A Patriotic Birthday Card

My dad's birthday is July 5th, so we usually celebrate on the 4th. Because of that, I often make his birthday card using a patriotic theme.

The below card was inspired by Jennifer McQuire's video on using distress inks with embossing folders. I tried the technique a few times of putting the distress ink directly on the embossing folder, but when the red and blue ran together, they (obviously) made purple, which ruined the patriotic color scheme I was going for. So after some thinking, I just decided to use the distress inks after I embossed. I will use the other embossed pieces for other cards in the future.

And by the way, if you are a card maker, I highly recommend Jennifer McQuire's videos if you haven't already discovered her blog. She is an excellent teacher, and she makes seemingly complicated techniques very accessible.

 

Supplies include Papertrey Ink stamp, Tim Holtz embossing folder, distress inks and Wink of Stella brush pen.

Branching Out

I am participating in the July Mixed Media Monthly Challenge. This month's challenge is to use household found items in a project. For this project, I decided to go a little outside my comfort zone and try a new style. In particular, I was inspired by the layered, multi-media scrapbooking style of Rikka Kovasin.

Here  is my final product, done in my Dylusions book:

 Obviously, I need some practice with the layering of elements and whatnot, but I have to say that I really enjoyed this process.

My first step was to gather potential objects around the house. I grabbed a stray puzzle piece, a notebook of paper, some piano flash cards, a thank you note from a relative, some sticks, some plumbing tape, a couple old keys, and two Air Force kids' tattoos. Not pictured is some cardboard, a starry cellophane bag from a local gift shop, an old map, and bubble wrap. The truth is that once I got working, I kind of forgot about a lot of these elements. I ended up using a sheet of the stationery, some cardboard that came from a recent Amazon shipment, and the map. I loved that cardboard because the top peeled off nicely to reveal the corrugated part.

 

I then decided it would be fun to gather some old scrapbook supplies. Now this is really why I forgot about the cool keys and sticks in the above picture. It was so much fun layering with items I hadn't used in years that I just got rolling with it.

 The next step was to start the layering process. I began with the scraps of paper and some found items.

I then started layering on the scrapbooking items. Although I often profess brown to not be a color I enjoy working with, I kind of liked the way the soft browns and the teal worked together in this collage, of which the color scheme was not at all planned. Nevertheless, I decided to cover it up, using the color combo as inspiration for the next step.

 

 I then covered the items with a watery gesso, Dylusion sprays in teal and yellow, and a Walnut colored-spray ink from Imagine.

I tweaked and tweaked, mostly trying to soften the colors. I decided the page needed a photo, so I sorted through what I had to find something that would work with the soft colors. It needed some layering on top of it, so I gessoed up another butterfly and glued it on the photo.

Here is the final project again:

One thing I learned about this heavy layering style is that you really need to spend time laying things out before gluing them down. I wish I had the photo chosen first because that would have helped me with the overall layout.

Something learned is always a good thing in my book.

I Have Been Busy, Just Not Posting

Hello. I decided to take time off from both blogs so I could live more in the real world. However, prompted by a mixed media challenge, I decided to return and dust off this blog a bit.

So on to the important stuff. I came across The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge. It's a brand new challenge that I discovered while on vacation. I got home last night and decided I wanted to participate in the first challenge, which gave me this morning to get the page completed and put together. No worries. I made a simple page using sprays - the theme for June. (Apologies in advance for the poor-quality photos. Time is not on my side this morning, so these will have to do.)

Here is the finished page:

I started with these Dylusions sprays:

 Then added some visual texture with some stencils, some bubble wrap and these sprays:

To create this background:

I didn't have a lot of time, so I dug out some pre-cut die cuts lying around I had planned on using for cards. These are die cuts of Twinkling H2Os on watercolor paper and then cut using Papertrey Ink butterfly dies and happy die. I inked the edges using a black distress ink pad.

The final step was adding the quote from Thich Nhat Hahn: The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.

Thus, this page was born:

Happiness

I love playing in my art journal, especially my new Dylusions art journal.    This page was made using Dylusion sprays, a reverse stencil I fashioned by cutting the image out of a JCPenney flyer, a gel pen, and a charcoal pencil. Pretty simple. 

The journaling reads, "Your happiness is a gift because it literally brings out the best in you. --Robert Holden."

 

Dusty shelves

Well, it certainly has been a long time since I've been around these parts. I have been busy playing in my creative space, but blogging about it has not been a priority. I decided to dust off these shelves for a change a post. I am venturing into the world of phone blogging, which is more challenging than I anticipated, but I trust I will get used to it. 

Since I am preparing to leave my current job and start a new one, I have had a lot of thank you cards to create and write. It's been fun, and I will post the rest later. Today I wanted to share the one I did using the CAS challenge that can be found here: http://casethissketch.blogspot.com/?m=1. My apologies for the awkward linking: this app won't let me highlight. Huh.

Here is my, quite literal, take on the CAS challenge:

 

Happy spring, everyone.
 


 
 

Dharma Love

Just a couple of pages I made this month.

Emerging into the Creative World Again

Well, now that I am officially a graduate of a master's program, I can justify spending time doing what I love - creative play. I have been doing lots of little things, but most recently I have been art journaling every day, usually a page a day.

I have some other pages to share, but this one is related to a daily prompts by Daisy Yellow, so it made sense to start with this page. Today's prompt was to create a map of an imaginary place. This page kind of took a different turn, but I started with the idea of a map.

Anyway, less talk, more pictures:

The pasted journaling reads: A Bell With a Crack In It: It may not ring as clearly, but it can ring as sweetly.

Wishing you all a day of play, whatever form play takes for you.