May Swaps

 I am participating in two swaps in my online group this month.

One is a "slow-stitch" piece which had to be at least 3" square. Mine is about 4.5" square. Slow stitching seems to be very popular right now and as far as I can tell, it's just another name for hand embroidery albeit not as precise.

I started with a base of lightweight canvas and added small scraps of linen, printed upholstery material, denim, printed cotton, a bit of lace and upholstery trim. I used running stitches, backstitches and cross

stitches with sewing thread and embroidery floss. I also stitched on four old buttons.

The second swap was for a vintage junk journal page with the theme "Parisian perfume labels." Luckily I had a very old package of perfume labels and was able to use several for this page.

The Eiffel Tower card on the front is attached with washi tape and flips up to reveal another label and an Eiffel Tower ticket on the underside (see below). The Parisian model is from an old Dover book.

I added tea-dyed paper on the back of the page and stenciled lightly with Distress ink. I added one of the larger labels as a pocket and included several more labels inside.

Another weekly challenge

 This week's challenge for my online art group is to use embossing powder.

I think embossed images is the main reason I got interested in stamping so many years ago. After seeing the magic of heat embossing happen in a demo, I was hooked, but I don't use embossing powder very often any more.

I discovered a technique I had never done so used it to create this card. The flowers are gold embossed on black card stock and then colored in with regular Prismacolor pencils. I was surprised that the colors showed up on the black. They are actually even more vivid irl than the photo shows.

This was a quick, easy card to make and makes a nice impact. I will probably be doing this again!

Collage Challenge - Weeks 17 and 18

Week 17

Prompts:

1) squares (graph paper, chair seat, postage stamps)

2) text or a quote (quote on vellum - upper left corner)

3) a postal item (postcard, postage stamps, 

air mail sticker, rubber stamp cancellation marks))

4) a pen or pencil (fountain pen image from magazine)

5) something that represents summer (flip-flops, image of boy at beach, red flower))

Bonus: dictionary page (left side of page)

Week 18

Prompts:

1) a name (Daphne)

2) an animal (panda, dog, frog, butterflies)

3) a travel item (suitcase)

4) something in black and white (background papers, panda,

 dog, stamped face)

5) something written or drawn with non-dominant hand

(border around name tag)

Bonus: a triangle (postage stamp)

 

Weekly Challenge - Christmas Cards with no red

My online art group has been having weekly challenges and this week's is to create five Christmas cards using no red. This was harder than I expected - Christmas papers almost always have some red in them and red is just a great pop to add interest to anything.

I found a box of Christmas scraps and unused pre-stamped images from years ago and I decided to challenge myself to use some of these up. I ended up making six cards without adding red.

A few facts: the card in the upper left was punched with a tree punch that I bought a long time ago but never used; the middle upper card has scraps of G45 papers; the middle lower card has a strip from a paint chip card and the lower right card is also made with scraps of old patterned papers.

This was a fun challenge. Maybe I'll do another one trying to not use green!