, 2022

I wanted to make a Christmas tag inspired by a favorite artist, Wendy Addison, who puts on a special sale/show every year at Christmas. She uses paper rosettes in a lot of her work and that was my starting point along with a plan to use lots of glitter. ☺

I used vintage book paper and ephemera along with die-cut pieces (Carta Bella) covered with silver Stickles and dots made with off-white Scribbles.

I'm linking up to Simon's Monday challenge for this week's "Tag" theme.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

No. 7 for Christmas, 2022

 

Yes, it's another Christmas tag (I'm on a roll this year) and it features a vintage Santa figure from a Tim Holtz Christmas ephemera release.

I began with a scrapbook paper from Stamperia (Christmas Patchwork) and applied a clear embossed stencil layer (Holiday Script) to act as a resist for some Distress ink tinting. I ironed-off the embossing (see technique here) to keep the background smooth so I could use a tree stencil (Clear Scraps Pine Trees) over the top.

I used a pencil to trace the stencil outline then a brush to fill it in with white paint. The dried brush strokes provided some texture made more visible when I used inks for tinting.

Santa was pasted on next then a border was added using Simon's Tiny Dots stencil and texture paste. Final touches include a Remnant Rub and Stickles.

I'm linking up to Simon's Monday challenge for this week's "Tag" theme.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

No. 6 for Christmas, 2022

I used a Found Relative, a stamp (Mundo Holly, Ellen Hutson), printed tissue paper, scrapbook paper, a Remnant Rub, and glitter glues to make this tag.

I'm linking up to Simon's Monday challenge for this week's "Tag" theme.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

No. 5 for Christmas, 2022

I inherited multiple copies of professional portrait photographs of my great aunts and their relatives/friends (circa 1900-1940) mounted inside thick, tri-fold paper folders. Since I don't need to save, for example, ten copies of a graduation portrait of the same person, I recycle the folders to use in my artwork. That's what makes up the foundations for this tag.

It features a die-cut pattern of poinsettias (Tim Holtz) that were filled-in with Stickles along with a Christmas Collage Paper covering. I used a laser-printed vintage photo mounted inside an old Idea-ology sticker frame antiqued with paint and Liquid Pearls. The numerals were cut from scrapbook paper and covered with Stickles.

I'll share a tip for anyone who doesn't like the unavoidable shedding of glitter--just cover it with a layer of clear medium to seal it. And if you use a matt finish it creates a more subtle, vintage appearance.

I'm linking this one up to Simon's Monday challenge, this week's theme is Holiday Cheer.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

No. 4 for Christmas, 2022

I took inspiration for this tag from the cover of a vintage magazine (see it here). I traced the ornament design on watercolor paper and tinted it. I messed-up the background so I had to cut it out instead. It was pasted on Tim Holtz Christmas papers and embellished with Stickles.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

No. 3 for Christmas, 2022

I took inspiration for this Christmas tag from Paula Cheney and a piece she created several years ago for an Advent calendar (see it here).

I cut the wings from a vintage portrait folder and distressed with paint, sandpaper and crackle medium then mounted on paper, tissue scraps and fabric. The text was made with a Tim Holtz Christmas stencil and covered with Glossy Accents.

The crown was cut from a discarded book then covered with Stickles, Glossy Accents and Nuvo Crystal Drops. I outlined the edges with more Stickles and darkened them with a water-soluble graphite pencil.

The crowning jewel (so-to-speak) is a vintage button from my great aunt's collection.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

No. 2 for Christmas, 2022

Posting another Christmas tag today, this one inspired by a lovely make from Emma Williams (see it here).

The background is a scrapbook page, the wreath was hand-cut from cardboard then heat-embossed with metallic powders and trimmed with Stickles. 

I used vellum inside the frame that was lightly distressed with inks on the backside and stamped with heat-embossed text. The scroll is a Remnant Rub.

The holly was die-cut from watercolor paper using a Tim Holtz set called Mixed Media Christmas. After tinting with inks, I used a clear medium and Rock Candy dry glitter to give it some sparkle. The berries were made dimensional with Glossy Accents.

