4X4 Flower Book

I've joined a swap on one of the yahoo groups I belong to.  Yes, I ended that sentence with a preposition. It's a 6 week swap, swap a page a week and the lead time was over a month. I have finished the pages ahead of time.  Here are the details and my pages:

Week 1: Just a page with flowers (stamps, hand drawn, etc)  - I used the sunflower/ladybug stamp from Wild Frog Creations.

Week 2 – Zentangle your flower - Easy enough

Week 3 – Steampunk flowers - Tough one for me. I have no gears, wheels or steampunk items.  I looked up the defination, looked at steampunk art on the web, decided I was not going to participate after all, stewed for several days and came up with this using  the sunflower/frog stamp from Wild Frog Creations and adding an eye to the center of the sunflower.  Found the background as a freebie printable on the web.

Week 4 – Flower child - Again, easy enough.  I used the Pansy Woman stamp from Wild Frog Creations.  Colored, reduced in size for the center, same size for the background and popped up a few pansys around the face.

Week 5 – Flower journal page (use your favorite quote, or just add your thoughts) - Roses are from the Rose Woman rubber stamp sheet from Wild Frog Creations. Background paper is a skytone pink and does not show up in the scan.

Week 6 – YOU, the artist, are a flower (self portrait!) - Crap, really?  Ok, drew myself in less than 5 minutes, decided the original was good enough, colored with pencils, used a sheer purple ribbon as the frame and glass over the picture, added some Iris from the Iris Woman sheet of stamps from Wild Frog Creations.  Then realized it does NOT look like me.  She is the spitting image (where does that phrase come from?) of my granddaughter.  Seriously.  I would have to go back and redraw, adding wrinkles, under eye bags etc, lol to have this actually look like me today.

I made 2 of each page.  One for me, one to trade.  So after the trade is done I will have a total of 12 pages for the book.  I still have to make the covers and do the binding after all the pages arrive.  I will post the finished book around the end of April or beginning of May.

Red and White Color Challenge

I finally  have my computer back after doing without for a week.  Then when I get back online I can read emails but NOT send emails. Great. Finally figured it out, had nothing to do with the computer.  My server changed the port for outgoing mail.  Would have been nice of them to notify users of that fact.  Instead I had to dig the info off their website.  Sigh . . .enough ranting.

First thing I noticed on catching up reading blogs was the challenge over at Vicki's Cheerful Stamppad.  Red and White.  No time to enter this, I have taxes to do!  But wait!  What's that she's got for a prize?!?  Ooooh, aaaaahhhhhhhh, *drool* they look like Alice stamps!  From Scroll Works!!  AAARRRRGH!  I had to stamp something, I need these stamps!  Yeah right, I could buy them, but I have thousands already, and it's not as much fun as entering a contest.

So here is what I stamped for Vicki's contest.  In a rush (as usual) I closed my eyes, turned around and picked up the first stamp from the shelf my fingers landed on.  Oh crap, a daisy, well that doesn't go with a red and white theme. Hmmmm, with a little imagination a daisy could be red.  They do dye them pink, blue and other colors for bouquets in florists shops.  So I ran with it.  Here it is.

Daisy was colored with watercolor pencils.  Added glitter to the center and the leaf.  Keeping my fingers crossed that I win the stamps!  Now to finish catching up on my reading.  The taxes will wait.

Rose Valentine

Another simple card.  On standard size cardstock layered with designer paper and stickers.  Quick and simple, no stamps used at all this time.

I am entering this card into the following challenges (click the link to go directly to that challenge page):

The Pixie Cottage Challenge #54 Sketch or Flowers

Crafts and Me Challenge #22 Monochrome

A Spoonful of Sugar Challenge #136 Valentine

Valentines

I'm finally back online after almost 3 weeks off for Christmas vacation.  I've spent the last 3 days catching up on reading from my blog lists.  Didn't make a lot of comments but enjoyed catching up.  Meanwhile, I've been making Valentines.  I enjoy them so much more than Christmas cards for some reason.  So far I've done 12, lol.  Thought I'd start by posting my 2 least favorites.  These ones are for little kiddos.  On the cute side.

First one uses the "Layer Up" technique from Technique Junkies.  The flowers in the basket and the hair bows are layered up.  Stamps are from Azadi.

2nd card also has stamps from Azadi:

Little kids will like these two. Tomorrow I'll post the card for the teenages, I like them much better.

3-D Picture Frame or Tunnel Card

I've heard this type of card called many different things but most commonly called tunnel or  3-D picture frame.  When making a card which uses templates, special cuts or patterns, I usually make 2 because of the time involved.  I did not follow that rule this time for some odd reason.  I simply forgot . . .*sigh* . The "tunnel" or frames are on the inside (scroll down for photo).

This card is an odd sized 7" X 5 1/4".  Card front background was made using the Texture Duet technique
from the Oct/Nov Technique Junkies Newsletter.  Image was colored with pencils, torn and attached to the top.  Added a couple flowers and will put a greeting of some sort in the upper left corner when I am ready to send this off to someone.  I'll post 2 pics of the outside. The first shows the truer colors, but at an odd angle:

The second shows full front, but the colors are too bright due to little old me trying to play with getting the colors on this one a little brighter.  Nothing seems to be going quite right this week.

Here is the photo of the inside of the card where the "tunnel" comes into play.  The outer 3 layers of the frame were not stamped.  Instead I used some 3 different scrapbooking papers from Art Impressions, cut and glued onto very light weight cardstock.  I found the lighter weight cardstock works better than heavier weight for this in the past.  Thanks goodness I remembered that. Inside scene was colored with both pencils and chalks. Cottage and tree stamp from Wild Frog Creations, pine tree stamp from StampinUp.

Gingersnap Creations Botanical Challenge Entry

I made this for the Gingersnap Creations Random Red head Botanical Challenge.

Please keep in mind that although I have been crafting all my life and stamping about 20 years I've just returned from a forced 4 year leave from any and all craft type activities.  Because of that, I'm having a hard time remembering exactly what company manufactured many of my um stamps.

This piece is in a wooden picture frame that was painted red, then overcoated with black and lightly sanded in spots to allow the red to show through.

The Rose stamp (company unknown) was stamped in black on the back of the glass. Glitter was applied to the rose, again on the back of the glass. Black Memories ink was applied all around the outside of the image by tapping the pad with my stiffest brush and just smooching it on the glass around the rose.  This was placed in the frame with a piece of red foil behind it.

Oops, almost forgot.  The Rose Woman image from the Greenwomen collection at Wild Frog Creations Rubber Stamps (can't forget that company, lol) was stamped on cardstock, colored and copied twice.  One copy had all the flowers and leaves clipped off and layered on the original piece with thin mounting foam.  The 2nd copy had only the roses cut out and layered again with additional mounting foam.
The entire Rose Woman was then distressed with brown ink and a sponge. This was mounted on the front of the glass.

I'm done with it for now.  I may add additional elements later.  This did not photograph well.  I am posting 2 pictures which each show some part of the piece better than the other.