Vintage Image Group atc swap

Polished stone, collage, and distress ink background,
Altered Pages image, vintage trim, "gold" stars.

polished stone atc

Have you ever tried the polished stone technique?
Wow, you can get some gorgeous backgrounds
with that method--the paper really has the illusion
of depth. I learned from Rhonda, as in, at her house.
You could also see how HERE.

The atc (well, it's more calling card size) is for
the quote challenge at Theme Thursday, and the flower
is from my dear husband, who showed up tonight with a dozen,
just because he's as sweet as he is handsome!

Theme Thursday season challenge

For the Theme Thursday season challenge, combined
with a swap, this represents spring. The background
is a watercolor wash, overlaid with stamped words,
and the main image/text is stamped in StazOn.

The jewel in the corner is sparkly and appealing in
person, but not so much via the intraweb . . .

handmade bookmarks for swap

Here are two bookmarks made for a swap:





Both use the serendipity mixed media collage background
style made in the tutorial shown HERE.

They also have a nice coating of Mod Podge on them,
to make them more durable.

This seemed like a good swap for me to join. I'm NOT a
page-corner-turner-downer (GASP!!!), but I am a random,
whatever-is-handy-grab-it bookmark kind of person. A
couple of "real" bookmarks will be nice to have--I'm
kind of excited to see what shows up in the mail!
:)

watercolor resist background tutorial for atcs, inchies, twinchies, handmade postcards . . .

Here are a few simple and fun background technique
tutorials for making atcs, inchies, twinchies, tags,
handmade postcards--whatever it is you like to make!

The bonus is, they're not only simple, these backgrounds
are made with inexpensive art supplies that everyone
(probably) already has lying about . . .

Watercolor Resist Technique


First, randomly mark all over a heavy weight piece of
cardstock with crayons. (Yes, you can use lighter weight
paper, but heavier is better, watercolor paper is best.)



Next, get your watercolors nice and juicy with water, and then


brush paint all over paper. Allow it to dry,


and you have some wonderful background paper!

watercolor wash background tutorial for atcs, inchies, twinchies, etc . . .

Watercolor Wash backgrounds

First, get a heavy weight piece of cardstock nice and
wet. You can use lighter weight paper, but heavier
weight is better, and watercolor paper is best.

(Don't over rub and pill up your paper.)


Get your paints nice and juicy, and brush spots of
color on your paper--it will bleed and blur out.


Allow it to dry, and you have a lovely piece of
background paper! Won't that make some pretty atcs?

serendipity mixed media collage background tutorial for atcs, inchies, twinchies, etc . . .

Serendipity style mixed media collage background tutorial


First, dig into your stash of collage papers or recycling
bin, get a nice weight piece of paper for the base, and
grab your favorite adhesive.


Now, randomly glue paper/collage scraps all over the
base paper.


ALL over it! At this point, you could just cut this up
and use it for backgrounds as it is, but I like to add
acrylic paint . . .


. . . by dripping it all over the paper and


smearing it all over with my hands, making sure the paint
is thin enough to see through.

You could stop here again, OR add some more paint prints--
see the next tutorial on printing with found objects!

bubble wrap printing/printing with found objects tutorial

Use a piece of scrap cardboard to smear a thin layer of
acrylic across a piece of waxed paper, or paper plate, or
foam produce tray--you get the idea.


Press a piece of bubble wrap, bubble side down, into
the paint . . .


. . .peel it up . . .


. . .and press it onto your base paper.


Want more print marks? Use found objects like kitchen
utensils--here I use a wine cork. No kidding, I bought a huge
zip-lock bag of wine corks at a garage sale for 50 cents--
how weird is that? But they make great circle prints!

a few added flourishes and some background samples

I like to add crayon to my backgrounds--


Here is a postcard size piece,



and here are some atc size backgrounds cut from the
backgrounds made in the preceding tutorials.

If you're visiting for the swap, I hope these
hints were helpful!
:)

a couple of swap atcs

Vintage image atc


"Feet" themed atc

Theme Thursday--see if you can guess the theme.

Theme Thursday.

Any tips on photographing embossed things?
I tried with the museum setting, but it
doesn't quite get focused. And then the
flash settings all leave a reflection.

And I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be allowed
to use glitter. For one, it never looks
like I think it should, and for second, oh
my gosh, it's EVERYWHERE!!!

The good news is, I can now amuse myself to
no end, just looking at my sparkly fingers . . .

when life gives you wild plums . . .

Our wild plum trees are heavy with fruit this year.



Wild plums make a beautiful jelly, tart and delicious.
Whenever I make plum jelly, it makes me think of the
Little House book, On The Banks of Plum Creek, by
Laura Ingalls Wilder--it was one of my favorites.

What's cooking at your house?

handmade postcard swap--ONE

Didn't go real deep with the theme, but
it's definitely "one!"

Theme Thursday--purple

Theme Thursday--does being early this week
help offset being shockingly late the last?

Altered Pages images, painted with a little
twinkling H2Os (which doesn't really show in
the pic), and some wonderful textured, sparkly,
paper that I only WISH I knew WHAT it was.

Does it look familiar to anyone? As in, do you
know where I could find some more?

She's looking awfully plain to me. Maybe she just
FEELS plain, not being stamped and painted and such.

Hmmm.

handmade book for swap

Basic Grey paper, tag with vintage postage,
metal finding, fibers and vintage ric-rac,
distress inks.

Theme Thursday. On Tuesday.

Theme Thursday--the theme is four by fours.
Better late than never?
Altered Pages image on mixed media background.

abstract atcs

Two tiny abstract watercolor paintings for an atc swap.

less hateful and more hopeful . . .

Some of the despised project was ripped apart
(to get my beads back), some was set aside to
possibly use in the future, one piece was given
to the puppy to shred to bits, and another binned
outright.

However, I like the new-improved-version-in-progress.
Here are a couple close-ups . . .

T201, ROTJ B wing, and Action Team.

Started a new blog today--it's not really mine, it's for
the shop. Here's a T201 tobacco card; come read about it
here: The Baseball Card Store.



Do YOU know what ROTJ B wing means?




And what would a day at work be without Joe?




And that's what I did today at work.

Will update on the fate of the below mentioned project soon.
Thank you again for the encouragement and advice!

I'm feeling lonely and isolated in my little cavelike
computer hole--somebody say hi . . .