The border was machine-stitched, darkened a bit with distress ink and embellished with more Stickles.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

No. 1 for Christmas, 2022

I've begun my annual tradition of making Christmas tags (to embellish gifts) and used everything but the kitchen sink for this one!

There's scraps of paper, a favorite fussy-cut stamp (Penny Black, Christmas Star), stencil marks, paint splatters, inks, gold paint and embossing, Rock Candy Stickles, die-cut text, etc., etc.

I felt kind of rusty, that I'd lost my "mojo," but I just kept messing with it and telling myself, you can't over-do for Christmas, right?

Maybe it will help to put the tree up and get some carols on. And so the season begins....

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Perfidy & Travail

I'm sharing a tag today that's made with a Found Relative, Remnant Rubs, and scraps of Paper Stash, embellished with Liquid Pearls and typewritten text.

The girls were roughed up a bit with a damp piece of Magic Eraser (perfect to use when a "gentle touch" is best) to lighten their flat black outfits that were then tinted with Pitt Brush Pens.

I also cut out tiny bits, here and there (around their arms, faces, etc.) to improve the factory cutting and make them appear more realistic. A final important step is to paint or ink the edges (I used black) to make the white paper backing blend in with the background (best to do before pasting).

I also scraped through the Remnant Rubs with an Xacto knife to further the distressed look.

I'm linking up to the Simon Monday challenge which is a "Fall Mood Board."

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Wildflowers

I experimented with paste medium to level-out a scrap of rice paper embossed with a folder and tinted with stains so I could heat-emboss it with a stamp from Simon (Sunflower Garden).

I'm linking up for Simon's "Emboss It" challenge.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Elizabeth II

Who could not be moved by the most honorable life of Queen Elizabeth II? With respect to her passing, Simon's prompt this week is "Sparkle and Shine" and she certainly was all that and so much more.

"May flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest."

 

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Ethical Skeptics

Sharing a mixed media collage today whose base is a vintage portrait folder combined with cuttings from scraps of Paper Stash. A vintage postcard (1915) creates another layer and includes an image transfer of a vintage photo that took my fancy. The text is also an image transfer and the borders were embellished with Nuvo Crystal Drops.

Just in case you are wondering:

praedicate evidentia – hyperbole in extrapolating or overestimating the preponderance of evidence supporting a specific claim (even to convention), when few examinations of merit have been conducted regarding a hypothesis, or few or no such studies of the subject have indeed been conducted at all.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Delicate Flowers

After much experimentation, I've finally settled on the best way to use my recently purchased jar of Ranger's Distress Clear Rock Candy Dry Glitter.

It used to be made as a wet product contained in a Stickles bottle and I loved this stuff. Sure, it could reactivate inks or wrinkle paper due to its high moisture content but I could work around this--no problem.

So I set about mixing various mediums with the dry glitter to use in an empty squeeze bottle like before. Unfortunately nothing I tried worked, I went back to basics, and this card illustrates a technique that will have to do.

Using Simon's Delicate Flowers stamp set on a page of Paper Stash, I fussy-cut then pasted an arrangement on more Paper Stash (this time stained with Seedless Preserves) and mounted on black paper using strips of the same for balance.

I painted on small sections of fluid matte medium then used my fingers to lightly sprinkle the dry glitter over the area before the medium dried. I found that a light application was better than a dump (like you would do with embossing powder) and sometimes it was necessary to apply two coats to get the look I was going for.

I'm linking to Simon, this week's prompt is "Use Die-Cuts" (how I made the card text).

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Seedless Preserves

I usually keep my posts short and sweet since there are many craft bloggers that provide step-outs with detailed instructions and most of my work isn't, as they say, "rocket-science."

But this time I thought my readers might like a more detailed explanation of how this tag was made.

It began with an image transfer on heavyweight card stock after modifying this photo with Photoshop.

As you can see, the photo had damage (gray areas on flesh) that I corrected using the "film grain" filter followed by my usual image transfer technique. Here's the reversed image after editing.

