May 2017 Calendar Journal

There was very little art time this past month, but my calendar journal means I get at least 1.5" X 1.5" of tiny creative time each day.  Sometimes that just has to be enough.

I realized that the fun scrapbook paper designs that I start with really get buried behind the writing as the blocks get filled in.

The little pocket on the 6th holds the list of guests that attended that visit.  And the pocket is held in place with 1/8" washi tape.  So narrow and delicate.  

I just love those stitches rubber stamps that my daughter found for my birthday.  The sloppiness of the stitches are really fun.  

I hope to find myself with a little more playtime in June.

Happy Summertime!

Doctoring the Color Bursts

I've come to the conclusion that Color Burst powders are not a product for me.  This card is not completely unfortunate, but unfortunately Color Burst powders have kicked my butt.

Here's how this card started.  If you look quite carefully and with a magnifying glass, you will see the Color Burst powders.  You aren't supposed to have to use very much.  

I think maybe a little more is needed.  Which I did add some more.  The purple bottle especially seems to have more colors inside than just purple.  Hmmm.

  

I started over with the circles shown in the first photo and the one below.  But my Color Burst did not do much better at all.  Well I got out my Neocolor II water-soluble crayons and did some watercolor doctoring trying to save the poor card.  It was salvageable until I decided it might need a little something else.  I stenciled lightly the harlequin background.  I should have listened to myself when myself told me NOT to add a little something else!  Will I never learn.  

My daughter is getting this card anyway.  She's also getting a backup supply of Color Burst powders.

Playing with Color Burst

I received a set of Color Burst watercolor powders by Ken Oliver for my birthday.  My first play with them was a really dark ugly mess.  So far they've been really hard for me to control the powder.

This time around didn't start out much better either.  I would get either too little powder or way too much powder on the paper.  I tried squeezing small puffs of powder and tried shaking.  My daughter now tells me to tap.  So next time I will tap.  

I punched hearts from the better pieces,

stamped some words on them, inked the edges then stitched them to my card base.  Then added a tiny puffy heart sticker to each heart. 

The stitches on the left are a rubber stamp.  I love this stamp set that includes a variety of stitches.

I used two different sentiment stamps on the inside of the card.

My parents will be married 68 years come June 5th. 

April 2017 Calendar Journal

Here is how April went along for me.  It's my birthday month...a day way at the end.  Which makes it more fun to celebrate starting at the beginning.  Starting with turning the plain calendar page itself into a birthday party.

I wonder what May has in store for me.  Fun I hope...

"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"!

The Jell-O Box Project

My Jell-O box project is now my Distress Ink pads storage! 

It's on the crude side, but it's light-weight, and it serves the purpose.  Wood and plastic ones I viewed took up a lot of space, are thick and are quite expensive.  And maybe when I might want to add on, the same design might not be available.

I made these storage towers like this:  Collect jell-o boxes.  I did not mind eating all this jell-o.  Brand name JELL-O and Walmart brand gelatin boxes are not quite the same exact size, but they are pretty close.  I really needed to eat a variety of jell-o not just two flavors.

Open the boxes at the glued side.

Cut off the flaps on one side.

Then glue the ends back together.  Clamp them til the glue dries or at least sets.

Then glue them together.  I glued them as sets of two, then four, etc.

Clamping them until the glue dries or sets.

I use some Washi style tape to clamp the back ends.  I have several rolls of "why did I buy this tape". 

My towers are 10 boxes high.  I don't bother removing the tape as it won't interrupt anything.

I then cut pieces of mat board to make each tower sturdy.  It really is quite sturdy.

My ultimate plan is to set them all together side by side and cover them with some fun scrapbook papers.  However, me and them are not in our permanent space at this time, so I'll use them for now in a configuration that space allows for.  I'm just thrilled my ink pads are separated and easily pulled out for use.  And the great jell-o box size allows me to keep each make-up foam with the pad color.

