Hey Mr. Postman....

......bring me some postcards!  Do people on vacation still do that?  Nah, I think not.  We just aim our phones at random monuments and send them to torture our stay at home friends.  Well, to put an end to such modern but less than artistic practices, I recently hosted a postcard swap with some of my buds.

Everyone made cards depicting either real or imagined vacations, personalized the backs, got them to me, and I assembled them into books with my trusty Cinch.  I also made covers for the books, and now that everyone has received theirs (well, almost everyone, so you know who you are and if you want to be surprised, go to another blog) I'll share them with you.  It was a fun project to do this summer, and it reminded me of so many trips when I was younger and the only way to communicate with the folks back home was by mail.

Here is the front cover that I made, using Tim Holtz paper and stamps, tissue tape, a few other odds and ends, and covered with my new favorite supply, Ranger's Glue N Seal.

I'd love to show you the backs of the cards but I doubt my friends would appreciate seeing their names and addresses all over the internet.  Keeping privacy intact, here are the cards:

 love the bathing beauty!

 wish you could see all the shine and dimension under the lighthouse

 fantastic way to represent the sun!

 dreamy and romantic, just like Paris

 she really didn't go round the world a la Phineas Fogg, but sounds like fun!

 gorgeous stamping, and the blue star marks Alaska, the destination of this cruiser

 some people have out of control imaginations, as this card, commemorating a

trip to Idahopia attests.  The happy vacationer had a spud-tacular time.

 greetings from one of my favorite places, England

this one is mine, since I didn't go anywhere this summer (not that I think

being in NYC is any kind of hardship, LOL)

this swapper made cards of every place on her wish list to visit, and I

was lucky enough to receive Paris

The back cover was done similarly to the front, and is a good example of turning lemons into lemonade.  I did everyone else's book without a problem, but when it came to my own (guess I was tired) I punched the holes in the back cover on the wrong side.  Look how I solved that problem:

Sometimes ribbons are your best friend.

Inspiration Showcase

A week or so ago, Tim Holtz blogged about an online class taught by his pal Jennifer McGuire.  I haven't had the greatest track record with online classes....not because the classes weren't good, but because I'd sign up and then never find the time to actually watch the videos and do the projects.

But this one, first of all was recommended by Tim, and second of all was only $19, and third of all, I'd have access to the videos forever.  Duh.  No brainer.  I was in.  And to my very great surprise and delight, the instruction is so clear, the videos so well done, and the techniques so interesting, I actually started following along and am up to date!

Registration is closed and you can't sign up now, but in two weeks when it's over, the PDF version will be available.  Click here to find out more and see the finished piece we'll be making after doing all the technique samples.

If you went to the site, you saw that Jennifer did all her samples in the shape of a heart.  I'm not really a heart type so I used a Stampin' Up bird punch instead.  Some of the techniques didn't photograph very well, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you they all look great.  I wouldn't lie to you.

The first 5 samples were all about resist techniques.  The name of each technique is under the photo.  I know I usually give lots of details and directions, but these are not mine to give.

 traditional resist

 paint resist (the wing is a different, bonus technique)

 trapped emboss resist (how cool is this?)

 kissed resist

 canvas resist

The next set of samples explore all sorts of dry embossing techniques.

 embossed glossy (with layered punch wing....another bonus technique)

 embosssed acetate

 paper rosette with embossed canvas

 altered color embossing (with cool tip on perfect punch positioning...say that 5 times fast)

  faux letterpress (maybe my favorite so far) with embossed metal wing

I have been a long time technique junkie, and thought I'd know them all, but there have been a few new ones for me.  And the ones I already knew about.....the class was a good reminder, because some of them I haven't used in ages.

I'm excited about this class and all I can say is, the next time Tim recommends a class, sign up!

Steampunk, Wendified

I can picture anyone new to this blog going, "huh?"  Well, in my world, Wendifying a theme just means using Wendy Vecchi's stamps to execute it.  It took me almost a week to create something for the current Making Art! challenge at EWV, but as it turns out, the delay worked in my favor, because the piece I did works perfectly with the new Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.

The challenges:  at EWV, Lori says, make a tag and use stamps from no more than two of Wendy's sets; and Simon Says, show us some steampunk.

And here is my piece:

For the background, I ran one of Ranger's new (and fabulous) kraft tags through my Vagabond in Tim's steampunk embossing folder, and hit the high points with several distress inks....rusty hinge, vintage photo, and black soot.

The gears on the side were cut with Tim's on-the-edge die from grungepaper.  I painted it black, and when that was dry I dabbed it with brown and copper acrylic paint, very randomly so it looked like bits of rust.  And when that was dry, I covered the whole thing with a thick coat of rock candy crackle paint.  It is attached to the tag with glossy accents, applied only to the edge, so the gears sort of stand away from the tag and have a lot of dimension. (Especially since impatiently blasting the poor sucker with my heat gun made it kind of wonky.....sort of adds to the vintage charm, I think.  Well, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.)

