Hey there! It occured to me that I haven't written anything on here for a while so I thought I would check in. The main reason is that it's summer and, though my husband is overseas, there seems to be no end to the summer activities and distractions that keep me busy. I'm taking a bit of a break from swaps and creating in general just to recharge and indulge in more leisurely pursuits.
For example, this last week was "Harry Potter" week. I splurged on a babysitter and went to the movie and then, although it arrived at my doorstep only yesterday, finished the last book in the series in a 24-hour frenzy of laughter, tears, and little sleep. It was, by the way, totally worth it.
So, while I prepare to spend a week at the beach and send my daughter off to her first day of kindergarten next month, I'm turning over ideas in my head and contentedly browsing through art magazines from the comfort of my living room couch. I know I'll be back at it soon, and in the meantime, stay tuned later this week for a report on my first ever "live" trading session/meeting regarding ATC's at a Artist's store a few towns over. I'm very excited about it and, who knows, maybe it will be the jolt I need to get up off the couch and get cracking!
Amy
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Heart in a Jar
HeartJar
Originally uploaded by queenoffools1974.
This was a card I made a week or two ago (I'm posting now because it's been recieved). I glued fabric to a piece of watercolor paper, folded the sides and ends to the back and glueing as well. Then I stitched the red fabric heart to the card. I then stitched a cut out transparency of a jar over the top of that so you could see the heart sort of floating in the jar. I then embroidered a blanket stitch around the whole card.
I've been making a lot more fabric cards lately and playing with the transparencies is fun, too. I just recently picked up the book 1000 Artist Trading Cards by Patricia Bolton (Editor of Cloth,Paper, Scissors and Quilting Arts magazines) and there are a lot of examples of fabric ATCS that have inspired me to do more.
Lastly, to all of you who read and are fans of my tiny little blog (especially you Pattyjo)- Thank you! It means a lot to be able to share my work with you.
Amy
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Card Making Walk-Through
I put this walk-through of how I made this card on ATCards.com so I thought I would post it here as well.
I started with a card base of pretty cheap watercolor paper and put a layer of acrylics and glaze medium. At first was too dark (it looked like suede, though, which I liked) so I added some lighter shades and a layer of gel medium until I got this:
Then, I did the image transfer. This was actually my second attempt to transfer this image (the first image didn't transfer very well, which is fine because I decided I wanted it bigger anyway). Here is the image:
And here is the card after the transfer:
It's really not a very clear transfer, but for my purposes that was perfect. I like to make cards that look like I "uncovered" the photo so the fact that it looked a bit scratched and faded was fine.I put another layer of gel medium over the transfer to protect it for the next step. After that was dry, I put a layer of vaseline over the part of the image I still wanted to see, then I very lightly put a layer of school glue over the whole card and a layer of antique gold metallic paint over that for a crackle effect. This all has to be done rather carefully because you don't want the paint and the glue to mix. In the end, however, this particular card did not crackle very well, but it did sort of bubble and took on a roughed up look that I liked.
I decided that it was too gold so I used my finger to add some brown ink to sort of age the gold. I decided it need more, though, so I covered the image again with vaseline and stamped a background stamp over the whole thing with the brown and the wiped the vaselined area clean again (this trick is great if you want to go back and add something to the card but don't necessarily want it everywhere).
After all of that, I stamped a couple of swirls with gold ink and added the nameplate and distressed word (Restoration) to the card. I also decided that the brown edging of the card was too dark so I inked the edges with the gold. This is the final card (big photo so you can see it):
I started with a card base of pretty cheap watercolor paper and put a layer of acrylics and glaze medium. At first was too dark (it looked like suede, though, which I liked) so I added some lighter shades and a layer of gel medium until I got this:
Then, I did the image transfer. This was actually my second attempt to transfer this image (the first image didn't transfer very well, which is fine because I decided I wanted it bigger anyway). Here is the image:
And here is the card after the transfer:
It's really not a very clear transfer, but for my purposes that was perfect. I like to make cards that look like I "uncovered" the photo so the fact that it looked a bit scratched and faded was fine.I put another layer of gel medium over the transfer to protect it for the next step. After that was dry, I put a layer of vaseline over the part of the image I still wanted to see, then I very lightly put a layer of school glue over the whole card and a layer of antique gold metallic paint over that for a crackle effect. This all has to be done rather carefully because you don't want the paint and the glue to mix. In the end, however, this particular card did not crackle very well, but it did sort of bubble and took on a roughed up look that I liked.
I decided that it was too gold so I used my finger to add some brown ink to sort of age the gold. I decided it need more, though, so I covered the image again with vaseline and stamped a background stamp over the whole thing with the brown and the wiped the vaselined area clean again (this trick is great if you want to go back and add something to the card but don't necessarily want it everywhere).
After all of that, I stamped a couple of swirls with gold ink and added the nameplate and distressed word (Restoration) to the card. I also decided that the brown edging of the card was too dark so I inked the edges with the gold. This is the final card (big photo so you can see it):
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