I'm happy.  Imperfections and all.

Happy stamping and inking!

March 2017 Calendar Journal

March was a fun month to document even though much of it wasn't really much fun at all.

I'm happy, as I feel I'm beginning to settle into a bit of fun in finding more artsy ways to make the month look.

It just isn't easy for me to be artsy in such small and many times odd sized spaces.  It's really giving this old brain a work out.  A 12"X12" layout would be easier, but I'm sticking with this 8.5"X11" size.  I'm kind of bull-headed like that.

Happy Day!

Vintage Gentlemen Postcard

This week at the Sunday Postcard Art challenge blog, the theme is VINTAGE GENTLEMEN.  They are some of my favorite people for art.

I didn't take process photos as there wasn't much plan for this postcard.  These were most of the supplies I used.  He just surprisingly came together.  I kept thinking this card was going to go to the trash along the way, then suddenly it just felt right.  

I used the die to cut the upper left corner of the card then glued it over a dark paper to peek through the holes.  I then stamped my vintage gentlemen.  I put a mask over him and stamped the unreadable words behind him.  I then added washi tapes, trimming them around him.  Finally adding some shading around the image. 

The correspondence side.

Happy Mail Day! 

Chevron Challenge Mail Art

This envelope is the result of a mutual challenge between myself and Tera of The Crafty Sugar Addict to find new ways to use the large chevron stamp.

The quilter in me saw this possibility when I set the stamp across the room to stare at it.  The stitched address block fell right into place.  That large bird is another new stamp.  He wants to show up in everything these days.

Coloring in the quilt star.

Then coloring around the star. Then some stencil background design.  And drawing stitches around the star outside. 

I color in my bird with foam makeup tools.

I used an alphabet Washi Tape for Tera's name.

You can see Tera's Chevron challenge mail art Here.

Thanks Tera, I'm feeling a lot happier with my chevron stamp now.

Happy Mail Day!

February is gone already.  

I'm still finding my way with this new style of calendar journal.  I really struggle with getting out of the holiday event themed month.

I'm going to try being more concious of that as I go along.   That seems to be something that is so ingrained into this old mind.

March is not going to be all green or have anything to do with leprechauns.

May March bring us many Spring weather days!

Steampunk Cards

I bought a new stamp.  Thinking the bird would work well cut out and placed on any variety of backgrounds.  I didn't like him cut out.  **sad face**.  I was immediately sorry I bought the stamp.  I have too many stamps that stare back at me with the look of 'why did you buy me?' 

But I have been admiring lots of art made with blotches of watercolor with a stamp image over the top of the color.  I love the ones I see.  I don't yet understand watercolor and always end up with a brown mess.  I decided to try the style/technique with Distress Inks.  

There aren't process photos because I never think anything will get past the rubbish bin.  What I did was use an orange Distress ink pounced in the center of the card where I thought the bird would land using a little dauber thingy.  Then went around the orange with the lime color.  Then I spritzed it with water. Dried it a bit with paper towel.  That took off too much color so I just lightly daubered it again.  No more water.

Then I stamped the image with Archival black ink.  After that I added some touches of teal in small areas with a foam make up tool.  I then used more foam make up tools to add deeper color to the bird.  Splattering my art uncontrollably scares me, so I "dotted" the piece with a black maker and a white gel pen.  In the end I added some wood and metal gears here and there.

The envelope was next.  That chevron stamp is another one I love and can never figure out what to do with it.  I think this worked pretty good.

Here's how I colored in the chevron with daubers. 

I love this lettering guide.  It requires the use of very fine pens. I use my Juice .38 gel pens.  I love the very fine lettering I get.

Ready to mail.

I love how this Thank You card turned out.  So much so that I couldn't part with it until I tried to reproduce it as an art postcard that I could use for my postcard swaps.  No one could be more surprised then myself that I managed to be successful with this reproduction.

I'll definitely be trying this style again.

Happy Mail Day!