Jacob's Ladder Book

The Jacob's Ladder book is a perfect example of a project that appears to be difficult, but in fact is very easy to construct. I won't give instructions here, because there's a great tutorial over at making-mini-scrapbooks.com. Don't be afraid to change the size of your book or add additional pages. I used the same paper on both the inside and outside of my book, so you won't be able to tell from my photo how it works, but if you've ever played with one of these, you know how much fun they can be.

This book is on its way to someone who appreciates the unusual. I'm afraid I'm long overdue on sending her a birthday package. I hope she enjoys it!

Happy Mother's Day!

Wildflowers and Butterflies

I've been trying to change up my cardmaking style just a little bit, and have been experimenting with color combinations I wouldn't ordinarily try. I saw a similar red, green, and teal combo on the Stampin' Up! website, and was surprised at how much it appealed to me. Although the bottom of this card appears to be a different color, it's actually the same cardstock as on the top. The bottom is heat embossed with winter white, and the top is SU!'s Old Olive ink on Mellow Moss cardstock. The letters were embossed as well, then punched out with a 1/2" circle punch.

Sweet Home Alabama!

Photo courtesy of Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel.

After two ill-fated moves in the past year, in only four days we'll be moving back to the Alabama Gulf Coast. South Alabama is a land of mosquitoes, hurricanes, spectacular thunderstorms, and unspeakable heat, and I love it all! This time we'll be less than 10 miles from Gulf Shores -- close enough to enjoy the beach often, but far enough away to avoid storm surge from a major hurricane. I'm looking forward to seeing pelicans again, and eating fresh seafood, and walking on hot sand, and simply experiencing the lifestyle that comes with living in a coastal area.

Now you know why I've been absent from this blog. My 3-week visit to Mobile was not only for visiting family, but for the purpose of finding a rental property as well. The past couple of weeks have been devoted to packing and organizing the move.

With all my supplies packed, I won't be able to make cards or any other art until at least the middle of next week. At that time, I hope to catch up on a few of the challenge sites, and will also begin planning holiday cards.

Thanks for sticking with me -- see you in a few days!

Artist Trading Cards - Turquoise

Turquoise is the theme over at Think Monday-Think ATC this week, and that's a pretty good thing, because turquoise is my favorite color right now. And that's why I made two artist trading cards last night. I pulled out several paper choices, and couldn't make up my mind, so I just made both. And you know what? I didn't even bring out the rubber stamps!

On the left, I simply cut some elements out of one sheet of scrapbook paper, layered them onto the alphabet paper, and attached that to solid turquoise cardstock. I then punched a 1/4" hole and tied on a charm with a bit of grosgrain ribbon.

For the atc on the right, I used some petals I had cut out from a free sheet of collage elements, and some scraps of printed paper. The stem and the piece of green at the bottom are tiny scraps of fabric I had left over from a bag I made the night before (See, there's something to be said for not cleaning up after yourself right away!). Everything is decoupaged onto a piece of canvas I had painted a while back with acrylic paint.

Tonight I'll probably work on a square pincushion from a free Heather Bailey pattern download. I'll try to post photos in the next few days.

How-To: Fabric Gift Card Pouch

I sometimes feel like a gift card is a little bit impersonal, but so many people like to receive them, and they're so much easier to send long-distance, so I end up buying quite a few of them. Last night I was getting ready to put one in a card and send it off, when I came up with an idea to personalize it a little bit. The gift card pouch pictured here took only minutes to make, and I didn't have to buy any new materials for it.

I always have bits of fabric on hand that I've applied Wonder-Under to, just in case I want to do a project like this, so I was able to pull from that supply for my gift card pouch. In addition to the fused pieces, which are used for the outside, the lining, and the decorations, I used scraps of quilt batting (in this case, Warm & Natural).

First, cut 4 rectangles of my background fabric and 2 of batting, each sized 3-3/4" x 2-3/4". Set 2 of the fabric rectangles aside to be used for the lining. Fuse each of the other pieces of fabric to a piece of batting.

Cut your embellishments out of a contrasting fabric that already has Wonder-Under applied to the reverse side. In my case, I used a circle template to mark and cut circles in several sizes. Place those contrasting pieces onto your previously fused fabric/batting pieces and iron in place.

Using a decorative thread (I used Madeira rayon), embellish the surfaces as desired. Decide which embellished rectangle you want for the front of your pouch, and cut one end off at an angle. You could create a fancier edge, but I was trying to keep it simple. Zigzag that edge with decorative thread. This will be the top edge of the pouch front. If you want the edge to be completely smooth, you can use a satin stitch (a slightly rough edge doesn't bother me, so I just used a narrow zigzag).

Now fuse the 2 remaining fabric rectangles to the backs of your other pieces, completely covering the batting. You now have lined front and back pieces. Place one on top of the other, lining sides together, and zigzag or satin-stitch around the 4 raw edges. You're done!

In addition to the gift card, I was able to tuck a few other small goodies into my pouch. The next one I make will be about 1/4" bigger in both directions so I can use it for artist trading cards. The pouch pictured here almost worked for that purpose, but it was just a little too tight.

Artist Trading Cards - Wednesday Stamper/Two Tone

Now that I'm working 8 hours a day, I'm fiercely protective of my free time, and I don't always use that time efficiently because I'm spending too much of it deciding what I want to do. Tonight, I want to make ATCs, but I also want to finish a book I'm reading so I can stock up at the library again before the weekend. So I challenged myself to stamp something quick and easy, so that I'll have time left over for reading. The current topic at Wednesday Stamper is Two-Tone, and that helped me narrow down my color choices, which really did save time. For the second ATC, I used mostly scraps (have I mentioned that I never throw out even the smallest bits of leftover paper?). Now, I'm off to finish my book. Maybe I'll get done in time to do some more stamping!