The steampunkish man and the words are all from Wendy's set Seriously Art, stamped on plain old white cardstock with black archival ink, then lightly colored with distress inks.  Mr. Serious got some enhancement (the shiny parts) with a black Sakura glaze pen....one of my most favorite art supplies, by the way.

The pointing hand (stamped on grungepaper with clear ink and embossed with black powder) is from another Wendy set, Mail Art.

By the way, the word seriously is actually part of the stamp of the man.....it appears right below the image.  I cut it off so it would fit on the brim of his hat instead.  It's always good to find variations when it comes to using your stamps.

My Favorite Art Journal......

......so far, at least, is the one I put together using some of my own pages, and pages I've received from friends.  Some were fully worked on two sided journal pages, some were backgrounds with art on one side only.  I blogged about the journal here, and loved it then.  But now....boy oh boy, if that was love then this is out of control obsessive all encompassing LOVE!!  The blank pages are blank no longer, and I've included the tags I've received as well.

I do intend to do some actual journaling (you know, put pen to page and write words), but honestly, this is stunning just as it is.  I might be biased, of course, as the pages were done by some of my favorite peeps in the world.  I even included some stuff done by friends who are not in the group, just because I had to include them somehow.

Well, enough blabbering.  Here it is, from cover to cover.

Lace and Fabric and Tags, Oh My

As is often the case, inspiration began with a blog, was enhanced with a video, and just took off from there.  Elena, the ringleader of most of my collaborative projects sent everyone a link to this video, with the comment, "I HAVE to do this!" 
Prior to that, I was blown away by the lace journals my friend Sox has been making.
The result is kind of a cross between the two, and I'm really excited about it.
Over the weekend that NY was hit by hurricane Irene, I worked on making a book to distract me from the howling wind and torrential rain.  It was supposed to be an exposed spine book, but I totally messed up the sewing, so wound up covering the spine with fabric, which led to more fabric and lace. 

Above, the front of the book, embellished with some Prima loveliness and beaded trim.

The back....so far.  I'm not sure that I'm finished adding fabric, lace and trim.

The pages inside are paper, and some signatures were wrapped with patterned paper, and some with wide pieces of lace.  I think this does two things.....for sure it adds a bit of interest, but also, it makes the pages stand a little more apart from each other, allowing extra room for embellishing each page.



And some pages, like the one above on the left were cut from scrapbook paper instead of plain white paper.

If you checked out the video, you'll see that the tag project was done with a totally fabric journal.  I didn't have a huge selection of upholstery weight fabric in the right size, but I did put one together.  I sewed all the pieces together as one signature, and I did that sewing by hand, not wanting to risk messing up my very basic (and inexpensive) machine.  It's OK, and I may use it, but I'm thinking right now that I'll be a rebel and use the book I showed you above instead.  I have plenty of time to decide, as I have to wait for the other 15 people in this project to make and send me their tags.  Anyway, here are some snaps of the fabric journal.....totally unembellished, but when you view the video (if you haven't already) you'll see how cool it can turn out.

We decided that our tags could be any theme, but that we'd all include some Tim Holtz stamps, die cuts, embossing folders, etc.  Thanks to a lot of horrible rainy days I was actually able to finish all of them, waaaay ahead of schedule.  We're sending them on with coordinating lace trim and buttons to assist in the decorating of the books.  All my tags are of the same design, with some variations in color and trim.  The first picture shows a part of four versions:

The beaded trim is attached to the bottom of Tim's dress form from his "Sewing Room" die.  The forms were cut from several different colors of the Core'dinations paper that matches the distress line.  The torsos were covered with french text.

I stamped Bon Voyage (a Stampsmith stamp) on vanilla seam binding ribbon (Stampin' Up) with black archival ink, which is permanent, so I could then dye the ribbon by swiping it with Old Paper distress stain.  A quick blast with my heat tool and they were dry, and wrapped around the dress form.

I cut up some zippers to use as the tag toppers and kept them in place with some twine.  Why the staples on the top?  Well, the zippers I used are craft zippers and they came with adhesive on the back.  I folded them over, but the adhesive wouldn't hold and they kept separating.  I tried other glues with no success, and removing the adhesive was a nightmare, hence the staples.

The little butterfly resting on the dress form's shoulder is from a Stampin' Up sizzlet die, cut with Core'dinations paper left over from cutting the dress form.  With a little added bling.

And, here is a full shot of one of the tags.  The background is a piece of a brown paper bag, stamped with sewing themed stamps from both Tim and Stampin' Up, then embossed with Tim's Sewing Room folder.  Behind the dress form is the Eiffel Tower, cut with Tim's glasseine paper with an old Sizzix die.  I know I seem to have two themes going here.....Paris and sewing, but they feel like they belong together.

Oh, and how could I forget to mention that I attached the brown paper to my tag base by running a zig zag stitch around the perimeter....on my machine on all 15 tags.  Yes, I am  proud of myself for that.