April 13 Little Book

For yesterdays book I used name badge holders and binder rings. The covers are painted watercolour paper layered over cardstock and the corners were rounded. I added some ribbon on the rings and inserted a few ATCs. Since it was our anniversary I needed a quick book and this one was quick, but I like it anyways.

Little Book 6

For my April 6 book I did something a little more complex, for me at least. I started by painting a piece of 11X24 inch HP Durable Scrim, which is a PVC banner material. I used MakingMemories Fresh Anthology acrylic paint set and used 3 of the colours for the background and 3 plus 2 other colours for foam stamps. I painted small areas of colour and used foam stamps to lift some of the colours. I did the stamping after the background paint was dry. While I just got the photo done, this book was done barely in time because of waiting for the drying time. I did a 3 signature pamphlet stitch with 2 envelopes and 1 printed cardstock based on the cover design. The yellow cord for the closure came from a grab bag of trims purchased from Dressew. and the button was from my most recent $1.99 button bag purchase. The closed book measures approx 3.5X4.5. I am pleased with how this turned out and look forward to adding ATCs, tags and journaling to this book, it's definitely staying in my own collection.

Today's Book and ATC Backgrounds

So today being a holiday, I needed a very quick project so I used cardboard cut from a tissue box for the covers and double-sided scrapbook cardstock. This is very similar to the first Zutter ATC book I made some time ago. One of the papers had a nice stripe on one side, but a very bright pink floral on the other side, so I sponged gesso on and wiped off to tone it down.
I just scanned the ATC backgrounds I made yesterday with alcohol inks and canned air. These are precut ATCs with the aqua stripe down the side and I have a huge box of these given to me at the March swap.

July ATC Dragonfly

July ATC Dragonfly
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

Some ATCs I made just playing with supplies I have on hand. I used shiny cardstock that was pre-cut to ATC size and made a background with FW acrylic ink in Purple lake and olive green and Pearlescent liquid acrylic in birdwing copper. This didn't turn out quite the way I expected, but I carried on and rubber stamped with the dragonfly and Hematite ep along with a light sprinkle of some mixed embossing powders. Then I cut the ATC down to 2 in x 3 in so I could layer it over 2 other pieces of cardstock.

May 2009 ATC Swap at The Grind

Sunday was the latest round of swapping at The Grind and I managed to make 11 new ATCs and along with some leftovers I had plenty to swap, which was a good thing because we had a great turn-out despite it being a long weekend. I did a few alcohol ink backgrounds and then scanned them in order to have enough ready in the time I was able to create. I used various sections of a block stamp to create these, in some cases heat embossing. Some are edged with gold and silver leafing pen and some are mounted on black cardstock.
Two of this group use tile stamps from Quietfire Design.

First Try With Encaustic Wax

I went to a make and take demo at Cherish The Thought in Port Moody on Sat and was taught this one technique taught for making a photo mat background. This first sample is 4"X5.25" I am hooked on learning more about encaustic wax.

This is the photo I used the encaustic wax mat for.


Later Saturday night I grabbed some ATC sized shiny cardstock and made these using the 2 colours of wax I bought to get started and my small travel iron. Later I will add something to these and turn them into ATCs.

May ATC Swap

"At The Beach"
The first ATC is an alcohol ink background and the rest are scans printed on cardstock. All have been rubber stamped and embellished with shell beads and computer text. The first 2 have a border of gold leafing pen and the last 2 are silver leafing pen.

"Dangerous Waters"
Again the first ATC is alcohol ink on shiny cardstock and the last is scanned and printed on cardstock. I glued clear beads on for bubbles and the text is computer generated. Sorry the background is blurry but the thickness of the stingray toy makes the background go blurry.

Background Swap Bound

Well it took me all day, but I got the Byhand Artists Background Swap pages bound yesterday, and I did it all myself. I was going to ask for help, but I slowly cut my way through the chipboard covers. I had an extra piece of my background technique set aside with the metal letters just waiting for the rest to arrive. I chose the cover paper from a Glorious Glitter package of handmade scrapbook paper and covered the front and back covers with the same paper. I glued the letters on my swap sample with No More Nails glue. This was then glued to the cover. For a design detail, the small piece of black and silver paper from the Dark Shadows handmade paper pack was added to create a little glamour. I fastened all the instructions to their respective pages and created a title page, dedication and table of contents.Another design detail of a torn paper on the inside back cover was added for a bit of a rustic touch. I like glamour and rustic together. Now came the big challenge, could I use my wonderful Zutter Bind-It-All, available from Quietfire Design, with my left hand? I love the Zutter, it was a breeze to use even left handed. That is except for one little glitch, all the layers of decorative paper and the corrugated made the covers too thick to go into the Bind-It-All. I couldn't waste all that effort and materials, so I cut a small piece of the corrugated and pealed a layer of paper off the two cover pieces. Success, it went in and the holes were punched like going through butter. So here come the design details, otherwise known as cover up your big mistakes and end up with a finished book that is, in my opinion, even better than planned. For binding I used 1 inch silver wires. I am very pleased with my book and thanks to all the artists who contributed it will be a valuable resource and inspiration. I think it will live near my creative space in the attic.

Time Theme ATCs

This is another background piece I did at the same time I did the one from the previous post. I used the same colours and this time stamped "ART" with black dye ink and misted with water. After scanning the sheet, I added a digital clock image and cut 6 ATCs from the original background. These are 2 of the ATCs and one has a watch face fastened on with a brad. The last 2 ATCs are from the scanned background printed at 80% tint. All of them are then hand stamped and embossed.

Left Hand Art

I started with a watercolour wash on wet watercolour paper, stamped the letters L E F T with black dye ink while still wet, then misted to let the letters blead. This larger piece was cut to 4X4.5 inches. I then stamped the words hand, art and my name from the quietfire design "Love where you're at" stamp and embossed with Perridot and copper detail embossing powder. This is tipped into my journal on a small tab of card stock. The back of this page is a digital image of my cast with digital journaling. The digital signatures on my cast were gathered by my friend Yogi from members of the Byhand Artists Group on Yahoo. The Fat Book page was done from a scan of the background paper, printed at 80% tint, cut to size then stamped and embossed the same as the journal page.

Background For Byhand Artists Swap

Well here it is, my first attempt at left-handed art, well actually one-handed, with my right arm in it's cast. The byhandartists Yahoo Group are having a background swap, so before signing up I gave a trial run and found I could handle this technique, so now I am in. I started with a piece of single-sided black corrugated cardboard approximately 12 inches by 14 inches. I used matt medium to glue torn pieces of handmade tissue paper in purple, white, blue, tan, light and dark green onto the cardboard, pushing it down into the corrugated grooves. This is finished with four coats of the matt medium, allowing each coat to dry before adding the next one. I added a small amount of Spun Gold and Silver Morning craft acrylic to the finale coat, but that does not show up very well, perhaps there is not enough of it in the gel medium. And here are two of the pieces cut to the required size of 4 inches by 6 inches.

Scan of Silk Painted Scrap

Scan of Silk Painted Scrap
Originally uploaded by okanagan_spirit

I've been using this as a background for some of my recent projects. Now I have a gift for you, I am giving permision to download this and only this image from my Flickr. This image is to be used only for your own use and not shared.
All I ask is that you leave a comment and share a link so I can see what you've made with my background.
The original scrap is a bit larger than 4 inches by 5 inches, so if you want to keep the proportions, it can be cropped for a fat book page or 4x4 collage or an ATC.
To get the high-res image, click on the photo to link Flickr and go to "see more sizes" and choose the one you would like. I will leave the high-res available for a limited time.
Have fun and let me see what you do with this.