I filled-in the hair on top of her head, redrew parts of her necklace and extended her eyebrows with waterproof black ink. I use a Uni-ball Vision Fine--it's been my go to for years. I scratched out the dark shadow beneath her chin and replaced it with lighter shading.

I trimmed and pasted tissue paper in the background using Tim Holtz Collage Papers and a Simon Craft Glue Stick. I seriously like these sticks--they have a long working time and clean up easy with water.

Her dress was decorated with plain white tissue paper stamped with dots (Tim Holtz Dots and Floral) and tinted with this post's title, Seedless Preserves Distress Stain. I don't think there is a more potent color in my toolbox than this one!

I made a mask of the woman's body so I could stamp the tree branches with birds in the background (Penny Black Winter Ledge). I painted over the bird bodies with white acrylic later tinted with light brown ink. I used inexpensive Pentel Oil Pastels to tint the background. They are mostly transparent (which is a great feature) and I just scribble on a bit and rub-in with a cosmetic sponge.

Some final tweeks include shading around the edges of the woman's face and arms to provide a little dimension and the addition of gold paint to her jewelry and the remaining frames edges. There's a spot of Glossy Accents on her turquoise medallion and the text is a Holtz Clippings Sticker.

I'm linking up to Simon's Monday challenge, this week it's Make Your Own Background.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Love This Life

Prompted by Simon's Monday challenge (Mixed Media), I made a card using kraft cardstock, layers of tissue papers (one stamped), a piece of delaminated cardboard, book paper, Tim Holtz Aviary Collage Paper, an embossed scrap (Roses Texture Fade) and the centerpiece is a moth clipped from the Wallflower paper stash.

I save most scraps from previous projects because they always come in handy for projects like this. 

I used a variety of inks and markers to tint/distress and embellished with a Remnant Rub, machine stitching and Nuvo Vintage Drops.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Stamp credit: Carabelle Studio Stitched Mixed Media Background

A Simple Life

Sharing more "postcard art" today made with two stamps, a Clippings Sticker and tinted with inks, watercolors and colored pencils.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Fish School

 

Altering vintage postcards or using them as a background is fun and I'm surprised how well the paper holds up to wet mediums.

I stamped the fish on tissue paper using a set bought many years ago at a craft fair. I used Pitt brush pens to tint them and Distress inks for the watery background.

I'm linking up to Simon for this week's challenge, "Back to School."

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

 

Bird Post

 

I inherited my great Aunt Esther's collection of post cards and I used a pair of them to create a bit of mail art with some Stampendous birds.

One bird was stamped on plain tissue paper, the other on a vintage book page, and both were cut-out and pasted on the cards. I did this mainly because I could play around with the placement and avoid a mis-stamp that can't be undone. The pine trees and leafy dots were also done this way.

There's a bit of collage paper and miscellaneous stamping to fill things in and I tinted with colored pencils and ink markers.

I was inspired to make these by Simon's challenge this week, "Let's Go On Vacation!"

Both cards were mailed by Esther's sister while traveling through St. Louis (on vacation) and of course, birds are great travelers, too. 

Fun to see Ada was excited to report she procured a hotel room with a bath for $1.50.

My, how times have changed....

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Colorado Corners

I used a new stamp set for this card and I'm linking-up to Simon's challenge--this week it's Fabulous Florals.

The set is called Floral Corners by artist Kris Lauren for the Colorado Craft Company.

It was stamped on rice paper, tinted with watercolors, fussy-cut for mounting on scrapbook paper, and embellished with Stickles.

I used rice paper because it's easy to cut and plan to alter future stampings of this design to change-up the cornered layout. I just love the stamp's delicate design but a tiny brush was a must for tinting.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Happy With You

This card was made with a stamp by Laurel Burch whose art features bright, bold and playful colors. Honestly, I've never had much luck tinting this stamp in the same style (it's harder than it looks).

But given the Simon challenge this week (Red, White and Blue), I limited my palette to just those colors and had better success.

