One of the very best things about rubber stamping, card making and paper arts in general, is sharing the fun and the joy with frineds. On Sat last, five friends got together at the home of one of us and had a card making day. We brought food, had lunch and made cards. Each of us was responsible for designing a card and making a kit for each of the participanst, plus and extra one for our friend who is still in the rehab hospital recovering from a serious injury this fall. The only requirement was that the card needed to be fairly quick and easy to assemble.
This is the card I designed, in two variations.

The tree is Spellbinder's 2012 Tree - one of my favorites. The little snowflakes are from a stash I have from when I used to work as sample designer, demo artist and teacher at Stamps and More by Eleanor in Powdersville SC. They are the last and I chose to share them with friends.

The stamps are from some old clear sets I have had for many years. The information is missing but I think they are Inkadinkadoo. The labels are also from Spellbinders sets. The one on the left is from Radiant Rectangles. The one on the right is old. I have had it for many years and it is a big favorite .

The sparkly trim is from Starforms.

Please enjoy and let me hear your opinions in the comments

My online art group, An Affair With Art, has a current swap which challenges participants to create a card based on the November Tag of the Month on Tim Holtz blog. The original Tim Holtz tag can be seen here The original Tim Holtz tag can be seen HERE Below is the card I made that is based on the Tim Holtz original

My version has been turned into a greeting card using some extra cutouts of the wonderful fall leaf. Tim used distress paints for the leaf. I didn't have all of the best colours in the paints so I subbed distress spray stains instead. Tim's is a #8 shipping tag. I made miewith manilla card stock and corrugated cardboard cut close to the size of a #10 tag

A group of mixed media and altered arts artists in which I participate online, has a swap for Halloween. The swao is cards that feature a window or element that contains windows, and the theme IS Halloween. I did one card using the traditional symbols such as a haunted house, black cats with arched backs, a full moon with bats flying around. The other card used a graphic of Sleeping Beauty from Grimm's Fairy Tales - which I always thought of as rather spooky when I was a kid - and made a 'pretty' card which is any thing BUT traditional. I hope you like them

Tha Sleeping Beauty card has a blue base card wht black matting. A gold cardstock window displays a Sleeping Beauty graphic from Graphic 45 "An Eerie Tale collection..

That was mounted on a back ground I made using Ranger;s TIm Holtz Distress Stain Sprays. The bow is Snug Hug seam binding tied into a quadruple loop bow

 Graphic 45 Raining Cats and Dogs Cards

Cats are my favorite companion animals. As anyone who knows me is aware, I love dogs, too. But cats are my first love. Graphic 45 has published a pad of cat and dog themed papers. Of course I had to make a card using these papers.

Now, I love elegant and complicated cards as well as anyone else. But sometimes you need a card NOW, and don't have time for a more elaborate card if you want to have something on a timely basis

Here is an example of a card that is striking and attractive. Just a few touches take it out of the realm of simply simple to something with a bit of  'pizzazz'

The matting for the image has rounded corners, a decorative bottom border (a Martha Stewart punch) a bit of gold trim. The greeting is stamped on pale cream card stock with Stampin' Up  Rose Red ink and then matted on the same paper as the main image. The black card base makes the whole thing pop.  I thought I might add a bow to this, but it just didn't look right. This is intended as a class project. 

Graphic 45 Twas The Night Before Christmas Card Design

I always love seeing the gorgeous designs from Graphic 45 papers. Their new Christmas themed paper collection is titled "The Night Before Christmas". I'm making some cards for a class that I plan to teach at EASY AS CAT SOUP, a stamp, scrap and mixed media store in Anderson SC. This is the first card. Actually pretty simple and fast to make. I think that people who are making Christmas cards really want something that is not terribly time consuming but also eye catching. For this card the only paper product not from the pad is the card base. That is a Bazill Basics card stock. The colour wasn't labeled on the shelf, but any red that 'goes' with the colours in the card will work. I think a deep green would also go well. It would pop the lighter greens in the paper designs. The bow is made on a new-to-me bowmaker from Craft-debowz. Later, I will be posting cards with some more elaborate bows made on this tool. It is available from Easy As Cat Soup. The glittery trim is  from Starform Glitter Stickers. I love those stickers because they are a fast, easy way to add a lot of zip to a card design,

My online art group has another 'mingle' that I think is really fascinating. Each participant is to create a 4 in x  6 in background and mail it to the assigned partner. The partner then collages an altered  page on that background and mails it back to the originator. Here is the background that I made for my partner. I'm anxious to see what she will do with it

If this works out well, I might try exchanging with other art friends to see what they do, and then bind it into a friendship exchange book. 

One of the online art groups to which I belong has a 'mingle' in which participants are to make 1 altered 5x 7in, page for each of three people. This is one of the pages I made. Don't know which one is going to receive it, I have two more pages in various stages of completon.
For this one I started with 90# vellum finish Bristol board. I used Tim Holtz Distress Pants on a craft sheet, Then the paint was spritzed with water and the page dragged through it. When it was dry I used a stencil with Ranger Texture paste to create the floral pattern. When it was dry I used Iced Spruce Distress ink and then dusted the raised pattern with Forever Green Perfect Pearls..The ferns were stamped with Mowed Lawn Distress Ink, and embossed with Ranger Sticky Powder and then had Bronze foil applied. Branches in the upper right corner were stamped with Mowed Lawn DIstress ink, then Forever Green Perfect Pearls brushed on. The whole page was edged with Mowed Lawn Distress ink, then Pearl Perfect Pearls brused over that.
Finally, a bird image was cut out and perched on a piece of Crepe Myrtle bark from one of my trees

I hope you like it.

I seem to have become a card making fool. These are four cards I designed for a class to be held at EASY AS CAT SOUP in Anderson SC, The class will be 10:30 AM Sat. Sept 20. These are the four card designs I will teach. The papers are from Graphic 45 Come With Me collection. They can be used for almost any occasion. Birthdays, Graduations, Job change, Retirement are all starting points in life's journeys. Of course travel itself is cause for celebration.  And then, we all start new journeys each year as we celebrate another year of life.
I hope you enjoy the card designs. Perhaps I will see you in the class.

I've scheduled a new class with Easy as Cat Soup in Anderson SC. on Aug 2, 10:30 to 1:30  I will do three cards using the exquisite papers from Graphic 45 Botnaical Tea collection. The cards are pictured here  int he June post. They are the ones that use the cut outs and some layered die cuts. Participants will only need to bring their basic tools, including their personal paper cutter, good scissors - detail scissors recommended and adhesive such as tape or glue. All other materials and special tools are supplied.
I hope the class will be a big success like the one I did last month.
I particularly enjoyed doing these cards because they include some special techniques that are actually easy but add a lot to the final result.

I've been really inspired by some of the gorgeous new papers put out by Graphic 45. I've been working with Botanical Tea and Couture in partcular. Here are a few of the cards I made with these papers for inspiration

 I made this one for a friend whose birthday is coming on Monday. I hope she likes it. She is a fan of the Roaring 20's so I think there is a good chance it will please her

I made this one just because the image appealed to me. Some matting, 'fussy cut the bird and butterfly, d some 'glitz' and it's done. It didn't take a lot of time even with the detailed cutting. It was fun

      

These two were from the small Couture pad. I had some beautiful Marble paper scraps  for background and I was very pleased with the results. Another friend has her birthday later this month and I will send one of them to her.Haven't decided which one yet.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.