Saturday, June 28, 2014




Today was the day I taught my class at Easy as Cat Soup. What a great day! Eight of the nicest ladies you can imagine came to the class. We had a couple of beginners and it was great fun to see them start to relax and enjoy themselves as they created their cards. I always tell my classes that I love it when they do their own thing with my basic designs and these gals did just that. It was a roomful of wonderful creative energy

I showed Micki some of the cards I made with the Graphic 45 Botanical Tea papers. (Pictures are in a previous post.)  She LOVED them. So, now we are going to schedule a class with those cards and I will also do some card designs with their new Come Away With Me papers. See the papers here. We will schedule a class with those cards, probably for Sept.

The Botanical Tea Card class is tentatively scheduled for Aug 2.

At some point there will also be a series of technique classes. More about that as the plans come together.

I am excited to be teaching again. Can you tell?

Thursday, June 19, 2014

I've been playing with some new stamps, new uses for old techniques and some new toys. The result? Seveal new cards to send to friends for various occasions

I had a birthday recently and among the wonderful gifts I received were some interesting stamps. Since I particularly love watercolour I was pleased that the sunflower set lent itself to using that medium,
Here are two of the cards that I created with the new stamps.
 

As anyone who knows me will tell you,  I am very fond of flowers. The more old fashioned, the better I love them. So, one of the sets I recently purchased features poppies. Here is what I did with that. Again, the medium is watercolour. In both cases, the watercolours were a combination of Winsor Newton pan waterclours and Derwent Inktense watercolour pencils. I used the Inktense to get the deeper tones. I could do it with tube watercolours but didn't want to mess with those just now. The cats would have loved it but the result might have been disasterous


I hope you like it. I thought it came out rather well..In fact I am going to have a hard time sending it on to the
person for whom I intended it.

Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone. Since I have been experimenting with watercolour, it seemed that I should see what I could do with it as a background. For the first card, I was looking for a graded multicolour background that wouldn't get muddy with the colours mixing. I used Winsor Newton pan watercolours here. The effect I wanted was that of a bird perching on a piling in the water, on a foggy evening just at sunset

For the second card, I used the washes from the pan that I mixed the colours in for the first card. The bird and the flowers were done using Peerless Watercolour papers.

I am particularly fond of Grapic 45 Scrapbook papers. I use them a lot in altered book  and other projects. I thought that the Botanical Tea papers were really beautiful and made several cards using them.

This one used the Crafter'sworkshop Chicken  wire die cut. I love the look


Here the card has a window with the Stampin' Up Hexagon embossing folder background


Another use of the Hexagon folder                                                     And here, just some layering

It's been fun doing these.  I hope you like them.


Wednesday, June 11, 2014

I took the cards to Micki today so she can put them on the website for the store. The class is scheduled for Sat June 28 at 10:30 AM. All papers and most of the ephemera is included in the class. Participants may bring ribbon and other elements they may wish to include, but all they really need is their basic art kit.
Below is the final card in the group.

As always in my classes, the designs I provide are just starting points. Particiapants can duplicate them or  'make them their own" by modifiying the designs to fit their personal tastes for the needs they have for their cards.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

I've decided to return to teaching card and mixed media classes. I'll start with a card class at Easy as Cat Soup in Anderson SC. These pictures are 5 of the 6 cards I have planned. The 6th needs to be redone because my cats decided they liked the first version. There is a variety of formats and sizes. The papers and most of the ephemera are from the RUBY ROCK-IT Nostalgia paper pack, augmented by Bazzil card stock. These cards are not difficult or particularly time consuming. The paper pack contains enough extra material for the participants to make more than one of a design and/or for them to adlib to make additional cards of their own design.





Saturday, June 7, 2014

I am preparing to start teaching card and mixed media classes again. I've arranged with the owner of
Easy As Cat Soup in Anderson SC to do a class on June 28 2014. There will be 6 or more cards using a package of patterned papers and ephemera for the basis of the designs. I am creating a series that uses a variety of card formats. These are the first two cards. The class materials will include detailed directions for making the class cards. These can serve as the starting point for variations of the student's own devising





The idea is that the basic designs are to serve as inpiratiom for the student. I hope that each individual will find new ways to espress her/his own thoughts and ideas. The class packs will have enough 'leftovervs' to serve as the basis for several more cards. To me, that is half the value of a class that uses a pre packaged set of papers and ephemera.