I stamped on top of scrapbook paper, used Pitt brush pens to tint, and applied the image to a background printed with a gelli plate. The text is a Small Talk sticker and the dots were made with a gel pen.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

God Bless America

Let us begin to contemplate a change of course that

allows us to remain a civilized nation of law and liberty.

My Name is Salt

Motivated by Simon's challenge this week (Inspired by a Movie), I've made a tag to share a most memorable documentary recently enjoyed that you might like too.

The film is called "My Name is Salt." Their website describes it this way:

Year after year, for an endless eight months, thousands of families move to a desert in India to extract salt from the burning earth. Every monsoon their salt fields are washed away, as the desert turns into sea. And still they return, striving to make the whitest salt in the world.

The cinematography is excellent and it's a good one to watch when you need something very mellow to relax with.

 “My Name is Salt” is available online worldwide:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/mynameissalt2

Additionally, it’s out on Amazon Video @ http://www.amazon.com and http://www.amazon.co.uk

For views from Switzerland, Germany, Austria, go to
https://www.trigon-film.org/…/vod/collection/My_Name_is_Salt

Regarding my tag, I tried to interpret the film as best I could. I made a stamp-resist background with clear embossing power and a variety of texture stamps, Distress inks for tint, an image transfer, gold paint dots along the border and a touch of Clear Rock Candy Distress Glitter.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Uvalde

  (Quote: Jandy Nelson, The Sky is Everywhere)

Sweet Life

This piece was an exercise in texture using a copy of a vintage photo of my great aunt Esther (in the foreground) and a friend.

The photo was hand-tinted, mounted off-center behind tinted and embossed mulberry paper (Botanical Texture Fade), stenciled with script using texture paste (Finnabair Read My Letter) and anchored with tinted book paper and a piece of crochet. The embellishments include lots of hand and machine-stitching, dots of dimensional paint, a vintage button, satin ribbon streamers and a Remnant Rub.

I'm linking up to Simon's Add Texture challenge.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

All You're Wishing For

Still playing with my new stamp (Hero Arts Succulent Bouquet), this time on book paper filled in using another new toy--a white Kuretake ZIG Cartoonist Brush Pen.

The pen's water-based pigment ink is quick drying and water resistant and it was easy to apply color on top using pen ink and colored pencil.

I really like this pen but it's pricey, $7.50 on Amazon, refill cartridges are $5.

I fussy-cut the stamped image leaving a strip of the book paper to anchor it on a background of Memoranda paper stash scraps and the text is a ChitChat sticker.

As a side-note, it must be the effect of today's upcoming lunar eclipse, but I just had a major light-bulb moment regarding photographing my cards. I was really struggling with focus and it turns out, after reading the camera manual (duh), I was shooting too close to the object. Hopefully, you'll start to see a difference moving forward.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Hero Arts Succulent Bouquet

 

I purchased a new stamp set and used it on hot-press watercolor paper. Ever experimenting, I used an olive green shade of Nuvo Crystal Drops to fill some of the leaf areas then couldn't help but throw down some dots around the flower edges.

I created a border with a fine-line marker and green gold Nuvo Glitter Drops. It was mounted on plaid printed paper with a black card stock foundation.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Daylight Dreams

Sharing a greeting card today that was an experiment using a white Uniball Signo gel pen (first time using one). After stamping (Simon's Sunshine Flowers) with gray archival ink on a scrap of Tim Holtz Paper Stash (Memoranda), I filled-in the image with the pen then applied tinting over the top.

The gel pen ink isn't waterproof so I had to isolate the layer with an aerosol acrylic medium. Tinting became more challenging now that the paper lost it's absorbancy but at least the white ink didn't run.

I glazed over the image with some original, liquid Clear Rock Candy Distress Stickles (unfortunately, no longer available) and it provided a nice sheen with subtle glittering (very vintage) and also darkened the colors. The text is a Clippings Sticker.

Would I use this technique again? Yes, it's much easier to use a pen over a paint brush to fill-in detailed stamps like this one. I did use a permanent fixative for the isolation coat because I didn't have the "workable" kind so next time I'll try the later to see if there's a difference when it comes to applying color over the top.

