An eye on Art ATC

This is probably one of my favorite ATCs. The background's done in ranger inks dabbed with a sponge. The ink splotches are made with a re-inker. Then the image stamped and the words added. I added a clear rhinestone in the eye. The card looked fairly bare even though there were a lot of ink colors. So, I added black, orange and then finally white dots to finish off the card. I really like the way this turned out.

Persian Floral ATC

I love paper piecing. The flower is done with ads in magazines from, what else, persian rugs! First I colored the background card with a bit of watercolor. Stamped the leaves on. Then I cut petal shapes at random from the rugs. The stem and leaves are also done from green rugs. The dragonflies are done from another set of basic looking rugs.

First Day of School

The kids are back in school today. I should be happy that I've got tons of me time again, but I'm really so sad. I never could handle the first day of school well. The kids are excited, but now I'm so lonely. The house is quite, and there no pitter patter of little and big feet. No legos on the floors, no little mattel cars to walk over. No music blaring from my teenager's room. Man, I can hear myself rattling around this house. No one to make breakfast for. I always feel like crying and actually do cry on the first day of school. I know that's kind of dorky of me, but I know I'll be fine in a couple of days just today is hard. I never can stay in the house, so I booked myself a pedicure and a facial. Hey, that aught to cheer me up!!

Watercolor ATCs

I must have been in a creative mood this weekend. It's been pretty hectic lately with more medical problems than I care to revisit. So, with a quiet weekend at hand, I sat at my table and created and created. Here are some ATCs I did with watercolors.

These first two are images I saw in a children's book. Love the vibrancy of color in kids books.



These two are out of my imagination. The flowers are watercolors, but the butterfly is stamped and then colored in. The woman I did for a challenge I saw on a site. The challenge was to do a watercolor woman (head only) in 10 mins. or less. This took 9 mins.

Daisies and Butterflies

I loved doing this card. I did this following a sketch posted by Kerry on "The Stamp Shack". The easy part was the water coloring, cutting out the circles and the butterflies. The hard part was figuring out what background to put them on. Seemed like anything I used was too overpowering or not enough. Finally settled on making my own background paper using ranger inks. Hats off to those ladies that can put a gorgeous card mixing and matching papers.

Hiding in Plain View

I love how this card came out. I did this for Survivor 3 contest on Stamp-Shack. I stamped the face (Judkins) on a plain white cardstock. I then stamped a ton of the little green fern leaf using Jungle Green ink by Marvy (Rubber Stamp Tapestry). I alternated the two leaf stamps trying to blend the two images. HINT: Stamp the image three times. This gives a softer image to the 2nd and 3rd stamping. Once I was happy with the coverage I had with the leaves, I colored the lips and eye lids with Ochre (Marvy) using a q-tip. I added yellow green ink (Marvy) to the eyes. Boy did this make the image pop. Then I used Judkins color dusters and picked up Ochre (Marvy) and swirled it around the image with a heavier concentration of the color at the edges leaving the face clear of any color. This card required some skill and a some luck. For me, I think I got quite lucky!

Trick or ...ah...Treat!

Here's a Walk Through on how I did this ATC.

This is one of my favorite images that I picked up at a Stamping Convention. The image is from "TooMuchFun" Rubber Stamps. It's all colored in watercolors with hand drawn bricks and spider web. The kids are raised for a 3D effect.










Stamp the image using Versamark Black Ink on white cardstock. This gave me the clearest details.










I used water colors to color this image, but you can use any medium you are comfortable with. The area around the door is colored in an orange/brown color. I went back and darkened around the edges with the same color. The door is done in dark brown and the knocker in black. The window is done in yellow, shaded in orange. I didn't bother with the door knob because it'll get covered. The bumble bee is done in yellow, shaded with orange. The bear is done in a light brown, shaded with a dark brown and the princess is done in pink and shaded with purple. Once the kids are colored, cut them out very carefully, especially around the little bumble bee's antenna.




I drew the bricks to add more texture to the outside of the door. It felt like it was missing something, so I added the spiderweb. This web looks a bit skinny, so if you look at the finished ATC, I went back and added another line...must be a big spider living here! Then I used some pop dots and attached the kids giving them a finished 3D effect.