Artist Trading Card - Games

I haven't posted an artist trading card in a while, so I thought I'd play along this week at Think Monday - Think ATC, where the current challenge is games. I honestly don't know why I have pieces of a child's jigsaw puzzle in my house (since all my children are of the 4-legged, furry variety), but somehow they've made their way into my stash of stuff and are therefore fair game for artwork. For this ATC, I roughly edged one puzzle piece with a Krylon leafing pen, and glued a crossword to another piece. The background paper is "Guy's Life" from American Traditional Designs. As always, the folks participating at TMTA have produced some fabulous ATCs, so head on over there and take a look.

ATC - Hands

Today's challenge at Think Monday Think ATC is hands. Although these garden gloves aren't hands in the strictest sense of the word, I thought they would probably count. For this ATC I used a French script background stamp, followed that with stamped chicken wire, and completed the stamping with bits and pieces from 3 other stamp sets. I then finished everything off with a bit of grosgrain ribbon, tied in a knot. All stamps, ink, and cardstock are from Stampin' Up!.

ATCs - Triptych

Monday's challenge at Think Monday-Think ATC is to use a triptych format. Above, I've used stamps, ink, and cardstock from Stampin' Up!, and tied each ATC with a silver cord. Considering my abundant use of SU! products, you've probably figured out by now that I used to be a demonstrator! Most of the stamps in my collection are retired now, even the ones I've never used, and I still have a huge stash of their cardstock, although I'm starting to get low on my favorite colors.

TMTA - Cats

Monday's prompt at Think Monday-Think ATC was cats. Above, I've used an image transfer of my cat, Daisy, that didn't quite work out for another project. I'm so glad I saved it! It has been lightly tinted with Prismacolor pencils, and surrounded with cutouts from scrapbooking paper. I've been hoarding that piece of ribbon forever, but decided that Daisy was worth using a bit of it.

Inspire Me Thursday - It's Hip To Be Square

Square is the prompt this week at Inspire Me Thursday. I love to use squares in my artwork, both as my format and as individual elements, but they are usually perfectly square. This time, I chose to use a rectangular "canvas" and add not-so-perfect squares to the mix. It's hard for me to not measure everything precisely, but I'm working at getting out of my comfort zone. Pictured above is a small quilt (approx. 12 x 9-1/2 inches) made from some more of my hand-dyed fabric. As usual, the pieces are fused to the background with Wonder-Under instead of stitched, then quilted by machine. I will probably do some more quilting on the background, then add a binding and prepare it for hanging. I had some scraps left over, so I made an ATC, below. Thanks to Judy Scott for inspiring me to get out my sewing machine again!

Inspire Me Thursday - Artist Trading Cards

This week's challenge at Inspire Me Thursday is ATCs, or artist trading cards, which are tiny works of art measuring 2-1/2 x 3-1/2 inches. I've only been making ATCs for a couple of weeks, but I've rapidly become addicted to them. They're quick and easy (usually!), can be made with bits and pieces of whatever you have on hand, and they're fun to flip through when you need a little inspiration.

I believe I've mentioned that I hand-dye my own fabric for some of my sewing projects. When you've put in the effort to dye the fabric yourself, it's hard to throw away the scraps. The card at left was made with tiny scraps I had saved from a small art quilt. The pieces were already fused with Wonder-Under, so construction was as simple as ironing everything together and quickly finishing off the layers with the sewing machine.

For the second ATC, I cut the leaf shapes from a piece of Hoffman Bali batik, then fused them with Wonder-Under to another piece of hand-dyed fabric, and again quickly stitched everything together by machine.

The third ATC is made with scraps of scrapbooking paper, newsprint, and stamped cardstock. The embellishment is a piece of matboard, covered with ultra-thick embossing enamel and impressed with a rubber stamp while still hot.

Inspire Me Thursday - Limited Palette

I'm having some Famous Artist ATC fun today, using a limited palette of blue and gold for this week's Inspire Me Thursday challenge. I've always loved Vermeer's The Girl with the Pearl Earring, so here she is on a background I made a couple of weeks ago by dropping ink onto a wet piece of glossy cardstock, then pressing it against another sheet of cardstock while still wet. I probably need to give this butterfly some antennae, if I can manage to keep them from tickling the girl's chin.

I tend to make a lot of backgrounds, but then I don't want to cut up my favorites, so they never get used. Today, I bravely chopped them up to save them from a life of boxed-up boredom.

For the second ATC, I used a map of Amsterdam, which just happened to show the location of the Van Gogh Museum. How convenient! Of course, I couldn't resist the sunflower or the tiny piece of Starry Night. Here, I've used some of the same blue and gold background as above.

I'm finding that, more and more, I'm using recycled bits of stuff in my art, such as magazine images, silk flowers, and maps. Junk mail comes in handy as well. When your art supply budget shrinks, you can't beat free materials!

Artist Trading Cards

I'm one of those people who just doesn't know when to quit, and as a result my week has slipped by with all my time consumed by things completely unrelated to art. However, Erin and I had agreed to swap artist trading cards, and since this is a high priority for me, I did manage to find time to make the ATCs pictured here, so we can trade tomorrow. I have been making art most of my life, but I have never made an ATC until this week, so it took me a while to get my groove on. I started by making a bunch of different backgrounds, but ended up using plain white cardstock and saving the backgrounds for later. For all three of these, I first stamped in black on glossy cardstock, then brayered each piece with dye ink. Before the ink was applied to the "Believe" ATC, I lightly sponged it with gesso and allowed it to dry. I used gesso on the turquoise card as well, but also sponged on some blue ink after applying the first color with the brayer. I still have the backgrounds to experiment with later, and will give some to Erin to see what she comes up with. Now I can't wait to see what she has made for me!