I could just use markers, colored pencils, etc., but what I'm seeking is a nice white background when stamping on pre-printed paper so that the colors will pop.

A side note on Clear Rock Candy: I recently bought the dry form that comes in a jar that is sprinkled over any wet medium. I plan to do some experimenting but I'll be hard pressed to replicate the very liquid, easy-to-spread medium that you just squeezed out of the applicator bottle it originally came in.

Ranger doesn't make any of the liquid Distress Stickles any more but, believe it or not, I still have usable bottles that haven't dried out over the years like the non-Distress Stickles do. They came in squeeze bottles with a larger opening on the applicator tip and since I kept some of these empty bottles, well, stay tuned....

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

In the Moment

I've embraced my wilder side today by creating an experimental tag after one of those "wonder what it would look like if..." moments. Here are the details of my technique.

I began with scrapbook paper for the background that's black with printed glittered bees evenly distributed throughout the page.

Then I heat embossed it with the stamped image (Simon's Floral Garden) and painted the inside of the flowers and leaves white. It was easy to scrape paint off the embossing if I went outside the lines by gently using my X-Acto knife.

I tinted the flowers and darkened some of the wings with Pitt Artist Brush Pens.

The text is a Tim Holtz Chipboard Quote peeled away from the chip board so it would lay flat against the tag and embellished with a line of gold Stickles.

 I'm linking up with Simon's Wild and Wonderful challenge.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

John 16:33

Sharing a tag made for the Whatever the Weather challenge at Simon that features the Sideshow stamp by Tim Holtz along with a vintage map stamp by Inkadinkado.

I created a stamp resist with clear embossing powder over an already collaged and tinted background. Then I painted over the entire tag with black paint that was wiped off the embossing when it was almost dry.

Because the original surface was sealed with acrylic, I was able to scrap off the embossing then add color to areas like the map and rain drops with permanent ink.

I did a bit of sanding and scraped in the text which references this quote from the bible:

 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Sweet Pea

I traced an image of a Sweet Pea then used watercolor for tint, created a background mask from scrapbook paper and used a fine line marker to create the frame borders.

To create the mask, I used deli paper to trace an outline of the oval and flower parts then inserted the tracing on top of the scrap paper for cutting.

For better emphasis, I later outlined the watercolor drawing. Maybe I am so used to stamped images that the no-line effect just didn't seem right to me.

I used dimensional dots for accent (Scribbles) and I left off any text so that I can customize the card when I'm ready to gift it.

I'm linking up to the Sweet Treat challenge at Simon.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

Easter Greetings

Welcome to a longer post today to explain my inspiration for this greeting card and to share some family memorabilia.

It was made with an old pillow case scrap and I traced a design that was machine- and hand-stitched, tinted with watercolors and framed on texture-embossed mulberry paper.

I took my inspiration from a collection of vintage embroidered postcards sent to my great Aunt Esther by her brother (my grandfather) from France in 1918 when he was a soldier during World War I.

The cards were made with machines that imitated hand embroidery and were provided with patriotic, romantic or religious messages. They were sent home by the officers and soldiers that lived and fought in the trenches of northern France. You can learn more about them here.

These were mailed in an envelope to protect them, were lovingly stored for more than 100 years and are in excellent condition. One has an inscription on the back which reads, "Dear Esther, the money enclosed is worth 17-1/2 cents American money. That's what these postcards cost a piece."

It's worth noting that my aunt was an avid postcard collector so I expect she was overjoyed to receive them. Though her greatest joy, I'm sure, was when the war ended and he returned home. My grandfather was very young when he served and the experience had a detrimental affect on his mental health.

My hope for Easter this year is to see an end to the war in Ukraine and I will pray for it.

I'm linking to Simon this week for their Easter/Spring challenge and my card will be mailed to my good friend, Thelma, who introduced me to card making many years ago.

As always, I hope this post finds you well and happy and I appreciate your visit.

Until next time, take care.

H A P P Y   E A S T E R !